Chapter 5: Awakening
When I woke up, something felt… off.
Was I still dreaming?
My hands.
My feet.
I could feel them. I could move them.
But I don't remember the last time I did.
Because they were gone.
Cut off by that lunatic.
I opened my eyes.
The first thing I saw was a white ceiling.
A strange light hung from it—maybe a lamp, maybe not.
I couldn't tell.
Didn't matter.
I moved.
My body responded.
My limbs followed.
It was real—too real.
Was this my body?
Was this real… or just a more vivid dream?
A place I didn't recognize, in skin I didn't remember.
I looked around.
The room was quiet. Still.
A mirror caught my eye from across the hall—inside what looked like a small bathroom.
I walked toward it.
Instinctively.
And stopped in front of the reflection.
White hair. Pale skin.
Dark, unreadable eyes.
My face held no expression.
No surprise.
No fear.
Nothing.
Could I call it my face?
I didn't know.
The body felt unfamiliar.
The mind—mine. But the vessel? Hollow.
Had I been reincarnated? Like in those stories?
Or was this just another hallucination in a hospital bed somewhere?
Either way… it didn't matter.
I returned to the room.
It was small, too familiar.
Uncomfortably familiar.
It felt like I had lived here—though I knew I hadn't.
Maybe the feeling belonged to the body, not me.
I began searching.
Trying to understand who I was… now.
All I found was a student ID.
A photo that matched the face in the mirror, but no name.
Just a code:
X–171020–113–X
Next to it, a sleek wristwatch and a compact laptop.
The whole place—a single room with a kitchenette and bathroom—felt like the blueprint of a typical student's life.
A lonely one.
I powered on the laptop.
A black interface blinked to life, shadowy figures in the background—uncanny, surreal.
No apps I recognized.
No internet access.
Just silence and shadows.
I spent a while digging through unfamiliar menus.
Eventually, I found a basic search tool.
Typed: "Country."
Nothing.
Tried: "Continent."
Four names popped up:
Elyora – Saphirene – Koldara – Galinora.
Massive continents, each divided into dozens of kingdoms.
Monarchies, but without nobility or aristocratic hierarchy.
And the level of technological advancement… far beyond anything I'd known.
After more digging, I found my location:
Saphirene Continent – Kingdom of Elysan.
One of the most developed kingdoms on the planet—economically, technologically.
Home to the second-highest-ranked tech university on the continent.
That's all I had for now.
The rest could wait.
I turned my attention to the wristwatch.
Sleek, dark, heavier than it looked.
As soon as I fastened it to my wrist, it activated—soft blue light blinking into a floating holographic display.
[ Loading user data... ]
[ Biometric sync: successful ]
[ Displaying profile ]
A translucent window opened above my wrist, glowing quietly.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🟦 User Profile – Active 🟦
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Nox Refract
Age: 19
Height: 178 cm
Weight: 62 kg
Current Location: Elysan Kingdom – Sector Six
Region: Academic District, Saphirene Continent
ID Code: X-171020-113-X
Status: University Student
Field: Technological Sciences – Elysan Tech University
Health Status: Stable
Network Access: Active (Limited Permissions)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
I stared at it.
The name meant nothing to me.
But the system treated me as if I had always been this… Nox Refract.
Then the watch spoke.
Its voice was calm, polite, strangely comforting:
— "Would you like to access additional information, sir?"
I didn't answer right away.
I just kept staring at the glowing screen.
Wondering.
Who the hell am I?
Then I replied, quietly:
— "Yes. Proceed."
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