John awakened to a cold, concrete room, with no memory of how he got there, nor much of what occurred before. Approached with floating screens, and a new body, the world formed itself around him, leaving only a path forward.  After fighting through an unforgivable scenario, he awakens years later in the 2nd layer, a dense, non-euclidian collection of offices, hotels, and common rooms, surrounded by an unending void. Eager to find others, he discovers that he's not alone... all of humanity has experienced the same thing, and many have lived in this hell for years, looking for answers. John must navigate this strange new world, dodging terrifying monsters, gaining power, and learning the boundaries of this insane reality. Note: This story does NOT use ai in any way, but the cover is a temporary AI cover, made by Gemini AI Image Generation, which serves as a placeholder and inspiration for when I eventually spend the time to make one myself. Once again, there is NO ai use in editing, brainstorming, proof-reading, or writing. The entire creative process is mine and mine alone. The cover art is not subject to copyright. 2nd Note: Hey hi, I just wanted to talk about the LITRPG aspect of this story. I generally dislike a heavy emphasis on LITRPG, because I think later in the story it can become a number-hungry, scattered story with tens of abilities, which I think doesn't give a good reading experience. While I value the progression fantasy, I prefer not going along with typical forms of LITRPG, and instead using the stats and titles as more of a guideline for the strength characters earn. Therefore, there are no levels, no stat gain quests or anything similar to that. Stats increase as the character physically becomes stronger, not artificially. Items don't give arbitrary stats or attack power that means essentially nothing (like attack from solo leveling - love that story btw, literally one of my favorite stories ever). So yea, the power system is less of giving people power, and more of guiding people through their progression. Plus, it leaves more room for the traits system to take place, which [redacted]. So yea, hope you enjoy this, but you won't see "level up" anywhere throughout this story. Thanks for reading! <3