"Am I going to die... like this?"
The thought barely flickered through my mind as I lay in the cavernous chamber—small and yet somehow vast—half of my body torn clean off.
The thing that had done it, a monstrous beast, crouched before me. Its silver fur shimmered under the faint light, soaked and matted with blood. A glint of wet crimson clung to its razored fangs as it devoured my lower half like some rabid god. It chewed noisily, chunks of flesh slipping from its jaws, only to be gobbled up by a pack of scurrying scavengers—small, bipedal rodents with grotesque dog-like heads. Kobolds. They looked like the kobolds from fantasy manga, only much more... real. And hungry.
How did I end up like this? At the doorstep of death, watching myself be eaten?
Ah. Right.
It was my own goddamn confidence. That false sense of invincibility only teenagers can afford.
A few months back, strange rifts began appearing across the world. People started calling them "Dungeons" because, well, they looked the part—stone corridors, monsters, loot. All that crap. Creatures from nightmares poured out, but they never left the confines of the dungeons. The military quarantined most of them.
But me? Being the delusional main-character-syndrome-having idiot I am, I decided I was different. Special. Heroic.
So, I grabbed some basic protective gear and a makeshift weapon, rallied a few equally dumb friends, and waltzed into a dungeon that popped up near our school.
Obviously, that didn't go well.
And now here I am—on death's door, quite literally.
What a damned loser.
As I wallowed in my self-pity and regret, my vision began to blur. The world around me shimmered oddly. The stone floor rippled, as if melting, transforming into a swirling void of violet. The boss monster and its little kobold minions were swallowed by it like dust in a vacuum.
And then—
I died.
Everything faded. My mind unraveled into the comforting numbness of nothingness.
And honestly... it felt like a relief.
There was no more pain. Just peace.
The eternal darkness wrapped around me like a grieving mother.
Then—
Knock knock.
What?
Death doesn't usually come with interruptions. Come on, man. Take a hint.
Knock knock.
Again? Persistent bastard.
In my suffocating, empty silence... I opened my eyes.