"I hate my life."
Despite having everything most people could only dream of—wealth, intelligence, good looks, and an endless supply of admiration—Leo felt empty.
His extreme wealth had created a barrier between him and the rest of the world, leaving him isolated, disconnected, and devoid of any real purpose. He could buy anything, yet the things he truly wanted remained out of reach, impossible to obtain with money alone.
Ever since he was a kid, Leo had longed for adventure.
Not just any adventure, though.
The kind he had often read about in novels—journeys filled with danger, discovery, and the unknown. A life where every moment was unpredictable, where survival wasn't guaranteed, where the world around him pulsed with magic and ancient mysteries.
He had always hated protagonists who desperately wanted to return to their old worlds. Maybe it was because they had something worth going back to.
Whatever the reason, he had never been able to understand that line of thinking.
With a quiet sigh, he let his body drift, the gentle sway of the water beneath him barely registering. He lay atop an oversized inflatable duck, floating aimlessly in his pool, staring blankly at the sky like he did most afternoons. The sun hung lazily overhead, its golden rays glistening against the rippling surface of the water.
Then—
Blink.
Blink.
Something was wrong.
"Huh?"
He squinted, then rubbed his eyes.
Streaking across the sky like a divine blade, carving through the heavens with an intensity that sent a chill down his spine.
A massive, glowing object.
It burned with a ferocious brilliance, its edges shimmering in hues of molten orange and a blinding white. It had to be the size of multiple mountains—so unfathomably large that, despite being miles from Earth's atmosphere, it still dominated the sky.
Leo's breath caught in his throat.
Then—
BOOM!
A deafening explosion ripped through the air as the meteor shattered the atmosphere, the sheer force of its descent sending violent shockwaves that made his entire being tremble.
And yet...
A slow, crooked smile crept across his face.
The meteor, despite its overwhelming power, moved with an eerie grace, almost as if it were alive. He watched in awe as it soared across the sky, an unpreventable demise descending upon the world.
Then it disappeared beyond the horizon, swallowed by the earth's distant embrace.
Silence followed. A chilling, unnatural stillness.
Then—
A deep, guttural boom resonated from far away, rumbling like the growl of an ancient beast. The impact sent a monstrous cloud of dust racing toward him, swallowing entire buildings in its path, growing larger, closer with each passing second.
"Holy sh*t."
Panic seized him as he rolled off his floaty, feet hitting the cool tiles with a frantic slap. He barely had time to take a step before the world around him began to break.
The ground cracked violently beneath his feet, splitting apart like fractured glass. Skyscrapers groaned in protest as they twisted and collapsed, their metal frames shrieking against the chaos. The air was thick with the sound of distant screams, muddled and distorted by the sheer force of the destruction.
He ran.
But it wasn't enough.
The blast tore through everything in its wake, a raw, unforgiving force of nature that consumed all.
And then—
Darkness.
A crushing, suffocating void.
He felt weightless. Adrift.
When awareness returned, he was floating. Suspended in something thick, viscous—like liquid, but not quite. His body refused to move, restrained by an invisible force that clung to him like a second skin.
His breathing was slow, but… off. No air filled his lungs, yet he felt no need to gasp for breath.
His mind was hazy, sluggish, as if submerged in a dream.
Where… am I?
The silence was near absolute, occasionally interrupted by muffled sounds that drifted through the liquid surrounding him. Voices—indistinct, foreign, their words an unintelligible murmur.
Leo tried to open his eyes, but his vision remained blurred, shapes shifting in the darkness beyond his confinement. A strange warmth pulsed around him, rhythmic, almost alive.
Something was different.
Something had changed.
And for what felt like the first time in his life—Leo felt excited.