As a gamer for over 15 years of my short and uneventful life, I must admit that I had high expectations of THE end. Be it myself dying heroically while saving someone else - preferable a rather beautiful young woman - and then being transported into another world, or at least be given a restart of when I was about 5-6 years old with my current memories, make the most of them, while building an empire that would dominate the world. Not that much to ask for, is it!?

Or - if the world gets to end before I meet mine - at least make it a zombie apocalypse. Actually no, scratch that! That would be slightly too gory for my untrained mind... Maybe a deity invades Earth and through a game he finds entertaining, gives all humans special powers that they must use to vanquish monsters that spawn from dungeons? Bit of a cliche, I know, but what would you expect from a game addict!?

Living your life for 26 years now and doing pretty much everything a person would dream to do, can make things rather... dull. Starting from enjoying the pleasures offered in the bed - probably in an exaggerated amount - only to be disgusted by it only 4 years later because of overindulging, then turning to movies and series to pass the time, but get bored of them quickly. Fortunately, I found solace in books and novels. But what started as a way to kill boredom, quickly transformed into an obsession. A properly trained and experienced psychiatrist would argue that I was using fiction to displace the reality and throughly run away from it... and I, couldn't agree more!  

But when IT actually happened, life had its ways to surprise the shit out of us... The end of the world was brought by an encroaching darkness that devoured the light of the Sun and covered the Earth, leaving humanity helpessly trying to fend it off using the light of the electricity it invented, which quite fast has proven itself to be utterly inefficient. It was almost as if the darkness was devouring the light itself, which in turn was obviously unable to hold its counterpart at bay.  

What followed after... was anarchy. True, it only lasted up to 4-5 hours, but when people from across the globe realized that the outside sky was dark, even though it was supposed to be the middle of the day, the government lies according to which this was the result of an ongoing solar eclipse were shattered. Panic and public outrage soon followed on an international scale that nothing in our history even came close to. Looting, murdering and all sort of vile acts were performed worldwide as humans let loose and gave in to their primal urges, under the impression that the world was going to end anyway. 

All of this happened during the course of less than one natural day and it ended quite suddenly at that, with the entire human population falling asleep. When people were reported to fall into a coma-like sleep sessions while still working/doing something, the panic further intensified like a pandemic, fully activating the fear of death into everyone, as there wasn't anyone that wasn't affected by this sleepy dissease.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

In my case? I took a shower, ate some takeout food and waited for sleep to embrace me as if a past lover would, even if it was the middle of the day... well, according to my clock at least. The surprising thing was that there were no dreams whatsoever. 

For a person with a trained imagination, it's downright impossible not to dream anything, given how active your brain is. Also, being aware of your own existence inside this dreamless dream, made the experience... uncanny.

I have no clue how long the dream lasted, but sometime during it I felt a pressure on myself, my real self which fell asleep on a chair. It was like when riding shotgun and your stupid friend floors it without warning while forcing your entire body into the seat. It only lasted less than a second and then following it... a feeling of euphoria took over and I blacked out.

Waking up was also a new kind of experience. Or maybe it wasn't and I just forgot how it feels to wake up and not be tired, annoyed or any other way than... absolutely well rested.

[Well... what now? There seems to be light outside again] - I muttered while peeking outside the window

Raising to my feet and walking towards the balcony, I caught sight of something that sent chills down my spine, while at the same time brought a feeling of excitement budding in the pit of my stomach. The hairs on my arms were already standing at the sight of a huge bluish object, bloating more than half of the outside of the sky, making it obvious that it wasn't the moon... it might as well have been a different planet, several times bigger than our own.

I gulped audibly and took several slow steps forward, until I found myself facing a different portion of the sky. Whipping my head to the right, barely able to leave behind the huge blue giant, another object caught my eye.

[Isn't that our own moon!? What the...]

Confusion... was an understatement. That was until I looked up and saw... uhm... actual words written between the clouds. They were similar to words written in a Word document, using bold and Italic settings.

I couldn't help but dumbly smirk while shaking my head. 

[I guess it's true what they say: be careful of what you wish for, or it might actually come true...]

The words that were blinking in and out of existence, in my mind at least, appeared to be yelling the intended message.

'Welcome Earthlings to the game of Origin! You have been awarded six months (human standard) of protection before the merger of servers will commence... Tutorials shall now become available! Your new God will watch your development with interest, therefore do your best to impress!'

I took a deep breath and re-read the words a couple more times until I realized that they were actually there and I wasn't sleep walking. My excitement died down upon reading the last sentence, while also realizing that we might be slightly fucked...