When I opened my eyes, the bright light hit me sharply in the face. I turned to see what I was looking at. It appeared to be some underground temple of some sort, one that would not exist in my modern day life. I knew that much but....wait. What about my name? And why could I not put my finger on it?

Naming characters was something I had always struggled with.

For starters, I understood the concept that I was a female. I knew what I looked like--but wait. Was that....

A part females don't have.

A build and body that was entirely alien to me as a species. So had I just dreamed that about being female after all? Was I really a man?

No. I'd had some strange dreams in the past, but this one was even more odd. Awakening in some strange bed as some strange new person with only the inclination of a specified gender at birth was all I seemed to retain. But those notions were quickly failing.

All I knew was that God had marked "female leading" on the story of my life.

So this is a story about the girl? And am I just somehow a random side character?

I'm a side character, so it seems.

But this is a story from the perspective of the side character. The girl who transported herself to another world through a dreamlike haze. The physicians would all call me crazy for doing whatever this was, but inclining to be sabotaging in an underground video game world was not the most appealing story to a female reader. Female readers preferred the romantic intrigue and class drama, not necessarily the wars and action that men tended to be nclined to read. So why of all things was this going to be a story of a female waking up as a male?

A name floated by my ears. Or was that just a verb. "Stryker."

Stryker was a verb. It meant to strike, stab--

Oh, great. Looks like I'm reverting back to my dictionary self.

In high school, everyone called me a living dictionary. They always asked me what words meant because more often than not I would have all of the answers for them and more. I would be able to meet their basic wants with a question, rather than a physical ordering of a dictionary itself. Ordering a dictionary would require time. But if you could just ask the dictionary girl, wouldn't that save you the pain of googling?

I pulled out one last deep breath. The final reveal would amount to opening my eyes and facing this new setting. Wherever I was was definitely a place I had yet to see. The musty scent of the cool and dark filled my nostrils, and I sneezed.

"Ah-choo!"

The sound filled the otherwise empty chamber.

It was too loud.

It was definitely unnaturally loud.

With a snap, my eyes came open, unfurling and dilating to meet the needs of the light that was streaming down towards me from some direction. Was that a lightbulb? It sure flickered like one. Or was it a giant sun? Giant suns weren't too nice to look at.

Giant suns were giant suns.

Peace was peace.

Life was life.

Whatever this new life was, it was sure a pain already.

So many dust motes in the air that my female germaphobe instincts were kicking in. How could it be that in a room this dank and depressing, my first waking moments were spent thinking of the possibility that I had just been reincarnated?

As if in a flash I recalled some major life event that had taken place before I had snapped to this realia.

It was a sharp declaration of war against the senses. I was now coming to. And the name "Stryker" was what resonated in my interior pulse. It seemed to settle there like a weed that refused to billow away.

I kept fighting to preserve my feminine gender role in this story.

It had to be a story about a female lead. Not a male lead. No way. This was impossible.

Was I just daydreaming that I was a girl, then?

(Author, I beg you to change the gender of the leading heroine to avoid this confusion.)

No, it will continue in the following chapters.

I am a female, and I was somehow transported here. To a dank and dusty room. an unfamiliar body. that was just a different woman...

Stryker is a girl's name.

That fact came to me like quicksilver and sand. So maybe I had been a guy before, and had just completed transitioning?

Stryker is definitely a girl's name.

Stryker...Villasaki.

My name was---no---is---Stryker Villasaki.

Stryker VIllasaki was the name of a princess.