Alright, where do I even begin? Life, for me, has been…let's say, less than ideal. Ever since I was a kid, things just seemed to lean a little left of normal. Most people grow up running around in parks, scraping their knees, maybe eating a little too much candy and puking it all up. Me? I spent more time in sterile white hospital rooms than in my own bed, hooked up to IVs and beeping machines like I was some kind of experimental robot. Blood deficiency, they called it. Some fancy name I could never remember, but in the end, it just meant I got sick—a lot. We're talking in-and-out-of-the-hospital sick, missing birthdays, missing out on soccer games, and worst of all, missing out on friends.
Oh, the friends. They came and went, like seasons. Most kids don't know what to say to the "sick kid," the one who can't come out to play half the time because he's tired, or pale, or just got jabbed with a needle for the fifth time that week. I don't blame them. I mean, who'd want to hang out with a kid who looked like he might keel over at any second?
So, instead of making friends or, y'know, getting a life, I turned to video games. My escape, my world. There was one in particular: Frostborn Requiem. It was a turn-based, strategy, free-roam MMORPG with a cult following, but I'd been playing it since middle school, way before it got cool. I built my character, strategized my battles, and roamed a world where I wasn't the sick kid in the hospital but a legend. A hero. Funny how that works. For a while, it was everything to me. But, as I got older, even that started to lose its shine. You can only fight the same monsters, grind the same quests, and listen to the same victory tune so many times before it all becomes…meh. But what else was I going to do?
Family? Don't make me laugh. Most of them are either six feet under or scattered across the globe, like some cosmic joke. I've got distant relatives here and there, but no one close enough to bother with. Except for my grandfather. The old man lived halfway across the world and had been too busy doing…whatever grandfathers do. But then, out of nowhere, I get a call. He wants to see me. Me, of all people. After so many years of radio silence. Maybe he's finally feeling his age. Or maybe he remembered he has a grandson.
Now, any reasonable person would've ignored it. Who in their right mind hops on a plane to cross the world for a guy they barely know? But I guess I've never been the reasonable type. I wanted to do something that mattered for once, something that wasn't just a part of my usual routine of hospitals, games, and long stretches of boredom. So, I took a risk. I booked a ticket, packed my bags, and boarded that plane with this stupid feeling in my chest that maybe, just maybe, I was doing the right thing.
So there I was, sitting in that cramped airplane seat, half-paying attention to the safety instructions (because let's be real, who actually listens to those?) and booting up Frostborn Requiem on my tablet. My favorite game. Old reliable. Even though I was getting bored with it, it was like an old friend, comforting in its predictability. Plus, it was the perfect way to kill time on a 14-hour flight. I picked up where I left off, grinding levels and strategizing my next moves. The game's graphics washed over me, and I could almost forget I was 30,000 feet in the air.
Then, the plane shook.
I figured it was just turbulence, the kind that makes you grip your seat for a second before you realize it's nothing. But this wasn't the usual jiggle. This was the kind that rattled your bones, the kind that makes you wonder if you're actually safe up here or if you're just a flying can waiting to fall.
People started to panic. Flight attendants rushed up and down the aisle, plastered smiles failing to mask their own worry. And then…BOOM. A deafening roar came from the left wing. One of the engines had blown. I looked out the window just in time to see it, flames licking the side of the plane, smoke pouring out. And, oh boy, we were descending. Fast.
Chaos erupted. Screams, crying, prayers, every possible reaction you could expect in a situation like that. People clung to each other, the kid a few rows up was sobbing into his mother's shoulder, and the guy next to me was gripping his seat so hard his knuckles turned white. Me? I just stared out the window, watching the ground rush up to meet us.
"What an idiot," I muttered to myself. "I should've just stayed home."
It was probably the last thought I ever had. The ground got closer, the screams got louder, and I closed my eyes, bracing myself for impact. And then…nothing. Just black.
I don't know how much time passed. Seconds? Hours? All I knew was that I wasn't…anything. No pain, no sound, no light. Just a void. I tried to move, but there was no body to move. I tried to speak, but I had no mouth. A long silence followed as I floated in…whatever this was.
"Huh," I thought to myself. "So this is what death is like. Not as flashy as they make it out to be."
I was almost starting to get comfortable with the nothingness, thinking, "Alright, I guess this is it." But then something shifted. A bright rectangle appeared in front of me, like a window from an old computer. Letters started forming on it.
[WELCOME TO THE CELESTIAL NEXUS]
I squinted—or at least, I tried to, seeing as I didn't have eyes, but let's roll with it. The words floated there, blinking like a neon sign in the middle of nowhere.
"Wait…what?"
The words flickered again, and a new line appeared below.
[YOU HAVE BEEN SELECTED FOR REINCARNATION]
"Reincarnation? You've got to be kidding me," I thought. I didn't even have time to process my untimely, fiery end, and now I was being recruited for…what? Another life? Maybe some cosmic entity thought I'd enjoy round two, but honestly, I wasn't sold on the idea.
Another message popped up.
[DUE TO YOUR LIMITED COMPATIBILITY, YOU WILL BE GRANTED ONLY ONE SKILL]
"Oh, how generous," I muttered sarcastically, or I would have if I had a mouth. Great. I was getting a second life, and I'd be nerfed from the start.
The next line appeared.
[YOUR SKILL: ETERNIS]
Eternis? What the heck did that mean? Was that even a word? It sounded like one of those vague fantasy terms that game developers toss around to make abilities sound cooler than they are. I could already imagine it: "You've been granted Eternis, the power to…do something…maybe." Wonderful. Here I was, stuck in a cosmic loading screen, reading vague patch notes about my own life.
[REINCARNATION WILL BEGIN SHORTLY. GOOD LUCK.]
And just like that, the window vanished. No further explanations, no time for questions, no chance for me to throw a tantrum about being thrown into god-knows-what. Just a brief message and an impending sense of doom.
"Hey! Wait a minute!" I tried to shout. "What do you mean, good luck? What kind of skill is Eternis? I need a little more info here!"
But it was too late. The void around me began to shift, to pulse with some weird energy, and then—flash. The brightest light I'd ever seen, blinding me, swallowing me whole.
When I came to, the first thing I noticed was the cold. I was lying on my back, staring up at a sky so blue it looked painted. Snow crunched beneath me as I sat up, squinting at the blinding reflection off the white landscape around me. Mountains rose in the distance, jagged and imposing, and a chill wind whipped across my face. I looked down at myself and did a double-take.
Gone was my usual, comfy hoodie and jeans. Instead, I was decked out in this ridiculous outfit—fur-lined, with some kind of heavy cloak draped over my shoulders and intricate gold patterns on my sleeves. I looked like I'd just walked off the set of a medieval fantasy movie.
"What…the…heck?" I muttered, feeling around for any sign of familiarity. Nope. Just fancy clothes, freezing cold, and the haunting realization that I had no idea where I was.
A faint hum caught my attention. I turned, half-expecting to see another message floating in the air, and sure enough, there it was.
[WELCOME TO YOUR NEW LIFE, TAURUS]
"Oh, great. First, I get blown out of the sky, then I get thrown into a video game with no tutorial," I grumbled, already missing the simplicity of Frostborn Requiem. This wasn't exactly what I had in mind when I thought about starting over.
The message blinked again, as if it could hear me.
[YOUR JOURNEY BEGINS NOW. YOU POSSESS THE POWER OF ETERNIS. USE IT WISELY.]
"Yeah, yeah," I muttered, standing up and brushing the snow off my fancy pants. "Eternis this, Eternis that. Care to explain what it actually does?"
The message didn't respond. Figures.
So there I was, stranded on a snowy mountain in the middle of who-knows-where, dressed like some kind of warrior prince with a skill I didn't understand, and not a single clue as to what I was supposed to do next.
"Well, Taurus," I said to myself, sighing at the absurdity of it all. "Welcome to round two. Here's hoping it's better than the last one."
And with that, I set off down the mountain, praying that Eternis wasn't just a fancy name for a glorified snow-shoveling ability.