Martin awoke to the steady, rhythmic beep of a heart monitor. His eyelids fluttered open, and he squinted against the soft, sterile glow of the hospital room. Everything was quiet, save for the hum of machinery and the occasional rustle of footsteps beyond the door. He blinked, disoriented, the white walls and pale curtains casting a dreamlike haze over his thoughts.
A sharp pain throbbed behind his eyes, his head feeling like it had been split in two. He groaned softly, lifting a hand to press against his forehead, only to feel the tug of an IV needle in his arm. He stared at it in confusion, struggling to piece together how he had ended up here.
"You're awake," came a calm voice from beside him. A nurse stood at his bedside, gently adjusting the cardiac sensors stuck to his chest. Her face was kind, her movements practiced and efficient. She checked his vitals on the monitor before glancing at him with a reassuring smile. "You had quite the scare."
Martin swallowed, his throat dry and scratchy. "What… what happened?" His voice came out rough, barely above a whisper.
"You experienced a panic attack," she said, her tone even but not unkind. "Your heart rate spiked, and it seems you fainted before anyone could help you. Luckily, someone called an ambulance, and you've been here for a few hours now."
A flood of fragmented memories came rushing back—the restroom, the dizziness, his chest tightening, the overwhelming sense that the world was closing in on him. He closed his eyes, taking a shaky breath as his body seemed to tense in response to the memory.
"Don't worry," the nurse continued, her voice gentle. "You're safe now. Panic attacks can feel terrifying, but they aren't life-threatening. Your vitals are stable, and there's no permanent harm."
He nodded slightly, though the lingering ache in his skull made it hard to concentrate. "My head," he muttered, wincing as the pain flared again.
"That's normal after a fainting spell," she explained, adjusting his pillow with a careful touch. "It's your body's way of reacting to stress and exhaustion. Rest is the best thing for you right now."
Martin exhaled slowly, trying to will his heart to settle into a calmer rhythm. "Rest," he echoed, as though the word itself was foreign.
The nurse smiled softly. "And a healthy diet. Low caffeine, plenty of water. Try to avoid anything that might trigger more attacks—stress, overexertion. Your body's telling you it needs balance."
He nodded again, though the advice sounded distant, lost in the fog of pain and residual anxiety. All he wanted was for the pounding in his head to stop. The nurse finished adjusting the equipment, gave his arm a reassuring squeeze, and then quietly stepped back, leaving him to the quiet, sterile sanctuary of the hospital room.
As the door clicked shut behind her, Martin closed his eyes again, letting the faint beeps of the monitor lull him into a fragile, uneasy rest.
The next time Martin woke up, he inquired about the time. And, against the doctor's advice, he decided to discharge himself from the hospital.
For no other reason than his lack of money to cover for the hospital fees after the mandatory treatment costs were covered by his insurance.
After receiving his phone and wallet, Martin checked the spare change he had – just enough for a cab from downtown central to his housing district where a rundown apartment studio waited for him.
After collecting his thoughts, Martin stopped by the road a flagged a cab, silently making his way into the backseat.
…
Martin sat in the back of the cab, the dim glow of streetlights washing over the city's familiar skyline, but everything felt distant. Detached.
He leaned his head against the cool glass of the window, eyes unfocused as the world outside passed by in a blur of concrete and neon. His fingers tapped nervously against his thigh, but he couldn't stop thinking about what he had seen—what had triggered the panic that spiraled into fainting.
It wasn't just stress. It wasn't just his mind playing tricks. He had seen something—and if he hadn't—his email inbox didn't lie.
His stomach churned at the memory, and he clutched the fabric of his jeans tighter. The supernatural wasn't supposed to be real. It wasn't supposed to exist outside of stories, movies, rumors whispered by the paranoid.
But that day, in the moments before the attack, he'd seen the truth hiding beneath the surface of the everyday world.
A fleeting glimpse—a shadow moving in ways shadows shouldn't. The shimmer of something… wrong, bending reality in a way no human eye was meant to perceive.
He pressed his lips together, forcing the thought down as best he could. It had been an accident. No one had noticed what he had seen. He hadn't told anyone—wouldn't tell anyone. If society wasn't ready to acknowledge it, he certainly wasn't ready to face it head-on.
The cab lurched to a stop in front of his building, and Martin paid the driver with shaky hands before stepping out onto the sidewalk.
His cheap studio apartment loomed before him like a safe haven, yet even its familiar peeling paint and creaky stairs offered little comfort. As he climbed the steps, his thoughts circled back to the secret he now carried, the weight of it settling deeper into his chest with each step.
His hands trembled as he unlocked the door, the tiny apartment greeting him with its usual mess: a sagging couch, an overflowing sink, the faint hum of the old refrigerator. Normally, the chaos was a welcome distraction, but tonight, the air felt thick. Suffocating.
He closed the door behind him and leaned against it, staring into the dimly lit room as if he half-expected something to crawl out from the shadows.
What had he gotten himself into?
The panic he'd felt earlier crept back in, the familiar tightness in his chest returning. His mind raced with possibilities, each one worse than the last.
What if it happened again? What if the thing he saw wasn't a fluke? What if there were more out there, lurking, watching? How could he live with this knowledge?
How could he pretend that everything was normal when it so clearly wasn't?
Hours passed like that, his thoughts spiraling into a vortex of anxiety. He sat on the edge of his bed, staring at the clock as the hands inched forward. His body ached with exhaustion, but sleep refused to come. Every time he closed his eyes, he felt like he was teetering on the edge of a nightmare—one where the world would never be the same again.
The clock read 11:57 PM. Then 11:58. He lay down, trying to steady his breath, hoping the late hour might drag him into unconsciousness. He turned his face into the pillow, eyes squeezed shut.
But the moment midnight struck, the world shifted.
A single, clear bell chime echoed through his mind, sudden and unnatural, like it was coming from inside his skull. Martin shot up, heart hammering in his chest. The sound reverberated through him, deeper than any noise he'd ever heard before. It wasn't just a sound—it was a reminder. A presence.
A warning that the system and the supernatural world wasn't a figment of his imagination. It was real, and it wasn't going to let him forget it.
He sat in the dark, wide-eyed, breathless, as the echoes of the chime faded into silence.
But the silence wasn't comforting. It was heavy with anticipation, as though the world was holding its breath.
And so, he stared blankly into space as golden lines danced and intertwined in his vision, coming together to form lines of text – easy to read and hard to ignore.
[You obtained a bronze ticket!]
[You can cash in the tickets at midnight for a wish!]
Once again, the lines of words twisted, this time joining into a fist-sized token with the word 'Bronze' inscribed onto its surface, and a declining countdown visible beneath the word.
At the moment, the countdown stood at 00:48 and was declining, one second at a time.
In the following seconds – seconds that felt like one lifetime after the next – Martin's fear and panic slowly transitioned into acceptance.
What followed was curiosity, the positive and the negative, and a host of questions left unanswered.
Martin watched the numbers dwindle from the double digits to the single digits, and as though to emphasize the weight of the opportunity, each number now blinked furiously while exuding a brilliant light.
At the count of 00:03, Martin took a deep breath and closed his eyes tightly.
In a fleeting moment, the last three seconds trickled by, and Martin abstained from taking any actions.
The familiar bell chime from the depths of Martin's soul echoed in his mindscape yet once more.
Even with closed eyes, the golden lines were as clear as the midday sun on a cloudless day as they twisted into neat lines of words.
[You chose to skip midnight wish!]
[You have 1x bronze ticket in your inventory!]