As a young man named Finn walked down the cracked sidewalk, his gaze fixed intently on the glowing screen of his phone, the familiar rhythm of the city blurred into background noise—cars rushing by, distant conversations, the faint hum of a bus pulling away. Everything around him was ordinary, just another moment in his routine life.
But then, a ping broke through the silence.
A new notification. A strange text message.
He furrowed his brow, curiosity outweighing caution as he swiped the screen to open it. The sender was unknown, and the words on the screen were bold, almost playful, as if teasing him directly:
"Are you tired of your boring, everyday life?
Have you ever wanted to live in a world that feels like a game—full of adventure, challenges, and endless possibilities?
If so, simply click the 'YES' button below, and you'll experience something beyond imagination. A whole new world awaits you."
The young man paused mid-step, his shoes scraping against the concrete as he stopped dead in his tracks. He stared at the message.
"What is this?" he mumbled under his breath, half-laughing at the absurdity of it. A scam, maybe? Or one of those weird marketing tricks he'd read about?
But there was something unsettling about how the text was phrased. It felt… personal. Almost like it knew him, as if whoever—or whatever—had sent it understood his life down to the monotony of each passing day. The thought sent a small chill down his spine.
He glanced around, as though expecting someone to be watching him. But the street was as it always was—normal. Nothing out of place.
Still, his eyes returned to the screen. At the bottom of the message, an ominously tempting button gleamed:
"YES"
A thousand thoughts raced through his head. Rationality told him to delete the message and move on. But deep down, in the parts of his mind he rarely acknowledged, the question struck a chord. Was he tired of his life? Hadn't he always daydreamed about escaping somewhere extraordinary—somewhere full of magic, danger, or purpose?
Before he realized it, his thumb hovered over the button.
"Just a click," he whispered to himself. "What's the worst that could happen?"
And then, with a breath he didn't know he was holding, he tapped YES.
The phone screen flickered. The light brightened, impossibly vivid, until it consumed his vision entirely.
The last thing he heard before everything vanished was a quiet chime—like the sound of a bell signaling the start of a new game.
At the same time, in a far-off world not even tethered to the same universe, a child was born—though to call it a child might have been generous.
In a damp, rancid cave tucked away in the corner of a forgotten forest, a goblin wailed for the first time. Its cries were thin, weak, barely rising above the dripping of water from the ceiling. It lay sprawled in a nest of dried leaves and filthy rags, its pale green skin dull and sickly, its limbs thin and frail. Compared to the hardened, brutish goblins that filled the cave around it, this newborn looked pitiful.
The other goblins sneered as they passed by, their yellowed teeth flashing in the dim firelight.
"Another runt," one grumbled, tossing a bone over its shoulder.
"Useless," another spat, its voice a low growl. "Won't even survive the week."
In the goblin world, strength was everything. The weak were left to the mercy of nature and cruelty, and a newborn like this—frail and defenseless—was all but condemned.
The goblin child shivered, its tiny claws twitching as it struggled to move. Its eyes, watery and too large for its head, fluttered open, revealing dull yellow irises. It blinked slowly, its gaze unfocused as it tried to take in the world it had been born into. The firelight flickered shadows along the jagged walls of the cave, where older goblins laughed, ate, and sharpened their weapons.
No one paid the runt any mind.
A gnarled goblin elder, draped in a tattered cloak of fur, hobbled past the nest. It paused just long enough to glance at the child with its milky, sightless eyes. The elder sniffed once, the air thick with mildew and smoke, before muttering under its breath:
"This one… will be forgotten."
And just like that, the elder moved on, leaving the goblin child to fend for itself.
But as the cave grew darker and the sounds of goblins feasting turned into snoring and grumbling in sleep, the weak goblin opened its eyes again. Its tiny breaths were shallow, but there was a flicker—small, fragile, yet persistent—of life.
Somewhere deep in the universe, a button had been pressed. A decision had been made.
And though no one in the cave knew it, the fate of this frail goblin was already set in motion. Weak as it was, forgotten as it might be, its story was far from over.