My room smelled faintly of instant coffee and old textbooks. Posters of various rankers covered the walls, a testament to my obsession with the world of dungeon raids. Watching the news was a habit, a way to stay connected to a world I rarely experienced.
I sat on my bed, hunched over my phone, watching the news with a tightening gut.
"Number one ranked Sword Emperor — real name: Erhart Veilchen — has died in action at the age of 28. His death is currently under investigation, but is suspected to be due to an enc—"
The broadcast cut off.
A sharp crack split the air. My wall had fractured — a thin line at first, then widening fast, as if invisible hands were pulling it apart.
I glanced at the TV, hoping to catch the last part of the report, but the calm and collected woman that had been there seconds prior had been replaced by a black substance, glitching and oozing, pouring from the TV.
The anchor's replacement — that black ooze — didn't make me flinch. My mind analysed it: texture, movement, impossible flow. Not a hallucination. Not a virus. Something else.
I turned back immediately. Whatever that thing was, I wasn't dealing with it. The wall deserved my focus first.
The crack widened to the size of a doorway. But beyond it wasn't the sky, or my neighbour's apartment — it was nothing. A void, pure and depthless.
Cold sweat slid down my back.
Because in the centre of that darkness, an eye was staring at me.
Not an animal's eye. Not a human's. Something older. Vast. Wrong.
It was aware. Of me. Of itself. Of horrors no mind was built to comprehend.
Its pupil jittered too fast to track, like it was searching through realities. Like it was trying to find something it wasn't meant to see.
Something tugged at me — not my body, but my mind — dragging my gaze deeper.
My instincts screamed to look away, to cover my eyes, but a force stronger than fear tugged at me. I froze, muscles rigid, and yet I leaned forward, compelled to stare deeper than reason allowed.
The pupil stopped.
And focused on me.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
■
There was a moment I should have remembered — a transition, a sensation, something — but whatever belonged between those two points had been scraped clean. Not forgotten. Removed.
When I came to, the familiar warmth of my room — the smell of home, the comfort of walls around me — was gone.
I tried to reach for my phone, my wallet, my clothes… nothing. My hands brushed empty air.
My body felt intact, but the idea of "me" was hollow — a placeholder without definition.
Air touched my skin, but my mind didn't categorise it as cold, warm, or exposed. Nakedness wasn't a concept here; it was like trying to assign emotion to a colour I'd never seen.
I'd been pulled through.
The eye wasn't here anymore. Whether that was good or bad, I had no idea.
A headache pounded behind my eyes as the memories slammed back. I looked at my wrist out of instinct, a feeling of uncertainty at the lack of linear time — nothing.
My heart didn't race. My skin didn't prickle. Even here, unclothed in the dark, I felt nothing. The idea of nakedness itself was gone, replaced by a hollow neutrality that extended to every sense of self.
My legs buckled as I tried to stand. The space around me felt infinite, walls and floor had vanished. Every step forward threatened a fall into nothing. My thoughts moved out of habit, trying to assemble a framework for where 'here' was — but there were no clues, only a damp, clinging odour that seemed to belong to the void itself.
A faint crackle tore through the silence — like an intercom trying to force itself into existence.
The void returned to silence. I almost convinced myself nothing was coming. Then…
"The Beta Test is now over. The next participant will be logged in a moment. Please remain still."
The voice was cold and mechanical, recited rather than spoken.
I wasn't about to take orders from a disembodied drone. I took a step toward where the sound seemed to come from.
"Do. Not. Move."
The voice dropped into a deep monotone that rooted me to the spot. A wave of dread crashed over me, raw and suffocating — the same crushing pressure I felt when that eye had stared through me.
I was made to sit down, apparently having relinquished control of my body.
"The participant has been fully logged, good luck."
My body obeyed without permission. Muscles clenched, then slackened. A numb, crushing weight pressed into my chest. And then my consciousness was dragged through it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------