A boy felt the uncomfortable coldness of the floor beneath him.
There was also a dull ache in his cheek.
He slowly opened his eyes, blinking against the sheer brightness around him. The surface beneath him was smooth, hard, almost too perfect like polished stone or ceramic. He sat up, groaning slightly, scratching his messy black hair and trying to process his surroundings.
"…Wha…?" he muttered, dazed.
The space was bright—far too bright for his liking. The kind of sterile, luminous white that didn't seem to come from a light source, but from everything at once. Ceilingless. Wall-less. Boundless.
"What the—" he whispered. "Why the hell is the light so—"
Then it hit him.
This wasn't his room.
The kinetic-adjusting bed? Gone. His holo-desk? Missing. His torn posters of Dragonforce and Trivium, once flickering on a dynamic wall display, erased. Even the annoyingly persistent AI assistant hologram was nowhere to be found.
"Claire?" he called out. No answer.
He stood up, wobbling slightly. "Okay, if this is one of your psycho-illusion sim pranks again, I swear I'll override your CloudBank wallet and buy fifty crypto sloths."
Nothing. The silence was oppressive.
He stepped forward—and froze.
There were no walls.
No furniture. No shadows. No source of the light—yet everything was lit. It wasn't just empty; it was utterly devoid. A seamless white expanse that stretched endlessly in every direction, with no visual break, no texture, no anchor point to reality.
And yet, somehow, it felt full. Like the void was watching him. Listening. Waiting.
"Where the hell is this?" he muttered. "No—scratch that. Where the heaven is this?"
He clutched his head, taking deep breaths.
Think. Think. THINK.
Panic crawled up his throat, icy and tight.
"Okay. Okay. Calm down," he told himself. "Maybe… maybe this is a lucid dream. Yeah. Or a coma. Or—oh no. Did I…?"
He looked down at his chest. No blood. No holes.
"…Am I dead?"
Silence.
"…I'm dead," he said, voice hollow.
Then:
"I'm dead… I actually died before my entrance interview with the Lunar Academy. That's it. Life's a bugged simulation."
He threw his arms in the air.
"NO MORE PRESS JUNKETS! NO MORE DNA SCANS! I DON'T HAVE TO BE A PRODIGY ANYMORE! SUCK IT, LEGACY EXPECTATIONS!!"
He leapt into the air in triumph—
—and froze.
Literally.
Suspended midair like a glitching NPC, arms bent, legs kicked up like a meme gone wrong.
A moment passed.
"…Huh?"
Time had stopped. Or rather, he had stopped.
A bead of sweat hung frozen on his cheek.
"What the hell is going on—"
But even as he cursed, the world around him began to change.
It started subtly—a whisper in the stillness. A low hum, like the vibration of a tuning fork. Then a soft breeze stirred around him, brushing against his skin, cool and gentle. It carried the faint scent of earth.
The endless white beneath his feet shimmered like melting ice, slowly bleeding into color. Patches of brown appeared first—dry, cracked soil that spread outward like veins. Then came green. Blades of grass sprouted one by one, their growth unnaturally fast, stretching and swaying as if waking from a long slumber.
Caelan—Kael, to his friends—remained frozen in place, mid-jump, arms awkwardly clenched, a grin stretched across his face like a lunatic. But his wide eyes watched the transformation with rising awe.
A distant rumble echoed above.
The white sky darkened—not into night, but into a soft blue, as if a watercolor brush painted across a blank canvas. Wispy clouds bloomed and drifted into shape. A golden warmth poured over the landscape as a sun flickered to life overhead, igniting the sky with light.
It's like watching the world being born…
The wind picked up, now carrying the sound of rustling grass and distant birdsong. Trees burst from the ground with a low, cracking groan—first as stumps, then as full trunks with stretching branches and blossoming leaves, each unfurling in fast-forward motion.
The air grew warmer. He could feel the sun on his face. Smell the green. Hear the breeze. The void was gone, replaced by a vast, open savannah—rolling grasslands stretching to the horizon, dotted with low trees and rocky outcrops.
And still, he remained frozen.
If someone were watching, they'd see a teen suspended mid-leap in the middle of a time-lapse documentary about the beginning of the world.
What… is this place? he thought. It's like God copy-pasted Earth's assets into a fantasy game…
And then
Boom!
A low tremor rolled beneath him. The ground vibrated like something massive had taken a step.
Another boom. Then another. Steady. Heavy.
Kael's awe drained from his face.
Something was coming.
A shadow passed above him. Then another.
He managed to tilt his head ever so slightly upward—and his heart skipped.
Dragons.
No, not just dragons—creatures straight out of fantasy novels. Vast, winged beasts soaring through the sky with riders clad in gleaming golden armor. Their wings sliced through the air like sails of war, their scales catching sunlight in a prism of colors.
Holy crap, that's a wyvern… he thought, breath catching in his throat.
Below them, thunderous footfalls shook the earth. Massive reptilian creatures—drakes—marched in disciplined formations, armor clinking, dust rising with every stomp. Rows of human soldiers marched beside them, clad in black and gold plate, weapons drawn, capes fluttering like banners.
Emblazoned on every chestplate and shield, etched into their fluttering banners, was an insignia: a two-headed dragon, its wings spread wide. One head bore two great horns pointing to the sky, while the other had three—two identical side horns and a single unicorn-like horn sprouting from its forehead. The twin necks coiled around each other in a mirrored snarl, their tails splitting into three at the end.
Caelan was no longer grinning.
This wasn't a cinematic cutscene.
This was real.
Then he heard it—the other side.
Behind him, another army answered the tremors. Silver-armored warriors, drakes with horned faces and crimson armor adorned with jagged spikes. Their wyverns flew low, silent and menacing, wearing blood-red plating and trailing silver-feathered banners. The insignia: a coiled, feathered serpent—Quetzalcoatl, elegant yet savage.
The two armies slowed, like tidal waves preparing to crash. A wind swept through the plains, dry and sharp, tasting of ash.
Caelan could feel it now—not just the tremors, not just the sound—but the pressure. A thick, choking air that wrapped around him like cold fingers. His breath quickened. His heart pounded.
And then it hit him:
Bloodlust.
Raw. Untamed. Violent.
It radiated off the armies like heat from a furnace. It clawed at the back of his skull. Every instinct screamed at him to run, to hide, to disappear but his body refused to budge.
"No. No no no no—MOVE, YOU STUPID BODY!"
The two forces roared.
The ground quaked as they charged. Wyverns screamed overhead, unleashing gouts of fire. Drakes thundered forward, jaws snapping. Steel met steel. Fire met flesh.
And Caelan?
He stood dead center, still frozen in that ridiculous pose, with his knees bent and arms in mid-celebration, a silent scream caught behind a trembling smile.
Tears gathered in his eyes.
I don't want to die… I TAKE IT BACK. I TAKE IT ALL BACK. PLEASE, I'M SORRY!
A flash.
A voice.
"Kael! Wake up! WAKE UP!"
SLAP.
SLAP.
SLAP!
"WAKE THE F*CK UP!!"
He gasped, sitting upright on his bed, drenched in sweat, chest heaving.
His sister sat beside him, palm mid-air, face pale with concern.
"…Claire?"
She only nodded.
He blinked, looked around.
Just a dream.
A dream that tasted like war.
He didn't say anything else.
Because for a moment, just a moment, he could still feel the heat of dragons in the back of his throat.