[POV Ryan First-Person] [Tense: Present]
07:00 p.m. - At San Jose, California (09 September 2025)
He hands in the resignation like a clean commit: crisp subject, no drama, merged and closed. HR nods. His manager's smile is a shrug in human form.
(He watches for the sting. Nothing. Just a status change.)
It should crack him. It lands like a checkbox.
(Did he burn out so clean he can't even ache?)
A hoodie shadows the doorway. Samuel hovers, laptop half-open, breath quick. "Ryan, the geometry function is spiking—it's doing 2 seconds per request. Staging is choking."
A younger him, if you squint—caffeine, stubbornness, fingers already moving.
(Good. The kid needs a win. Let him drive.)
"Show me the profiler."
Samuel shoves the graph over. "It shouldn't behave like this. I checked caching—"
The mess is stupid and fixable: a wasteful loop, a bad regex, a missing bound. Ryan points once. Samuel types. Two seconds fall to 15 milliseconds like someone cut a noose.
His hands itch for the keyboard. He keeps them in his pockets.
Samuel blinks at the code. "You wrote that micro-optimizer when you were 14 years old?"
"Bench it. Push it. Test it." - Ryan said
"15 ms after your tweak—holy shit." - Samuel said
The kid lights up. A spark finds kindling. Ryan steps back.
(Good chaos. Not his pain anymore.)
He feels light. If he had wings, he might launch.
(Cringe line. True anyway.)
Numbers flicker in his head. Bugs, spaghetti code, the math of fear.
(If he still asks me without reading my documents, this company will be ruined.)
He leaves Samuel hunched over the last bugs, earning scars you can't get from boardrooms.
(He has his fight.)
(So does Ryan.)
---
9:42 p.m. - At CornerMart on 3rd, San Francisco. (09 September 2025)
Fluorescents bleach the world. Everything looks like it's begging for a commercial. Sugar aisle. Coffee fridge. He picks nothing.
(Hands don't know what to do without a laptop.)
---
10:00 p.m. - At Bus Stop on 3rd and Mission, San Francisco. (09 September 2025)
The city hums—a thousand small machines promising motion. He believes them. He wants a piece.
He mutters to the empty street, voice low, like an oath he writes in air. "Note to self: next day I will follow plan to build an AI Mapper to create an AI that can create a whole map in a fantasy world like a procedural generator in-game, but can do simple AI prompts."
(Say it out loud so it doesn't evaporate. Anchor the idea to sound.)
His eyelids run a diagnostic and fail. No drama. Hands loosen. Head tilts. The world narrows to a steady, indifferent hum.
(Five minutes. Then he'll sketch the architecture. Five—)
"You okay? Folks wondering—" a voice, distant, concerned.
"Yeah. I'm fine. Go home, Sam. Ship it."
Not Sam. Habit. Still true.
He sleeps. The bench stays cold. The city walks on.
---
07:00 a.m. - At Unknown Forest, outskirts. (10 September 2025)
My head throbs. Light cuts down through a strange canopy, thin blades through leaf-glass and wet green. I blink hard. My lungs hold, then release.
(I don't know where.)
Air smells fresh—sap, damp earth, something sweet I can't name. Trunks rise like pillars in a palace built by a fever dream. Bark gleams—violet, azure, silver—all in one tree if I tilt my head. Mushrooms glow under roots like gutter stars. Petals carry dew that throws tiny rainbows. Two moons hang high, one silver, one dark red, their mix making weird shadows that crawl when I don't move.
I sit up and peel the backpack off my shoulders like proof I still exist.
What I brought:
- Laptop bag and laptop
- Notebook and pens
- Science fiction
- Economics books
- Cell phone
- Wallet (about $300)
- House keys
- Bag of potato chips
- Hamburger
- Soft drinks
I thumb the phone awake. Photos open. No bars. No messages. The compass wheel spins like a drunk carousel, then points east, maybe, at a shine I don't trust.
(I think this is a game. Or a dream. I don't know skills, status, ability, or that magic thing.)
I press thumb and forefinger to my brow, then snort.
"Uh… did I just get isekai'd, or did my brain finally crash from sleep deprivation?"
Leaves whisper like prayer beads. No patch notes drop from the sky.
"Hahahahahaha, no fucking way, it's just a dream, right?"
I check the laptop. Battery light winks green. Boot screen loads, proud and useless. No networks.
I crack the chips. Salt hits my tongue. I pocket the phone and stand.
"It's like a lucid dreamer who can understand during a dream that it's fucking great. I think in the next scene I will see a girl with a bikini or a high-elf covered only leaf."
I circle the small clearing. Curiosity pulls me by the hand. I crouch, pinch three kinds of stems, tear a tuft of fine grass, find a small fern with veins that glow faint blue, and a sprig of something that smells like mint if mint kissed lightning. I drop each into a side pocket of the pack, careful to keep them apart. I type notes with my thumb so I won't lose the threads.
Collected:
- Three herbs with different smells (sharp-mint, bitter-sour, sweet-metal)
- Grasses (fine and ribbon-like)
- Strange fern with blue veins
- Small mushrooms (do not eat, idiot)
I take pictures. Bark gleam. Leaf spirals. Twin moons through branches. The shots look boring. That scares me more than if they glitched.
"Why do I feel like someone is staring at me all the time?"
I turn in a slow circle. Trees stare back. Shadows breathe. The feeling sits on my neck like a small, warm hand. I can't shake it off.
I raise the phone again, hit record, hold it up like a talisman.
"Okay," talking to the camera and the gods of nothing. "Hi, future me. If this is a dream, you'll laugh. If it's not, plan is simple."
I tap the screen, flip it back to notes.
"Find exit. Keep the stuff. Don't get eaten."
I zip the pack, strap it tight. I tuck the notebook into my jacket, pens clipped along the edge like teeth. I stuff the burger into a side pocket and crack a soft drink just to hear a normal sound. Carbonation snaps. Birds—if they are birds—answer with two-note calls that echo wrong.
I raise my face to the sky and count.
"One. Two. Two moons. Cool. And Strange."
I wave at them. That looks like the image of Jeff from Creepypasta.
"If you're listening, Red One, please don't beam me."
I snort at myself.
I pick a thinner path, almost a suggestion of one, where ferns bend and then spring back. Camera ready. Pack tight. I take measured steps, heel to toe. Dirt gives under my running shoes. They don't belong here. I don't either.
A soft creak moves far off, like old wood shifting weight. I freeze. My breath stops. The creak stops too.
"Hello?" I call, voice steady on purpose. "If you're a person, I have snacks. If you're a bear… shit, there are bears here, right?"
Only the whisper of high leaves.
I pull the compass again. East. Or lies about east. Fine. I angle toward a break in the trees where the light grows thick and white. I narrate to keep the panic boxed.
"LitRPG Base," I mutter. "No system screen. No tutorial fairy. Two moons. Fancy trees. No cell service. High chance of hunger and diarrhea if I eat the wrong thing. Best weapon is… a laptop? Great."
I laugh. It sounds like a cough.
I kneel by a root and test the glow on the bark with a knuckle. Smooth, cool, like touched glass. I press my ear to the trunk for a beat. A faint hum waits inside, or maybe that's blood behind my ear.
"I'm naming you Chrome-Tree," I whisper. "Your friend is Blue-Vein Fern. Yes, I name things when I'm freaked."
I take another photo, then two. I draw a quick sketch in the notebook—boxy trees, big moons, a scribbled arrow for the path. I write: "Start Point: Weird Glass Grove." I hate when anyone looks at my notes. It doesn't matter; there is no one here.
I hear water. Faint. Not surf, not rain. A stream argues with stones somewhere ahead.
I point my body toward the sound and move. Each step sets off small glows underfoot. Mushrooms pop with light when I brush them, then dim when I pass. My grin shows up without permission.
"Okay, that's sick."
I adjust my glasses.
"Find exit. Keep the stuff. Don't get eaten."
I repeat it like a prayer to my bacon religion; I'm not a Christian anymore, not for a long time after my family was ruined, then add one more line, softer, to the red moon I can't stop seeing through the leaves.
"Don't let me be alone too long."
---
03:00 p.m. - At Unknown Village, clearing. (10 September 2025)
The trees open like a curtain pulled wide. Light spreads, warm and tangerine, with purple hanging at the edges. My legs loosen. My shoulders drop an inch. Under my shoes, the ground hardens into a real path—packed dirt, scuffed by hooves and boots. A half-buried cartwheel peeks like a blind eye. A fencepost leans, split and gray. The air feels stale; grit of old ash scratches my throat like something burned long ago, but my nose gives me nothing.
"Ahhhhh, finally, it's so cruel for introverts to never go hiking in their entire fucking life."
I fish the phone from my pocket. I thumb through photos. Twin moons. Bark like clean glass. A row of herbs stuffed into side pockets. Each picture looks flat.
"I collect things; curiosity is the habit I brought with me that I don't know why, but for sale or just old habits."
The compass on the slab wobbles, then points as if it owns the idea of direction. My gut argues. I pick the line of smoke instead, thin and straight beyond the treeline, stitching the sky.
"Big breasts, I'm coming." I say under my breath, like a charm.
I move. Ready, because of old habit. Pack tight. Phone warm in my palm. I step onto the path. Ferns bow out of my way, then stand back up, not offended.
The light goes wrong first. The clearing cools as a shadow rolls over it—one vast shape that wipes the sun from my face. I look up.
"Jesus Christ… no breasts, that's a dragon."
Scales flash like hammered bronze and wet coal. Wings spread wider than any roof I have seen. The beast drops, smooth as falling thought, and a ribbon of fire cuts the late day. Below, thatch pops and goes bright. A roof yawns flame. Then two. Then five. Screams rise, raw and knotted.
The sound hits my ribs. Heat flattens the ferns. I lift the phone without thinking. My thumb finds record. The red dot blinks, small and steady, a heartbeat that pretends to be enough.
"Find exit. Don't get eaten," out of my mouth before I know I speak.
Men run with old spears that look like angry sticks. Women grab buckets. A boy pushes a cart until a wheel binds and the cart skews. Someone wails full voice, then cuts it off and works.
"Be fucking brave, Ryan; that only fucking dream is not true if you beat that thing, no matter what method." You will be a protagonist.
I crouch behind a knotted oak. The tree is solid against my back, bark cool. The rise lifts me a little. I see the well, the rope jerking up and down, hands blurring. The adrenaline in the body surges.
(To run in could get me killed. To do nothing feels worse.)
"Game rules would be nice," rough and small. "HUD? Quest marker? Patch notes?"
The dragon banks. It looks bored. No, not bored—assured. A predator that knows the map. Its head tilts. Eyes narrow to metal cuts. It looks straight at the hill, straight into the shape of me pressed to bark.
My heart hits like it wants out. Air thins. I freeze.
A thin hiss runs through leaves. Not wind. Not flame. Something watching through the green.
Rain slams the square, hard enough to erase the world. Roofs burn. Smoke twists with the downpour. I stand in the middle of it, clothes heavy, heart in my throat.
"Help us!"
A woman bursts from the haze—hair scorched, eyes wide. She claws at a collapsed roof, splinters biting her hands. Beneath the wreckage, a boot moves. Someone coughs.
"My husband—he's trapped!"
A boy appears beside her, mud up to his knees, voice cracking: "HELP MY FATHER!"
I freeze for a second. Then something automatic clicks in.
"Stay back," I shout, already shoving at the beam. "You—hold it steady. Kid, behind me. We lift on three."
We heave. The beam moans like it doesn't want to live. Rain cuts across my face. My arms shake. For a heartbeat, everything is just pressure, wood, and breath.
Then the beam shifts. The man below drags himself free, coughing up smoke. The woman collapses beside him, clutching him like he's air. The boy sobs once and laughs the next second.
"Thank you," she says, not even looking at me. Just saying it into the storm.
Around us, the village crawls back to motion—people running, carrying, shouting. Panic wearing human faces.
A man stumbles through the mud. "They're coming! Soldiers—from Drakensvale!"
Who the hell is Drakensvale?
Fear spreads fast. Someone screams the headman's dead. Eyes flick to me—the stranger with glasses, the jacket, the wrong words.
"Who are you?"
"I'm—Ryan, just a merchant passing through." I say, voice flat. "I'll help."
"So, you are the village chief now," the strange man says.
(Yo, what the fuck are you talking about?)
"Why me?"
"Because you speak like a merchant," someone mutters. "And can deal with many people."
That's it. No coronation. Just panic looking for a spine.
It fits the RPG game system with stupid NPCs as well.
They blink, half believing, half afraid. I look around—crude spears, broken roofs, people clutching buckets instead of shields. No plan. No logic. Just survival.
"Form lines!" I yell, louder than I mean to. "Get the kids back! Clear a path here—use the carts, make a wall. Hide the wounded!"
They move. Not fast, but they move. Maybe shouting is a universal language.
Rain hammers fire; burnt thatch crackles, wet ash clings to my lips, people breathe hard around me—my eyes burn, but my nose gives me nothing. A woman shoves a bucket into my hands; I pass it down. A man drags a beam; I jam it across the street.
Somewhere, a child screams. Somewhere, a roof collapses.
And for one stupid second, the chaos listens to me.
Rain and fire collide; thatch hisses, mud turns to dark slurry—I register it in sting and heat, not in scent. I grab a chunk of wood, shove it against a gap. Someone hands me a bucket; I pass it down the line. Hands, faces, motion. It's chaos, but it's organized chaos.
A rough-looking old man shoves a cracked shield at me. "Carry this, stranger. Our village's lucky shield."
The mark's an antlered beast, half faded. "Sure," I mutter. "Why not."
I fish my phone out—screen slick with rain. The dragon video still there: fire, screaming, twin moons. Battery at 18%. No signal.
"Okay, dream," I whisper, "you're really going for full immersion."
And I hope this is the last time I give my phone away. I don't know; I'm a little ADHD.
I pocket the phone and start yelling again. "You—tie those ropes across the path. Trip lines. You—stack rocks, big ones. Drop them when I raise my arm."
They listen. Maybe because I sound sure. Maybe because they need someone who sounds sure. Never mind; it's just a strange dream. Just do it for fun.
A soaked man in a dented helmet jogs up. "They'll burn us again!"
"Not today," I say. "Rain's on our side."
A woman presses a chunk of hard bread into my hand. "Eat."
"You need it more."
"No, give it to other people to eat." - Ryan says.
I give back to her.
A boy wrestles two goats that keep trying to walk the wrong way. "Goat, please!"
I loop the rope lower. "Tie from the chest, not the neck. Like this."
He grins, missing a tooth. "Thanks, stranger."
More faces now—men with buckets, women with cloth, kids hauling stones. I can't tell their names. Just shapes in the storm.
"Set bell on that line," I tell one group. "When the wind hits them, they'll ding. Alarm system. DIY edition."
I draw in mud with my finger. "Two flanks, one choke point. Drop stones here. Slings there. Aim for legs."
The plan looks stupid, half-erased by rain, but it gives them something to hold.
Drums? No—just a thunder. The ground shakes.
Figures line up—spears, clubs, fear. The woman I helped earlier meets my eyes once. Gratitude and terror mixed. The boy hides behind her leg.
I tie a strip of cloth around my wrist. A small flag. Something human.
"If this is a dream," I breathe, "then fine. Let's win it."
Rain hammers down. Pots clang. Shadows move between the trees. My heart slams like it's trying to reboot itself.
"Okay, Ryan. Debugging life, one bug at a time."