On an insignificant spot in the universe, in a certain country on Earth, at a particular college in a big city, a river of students was on their way home after a long day. The crowd thinned quickly as fewer people could be seen exiting the building.
The last student to step out was a teenager who looked about 18. He had an average build, neither too skinny nor fat. His dark brown hair reflected an orange hue in the afternoon sun, and his eyes were as dark as the abyss, almost as if they could swallow light. Although he had good looks, they were overshadowed by his gloomy aura and tired expression.
'Sigh... If this keeps happening, I'll really end up in trouble...' he thought as he walked with heavy footsteps along the seemingly endless sidewalk.
'If only I could stop having that nightmare. It's been a full week now.'
The young man, named Theo, hadn't been sleeping well for days and had been scolded multiple times throughout the week.
"Be careful!" A sudden, frail voice echoed from a nearby apartment.
A block of dirt and the remains of a plain pot smashed into the ground in front of Theo. The plants inside looked more like dried herbs ready to be made into tea.
"Oh, Theodore, I'm sorry!" the frail voice added with a chuckle. "I was trying to water my small garden."
Theo looked up to see an elderly woman with soft, full gray hair. Her face was wrinkled but carried a smile that could calm anyone's mind.
'It's Theo...' he thought, but before he could speak, he caught sight of something strange out of the corner of his eye—something black with tentacles, a darkness that seemed to swallow the world around it.
He turned his head sharply, almost twisting his neck, but there was no sign of the darkness or tentacles. Instead, lying a few steps away was a notebook with a sinister-looking black cover. The title on it was a sequence of complicated, paranormal symbols that blinked in and out of sight. Just looking at them made Theo's head throb, intensifying his headache.
"Ah!" he groaned softly.
He quickly averted his gaze, feeling the headache subside back to its usual dull ache. After a few seconds, he managed to regain focus. 'What kind of pain was that...' he muttered, pressing his temples.
Theo straightened up, careful not to look directly at the symbols. He glanced around at the passersby. Some were taking leisurely strolls, while others hurried on their way. They paused briefly by the broken pot and scattered dirt but quickly lost interest and moved on.
Soon, people were coming and going again, avoiding Theo and the remains of the "garden." Yet, no one seemed to notice the notebook.
It didn't take long for Theo to realize something odd. No one stepped on it. Some came close, missing it by mere millimeters. Loud children ran past, their chaotic footsteps somehow never touching the notebook.
'Should I go touch it? It could be a notebook that lets me kill people by writing their names... Heh, or even a magical spellbook... But it's too small to be a spellbook... My hallucinations are getting worse,' Theo chuckled inwardly, self-deprecatingly.
He took a step forward, closing the distance between himself and the notebook. 'These hallucinations are too real...'
Now standing over it, Theo avoided direct eye contact with the strange symbols. He bent down, opened his palm, and hesitantly reached out to grab the notebook. Just inches from touching it, he hesitated, lips twitching. 'This is too risky... I probably shouldn't touch it...' Despite his reservations, he reached out and picked it up.
As soon as the notebook left the ground and rested in his hand, Theo braced himself, expecting another excruciating headache or something worse.
"Heh... Seems like it's safe for now," he muttered to himself, trying to get a sense of the texture of the cover. It felt otherworldly—almost liquid and sticky, yet still solid enough to hold its shape.
Theo finally noticed that the light around him had dimmed, shadows creeping in as if monsters circled him. His body tensed, and the hair on his arms stood on end.
Three children who had been running around earlier were now whispering loudly and staring at Theo, who was kneeling and mumbling to himself. They didn't seem to notice the notebook.
Theo immediately stood up and straightened his back.
"Mister, what were you looking at?" one of the kids asked curiously. "Oh, it's, uh... nothing," he replied, laughing nervously as he backed away, cold sweat forming on his back.
'Sigh... At least if it's something dangerous, I protected those kids...' he thought with a hint of self-mockery, taking a deep breath.
Quickening his pace, Theo almost jogged to a nearby building. He climbed the stairs to the second floor, where he lived with his father in a modest apartment. By now, the nervousness had faded, and the tired look on his face was washed away by the strangeness of his encounter.
The apartment had a couch in the middle of the room facing a television, with a table in front of it. The kitchen was to the right, and a corridor on the left led to the bathroom at the end, flanked by doors to the bedrooms.
There was no one home. His father usually works to late hours of night. Theo and his father rarely meet.
Theo collapsed onto the couch, trying to organize his thoughts. The notebook was still in his hand.
He took a deep breath, placing the notebook on the table with the strange symbols facing down. Tentatively, he brushed the soft, almost skin-like pages with his fingertips. The cover still felt unsettling—sticky yet solid.
'I really shouldn't open it...' he thought, but his curiosity was too strong to resist.
Mustered by whatever courage he had, Theo flipped the notebook open, turning his head away and squeezing his eyes shut.
'...Nothing happened... Heh,' he exhaled, relaxing a bit.
He turned back to the notebook. The two yellow, skin-like pages were filled with small symbols surrounding a two larger, central symbol that he couldn't decipher.
"What kind of language is this?" he mumbled, frowning as he tried to make sense of it. The symbols seemed vaguely familiar, yet they eluded his understanding.
Suddenly, a burning sensation erupted in his palm. Crimson red blood seeped from his skin, touching two identical symbols on the pages.
Startled, Theo nearly knocked the table over. When he glanced back at the pages, the two symbols had disappeared. The pain in his palm intensified, as if his hand were being sliced by burning knives.
"Ah!" he groaned, unable to suppress the sound of his pain.
He fell back onto the couch, glancing at his palm. The symbol that had been on the pages was now being carved into his flesh, blood dripping onto the floor and table.
Terrified, he stumbled to his feet, trying to distance himself from the notebook, but he suddenly felt lightheaded, almost as if he were going to faint.
'I don't want to die yet...' he thought desperately.
His mind slowed, his thoughts becoming sluggish. As his body slumped back onto the couch, he felt himself falling, as if he were plummeting into an endless void. His vision darkened until he could see nothing.
It wasn't long before he felt a painful impact, as if he'd hit solid ground.
'Ah!... That was too painful!' he grimaced, sitting up and hearing his back crack.
Theo's vision was no longer completely dark. There was a faint light, and he could feel a breeze on his skin. He knew he was no longer in the apartment. Looking up, he saw a starry night sky, not like the one visible on Earth, but as if countless galaxies had collided to paint a cosmic masterpiece.
As he admired the stunning night sky, a bright light caught the corner of his eye, blinding him momentarily.
Curious, he tore his gaze from the sky and realized he was in a damp alley between two wooden houses.
On the street outside the alley, where the bright light shone, a bald man with an unclear tattoo on his head was surrounded by flames.
The flames seemed to emanate from his palms, allowing him to hover gently before landing on the street.
The bald man extinguished the flames and hurried off without looking back.
'...He was controlling those flames... This doesn't look like Earth. The houses are wooden, the streets aren't lit...'
'Am I dead?... No, I can still feel pain.'
'Did I get isekai-ed by a notebook?... Heh... Although it sounds cool, I really want to go back home...'
Theo's heart skipped a beat as he scanned his surroundings.
'The notebook is gone... I don't have a way back...' He began to panic.
'Maybe I'll get a system, like those main characters...'
"System!" he said aloud.
"Skills! Stats!" he shouted, desperately clinging to a sliver of hope.
A blue light suddenly flashed, blinding him. Theo's heart lifted, and a grin spread across his face. But as the light dimmed, he realized it wasn't a system screen.
At the end of the alley, a man holding a lantern burning with a blue flame glanced in his direction, muttered something in an unknown language, and walked away. Darkness reclaimed the alley, and with it, Theo's fleeting hope.
'There is no system...'
There was no system.