The homogenous routine air turned into motivational posters that suavely suggested great things for anyone who wanted and had the guts to dream.

The torn slogans wailed: "Reach for the stars!" and "The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams!"

Today, they spoke bittersweet mockery to Kael Relan.

Reclined in the back seat, his eyes passed over messages of joy, yet his thoughts were elsewhere, adrift on that tide of weariness.

His professor's voice had become a drone, not unlike the hum of machinery—a rhythm soothing yet never stirring. With each word, another weight lay upon his leaden eyelids; with each click of a slide onto the screen, another barrier lay between him and that world he wanted to escape to. His classmates followed acutely, made notes zealously, but to Kael, it was all noise.

He squirmed in his chair as the rising tension in his body became a lost cause. There it came again, that dizziness—an old, unwanted witness to his weakness. He had fought off his whole life this feeling, gnawing in his head and signaling weakness. His body had always betrayed him, keeping him on the sidelines of life, allowing others to live the adventures only he could dream of.

When young, Kael had watched all the other kids' games over the fence: the running and laughter, their faces flushed with joys he could never fully understand. He had never known sports or social events, even the simple pleasure of climbing trees or riding bicycles.

His health had taken away all those moments, one after the other, leaving him in isolation with his thoughts and games until he got trapped in a world made of them.

He looked down at his hands—pale, slight, fingers trembling slightly, it seemed, from the very dread of being attached to him. The professor's voice droned on—about something irrelevant, he thought—statistics, perhaps?—it was all blending now. His sight began to blur and the dizziness started to mount. The room felt full, compacted, bearing down on his chest.

"I wish." Fluttered across his mind, dull and fast, until his vision blurred. "I wish I was someone else. Someone strong. Someone that is not."

Now the room spun faster. He could only make out a vague outline of the professor at the front—everything had become nondistinct, blurred figures moving in a mist. His classmates' murmurs sounded distant, indistinct on the wind, but he could barely hear them above the pounding of his heart.

His breathing was shallow, labored; his thoughts slipped from his grasp and were lost like leaves in the wind. "If only I could get out of this body." The words were not of a wish but a desperate cry for freedom from the torture his body inflicted upon him.

His head lolled forward, his body no longer responding. Finally, the pounding of his heart slowed, and the edges of the world began to darken. Everything blurred around the edges, shadows seeping in, and the lecture room—the long, dreary stretch of empty chairs—yawned open before him into an abyss he could no longer hold at bay.

SYSTEM ALERT

[New PLAYER Detected…]

Through Kael, like a dying flame, flickered consciousness; somewhere close enough to the surface of his mind, he sensed something stirring—a trace of voice or will greater than his own.

[Death beyond Erendath: Confirmed

[Final Wish Identified. Pursuing...]

[Strong Desires for Second Life Awaiting Opportunity - Confirmed]

He could catch hardly a word. They were faint, far off—a whisper in his dreaming ear. Yet they seemed to him like a new, bolder language—waking hope in place of despair.

[Conditions Met - Ascension System Unlocked Successfully]

[Matching Player with System Guide. Accessing Ascension Database.]

[Match Found. Assigning GUIDE to PLAYER]

The abyss was never truly empty; something lived in it—a heartbeat. Kael felt it tug him in, whisking him away into something more, something unimaginable. His mind moved, no longer trapped in the settling darkness of the old world.

System Guide Assigned

[Detection of Unique Conditions. Processing.]

[NON-PLAYER: Confirmed]

Conditions Gained: The Rebirth Core (Unique) Unlocked

REBIRTH CORE ACTIVATED

The words swirled, lifted into the darkness, and wrapped around him like a cloak. For the first time in his life, Kael couldn't tell what they meant—yet it wasn't just that familiar, smothering weight of his limitations. He felt potential. He felt change.

[Rebirth Core System Unlocked...]

[GUIDE ******** Unlocked]