Ryan walked into his room, his face clouded with frustration. Prominent dark circles hung under his eyes, a testament to his exhaustion. Still dressed in his school uniform—a wrinkled white shirt, a loosely hanging tie, and blue trousers—he stepped further in and threw his bag across the room in anger.
He tossed his keys onto the bed. Attached to them was a peculiar cube-shaped keychain. Five of its faces were inscribed with strange symbols, and only one bore the number 0.
"Why is it always me? I did everything for her," he muttered, voice low and shaking.
Ryan's eyes were red with rage as he shouted toward the ceiling, unable to contain the turmoil inside him. Anger and frustration boiled over, and in a moment of blind fury, he clenched his fist and slammed it into the wall.
Thud.
All he got in return was pain.
She cheated, Ryan thought bitterly, gasping as he clutched his hand.
From the day he was born, it felt like he had been cursed with bad luck.
When he was ten, his parents died in a tragic car accident. Though he was left with a small fortune, what followed was a bitter legal battle with his uncles over the inheritance. In the end, he was granted just a third of what was rightfully his. To stay under his uncle's roof, he was forced to earn his keep—washing dishes and mopping floors daily.
He still remembered their words clearly, the ones they repeated like a badge of honor:
"You're lucky we even gave you a place to live."
At eighteen, he finally saw an opportunity to break free from them. He ran, chasing the promise of freedom. But life only grew harder.
He suffered silently—crushed under the weight of anxiety and depression. School, instead of being an escape, became another battlefield. Professors disguised their harassment as discipline, publicly humiliating him under the pretence of guidance.
He had no friends. Everyone who approached him came with hidden motives.
He once believed the fault was his. He thought something was broken inside him. So he tried. He made efforts. He reached out. But each time, they played him, mocked him, or made things worse. Eventually, he stopped trying.
But trouble never stopped chasing him.
He was even bullied by gang members demanding money. He fled—vanished for days, sleeping in abandoned construction sites, crumbling buildings, and along lonely railway tracks. The government, the courts, even the police turned a blind eye.
He had no one. Only his will to survive.
And he did.
Eventually, the gang backed off. That struggle left a scar on the school's perception of him. People no longer mocked or provoked him. Instead, they watched him from a distance, guarded and silent.
For the first time, Ryan experienced a strange kind of freedom. People left him alone. He could finally breathe.
That was when Sia entered his life.
She was a new transfer student. Her presence felt different from the start—calmer, warmer. For the first time in eighteen long years, he felt what it meant to have companionship, care, and maybe even love.
They became friends. Then more than friends. It happened slowly, almost unknowingly. Before he realized it, she had become the center of his world.
He fought for her.
Against professors.
Against students.
Against her parents.
Even against the same gangsters who once hunted him.
But what came of it?
Ryan had walked into an old, forgotten room in the school building and witnessed the one thing that shattered everything he believed in.
Sia—cheating.
His eyes widened. He froze, stunned. The moment seared itself into his memory. Every second they'd spent together replayed in his mind like a cruel joke.
He couldn't comprehend it. The girl he had trusted above all else had betrayed him.
All the promises he made.
All the sacrifices.
All the fights.
All for her.
Now he sat on his bed, tears spilling from his burning eyes. The pain inside him eclipsed every past experience—every loss, every wound.
He felt completely hollow.
She had been his only light. There was no one else.
He glanced down at his trembling hands.
She's completely destroyed me, he thought.
"Why did you do this to me?" Ryan cried out, his voice choked with pain.
His head turned slowly, and his eyes landed on the keychain—the one Sia had given him.
Without thinking, he snatched it up and, gripping both ends with his hands, yanked the cube and keys apart with raw strength. The metal bent and snapped under pressure. The cube slipped from his grip, bouncing across the floor toward the wall.
It rolled.
Ryan stepped forward, ready to crush it beneath his foot. But before he could—
It stopped.
The cube landed with one face up—not the one with the number 0, but a symbol.
It glowed.
A strange, shimmering light emerged from the symbol and filled the air. The glow wasn't natural—it pulsed softly, almost rhythmically, like a heartbeat. A second later, words began to form in the air above it, as if written by invisible hands.
Ryan staggered back, eyes wide. He stared at the cube and the strange projection above it. The words shimmered in the air, suspended like a dream just out of reach.
He read them.
Where whispers rest and candles fade,
In stone embrace the monks once prayed.
Now silence drapes the wooden beams,
And time walks slow through folded dreams.
No footsteps stir, no chant is sung,
Yet peace still blooms on every rung.
A sacred hush where spirits keep—
An ancient place that falls to sleep.
"It's describing a place," Ryan whispered to himself.
Monks. Silence. No footsteps. A place where time moves slowly. Where peace blooms.
"A temple? Or… a graveyard?" he wondered aloud, still breathless.
Before he could think further, the shimmering light turned grey.
Then it began to pull.
It wasn't wind. It was deeper, more elemental—as though the very fabric of space had shifted, and he was being drawn into it.
Ryan tried to step back, but it was already too late. The force gripped him, wrapping around his body like waves folding into cloth.
And then—
He was gone.
...
Ryan stood cluelessly on a rural road, surrounded by unfamiliar scenery. He found himself in the middle of nowhere. In front of him were huts and small houses neatly lined up—it was clearly a village. He had only seen such scenes in movies or TV series.
He noticed the villagers wearing simple, single-colored clothing—plain but decent. In contrast, he was wearing his school uniform, complete with a tie. He felt completely out of place, like a clown in the village.
He looked around, wondering where he had ended up. The area was surrounded by mountain ranges. A river flowed through the mountains and then wound its way through the village.
"Where the hell am I?" he muttered.
There were no buildings, no signs of modern life—just houses that looked old-fashioned. A wave of unease washed over him. He felt slightly afraid, unsure of what to do next. A bizarre thought struck him—had he traveled through time or into another world, like in the movies?
He reached into his pockets to check what he had with him. In his left pocket, he found a handkerchief. When he slid his hand into the right pocket, he felt something small and hard—like a pebble. He pulled it out.
It was the cube.
The five-faced dice was back in his pocket!
He froze in astonishment.
Ryan examined the dice. The glowing symbol from before had vanished. In its place was a number: 2.
He couldn't make any sense of it. The dice was a mystery, and he was completely clueless.
Without thinking, he rolled it and threw it onto the ground. The dice bounced, then began to spin slowly. As it rotated, a thousand thoughts raced through Ryan's mind.
"How can I get back home?"
"Do I even want to go back… after all this?"
"Will the dice take me somewhere else again?"
The dice finally came to a stop.
It landed on a new symbol, but within seconds, it shifted again—to the number 2. The same glowing text appeared on the dice's surface. Ryan understood its meaning: unless he solved the riddle, he wouldn't be able to roll the dice again.
A moment later, the dice vanished—only to reappear in his pocket.
He stared at it, mesmerized.
He need to fined a place which was silent, ancient and there are no footsteps. He was looking around and figuring out.
But his thoughts were quickly interrupted by the sound of children shouting. A group of kids had seen him and were yelling in fear.
It was his uniform—it had frightened them.
Panicked, Ryan turned and ran toward the mountains. Only one thought echoed in his mind:
Survive.
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