Will—short for William—never thought he’d hear that name again, nor did he expect to see one of his old friends in this world.

“Are you real? Have I gone mad?” he stammered.

“You’re not mad. It’s just...a really strange way to meet, isn’t it?” Nui reassured him with a gentle smile.

Will’s mind felt frozen. Even with Nui’s calm response, the situation seemed utterly unreal. First, he’d acquired a gun, and now he was face-to-face with an old friend. And none of this even touched the fact that two years ago, he had died and somehow ended up here as Liu Xing.

“What are you doing here? Are you dead, too?”

Nui had been one of Will’s closest friends in high school. During their last year, Nui vanished without a trace. Some believed he’d died, but Will and a few others suspected there was more to it. Joni, another friend, thought Nui’s disappearance might be connected to his grandfather’s sudden death.

“I’d like to know the answer to that, too. But I don’t really know,” Nui said, his voice strangely calm. “You see, Will, this isn’t really me. Just...a fragment of myself.”

“What do you mean?” Will asked, frowning.

“Let me show you a few things.”

Suddenly, the darkness surrounding them faded away. They were now suspended in the air. The sky above was a swirling mass of red and black—colors Will first mistook for clouds until he realized they were countless snakes, slithering through the air. Among them moved a colossal snake, its scales so vast they could have housed entire cities. The creature’s red eyes locked onto his, and Will’s breath caught. An overpowering aura radiated from it, raising every hair on his body.

Nui gestured for him to look down.

On a cliff stood a man with silver hair, stone-grey eyes, and a black scar on the stump of his severed right hand.

At first, Will felt awe at the man’s courage, facing that giant snake amidst the swarm of others. But then a deep sense of familiarity washed over him.

“That’s Mamat,” Nui said.

Will blinked, stunned.

Mamat, Joni, Nui, and he had been close friends in high school, each from a different background, meeting at an international school in Indonesia. Will, a foreigner; Joni, the rich kid with a love for Japanese culture; Mamat, a kind and hard-working scholarship student; and Nui, the mysterious one. But something wasn’t right. The man on the cliff didn’t look like Mamat. Then it hit him: Mamat was dead. Will had been to his funeral. Yet, here in this strange vision, Mamat was alive and facing a monstrous snake.

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Could it be that Mamat, too, had been transmigrated to another world?

The scene changed, and they found themselves in a stark white room. In the center stood a purple-skinned creature with six arms and chubby, child-like features. A woman in a lab coat was examining it with a scalpel, her eyes fixed on its torso.

Next to her, a man with black hair and a stubbly beard watched in silence. He seemed unfazed, but Will knew that face anywhere. It was Joni. When Mamat had died, Joni had been devastated, even swearing revenge on the driver who’d killed him. Now he seemed older, hardened—but unmistakably Joni.

The scene shifted again, and now they were deep underwater. A man with long black hair was locked in combat with a massive blue Chinese dragon. Each of his punches sent shockwaves through the water, and with every breath the dragon took, the sea bubbled like it was boiling.

The scene dissolved, and they were back in pitch-black darkness, like floating in a void.

“What the hell?” Will murmured, feeling more confused than ever.

Mamat was alive in another world, Joni was watching a creature being dissected, and that man under the sea—that was Nui. What was happening?

Nui stood before him, his face serious.

“William—no, Liu Xing,” he said softly, “I know you have a lot of questions, but I don’t have many answers. I’m just a fragment, a piece of the real Nui’s soul sent to you. I’m here to give you a message, not to answer everything.”

Liu Xing’s confusion grew, but he focused on Nui’s words, feeling that whatever his friend said next would be crucial.

“A darkness is spreading across every world,” Nui said. “The place you’re in right now—it’s crucial. If darkness wins here, it will spread a thousandfold across other worlds.”

Liu Xing’s mind raced. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know,” Nui replied with a slight smile, the kind he’d wear when they were trying to finish an assignment but Nui had other matters to attend to, as if he were off fighting battles no one else knew about.

“What about the gun?” Liu Xing blurted out before he could stop himself.

“It’s a gift.” Nui raised his hands, and a sleek black handgun appeared between them, its surface cloaked in dark flames.

Before he could think of anything else, the darkness around them was draining away like water through a sieve. The white void returned, and an overwhelming realization struck him—Nui, his friend, his last connection to his old life, would be gone any second.

“Wait! Wait!” he shouted.

Nui smiled, then turned and began walking away. Liu Xing tried to follow, but his body felt weighted down, immovable.

“Why me? Why did I transmigrate to this world?” Liu Xing called out, desperation lacing his voice.

Nui stopped, looking back at him. “That’s something I wonder about every day. Why us? Why not anyone else?”

Before Liu Xing could say more, he jolted awake, back in the damp, dark cave. He looked around frantically, hoping to find Nui, but his friend was gone.

After two years in this world, Liu Xing felt as if it were his very first day. The crushing loneliness, the raw reminder of his lost life, and the friends he’d left behind weighed on him heavily. His heart ached, and his hands trembled, as the reality of his isolation settled over him once more.