"Ding-Ding-Ding"
This metallic symphony of martyrdom echoes through my makeshift bat-cave. "But what...," I mutter between clenched teeth. An alarm clock? In the recess of my covers and in the jungle of my disorganized room? Unacceptable. Sunday, you sacrilegious calendar! Alarms are for the fearless who rise with the sun and battle the working hours – or for me, apparently.
Hold on. A confused gesture towards the nightstand reveals only dust and the typical assortment of debris from someone who marathons writing sessions – but no alarm clock. Where is this auditory torture emanating from?
I leap from the bed with agility infused by pure survival instinct, and immediately stop, shocked. Has my personal abyss been transformed? Rays of sunshine challenge the usual darkness, illuminating a room that looks more scenic than funereal – orderly, clean... and with the windows open!? There's a fresh breeze wrapping the room. Even more shocking, I feel strangely... refreshed?
"DING-DING-DING"
This judgment bell knows no mercy; each ring is an indictment against my newly born desire to hibernate until noon. Annoyed and already full of inexplicable energy, I march to the source of the torment. Upon spotting it, an antiquated alarm clock, like those from old movies or from a grandmother's home forgotten by time, I frown. No obvious buttons, no wires... no escape.
"Ding-ding-ding"
Is it a duel, then? An epic battle between man and machine? So be it. With the dexterity of a warrior, I grab the small artifact and, with a firmly melodramatic gesture, it is banished to the vacuum beyond the window with the heroic shout: "You've been soloed, weak alarm clock!"
A distant 'crash' confirms my triumph. The ensuing silence is sweet, a return to normalcy, if normalcy ever inhabited these walls. Greeting the calm, I declare my small room a sanctuary of sleep once more – at least until the next unexpected onslaught of reality.
Ah, the sweet victory over the tyranny of time, more satisfying than any climax of a cheap romance. But amidst the celebration, a question continues to beep in the back of my consciousness like a surviving alarm clock – where on earth am I?
Suddenly, I feel like the protagonist in one of those old sitcoms, where a blow to the head puts you in an alternate reality where everything is perfectly normal, except you're an astronaut, or a president – or, in my case, a living example of a shampoo advertisement.
Black hair and blue eyes? Wow, my mirror clearly woke up feeling dramatic today. I was the subject of a story I don't remember writing the synopsis for. The issue of identity has never seemed so comically urgent, as my hands passed over the face following the outline of this "alternative self."
"Hello, aesthetic deity, how are you?" I greet the image in the mirror with a mockery that poorly disguises panic. Beauty is power, they say, but in my case, it's more a big question mark stamped on my now meticulously symmetrical forehead.
Muttering a nervous laugh, I turn my attention back to the greater mystery. This room – a temple of organization and serenity – could it be a government testing facility? An elaborate prank? An extraordinarily vivid dream sponsored by that pizza from last night?
"Okay, no joke," I mutter, not to the handsome stranger in the mirror, but to any cosmic force that might be laughing at my confusion. Few things are more disconcerting than having to recall your own user's manual, so to speak.
Responding to the fear that begins to spread like a virus infographic, I pat my cheeks – yes, still there, ratifying the ever-present irony of the universe – as I look around once more, searching for a clue, a tag, anything...
"Time to investigate," I decide, as a version of myself that seems to have stepped off the cover of a book I definitely don't remember signing. Come on, sometimes even the most cynical of narrators need to accept that maybe, just maybe, he's not just on another chapter, but perhaps in a completely different book.
With the sagacity of a man who had spent the night battling literary monstrosities in his latest written pages, I ponder my next move. Should I valiantly face whatever lurks beyond this door, possibly armed with nothing more than a toothbrush and sharp sarcasm? Or would it be wiser to devise a plan, like the meticulous strategist I seldom am?
Then reality decides to toy with science fiction concepts, as if borrowed directly from my work desk — without asking leave, a massive blue screen appears in front of me. It exudes the aesthetic of a 1990s computer, but with a touch of augmented reality that I would consider top-notch if I weren't so stunned.
The writer's clinical eye inspected the information like one confirms a suspicious receipt.
Name: Dean Corleone
Rating: G
"Ah, great," I sarcastically think to myself, "a personal stats screen as unimpressive as my bank statements."
Attributes:
Strength: G
Agility: G
Vitality: G-
Intelligence: G
Mana Capacity: G
Luck: E
Charm: G-
Profession: Level 1 Mystic Swordsman
I won't lie, the profession part sounded kind of cool. Mystic Swordsman, I could work with that. But then it hit me like a bucket of cold water: "Am I inside an RPG game or something?" The alternate reality draws somewhat frightening parallels to the fantasies I conjured up in the search for rent money.
"Dean Corleone, who is this guy? Wait, is it me?" The narrative artist's attention is piqued. It's too much of a coincidence to be just post-pizza-binge delirium. The fate of every writer is to live a thousand lives, but usually only on the page, right?
"Ok, ok, I admit... Maybe the two neurons I have fooled me." Uttering a speech worthy of a detective noir's internal monologue, I suspected I had been transplanted into a world where I was Dean Corleone and these were my Level 1 attributes. Oddly enough, these stats were an identical replica to those imagined for my novel.
Something about Sam's desire to kill the one responsible for the adversities in his life? I might have been dragged into the eye of my own literary hurricane... or maybe that pizza really wasn't good after all. Speaking of which, I should stop ordering from places that describe tomato sauce as "spicy and mysterious".
Finally, critically analyzing my status, I came to an illustrious conclusion. I am weak. "Weak," RANK G, in the jargon of my literary world, is like calling a fish "aquatically challenged". It was the starting point for an awakened human, yes, but we all know that every starting point comes with its own set of inflated difficulties and level-scaling monsters.
So, with that realization, I put my hands in the pockets of what I hoped was my exclusive Mystic Swordsman robe — spoiler: it was just a worn-out pajama — and approached the door.
"Let's do this, Dean Corleone," I said, with the determination of someone who had already accepted that going back to sleep was simply not an option. "Time to find out if I'm the hero of this story... or if it's just another Monday as a writer. With expectations on the floor, I'll be honest."
And with a gimmick ultimatum worthy of any respectable RPG, I turned the doorknob.