Everything had gone black. When Arin finally stirred, he found himself lying in his own bed, drenched in sweat. His head throbbed with a dull, persistent ache, and he felt disoriented, as if he had woken from a deep, hazy dream. Except... he couldn’t remember the dream. There was something just out of reach in his mind, something important. But it slipped away every time he tried to grasp it.

He glanced at the time—it was 7:00 p.m. The dim evening light crept through the blinds of his window. His room felt strangely quiet, as if the world outside had paused while he slept. Still groggy, he swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, steadying himself as the dizziness faded. Something wasn’t right, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

Moving mechanically, he wandered into the kitchen and brewed a cup of coffee. The smell was familiar, comforting, grounding him in the mundane. Sitting on the couch, he switched on the holo-TV. Scenes of chaos flashed across the screen—a news broadcast about an attack on a research lab in China. The world seemed to be falling apart, but Arin barely registered it. He was lost in thought, feeling the weight of something pressing down on him. A tension he couldn’t explain.

His phone rang, jolting him from his trance. It was his father.

"I won’t be able to make it, son," his father’s voice was distant, hollow. "I’ve got an emergency trip to China. You’ll have to handle the college registration on your own."

Arin stared blankly at the screen as his father spoke. It didn’t matter. It never did. "Sure," he muttered. His father’s empty promises and constant absence were nothing new. The call ended as abruptly as it had started, leaving Arin in the familiar silence of his home.

Flipping through the holo-channels, Arin stopped at a show featuring a family of scientists. They were talking about their discoveries, their love for each other, their strong bond. The narrator’s voice dripped with praise for the parents’ involvement in their children's lives. Arin scoffed bitterly.

"My father’s a scientist too," he said under his breath. "Too busy saving the world to even look at me."

The show continued, showing happy family moments—dinners, laughter, bonding. Arin felt a tightness in his chest, a slow ache. Why couldn’t his family be like that? The years of waiting, hoping his father would come home, had left him with nothing but resentment. His mother, too, was no better. Always focused on her public image, on her grand speeches about saving the environment, while their family quietly unraveled behind the scenes.

The holo-screen flashed off, leaving the room in muted silence. Arin stared into space, wondering if things would ever change. His phone buzzed again—a message from his class group. The assignment topic was "Why was AI development banned in 2028?" Arin sighed. He knew the answer well enough. The rise of AI had become a threat, one that humanity couldn’t control, and so 70% of AI development had been halted due to its dangerous potential.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Still, he couldn’t focus on the assignment. His mind was elsewhere—drifting between the hollowness he felt from his family and the nagging sense that he was forgetting something important. He opened his chat app, scrolling to messages sent to his best friends. They hadn’t replied. Smith, his once closest friend, had moved away for his studies, and they barely spoke anymore. Ashley... she had just stopped talking to him. He had seen her active on social media, hanging out with others. She hadn’t even told him why she had cut him off.

The loneliness pressed down on him. His family was distant. His friends were drifting away. He felt utterly alone.

In a desperate attempt to clear his head, Arin grabbed his jacket and stepped outside. The city air was cold and artificial, the sky a dull gray from pollution and environmental damage. The streets were empty, save for a few autonomous vehicles and scattered pedestrians, all glued to their devices. Even in a city of millions, it felt like a ghost town to Arin.

As he walked, his gaze landed on one of the massive holographic displays on a nearby skyscraper. His mother’s face appeared, larger than life, giving one of her passionate speeches about environmental collapse.

“Today, we face the consequences of centuries of negligence,” she declared, her voice echoing through the city. “Seventy percent of Earth’s animal species are gone—extinct, due to our failure to act. And while technology has allowed us to survive, we are losing the soul of our world. We cannot ignore the cost any longer.”

Arin clenched his fists. It was always the same. Speeches, grand ideas, and nothing real. She was so focused on saving the planet that she had forgotten about the people closest to her. Forgotten about him.

As he turned away from the screen, he felt a strange sensation wash over him. His mind felt clearer, sharper. His body... stronger, almost unnaturally so. But the feeling passed just as quickly as it came, leaving him unsettled. Something was changing, but he didn’t know what.

In an attempt to distract himself, he headed toward a gaming parlor he had never been to before. The place was packed with people, some dressed in cosplay, and it was then that a memory hit him. A flash of another world. Of Kevin. Of the Whispering Woods. But it was fleeting, like trying to hold water in his hands. He shook his head, trying to focus. It felt like a dream—vivid yet distant. Real, but impossible.

As Arin played through the games, the memories kept bubbling up, each time clearer, but still feeling like fragments of a dream. It wasn’t until he left the parlor that the realization truly hit him. He hadn’t dreamed it. He had lived it.

Back home, he collapsed on his bed, overwhelmed. His head was spinning. The weight of both worlds—this one and the other—crashed into him all at once. Desperate for clarity, he opened his status window. To his shock, it appeared even here, in this world. The text on the screen glowed unnaturally bright: "System update complete."

Before he could process what that meant, light poured from the window, flooding the room with a blinding intensity. Everything went black again.