"Ugh, let's just get this over for the decade once more…" I muttered, rubbing my eyes as I stood up from the couch.
My apartment felt suffocating—small, cramped, filled with the smell of old papers and coffee which was something I lived on. Bills piled up on the coffee table, a stack of work reports sat untouched on the desk in the corner, and the TV screen was showing yet another mindless show about the beast games. Nothing had changed. Nothing ever changed. Another day, another routine.
Today was all about the beast games. Every channel would show it. Every house would hear of it.
I glanced at the clock. 6:45 PM. I had another hour before I had to cook something before I died of starvation, but I was too tired to act on it. I needed a break. A real break.
The only thing I enjoyed about the beast games was the fact that I had a whole day without having to look at Wei's hostile face while he barked orders at me.
I sank back into the couch and grabbed the TV remote, fiddling with it as the voice from TV droned on, imploring people to join the beast games and change their lives for the better.
My dad thought he could change our lives, he would always come home, muttering things to himself about escaping this place where we were nothing but workers, he said he'd help me, he said he'd change our fortune but here I was in this faction, working my ass off in the Nexus sector that provided information to the mages.
"Maybe I'll just take a nap," I whispered to myself, yawning, trying to shut out thoughts of everything that threatened to consume me.
I let the remote fall to the side and closed my eyes, letting the world fade away. I wasn't sleeping deeply—just drifting, half-conscious. The noise from the TV faded into the background, and my mind wandered. It was easier to drift into nothingness than face the reality of my life.
---
I don't know how long it was before the sudden jolt hit me.
It wasn't like I was waking up from sleep. It was like I'd been thrown out of a dream and into a nightmare.
I jolted upright, eyes snapping open. The couch wasn't beneath me anymore.
Instead, I was lying flat on the ground. My arms stretched out instinctively, and I pushed myself up, my hands sinking into soft, wet earth.
What the hell?
The air was thick, humid, and smelled like something unfamiliar—like wet leaves and… something metallic. My breath hitched. The ground beneath me felt different. The colors around me were wrong—too bright, too sharp.
I blinked rapidly, trying to make sense of it.I wasn't in my apartment anymore. I wasn't even in the city. I was… somewhere else.
I slowly stood, my legs wobbly, and looked around. The first thing that hit me was the size of everything. The trees—they were massive. They weren't ever like this as far as I remembered and how did I even get here? Was this a nightmare?. Every part of this place felt alive, but in a way that made me feel small, insignificant.
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out at first. My throat was dry. It took a few moments before I could manage anything coherent.
"What the hell is this?" I breathed, stumbling back a few steps as I gazed at the vast space ahead of me. My feet slipped in the wet ground, and I quickly steadied myself. 'This isn't real', I thought, but my body was telling me otherwise.
I reached up and touched my face. My fingers brushed against my skin—real, but my head felt like it was spinning. My apartment, everything—it was all gone. I looked around frantically, trying to figure out where I was.
I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself, but all it did was make me dizzy. I felt like I was going to fall over again. I looked down at myself—same clothes, same beaten-up shoes. Nothing had changed physically, but the world around me… this place—it wasn't anything I recognized.
"Okay, okay... calm down," I muttered under my breath. "This has to be some kind of sick joke. Right? A prank? A hallucination? I've been working too much coupled with the stress from the Beast game preparations. Yeah, that's it. Just… just a dream."
I looked around, trying to find some sign of familiarity, anything that could explain how I got here. But the longer I stood there, the more I realized that I had no idea where here was.
There was a sudden rustling noise, like something moving in the underbrush. My head snapped toward the sound, but there was nothing there. Just shadows.
I felt my stomach churn, a deep sense of dread settling in my stomach. I turned in circles, trying to gather my bearings. But there was no sense of direction. No clear path, no roads, nothing. Just endless wild terrain, strange and unfamiliar.
There was no one out here. Oh fuck, I was screwed. Did the mages find out that I had been slandering them in my head? Was this a punishment?
"Okay, okay. Stay calm. Stay calm…" I muttered, my hands shaking as I wiped the sweat from my forehead. I was trying to think rationally, but every thought that ran through my head just made my heart race faster.
I was lost. No, worse—I was somewhere I shouldn't be.
My mind raced back to my apartment that felt like ages ago. Had I fallen asleep? Had I been knocked out somehow? I couldn't remember anything leading up to this point. One second, I was lying on the couch, barely awake, and the next, I was here, in this godforsaken place.
Was this a dream?
But even as I thought it, I knew it wasn't. The air was too real, the sensation of the earth beneath my feet too real also.
I looked around again, panicking, feeling like I was suffocating.
Should I start to run?
Then, just as the panic started to settle in, I heard it—a voice. It came from nowhere, but it was as clear as day, resonating in my head.
"Welcome to the Beast Dominion."