“So this is the new game Mat was talking about.” As he pulled out his smartphone and swiped through the app store, his gaze settled on an unassuming app. It’s icon was that of a rich golden tree with jade-colored leaves in front of a rose-red backdrop.

“Gaia’s Gate… Matt went on and on about why I should get the game but refused to explain why, let’s see what’s all the fuss is about.” Their were no images of the game, in fact information about the game online was limited, like someone didn’t want news getting out. He hesitated, what if the game was a virus and Matt was just messing with him. After a minute he begrudgingly installed the game, Mat can’t be that fucked up… right?

After a full minute the game finished installing onto his homepage, when he clicked on the icon his screen went pitch black and his heart dropped. “No no no no!”

He was relieved after some dramatic music started playing, my phone’ not broken. “Fuck Matt, almost gave me a heart attack…” As his heart continued to pound against his chest the black screen slowly faded away to show a fiery red colored bird soaring through the sky holding a fist-sized golden seed in it’s talons.

The majestic bird released a piercing cry before it swooped down at a lightning fast pace. The large fish swimming close to the surface of the sea had no chance against the bird. It released the seed to instead latch onto the panicking fish, it’s talons digging deep into the fish before lifting it into the sky and flying off.

“These graphic are pretty good, I even got a little goosebumps when I heard the bird cry…” The view shifted from the bird to a massive golden scaled fish, it swallowed the seed along with tens of other fish and sunk deeper into the sea.

The fish would stop every so often to eat along the way before continuing it’s way deeper into the sea. After a minute or so the golden fish stumbled upon a nest full of shimmering blue eggs and made it’s way towards them.

It started swallowing the eggs whole with a look of pure bliss on it’s face. But from the corner of the screen a blue shadow suddenly cut the fish in half before he could even process what happened. A large azure serpent slithered out of a small cave and put the eggs back into the nest. It’s eyes landed on the golden seed but it just flicked it away deeper into the sea.

Where is this all leading to? As he continued to watch, curious of what’s next the seed slowly touched the bottom of the sea. Nothing happened for a few seconds before it released a blinding light that made him look away.

When he looked back, instead of the seed, thousands upon thousands of wriggling branches moved through the sea. Within a couple seconds the tree had breached the surface of the sea and didn’t stop growing, only slowing down.

The seed turned into the tree from the icon, from it’s jade green leaves to the golden mist that surrounded it. While he kept on watching, the golden mist started to spread throughout the sky and sea. Attracted by the mist, thousands of birds nested within it’s branches while even more fish hid among it’s many, many roots.

What kind of game is this… The view slowly zoomed out from the tree to show a birds eye view of the entire planet.

You could just barely make out the tree from the view. What’s going on now? It didn’t take long for him to figure out, the golden mist slowly spread all through the planet changing it as it went.

From regular sized trees and animals to massive forest of giant trees and monster sized animals living within them. The screen zoomed back to the giant tree where the game title slowly faded in, followed shortly by an even simpler menu. The menu only had two options, tutorial and enter.

“Hmmm, might as well do tutorial.” Tapping on tutorial my screen zoomed out from the planet and even the solar system entirely, it didn’t stop until It showed the entire galaxy.

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“What do I do now?”After that it zoomed onto a small little planet that was completely barren orbiting around a yellow star, nothing happened, not even after waiting a couple minutes.

“Umm… what?” Not knowing what to do he just left his phone on the nightstand and went to take a quick shower. When he came back their was a group of glittering stars on the bottom right of the screen.

Tapping of the stars, they zoomed towards the planet before stopping just above the ground. They turned into a little girl wearing a bright blue dress, she had white hair in a little bun. She looked around curiously before sighing and sitting down on the ground.

“Okay, will the little girl tell me what to do?” Tapping on the girl did nothing, and after another minute of failed attempts he gave up.

“Screw this, i’ll figure it out tomorrow morning.” It was already getting pretty late, even for him.

Hmm, why did it suddenly get so cold. Opening his eyes the first thing that caught his attention were the thousands upon thousands of stars in the sky. It was even more confusing when he couldn’t find any sign of the moon. Getting up from the ground he was laying on he turned around to see a little girl dressed in a light blue dress sitting on the ground.

“Oh! Your finally here!” She stood up from the ground and wiped the dirt off her dress with a slight blush to her face.“Now that you’re here lets get started, we don’t got much time before you wake up,.”

Umm… what? The more he looked at the little girl the more he felt like he was forgetting something. “What are you talking about?”

“Stop playing around, if you’re here then that means someone already told you.” She just looked at me with an annoyed expression and I just back stared blankly.

“Wait, your serious… but then, how are you here?” She turned super pale and started pacing in circles murmuring something.

“Umm… can you tell me what is this place?” It was all very confusing, one moment he was in bed going to sleep and the next, he where ever this place was talking to a strange little girl.

“This is fine, how bad could he be, he has to atleast be able to use mana or else the gate would never work…” His words completely went over her head and she continued to pace in circles.

”Excuse me, little girl?” He tried to get her attention but whether on purpose or not meaning to she was completely ignoring him.

“Y-yeah, i’m sure it can’t be that bad…” She seemed to finally calm down and turned to look at me. “You, what stage are you?”

“What are you talking about?” His answer wasn’t the one she was looking for, she started to hyperventilate before she just completely burst. 

”What kind of practitioner doesn’t know what stages are! For Elune’s sake! To even be able to access one of Gaia’s gates you need to be able to use mana, so how can you not know what stages are!” Her little explosion quickly turned to tearful ranting for reasons he couldn’t understand.

“You!” she pointed to the pointed at everything around us. “Do you even know where you are, you are standing on a planet given to you by Gaia, a planet that you have to oversee! And if you can even complete the tutorial then how am I supposed to get back home!”

None of this is making sense, what gate, what planet, wasn’t this just a game on my phone? What kind of sick dream is this? In the end he just decided to keep quiet.

”Screwed, that’s what I am, i’ll never get to see my family again, it wasn’t supposed to be like this…” Her spiral didn’t look like it would end anytime soon.

”So… why don’t you teach me how to use mana? This way you’ll be able to get back home?” He didn’t want to see the little girl cry, even if this was all a dream.

”Yes… that could work! But… what if it doesn’t, learning to use mana isn’t easy, and once you wake up you won’t be able to use the gate until you can sense mana…” Her growing hope withered away the more she spoke.

Her mood swings are such a pain. He knelt in front of her and shook her by the shoulders.

”Hey! Their’s no harm in trying, why don’t you teach me what I need to know and I’ll do my best.” It was the best he could offer even if her had no clue what he was getting himself into.

”You mean it?” Her eyes glowed like the stars in the sky and he could only sigh and nod his head.

”Then first things first, you have to learn to gather mana nothing a little breathing exercise can't fix!” She shot up so fast she head butted my chin, if felt like I was hit by a large rock and fell down in shock.

”What are you doing, now’s not the time to be sitting around!” She was completely oblivious to that fact that his ”sitting around” was her fault.

Just… ignore it and focus on the breathing exercise, how hard could it possible be. Hard, that what! The little devil made kept on poking him all over and fixing his ”bad posture.”

Don’t think I can’t see that little grin on your face! For the last few hours all she did was insult my posture until she thought it was barely manageable.

”Okay, now remember, every time you do this you have to have good posture or it won’t work, normally you would have to stay like that for a full day and night to engrave it into your memory…” She was enjoying it, she was enjoying every second of it. ”But time’s almost up, clear your mind and focus on feeling your heartbeat.”

”Good, now all you need to do is picture a stream of air entering through your mouth, filtered through your lungs, and deposited into your heart.”

It was a lot harder then she made it sound, it felt like forever until he felt a strange warmth growing in his chest.

”You did it… maybe I won’t be stuck here after all…” He hesitated before deciding not to open his eyes and focus on that warm feeling in his chest.

”Time is almost up, when you feel the pull don’t resist it or you’ll get a massive headache.” She looked relieved, a warm smile replaced her mischievous one from before.

Like she said their was a slight feeling of being pulled, the feeling quickly grew stronger and he gave in. The world around quickly faded away and he saw the image of a large gate made of roots closing. I never got to ask her name… It hadn’t even crossed his mind he was so caught up in the moment.

He felt the familiar comfort of his memory foam mattress and his thin blanket, he was laying down on his bed. Was it all… just a dream…