Chapter One — The World That Shouldn't Exist
The last thing Lucien remembered was winning.
Not dramatically. Not triumphantly.
Just a quiet satisfaction as his character stood over the corpse of a digital monster, loot notifications blinking one after another. A hunter's end to a long session. Clean. Efficient.
The plane hummed softly around him.
Dim cabin lights. Passengers asleep. A child coughing somewhere behind him. The screen in his hands reflected faintly against the window — clouds drifting below like an endless, indifferent sea.
Then the turbulence began.
At first, it was mild. The kind you ignore. The kind flight attendants smile through.
But the clouds outside thickened. Darkened. Twisted unnaturally, folding into themselves as if something massive was moving inside them.
The game froze.
That was when Lucien noticed the silence.
The engines were still running — but the sound felt… distant. Like it was coming from somewhere else. The lights flickered once. Twice.
Lightning split the sky.
Not white.
Black.
It crawled across the clouds like veins, illuminating faces twisted in confusion and fear. Someone screamed. Someone prayed. Someone laughed hysterically.
The screen in his hands shattered.
The world followed.
Cold earth pressed against his cheek.
That was the first sensation.
Then came the smell — damp soil, moss, and something metallic lingering in the air. Not fuel. Not smoke.
Blood.
Lucien's eyes snapped open.
Green.
Towering trees stretched endlessly upward, their leaves forming a dense canopy that filtered the light into fractured shards. Thick roots coiled across the forest floor like sleeping beasts.
No wreckage.
No fire.
No screaming passengers.
He pushed himself up, breath coming out shallow. His hands moved instinctively, checking his body — no burns, no fractures, no pain beyond a dull ache behind his eyes.
Alive.
That alone made no sense.
Then he saw it.
Through the trees, half-hidden by vines and stone, rose a structure that did not belong.
A massive arch of black rock, etched with symbols that pulsed faintly, as if breathing. The ground around it was bare — no grass, no roots, no life daring to touch it.
A dungeon entrance.
The thought came unbidden.
Not fear. Not disbelief.
Recognition.
Lucien swallowed.
"I'm not supposed to be here," he muttered.
The forest did not respond.
But something else did.
[—]
A pressure brushed against his mind — not a voice, not a command. More like a presence becoming aware of itself at the same time he became aware of it.
No fanfare.
No dramatic proclamation.
Just a single, quiet certainty settling into his bones.
This world was real.
And it was already watching him.