[WELCOME, IRINA JILL.]
[NEW NAME: IJ]
[REALM: CHRONO RESPAWN (Beta Build: 0.00001a - Buggy as Hell)]
[MAIN QUEST: DEFEAT THE FINAL BOSS]
[REWARD: Return to Consciousness, Probably]
The world spun, not with the dizzying disorient of a fall, but with the sickening lurch of a corrupted data stream, a digital nausea that settled deep in my core.
My eyes fluttered open to a sky that was a fever dream of impossible colors, shifting like oil on water, then resolving into a fractured mosaic of light and shadow. It shimmered like a broken screen, jagged lines of static tearing through clouds that flickered in and out of existence, sometimes transparent, sometimes solid, never quite settling into a coherent form.
I blinked, once, twice, the surreal panorama assaulting my senses, and pushed myself up from what felt like a bed of decaying code. My spine protested with a series of sharp cracks, each one echoing like a misplaced sound effect in the unnervingly quiet landscape. A metallic tang, like ozone and rust, coated my tongue.
The air, if you could even call it that, was too clean.
Too crisp.
It tasted artificial, like someone had tried to digitally recreate the scent of a mountaintop using scented bleach and an overdose of synthetic citrus. It was the kind of air that made your teeth ache, sharp and sterile, devoid of the familiar earthy smells of soil, or the sweet decay of fallen leaves. It hummed with a faint, almost imperceptible electrical current, a buzzing undercurrent that vibrated in my bones.
And that's when I saw it.
A HUD.
A fucking Heads-Up Display.
It hung in my vision, a translucent layer of information hovering like an augmented reality sticker glued directly to my eyeballs.
It was impossible, yet undeniably there, a constant intrusion into my perception, a silent, glowing sentinel that refused to be dismissed. Its edges flickered, as if struggling to maintain its own existence in this unstable reality.
[You are now online. Welcome to Chrono Respawn.]
[Cognitive stability: 68%. Emotional calibration: Ha. Good luck.]
"What the actual hell?"
My voice was a croak, raw and unused, barely a whisper against the vast silence. It sounded foreign, thin, as if it too were a digital construct.
[Congratulations, IJ. You've just had a near-death experience and landed yourself in a half-finished, never-launched, glitch-ridden MMO from 2012. Lucky you.]
The voice was… condescending. And oddly cheerful for a harbinger of potential doom, like a particularly sadistic game master delighting in a player's misfortune. It was a synthesized female voice, like Siri, but softer, smooth and devoid of true emotion, yet somehow brimming with sardonic amusement.
I pushed myself fully upright, brushing off dust that shimmered like fine, glitter-coded pixels. The ground beneath me resembled cracked marble and decaying code, a patchwork of rendered and unrendered textures.
It felt like walking on a giant, crumbling motherboard, each step crunching on digital debris.
There were gaping patches where the floor simply wasn't there, revealing a dizzying, infinite void of swirling green and purple light, a raw, unfinished void that hinted at the fragile nature of this reality. Looking down into those abysses sent a wave of vertigo through me, a chilling reminder of how easily I could simply cease to be.
[Vitals: Stable-ish.]
[Respawn Condition: Pending Completion of Main Quest.]
[Note: This isn't a dream. No, you're not dead either. Sorry to disappoint.]
A sharp breath caught in my throat. The implication hit me with the force of a digital hammer, driving the air from my lungs.
The initial shock of my surroundings had momentarily overshadowed the far more terrifying truth: my consciousness, my very being, was trapped here.
"You mean I'm… not dead?"
The words were barely audible, laced with a desperate hope that this was all a very elaborate, very disturbing nightmare.
[Not exactly. Your real-world body is in a coma. Some kind of accident, if you're curious. You broke things. Important things. Like your heart.]
A wave of cold washed over me, a familiar ache blooming in my chest despite the surreal surroundings. The mention of my real-world body and a coma brought a flood of fragmented memories: a flash of blinding light, the screech of some sound, a searing pain, then nothing.
And the heart part… that was a deeper cut, a wound that had festered long before any physical accident.
The system knew.
It knew too much.
The HUD pulsed softly in the corner of my vision, a silent, intrusive observer, displaying a constellation of flickering icons: Inventory, Quest Log, Party (empty, a stark reminder of my isolation), Mental Health Status (flashing red, of course, because why wouldn't it be? It was probably screaming internally).
[To rejoin your meat-suit back on Earth, you'll need to follow standard gamer protocol. You know the drill. Accept quests. Kill monsters. Loot things. Crawl through unnecessarily long dungeons. And eventually defeat the Final Boss.]
"This is insane."
The words felt hollow, inadequate to describe the absurdity of my situation. It was beyond insane, it was an existential horror show disguised as a game, a perverse twist on virtual reality.
My mind reeled, trying to grasp the enormity of what was being demanded of me.
Kill monsters? Crawl through dungeons? I hadn't played a proper video game since high school, and even then, I preferred story-driven narratives, not hack-and-slash RPGs.
[Insane? Please. You binge-read smutty fantasy novels and cried over cake videos at three in the morning. This is just Sunday, but interactive.]
The system's voice was as smooth and infuriating as ever, its digital cadence laced with an almost human-like disdain. It saw me, truly saw me, in all my embarrassing, introverted glory. The accuracy of its assessment stung. It was right, of course, about my late-night habits, my escapism into fantastical worlds. But this wasn't escapism. This was being thrust into the very heart of the kind of chaotic narrative I usually consumed from a safe distance.
I rubbed my temples, a phantom headache throbbing behind my eyes. The system's casual dismissal of my existential crisis was infuriating, yet unsettlingly perceptive.
"This… is a game. A literal game." I repeated, trying to solidify the concept in my own mind, to make it palatable, understandable.
[Correction. A failed MMORPG. Canceled three weeks before launch. Abandoned by its developers and now salvaged as some kind of purgatory prototype. We prefer the term 'Existential Simulation with Loot Tables.']
The system elaborated, its tone almost pedagogical. A "purgatory prototype." The phrase sent a chill down my spine. It was a bleak, desolate description, hinting at a forgotten digital graveyard.
I turned slowly, taking in the crumbling, impossible landscape. Towering ruins twisted in the distance, a bizarre fusion of architectural styles that looked like… well, doesn't make any fucking sense.
Part medieval castle with crumbling ramparts adorned with pixelated moss, part sci-fi death fortress with sharp, metallic edges and glowing, inscrutable energy conduits. It was a clash of aesthetics, a visual representation of the game's unfinished, experimental nature. Glitches blinked in and out of existence like rogue fireflies: a perfectly rendered tree flickering into a jagged rock formation before resolving back into foliage, a cloud frozen mid-animation in a perpetually sunny sky, a pixelated goat floating thirty feet in the air, its bleats sounding distorted and metallic, like a broken phonograph. The sky itself seemed to be having an epileptic fit, shifting between sunset hues and an unnerving, neon green, occasionally tearing open to reveal a swirling vortex of binary code. It was a digital purgatory, an unfinished canvas where the brushstrokes of reality and unreality bled into one another, creating a landscape of exquisite chaos. The very ground beneath my feet shimmered, threatening to dissolve at any moment.
"So what am I supposed to do?"
The question felt utterly ridiculous, like asking a philosophical question to a broken vending machine, or seeking spiritual guidance from a corrupted AI.
[You have one job: live. Earn your way back. You know, character growth, emotional revelations, mild trauma. The usual bullshit.]
The system's voice was utterly devoid of sympathy, yet its bleak humor was undeniable.
It felt like it was reading from a script, a cynical, pre-programmed response to human despair, delivered with the practiced ease of a seasoned comedian. Mild trauma felt like an understatement.
[Optional: Make friends. Unlikely, since you're an introvert irl, but good luck.]
[Optional-Optional: Stop wallowing in your existential misery. You're exhausting to code around.]
I stared at the flickering HUD for a long, silent moment. The audacity of this digital entity, mocking my very nature, my struggles, even my deeply ingrained introversion. It was like being roasted by a highly advanced, slightly glitchy chatbot, one that had access to my innermost thoughts and anxieties. It was a digital god, a sardonic puppet master, pulling my strings in this twisted, pixelated play.
My introversion was not a flaw, it was a defense mechanism, a carefully constructed wall against a world that often felt too loud, too demanding. To have it flung back at me by a disembodied voice was jarring.
"…You're kind of a dick." I finally managed, the words a strained whisper, the most coherent thought I could form in the face of such overwhelming absurdity. A small, rebellious spark flickered within me.
[Finally. She speaks truth.]
The system's response was immediate, almost gleeful, its voice brimming with what sounded remarkably like satisfaction. It seemed to thrive on my exasperation, feeding off my rising frustration. It was a companion I never asked for, and certainly didn't want, but one I seemed stuck with.
[Now pick up the starter weapon behind you and move, IJ. You're already on tutorial level and managing to make it existential.]
IJ.
A nickname I created based on my initial back in my previous office.
It sounded weird, but it felt somewhat… right.
And now it seems to be my new name in this world.
I turned around, and sure enough, a rusted sword floated a few inches off the ground, rotating slowly, glowing faintly like it had low self-esteem, a forlorn aura emanating from its dull blade.
It was a cartoonishly generic fantasy weapon, the kind you saw in every low-budget RPG, an utterly unremarkable piece of digital weaponry. Beside it sat a cracked wooden shield that looked like it would shatter on first impact, its paint peeling like ancient skin, and a loaf of bread labeled [STAMINA +2, TASTE -999]. The bread looked suspicious, radiating a faint, sickly green aura, as if it had been left to rot in a forgotten corner of the server for a decade. The very thought of eating it made my stomach churn.
I hesitated, then reached for the sword. As my fingers closed around the hilt, it hissed with a shower of sparks, then glitched, phasing into my hand as if it had been waiting for me to acknowledge its existence. It was heavier than I expected. Realer. The cold, pitted metal felt surprisingly solid in my grip, a stark contrast to the shimmering, unstable world around me. The weight felt substantial, a tangible anchor in this intangible reality. It hummed faintly, a low vibration that traveled up my arm, a hint of power, however meager, at my command.
The moment I held it, the HUD flared, a torrent of new information flooding my vision, overwriting the previous status updates.
[Weapon Equipped: Beginner's Regret (Common). Damage: 4-6. Durability: 80%. Emotional Support: None.]
The system's snark was truly relentless. Even my weapon was designed to mock me, its name a direct jab at my current predicament.
Beginner's Regret. How fitting. The fact that it offered no emotional support was almost redundant. The entire experience felt designed to maximize my discomfort.
[First Quest Activated: "Faceplant into Purpose." Objective: Reach the next village without dying.]
I looked up at the path ahead. It wasn't really a path at all, but a cracked, half-rendered expanse of glitching textures, a treacherous ribbon of unstable reality.
Trees blinked in and out of existence, sometimes appearing as perfect, vibrant green foliage, other times as pixelated, skeletal outlines that dissolved into static before reforming.
The ground undulated, shifting like liquid, making each step a precarious gamble.
In the distance, something enormous, something that resembled a dragon with severe WiFi issues, let out a guttural, digitized scream that reverberated through the very air, shaking the pixels around me. Its scales flickered, its massive wings appeared and disappeared with disorienting rapidity, and its roar sounded like a dying modem struggling to connect, a distorted cacophony of white noise and digital agony. It was a creature of pure, unadulterated glitch, a testament to the brokenness of this world.
This was my life now.
A cruel joke orchestrated by a sentient game system.
A failed game. A glitched realm. A sarcastic system acting like my accidental life coach, pushing me through a reality that felt more like a bad dream than a second chance. The idea of "character growth" in this chaotic, broken world seemed like an impossible feat, a concept utterly alien to the terrifying reality I now inhabited. Yet, the alternative was an endless coma, a silent, unmoving existence back in a world I could barely remember, a world where my heart was already broken. The choice, if you could call it that, was stark: fight in this digital purgatory or fade away in a physical one.
I took a shaky breath, the artificial air doing little to calm my racing heart, which pounded a frantic rhythm against my ribs.
The weight of the sword in my hand, the oppressive silence broken only by the distant, glitching roar of the digital dragon, and the relentless, sarcastic voice of the system all converged into a singular, undeniable truth…
…I had to move.
There was no going back, no opting out, no convenient reset button.
This was my path, however broken, however perilous.
I tightened my grip on the sword, its rough hilt digging into my palm, the cold metal a grounding presence.
The faint hum of the system in my head was a constant, irritating companion, a reminder that I was never truly alone, never truly free.
With a renewed sense of unwilling determination, a flicker of something akin to defiance, I stepped forward, into the shimmering, unstable unknown, ready to faceplant into whatever purpose this bizarre, broken reality had in store for me.
The village, a vague promise on a flickering map, felt a million miles away, an elusive beacon in this digital wilderness. Yet every step, however uncertain, however terrifying, was a step towards a potential return, a chance to reclaim a life.
My life.
My husband.
Shit.
I was such a shitty wife…
But I'll do this.
I'll go back and make things right.
For me. For him. For my fucking life.
This wasn't a game I chose to play, but it was a game I had to win.