“Welcome.” Said a glowing white figure; like a mannequin. No privates, no face, no hair.
“Why are you here, ****.” Callan shook his head and blinked at awkward pauses. He closed his eyes and looked up.
“Don’t call me that, call me… hmm… Asterisk.”
“What? Why?” Callan released a slow and calming air through his mouth and opened his eyes. Everything was black. You couldn’t even discern the floor, walls, or the sky. Even with the glowing person beside him, not a single thing reflects its light. He looked down on his body and he was in the attire he wore before he was transported into the white void.
“It just sounds… unpleasant. You know what I mean?”
“Ughh… you just want to sound mysterious.” Callan stretched his arms up in the air.
“Hahaha, well sta-”
“Yeah. Yeah.” Callan interrupted Asterisk and stood up.
“Well then, how about, we take a seat.” Asterisk waved his left arm. Synchronized with his hand, a circular wooden table appeared. Soon, a glass pot appeared, sprouting stems till white roses bloomed at the end.
“Fancy, though, I’m not here to date. I’m here to wonder what I’m here for.” Callan asked.
“Hmph.” Asterisk walked to the back of the table and sat. A brown wooden chair magically appeared out of nowhere, catching his fall. “Why don’t you take a seat first.”
Callan walked straight and stood at the opposite side of Asterisk. He reached his hand out in the air and grabbed onto something, then a chair magically formed from his hand. He pulled the wooden chair back and sat.
“So what am I here for? I’m dead.”
“I don’t know… what are… you here for…?” Asterisk caressed a piece of white rose. Staring as he sways his head.
“Stop joking with me, **- Asterisk.”
Asterisk plucked the white rose, sniffed it slowly, and threw it into the air.
“I was wondering why you were a glowing mannequin.”
Starting from the bottom, his feet turned into really pointy black shoes, moving up to a long piece of black slacks. Halfway through the tighs appeared the tails of a black Victorian tail suit, hiding a tight black coat all above a white polo with long sleeves.
“Really? A butler suit?”
“It’s our favorite.” Asterisk smiled with the face of a beautiful man that only existed in the realm of imagination.
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” Callan couldn’t help but smile, but he stopped and asked again. “So what am I doing here again? Is this the afterlife? Cause it doesn’t look pleasant.”
“Hahaha! You’re not dead.”
“Yes, I am.”
“You’re asleep.”
“I’m dead.”
“Why are you so in denial?” Asterisk pushed his chair back and stood up. “You’re in another world!” Each step he took felt like tapping wood. “Where you have the capabilities humans could only ever dream of!” Asterisk placed his right hand on his chest, smiled, and looked up in the sky with his eyes closed. “Wasn’t that your dream?” Pink petals started to fall down around him.
“That wasn’t my dream.”
“Then what is your dream? There’s so many I always get confused, you know.”
“My dream was centered around being the greatest author in the entire world.”
“Well, that’s stupid. You were still on that thing? It’s been six years Callan.”
“Six years my ass.”
“Just because you restart every other month doesn’t mean you just began. You’re untalented, you know that. Just stop it.”
Callan gritted his teeth and breathed heavily. “Fuck you. Whatever, I’m fucking dead anyway, why would I care.” Callan laid his head down on the table with his hands flailing down to his sides. Then the table disappeared and his head fell, and his body followed. Before he hit the ground, he was standing straight still, facing Asterisk. “The fuck! You almost gave me a heart attack!”
“Why were you so scared… if you are still alive?” Asterisk tilted his head to the left.
“Cause I am de-” Asterisk jumped and flew through Callan, interrupting his words and releasing a cold energy down in his stomach. Callan shook uncontrollably, his limbs felt so stiff they could break like glass. “Fuck! Stop doing this shit!”
“You are sleeping.”
“I am dead!” Callan yelled in anger and turned around to a completely white sky. “What.” He could feel the cold and uneven floors that were so sharp it could kill you while asleep. “I… I’m… alive…” Callan turned to his left and saw Mirai.
[Welcome]
“You’re alive… I…” A smile started to form on Callan’s face. He moved his hands up and placed them all above him. “So I was in hell.”
“Ah fuck it.” Said Asterisk. Everything once again turned black and Mirai morphed into the man in suit.
“Told you.”
“You’re asleep you bitch. I can’t wake you up. Just wait.”
“Just give it up. Why are you even here?”
“Because you need me.”
Callan scoffed. “Need you? What for? Oh wait, I am in hell. Cause my best friend who couldn’t do anything is here with me.”
“What? I am your imaginary best friend, I’m sorry that I can’t come to life to help you. Is that my fault? You know, for the four years I haven’t seen you, you’ve turned into a real bitch!” Asterisk turned around and sat on a brown sofa.
“Well, then how can you be here? If I am asleep and this is some dream, how can you be here? How can you control everything?” Callan flew to Asterisk’s face and stared.
“Because I am you.”
“I know that. You were made as my dream self. But that’s not what I’m pointing out. If you can do all of this! Why just now?! Where were you for every time I needed help!”
“Why are you tearing up? It’s not that serious.”
“Why are you here!” Callan released a sonic wave, blasting Asterisk’s sofa into the sky, while the man in a suit stayed in a sitting position.
“Because you need me.”
“I’m crying, I don’t need someone to make me cry right now. Do you know how much strength I’m using just to not cry that I’m dead?”
“You’re asleep.”
“I died! My head was ripped out!”
“Mirai can just heal you back up.”
“Are you stupid! You’re me! I know you understand it!”
“What? That just because you died, she can’t heal you back up?”
“Yes!”
“But you killed the kobold you know. You did it.”
“I didn’t.”
Asterisk just smiled. Another chair appeared below him and Callan was forced to move away and sat down on a similar chair.
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“I did. But, that… I’m still dead.”
“Do you really think that you can just simply be healed?” Asterisk quoted the “Healed”.
“What are trying to imply? That as long as I beat a floor, I can be revived?”
“Yes. I know you're smart, you’re just untalented at writing, you should have been an engineer.”
“Shut the fuck up.”
“Hahahaha!”
“Then why am I here? Why are you here?”
“You wanna know the real answer?”
“Yes!”
“Well………” Asterisk’s head slowly fell to the ground. “‘Cause you need me.”
“Fucking tell me the real answer right now ****!”
“Why are you so mad. Chill.”
“Say it!”
“Fine, fine.” He stood back up straight and said. “None.”
“What? Then what am I doing here?”
“Waiting.”
“Waiting for what!”
“To wake up.”
“If I am actually alive, then why do I have to be here and not just wake up? So I am dead!”
“Ughh… we’re back to this shit. You’re asleep. Sleep. You’re just here cause… I don’t know. Just cause. Just wait till you wake up that’s all.”
“The fuck.”
“You’re alive, can’t you make some way to think that you are.” Asterisk sat back again in his chair. He waved his hand. Floating hands appeared beside Callan’s head and massaged it.
“Fine. I am alive. Now that I think about it, I am.”
“Good. Good. Finally.”
“I mean, what type of story kills their main character so early in the story.”
“What? Main character syndrome? The fuck, you still have that? This wasn’t what I asked for.”
“I don’t have main character syndrome, I am the protagonist of some story, I don’t know what it is, but I am.”
Asterisk’s eyes enlarged. He quickly looked down to his left, then up, then back again, and again, repeatedly mocking Callan.
“I am! I’m the one hundred thousandth client of Mirai. If I die, she dies. If that is not a protagonist story I don’t know what is!”
“Uhuh.”
“Arghhhh!!” Callan wanted to yell more but he held it in and tightened his fist as much as he could. “Just… please. Just tell me why I am here.”
“I already told you.”
“Told me what?!”
“Nothing! You are here for absolutely nothing!”
Callan stared at Asterisk. His eyes glowed with gold, after staring for a few seconds, Callan laid back on his chair. “Then… that’s just bad writing.”
“Bad writing? What do you mean?”
“A plot point that means nothing? That’s bullshit. Also, this is a solo infinite tower run, of course, they will capture every single thing that happens in my pov, so it really is just bad writing.” Callan waved his hands randomly.
“Callan, wake up. You’re not in a fucking novel.”
“I am,” Callan said calmly.
“Okay, okay, fine, if you are in some story. Then, so what? That doesn’t change anything.”
“It does, this is just a bad chapter that has no relevance to the main plot.”
A table appeared in front of Asterisk and he placed his elbow on top of it. He wiped his face up to his hair and sighed. “Wha- What?”
“I mean, this would just make people not read the chapter. It will… well, be pointless and useless and they will probably drop the series altogether.”
“Callan. Ah- I don’t know what you are on, but that’s. So what?”
“What do you mean so what? The series will lose readers?”
“Okay, I’m going along with you so much already, so I will continue. What the fuck does the hypothetical outer world where your life is. I repeat. Your life(!) is just a fictional story that has nothing to do with you right now!”
“W-”
“No! I’m not finished!” Callan’s mouth was sewed shut. Literally. “Callan. I do not know where this reasoning is coming from. But whatever 4-dimensional world you are talking about has nothing to do with you. To be honest, I don’t know why you’re here. I don’t know why I’m here either. But I won’t lie that you need me. Cause I did not know you got this bad. I sometimes watched you write and I thought that was normal, what happened here? Your obsessions with novels again? Feeling sympathy for this author who is supposedly writing you? If you are in a novel and you said this was a shit concept, then why am I talking to you!”
The stitches on Callan’s mouth slowly slipped off to the floor. “I… don’t know…”
“Callan. Relax. I know you're just trying to run away from reality by thinking of this stupid shit. But just because you are in a really… interesting… situation. Let’s say. Well… that doesn’t mean you are the protagonist of some story. It just means you got lucky.”
The table in front of Asterisk stretched out till it reached Callan. “But. But. It’s. It’s bad plotting. The man will not get any readers.”
“Fuck the man. Whoever you are talking to. Fuck him. Why do you care? That’s his life. Not yours.”
“But.” Callan looked down and shoved his face into his hands.
Asterisk took a deep breath in with his eyes closed. Then he sighed. “Stop being so obsessed with your writing. This is why you’re gir-”
“Okay fine, we’re done ****!” Callan interrupted Asterisk. “Don’t you dare bring her up to this. She has nothing to do with this.”
“And so does your novel. Callan. You’re eighteen already. Stop being so immature. You can’t run away from reality anymore, because that reality is constantly trying to kill you. Just be happy you’re alive.”
“But… what am I supposed to do? ****? What the fuck am I gonna do! I keep dying! What the fuck is the point of me living!” Callan broke the table and fell to the ground.
Asterisk stared at the hopeless man. It was a stupid argument. Fighting for an imaginary novel to this escaping reality. What was this conversation, made by a kid? “Callan stand up.”
“Why should I? I’m alive? So what? I fainted from blood loss on the first floor. Then I lost my bottom half on the second floor. Lastly, just on the third floor, I lost my head. The fourth? I’ll probably just evaporate into thin air or burn to death.”
“And? Callan. You are not in the modern world anymore. If before you could run away from your problems by not addressing them and forgetting about them. This time, it is actually life and death. You are not a kid who just jokes that you wanna die cause of having too many assignments. You will actually die if you don’t do something.”
“Ahhhhh!!!!” Callan yelled.
“And… that is the actual Callan that I know.” Asterisk smiled. “Stand up. I’ll really tell you know why you’re here.”
“Wait? So I actually have a reason to be here?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what the fuck was everything that we talked about?”
“Random bullshit that we could have skipped anytime.”
“Then why did we not skip it!!!! Why the fuck!”
“Well, cause I wanted to talk to you, yell at you, and educate you.”
“So this entire thing was pointless?”
“Exactly.”
“What?”
“Well, unless if you think of it as a story, the characters got to know you more as the most obnoxious human being alive. Well, for a protagonist… that’s not a good personality. But… I did say, why should we care.”
“Fuck you.”
“I know you want to. But, stand up please.”
Callan stared at the asterisk by twisting his head upward from the floor. “Really? Really man?”
Asterisk chuckled. “Just stand up.”
“Fine, what is the reason I am here?”
“Simple. To train.” Multiple dark green lines ran across the floor. Forming patterned squares as far as the eye could see.
“Training? If you can exercise and gain the muscles in your head, everyone will be buffed.” The floors turned gray and gained the texture of a chiseled stone floor.
“I never meant physical training.” Multiple columns elevated ground with glass cubes started to form.
“Oh God. Is this it? I’ve only thought of it.”
“Yep. Welcome… to my… dungeon, Ca…” Multiple screams of agony blocked Asterisk’s words.