It was a normal, mind-numbing day. I sat in class, zoning out while the teacher droned on about something supposedly important. I stopped paying attention after the first week—not because I'm stupid, but because nothing in this place has ever felt worth caring about. School, society, the future… all of it felt like a machine built to grind people down, one slow day at a time.
Everyone kept telling me life had meaning. Go to school, get a job, get old, and die. If that's meaning, then humanity really is as pathetic as I think.
My therapist said I had depression. I say I'm just not brain-dead like the rest of the world. The truth is simple: life is boring. Utterly, painfully boring. The only things that ever stirred anything inside me were books and video games—worlds where something happened. Where people fought, suffered, conquered, survived. At least there, existence mattered for more than a paycheck.
It's not like I'm some lonely outcast either. I have friends, lots of them. I'm popular. I've had girlfriends. I did everything people say you're supposed to do to feel "normal"… and somehow it all still felt empty. Even pleasure gets boring when the world around you is dead inside.
So I found myself wishing—no, craving—for something to break the monotony. A zombie apocalypse, a system awakening, a mana storm, an eldritch god tearing open the sky… anything. Something to finally shatter this dull, rotting reality.
Oh, right. I should probably introduce myself.
My name is Micheal Volkov. I'm about average height, roughly 5'6". Messy brown hair, grey eyes, circular glasses. People call me handsome, but beauty means nothing in a world this stale.
So when the voice came—cold, mechanical, echoing inside my skull—I didn't scream like everyone else.
was it real please let it be real not a dream please