As Justin began his tale, the firelight cast a golden hue over their faces in their corner of the Moonlit Alehouse. The laughter and chatter around them seemed distant, drowned by the weight of the revelations and confessions he knew would soon pass his lips.

He began hesitantly. “I’m not...from here, I guess you could say.”

“Not from Aranthia, you mean?” Lila said. “Yeah, we figured. So what? I’m from Daeloria myself, all the way past the Seraphim Range.”

“You don’t understand. I’m from another world entirely. Not from Eyrth.”

Both of them frowned at him, confused. Eldrin broke the silence. “What do you mean, lad? There are the planets, of course: Valdoria, Solanis, Thandara, Zephyron. Some say they host life, some don’t. But I don’t think that’s what you mean.”

“I’m from an alternate universe, I guess you could say. A world without magic, classes, and levels. A world that’s completely mundane.”

He saw he was just confusing them more. As he suspected, this was all they knew. They didn’t know they were in a game, or that this was most likely an entirely alternate universe where magic and levels were baked into the quantum fabric of reality. Justin didn’t know how else to explain it to them.

“What’s your world called?” Lila asked.

“Earth.”

“That sounds quite similar to this world,” Eldrin observed. “A coincidence?”

“I think this world is a part of mine,” Justin said. “A smaller part. Except from this world, there is no escape.”

“No escape?” Eldrin said, laughing nervously. “You make this world seem like a prison!”

Justin realized that was the truth of things, at least from his reckoning, but didn’t say as much.

“All I know is, I was in my mom’s basement, playing video games, and then a tornado came out of nowhere and swept me up. It threw me somewhere over the metaphorical rainbow, and somehow, I found myself here, right in front of that Prismatic Core.”

Several heads at a nearby table turned at that. Eldrin looked in their direction, giving a winning smile. “He’s drunk.”

Justin realized he had been far too loud. “Sorry. Sometimes, I forget where I am.”

“That’s all right, lad. Listen. Clearly, that tornado knocked your head up a bit. Sometimes we see them in the Aranthian Hinterlands. Warm air from the Gulf and the icy breath of the mountains. It’s the perfect concoction. Obviously, you bumped your head and forgot where you came from, and you dreamed up this whole other world. Nothing else makes sense.”

“No, that’s not right,” Justin said. “The things I know about my world are so detailed that I couldn’t make them up.”

“Things like what?” Lila asked.

“Everything! Over four billion years of history on our planet alone, of which humans have only been around for a small part. Countless empires have risen and fallen. Triumphs and tragedies. Mozart, Beethoven. Hell, Michael Jackson, Rihanna, and Bieber! Not to mention all the rest!” He looked at them helplessly. “Radiohead?”

“Who is this...Bieber?” Lila asked. “He seems a mighty lord of great renown.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t believe it! He’s a proper bard, all right. Though this world is different, everything is recognizable as something that can be found in my world. It’s like...someone from my world designed this place. I just don’t know how I got swept up in it. I’m thinking that maybe I died and got sent here, or maybe all tornadoes have portals. Who can say? Maybe L. Frank Baum was on to something.”

“Or maybe on something,” Eldrin said with a smirk. “Whoever he is.”

Both of them were looking at him as if he were crazy. Justin knew this had been a mistake. “Just forget it.”

“What was your class in your world?” Eldrin asked.

“There are no classes,” Justin said again. It seemed hard for them to accept that fact. “I guess you could say I was a NEET.”

“A NEET?” Eldrin asked. “Strange name for a class.”

Justin shook his head. “Never mind that. Back in my old world, I didn’t exactly have an...admirable life.” He glanced up, assessing their expressions before he continued. “A NEET is someone who has just...given up. They do nothing and add nothing of value to society. That’s what I did. I just sat in the basement of my mother’s house. Sometimes, I wouldn’t go outside for weeks, or even talk to people.”

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

“What did you do, then?” Lila asked, alarmed. “Surely, you must have gone mad!”

“Well, to say I did nothing was a lie. I spent most of my time playing video games.”

“What are these video games you speak of?” Eldrin asked, somewhat stumbling over the unfamiliar term. “Like dice or cards? How can you play a game alone in a basement?”

“I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like a virtual world, I suppose. I spent all my time there, because the real one seemed to have nothing for me.”

Lila’s eyes softened, a sympathetic smile gracing her face. “Justin, everyone has a past. It doesn’t dictate who you are now.”

He shrugged. “But it feels like it does sometimes. I was...a loser, Lila. I had no friends. I was always made fun of, to where if someone actually was nice to me, I thought it was a trick. I have some stories there, but it would just depress me to tell them.”

Eldrin leaned forward. “And these...video games, as you call them...became something of a refuge for you, given the misery of your life?”

That was a rather blunt way to put it. “Yes, exactly. I could be someone there, someone important, someone who mattered...but when the screen turned off...there was nothing. Just my pudgy, pale face, staring back at me from the black screen. And a silence so deep that it echoed inside my soul.”

Lila reached across the table, her hand finding Justin’s. “That sounds lonely, Justin. A kind of loneliness that shouldn’t exist.”

Justin’s face twisted momentarily, the raw honesty of Lila’s words striking deep. “It was.”

The realization seemed to lift a weight from him. To his surprise, a tear escaped and trailed down his cheek.

Eldrin’s voice took on a nurturing tone, one that seemed to bring warmth and light to the cold corners of Justin’s memories. “You said you lived with your mother. Did she not notice? Help you find another path?”

A bitter laugh escaped Justin. “I think she gave up on me. I could never meet her expectations. Not like Connor.”

“Who was that?” Lila asked.

“My...older brother. He was everything she wanted. Perfect. As long as she had him, she could stand me. And for my part...I loved him, too. He was the only one who seemed to see the real me.” Justin lowered his face. “But...he died in a car accident when I was eighteen.”

“A car accident?”

“A vehicle that moves fast in my world,” Justin explained. “After that...my failures just reminded her of what she lost. Many times, I’ve had the sense that she wished it had been me.”

There was a long, dark silence. Justin couldn’t believe he had said so much. And he couldn’t believe that they had the patience to listen to him.

“It’s not right for me to say all this,” Justin said.

“You’re one of us, Justin,” Eldrin said. “Though we’ve only known each other a few days, we have the bond of adventurers, no matter where our travels take us. When one member of the pack falls behind, it’s for the others to make sure he can keep up.”

“That’s...not something I’ve ever experienced. I guess...I guess I never really had the chance to be anything else. Long story short, I’ve always been different, and maybe my parents didn’t know what to do with that. They didn’t guide me, didn’t show me how to live in the real world. My dad passed away when I was ten. My mom...well, let’s just say the light went out of her life not once, but twice. I don’t blame her for what she was like.”

“Well, no one knows everything,” Eldrin said. “Every one of us is figuring this life thing out. Hells below, you think I have it figured out? I’ve got my own demons. Like Lila, I’m running, too.”

“From what?” Justin asked, curious.

Eldrin shook his head. “It matters not.”

Though he said that, Justin got the sense that it did matter, but he didn’t press the point.

“You’re not alone, Justin,” Lila said. “You have friends here, who see your worth and stand by your side. At least, I see you as my friend, even if it's just been a few days.”

Justin nodded, somewhat shakily. "Thanks. It means a lot."

The conversation continued on into the night; the moon ascending as confessions were laid bare. Even though the specifics of his past life were alien to them, the universal thread of isolation and loss echoed clearly.

Eventually, the weight of the night settled upon them, a gentle reminder that the world still spun, and time had not stopped to mourn the lost years. Eldrin stood up, stretching his muscles, a silent agreement that it was time to retire.

“Let’s break our fast tomorrow,” he said. “With the sun, our spirits will enliven. There is always another day, no?”

They parted ways, and Justin and Lila headed to their room. As they walked, Justin could feel nothing but a distinct lack of belief that this was real, that when he went to bed, he would wake up back to his old life.

It hadn’t happened yet, but perhaps someday, it would.

It had to, right?

Inside the room, the subdued light from a single lantern flickered, painting a canvas of hope and new beginnings, of friendships forged in even the strangest of circumstances. That lantern illumined the bath Lila had ordered, a detail that Justin had completely forgotten. It was still warm, its curling stream inviting.

Given the somber end to the evening, Justin was sure that the mood between them had long been killed. In fact, his pathetic display was almost certain to neuter whatever small amount of attraction Lila had for him.

But she surprised him by touching his arm. “You okay?”

He met her green eyes. He hadn’t so much as had his hand held, and now, to feel the warmth of her touch on his forearm was almost too much to bear.

A wave of bitterness wanted to spill forth. This is what it felt like to be touched? A part of Justin wanted to take all the pain he’d faced in the past, all the rejections, and project it onto her. He hated this ugly impulse, and it took everything inside of him to stop it.

Her gaze didn’t waver, and those eyes softened him. He realized he had to let himself want her. He felt a lump in his throat, and for a moment, he was paralyzed.

But before anything more could be said, there was a bump at the window.

The special moment was quelled as surely as if ice water had been thrown over them. Justin was wondering if he’d imagined the disturbance when another bump, louder, hit the windowpane again.

“What is that?” he asked, trying to mask his irritation.

Lila went over, peering down. “Someone’s down there.”

Justin joined her, peering into the darkness, cursing his bad luck.

With a start, he realized he recognized the person down there.

And from the shocked look on his face, something was terribly wrong.