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When I woke up this morning finding myself still in that strange sort of fever dream that we call Terra Mythica—a reality on the other edges of the universe—I felt the familiar disorientation. It's the kind of disorientation that cuts right to the bone, reminding me, as always, that the place I now call home isn't really home at all—it's just the least hostile of two horrors. No one expects to wake up in a place like this, a sprawling realm on the edge of the universe, where gods are real and death is... relative. And this place? This place was never supposed to be permanent. But here we are, living it.
My name is Jace. Well, Jason, by my Earth ID. The gods of Terra Mythica know me as Grayson, Lost Prince of Roandia, Son of the Dark One—how’s that for a surname? But here, in this game-turned-reality, I go by Jace. Turns out that when I was a baby, me and my twin brother Alexander were spirited away from this place—this magical world of death, magic, and gods. The gods of the West and the gods of the East, each forming a strange balance in a topsy-turvy war of survival. No one expected any of this.
A lifetime ago, I lived in the United Corporate Territories of America, a glorified dystopia stitched together with barcodes and bankrupt dreams. There, survival was the only art left to master. Creativity was a relic, buried under the rubble of the Techno Purge, when every trace of advanced technology—every one and zero—was annihilated to prevent malicious AI from devouring what remained of humanity. No new forms of entertainment had been created since the 80s and 90s. Everything after that was destroyed in the techno purge. We scraped by on vinyl records and pre-millennium tech. Back home, we had to fight for survival every day. And then John Reardon came along.
Reardon, Earth’s first mega trillionaire tycoon, didn’t just rewrite the rules of technology—he tore them to shreds and built something no one understood. His brainchild, Excelsior Tech and the Device, wasn’t just tech. It was magic, though we didn’t know that then. His promise? A digital utopia. A game-world escape for hundreds of millions.
The truth? He severed our minds, tore our souls from our bodies, and hurled us into this place, this Terra Mythica. So, here we are, transported—a society on the verge of collapse shunted off to this magical world. For what purpose, what sacrifice, we may never know.
Back home, hunger, disease, and the radiation Sands were constant companions. We were scavengers, picking through the bones of a decaying world. Here, famine and plague are myths—commodities, even. There was a degree of hope here. But the cost? Something deeper. Something elemental. We’ve traded one hell for another. At least this one sparkles.
What’s crazy is that technically, I’m a Citizen—well, kind of. Born here, so it counts. But my parents? Straight-up Earthborn, which also makes me a Traveler. Travelers—people like me, brought here by the Device—always end up a little… off. Different. Something about stepping through that thing changes you, like the universe just can’t decide where you really belong.
We have the luxury of respawns, and with it, the madness it brings. Every death chips away at us, carves out pieces of our mind, our soul. Some lose memories. Others lose sanity. I’ve watched friends forget their own names, seen them turn into husks of themselves, animated by nothing but instinct. Immortality is a cruel joke when it comes with madness as the punchline.
The first time I died, I thought I’d be fine. And I was—or so I told myself. Barely noticed it. I’ve been lucky; it only happened once. Most of us do our damnedest to avoid it. But the stories, man… the stories stick with you.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
We were taught that the respawn system would keep us safe, that death wasn’t permanent here. They promised we’d come back the same. But no one warned us about the pain—like having your soul ripped apart, shattered into pieces, then shoved back together with bits missing.
One of my friends, Dex—he told me how he woke up after his first death, a chill sitting heavy in his bones, like something essential had been stripped away. At first, he didn’t even notice what was gone. Weeks later, it hit him.
He’d forgotten the name of his first pet. Then the name of his first kiss.
And the worst part? He hadn’t realized it until he tried to remember weeks later.
That’s how it starts—the slow erosion of who you are. Every death leaves a scar, a hole you didn’t have before. And after enough of them, the scars are all that’s left.
I think about my brother, Alexander, a lot these days. We were twins once—still are technically. But he's changed. So much older than me now. I miss him. We had… have the kind of bond you only get when you’ve been forged in fire, clawing through hell together. He was the dreamer, always looking past the grime and rot to see the possibility of something better. Me? I was the one keeping us alive—scrounging food, finding shelter, keeping the nightmares at bay.
I wish it had been him who made it to Terra Mythica. He would’ve been better for this place, maybe even thrived here. But I took his spot. His ticket. I didn’t mean for him to get hurt, didn’t mean for him to end up in a coma, hooked to machines back on Earth while I walked through that portal. But intent doesn’t matter. Actions do.
The irony? He got dragged here anyway. His consciousness, or whatever twisted fragment of it survived, caught in that glitchy nightmare we call the In Between. Not dead, not alive, just... stuck. The last time I saw him, he wasn’t Alex anymore. Not really. His eyes had this strange look, like he’d stared into something vast and terrible—and won.
And then there was the power—raw, terrifying, and unnatural. It clung to him like static, crackling just beneath the surface. He had a strength, in ways I didn’t understand, but it was trapped with him, locked in the In Between like a tiger in a cage.
And I knew, deep down, that his prison was all my fault.
Seeing him there was like staring at a ghost stitched together wrong.
And what he said… it didn’t always track. He rambled about the "threads," how he could see them, how they were tangled, breaking. I didn’t get it at the time. Hell, I barely get it now. But I think he was talking about the connection between worlds. The Convergence. The fragile ties holding our reality together, slowly unraveling like an old sweater.
He told me I had to be ready. That I had to stop it. Then he was gone—kicked me out of that twisted purgatory like a bouncer tossing a drunk. The look in his eyes before he vanished? That’s the part that haunts me. Fear, sharp and cutting. Anger, boiling just beneath the surface. And sorrow.
Yeah, that’s all on me.
Now we’re gearing up for what the big shots are calling the Great Convergence. My father, the Dark One—yep, that guy, the Eternal End’s avatar—is convinced this whole world is nothing but code. A beta test gone haywire. And you know what? It tracks, seeing as he was one of the original testers. His solution? Oh, nothing major—just blow it all to hell. Torch the whole thing like a bug-ridden hard drive.
He says it’s the only way to save my mother. She’s lost somewhere in this realm, a ghost in the machine, a glitch among glitches. And here’s the kicker—he’s not entirely wrong.
The problem is, saving her might mean destroying everything else. Everyone else. And I keep asking myself the same damn question: if it comes down to it, will I make the same mistake twice?