"Ha!?"
My unrepentant expression startled people walking. Maybe they thought I saw a ghost or something. But what really surprised me was the landscape I had seen.
It was a big city, so populous that you could get lost with just a few steps. It had a medieval structure. The houses were made only of stone and wood, maybe on the ground floor of the residence, it would function as a shop or something. The city was surrounded by walls that were certainly 90 meters high.
People were not matching the pattern I knew. Men were wearing armor, others were wearing cloaks (even though it was extravagantly hot). Women wore big dresses, and children wore simpler clothes.
I soon imagined that what I was seeing was a dream, as none of it seemed real. The landscape of a populous middle-age city was completely fanciful in my mind. I also thought that I would be inside some simulation, but it was technically impossible since all my senses worked correctly. There was no way I could not think that I was really taken to another world.
In my head, I even made fun of the situation, there was nothing more cliché than reincarnating in a medieval world after dying.
I looked around, and all the people actually seemed to be alive enough. With each citizen that passed me, I could smell their characteristic scent, showing that I could use my sense of smell. I kept touching myself, and I also confirmed my tact. The merchants, communicating in a loud tone, calling their customers, confirmed to me that I could use my hearing.
"Damn…where am I?" I asked myself.
The most important question was: How did I get there?
If everything was so vivid, my senses were working, where was I really? Was reincarnation the right word? Yeah, I wasn't born a baby, as far as I could see, I was standing at an ideal height.
I perhaps remembered what had happened earlier.
July 27, 2022 — It was the day it all started.
Waking up early, going to work and coming back late at night was the routine I did every single day. And this one was no different, unless...
On this day, I wasn't coming back exhausted from exhausting work, it was because I didn't need to work in that place anymore. I was sent away, and I didn't find out until I got there—a consequence of not checking my mailbox in the morning. It had been quite a day, getting all my belongings out of the office.
The only thing I could do, to maybe cheer myself up a little, was try to talk to someone, who might be available at that time of night. She was a woman I met at work. I spent nights thinking about her, but I could never have the courage to declare myself.
It was at that moment too, that the day was only getting worse and worse.
I arrived on the street where I lived, but I was surprised. She was leaving her apartment with another man. He had a car, so he took her inside. She was smiling, already happy enough. I couldn't get angry, just a deep sadness, after all, the man didn't seem to be a bad person, every gesture even taking her to the car was too kind.
It was just me who didn't make it in time.
So there was no other destination but my home. Or rather, my little apartment. I climbed the stairs with a deep sadness anchoring my heart, my face seemed no longer alive. I opened the door of the house and announced that I had arrived, walked a few steps inside, and as I entered the tiny room — the only room in the house — I heard some sobs of tears.
So I hurried to get in as quickly as possible. What I saw was just my little sister, crouched down and crying. I asked what had happened, she replied that she had been rejected by her high school love. It was clearly what I was feeling too, but I held it back so my emotions didn't spill over, too, and comforted her, like a real big brother would.
Days passed, and nothing happened. Nobody asked me for a job, not even an interview. So months passed, and I decided not to keep insisting. As soon as I broke the news that I was out of a job, my parents helped us support ourselves, which didn't need much. So I became a complete NEET.
It was the fate of my life after that day, just staying at home, playing online games and doing absolutely nothing. My younger sister tried to find part-time jobs every single day. Some days, she would come home and announce that she hadn't made it, but she wasn't shaken by it.
But afterwards, I caused her ultimate concern.
Perhaps from exhaustion, I passed out inside the apartment. When she got home, she saw me completely passed out on the mat on the floor. The only scene I remembered was that I managed to open my eyes and I was already at the hospital. The nurses were holding the hospital gurney, dragging me maybe to the operating room or something. And whoever was with it was my little sister, shedding as many tears as she could.
It was at this moment, that I felt my consciousness emptying, and there I could see, that she had not lost any of her beauty, since she was little, she was always beautiful that way. These were the last memories I had of that world.
After closing my eyes, and not being able to see anything, I felt like maybe I really had died. Even so, I forced myself to open my eyes, and when I got a vision, a sun was beating down hard on my eyes. That's when I realized I was somewhere else, in another world.