Early morning.
The sunlight bled softly through the curtains, painting golden streaks across the cluttered apartment floor. Dust motes drifted in the air, undisturbed. A man was sprawled on the bed loudly snoring. He was so out of it as if this was the first time in years he was sleeping so well.
And then, bang bang bang.
The door shook like someone was about to kick it off its hinges. Damon flinched awake, groggily sitting up.
Another knock, louder this time, almost furious.
He stumbled to his feet, rubbing the sleep from his eyes and cursing under his breath. "If this is another delivery I didn't order..."
He swung the door open.
And froze.
Standing there, backlit by the morning sun, was a woman who looked like she had just stepped out of a modeling catalog.
She was stunning, dangerously so. Long blonde hair fell in lazy waves over a crimson jacket that clung to her in all the ways that made reality feel unreal. Her legs were long and sculpted, and her posture was effortlessly confident.
Her beauty had that impossible, cinematic quality, the kind teenage boys stashed under their pillows in glossy magazine form. It should be criminal for someone to have curves like this and walk among normal people.
But her blue eyes…
They were cold. Unblinking. Lacking even an ounce of emotion.
Damon's mouth hung open. Not that he did not know her. He knew her very well but he was still shocked to his core. How was she here? Why was she here? He stood like a statue and gawked at her, his brain completely short-circuiting.
A look of disgust flashed past the beautiful face as she looked at Damon especially his lower half which was clearly pitching a tent but Damon did not care. He was not staring because she was beautiful. He was staring because this woman should not be here right now!
"Your mail." The ice-cold beauty extended her hand.
When Damon did not respond, she shoved a small envelope into his hands, then turned on her heel like the conversation was over. Her boots clacked once on the floor before she paused at the apartment in front of his.
She opened the door, went inside, and shut the door on his face. Yup, this was none other than his ridiculously hot girl next door. When he first moved into the apartment, he was over the moon for having hit such a jackpot situation but that was a long time ago. A lot had happened after that.
Damon stood there for a long time completely dumbfounded before he scrambled back into his studio apartment, crashing onto the bed, his chest heaving up and down. He was having a panic attack.
Why was she here? What was happening? He knew her a long time ago, so why was she here now?
He frantically looked around when he noticed that his entire apartment looked different. It looked like she was in the right place and he was in the wrong place. This was the old apartment he had moved into straight from his parent's house. He should no longer be here. He had already moved out a while ago.
He closed his eyes as pain and frustration overwhelmed him. This place had seen both the best of him and the worst of him.
"No," he whispered. "No, no, no… it can't be possible." How could he be here? Was he going crazy? Was he hallucinating?
He rushed to the closet and yanked it open. Hanging there was an old hoodie he hadn't seen in years. He turned to the desk and flipped open the laptop. The login wallpaper flashed across the screen, a half-naked Nicole Kidman. Damn it, he was definitely going crazy!
Damon took a deep breath. His trembling fingers then opened the calendar widget on the right bottom corner of his laptop. An impossible date stared back at him.
March 3rd, 2042.
Damon staggered backward, dropping into his chair like his knees had given out. That was three years ago. The exact day Earth Online launched.
The blood drained from his face. Somehow, some way, he was back. Before the betrayal. Before the fall. Before Aiden stabbed him in the back and stole everything.
Damon clutched his head, cradling it in between his palms. How did this happen? The last thing he remembered was standing in the resurrection lake to reset his character and begin all over again. He was going to create a new character and claw his way back one more time.
This was not something other players would choose to do because when a character was reset, there was a penalty associated with it. They inherently would only be able to receive less stats every level and needed more experience points to level up. There were also a couple more penalties here and there which would basically make the character a dud at best.
However, Damon was already at rock bottom. Thanks to his guild mate and his so-called best friend, everything he had worked for had been crushed and laid waste in a single day.
Bloodreign.
The legendary artifact he was first in line to claim. The item that would've cemented his name across the leaderboards. He'd done everything right. Maxed out the build. First-clear pathing. Worked tirelessly for days on end for the hidden quest.
But in the end, it didn't matter. Aiden had shown his true colors just before the final phase and stabbed him through the back, live on stream, right when the boss was about to drop dead. The kill, the drop, the credit, all his.
Normally, this would not have mattered but this was his hidden quest boss and its drop was a requirement for his special class. Without the drop, he failed the quest and the backlash was simply too high and the quest failure gave a heavy penalty.
Damon had been left paralyzed inside the game, his character trashed beyond recovery. He was essentially crippled with no way out. His guild which he had helped build from scratch disowned him.
All his friends pretended as if he did not exist. Everyone he knew laughed at him and turned their backs on him. Not one person supported him. Instead only painful messages popped up.
"It's just a video game. Don't make a big deal out of it."
"You were stupid to let that shit happen to you."
"You are shit at playing this game. It's just a dumb game. Why don't you quit and go to an actual job like the rest of us?"
Damon's chest tightened as those old words replayed. He had poured everything into Earth Online, every sleepless night, every ounce of hope, every scrap of determination, only to have it torn away in the most public, humiliating way possible. Without this game, he had nothing. He had no degree. Heck, he did not want to do any other job. He had worked day and night to become good at this game and he was just on the verge of making it big when everything came crumbling down.
Damon slowly exhaled. The truth was, even after all of this, even knowing the reset would basically make him a dud, he had never planned to give up.
He had returned to Earth Online last night despite everything. He had wanted to bury what was left of himself and start over as a new low-level player. He had stripped everything, deleted his gear, walked into the Resurrection Lake and confirmed the irreversible reset.
Right. That was when he kind of lost his consciousness and when he woke up again...
He was here. Back in his old apartment, back in his old body, and somehow, against all logic, back in time.
Three years ago. March 3rd, 2042. The morning it all began.