1 Waking up to life

"Be better."

Those were the words my mother spoke on her deathbed. Just two words, yet they held a profound meaning.

Be better than all those who turned this beautiful world into the crazy hell it is today. The hell of betrayal, rat's-racing and backstabbing. The inferno of hate, jealousy, and wrath.

Be better than them.

Ever since I've become an orphan, I took those words and turned them into my life's creed.

I was better than intruding on the talks I'd chanced upon and causing a scene. It didn't matter I heard how my girl asked me out due to a dare rather than a real interest.

Hearing the insults her friends threw my way only to see her stupidly smile and nod along… As much as it broke my heart, I manned up and left, opting for calculated damage control over letting my emotions get the better of me.

When my adopted family crashed on the little wealth my mom left me, I gritted my teeth and looked away. There was no use fighting over some items at the cost of escalating the situation and making my situation even worse.

In this world, I had no protector. Before becoming an adult, I was powerless to change my fate. But now…

"I'm sorry, but your creditor has refused to cover the entrance fee."

The voice in the phone struck me like a sharp arrow, skewering my brain all across.

"Excuse me, but…" I hesitated for a second, too shocked to form a single thought.

I held back when my greedy step-family essentially stole my physical possessions. I've had no power to defend them from the sticky hands of my dear aunt and uncle. I was powerless to stop them from using my inheritance to let my lovely step-sister live the high life she could never otherwise afford.

The moment I finished my obligatory education, they threw me away to a nearby city, renting a small unit just to keep custody of the house for a few more years.

I didn't care about all of that, because, in that specific scenario, my mom was better. She was well aware of her little sister's spoiled nature and locked the lion's share of her wealth in my college fund.

The fund that failed to cover the entry cost to the expensive University of Arts and Crafts in the academy town recently developed on the east coast.

"Excuse me, but could you please run it through me again?" I requested in an unsteady voice. My arms tensed and relaxed in a weird dance of anxiety.

'It could be some silly mistake,' I thought, hoping for this to be any different than all the times when the life screwed me over.

"We are not sure yet, but this response…" the voice on the other side of the phone hesitated. "This response is what we usually get when there's no money to cover the invoice."

There was no satisfaction, smugness, or vile happiness in the speaker's voice. Maybe a bit of pity?

'I guess this isn't his first time dealing with a situation like that,' I realized.

And as I did so, the weight of the situation suddenly bore down on my shoulders.

"I will try to call the bank and ask them to fix the issue," I bought some time while trying to gather my thoughts. "Would it be all right if I called you back as soon as I get back from them?"

After a few words of ironing out the details of the next contact, I hung up and took a deep breath. My vision blurred, as my thoughts scattered.

Then, my unsteady hand brought the phone up and my fingers dialed out one of the few numbers I had saved.

"I'm sorry, my name is Peter Wozniak, my ID is…"

The call didn't last long, soon confirming the worst-case scenario.

My inheritance was gone.

All the money my late mom hid away from the greedy hands of my aunt had evaporated from the accounts the moment I was formally accepted into the university.

The bank's clerk was justifiably confused, promising to look into the matter and report potential fraud…

But if my aunt was good at anything, it was planning her moves out in the finest detail. And I could be damn sure she had enough paper to keep me from recovering my small fortune until my dear step-sister's grandkids would die of old age!

"Shit!"

The shock-induced adrenaline started to dissolve in my blood.

My body turned limp and fell down to the ground. Falling powerlessly, I struck the edge of my bed with the middle of my spine, adding physical pain like an insult to an injury.

"Fucking hell!"

I slammed my fists down on the floor, a renewed fire of desperation pumping my veins full of the sweet nectar of primal euphoria. Yet, in the contest of strength, the hard, concrete floor of my 'apartment' proved supreme.

Feeling the cold touch of blood seeping down my knuckles, I raised and took a deep breath.

All the money was gone.

'Sure, I can sue them…' I thought, only to fall back and rest against the side of my bed. "Haa… As if."

I was fully broke, with just some scraps left in the account. Barely enough to survive on literal bread and water until I would find a part-time job and get my first paycheck.

With absolutely no money in hand, the costly and likely lengthy procedures of the legal proceedings would bankrupt me many times over.

'Maybe that's how she plans to keep it?' I thought, feeling my adrenaline-induced strength degrade and vanish.

I took a deep breath and looked down… Only to see an image of my mom's figure appear before my eyes.

Her smiling eyes… Her powerful aura hiding in her petite and feeble frame…

'No…'

I closed my eyes, unable to stand the mirage. But it only grew stronger instead.

My mom's delicate, caring smile. Extreme power seeping from her kind eyes.

'She loved me too much…'

Suddenly, the calculative side of my brain took over, muting all the grief and desperation, replacing them with cold logic.

"She was better than this."

At this moment, this was one sound conclusion. One observation I somehow failed to make up until now.

I had to be better. But she already was better. She was the very picture of what "being better" meant for me! As such, would forcing such a defeatist mindset be something she would impose upon the son she loved with all her heart?

A burning sensation suddenly grew at the bottom of my stomach. A rotating sphere of inner warmth that I've never felt before.

"Was I wrong this entire time?" I uttered silently into the empty space of my desolate room.

The heat in my stomach spread into my guts. Before long, it was all over my lungs.

"Was I really so stuck to an interpretation of her words I made as a small kid?"

This was one hell of a painful question to ask, one putting the foundation of the last five years of my life under scrutiny.

But just like I accepted all the harm and hurt before to follow my creed, I accepted the pains of change this time as well. Without hesitation, I threw my mind at the possibility and forced myself to analyze my situation through this new point of view.

"Be better… Be better than them…" I muttered.

The heat spread from my lungs to my throat and then my head, bringing my brain to a boil and cooking out a concrete picture of a different interpretation.

One that abandoned self-depreciation in favor of self-importance.

"Be better than all those fuckers that can only lie and steal. Show them where they belong…"

A weird, unfamiliar yet extreme sensation exploded in the middle of my stomach, right as the heat reached the tip of my tongue. A heat far more intense than the warmth from before.

"You've finally woken up, son."

A voice filled my thoughts. A familiar voice… yet one I last heard when I was merely four, whole fifteen years ago.

My father's voice.

The warmth at the tip of my tongue exploded and merged with the scorching heat from my stomach… Only to suddenly vanish, radiating away in a small shockwave.

The dust kicked up from the concrete as the physical heat dissipated, and some of the smaller items in the room trembled.

And right before my eyes, there was now a pulsating, oval shape, luring me with hypnotizing, purple light.

"Here's my belated parting gift and apology for leaving so suddenly."

The face of my father, a face I had no right to remember after fifteen years, appeared in perfect detail for me to see.

"I wish I could tell you just how much I love you and how sorry I am. But I hope one day, you will understand. Or rather…"

The face twisted in a grimace of deep worry and anxiety.

"Or maybe it would be better if you never came to learn what made me leave."

Both the voice and the vision vanished in a single instant. But the strange, purple gate in the middle of my room did not.

My instincts screamed out in alarm.

I shook my head to the left and then to the right, hurriedly scanning my surroundings.

'Watch out for a truck!'

Years of escaping from the harsh reality into the simpler worlds of the novels paid off with my instant wariness towards the potential appearance of a certain kun from Japanese modern folklore. Thankfully, for how shoddy my rented studio was, it was entirely made out of reinforced concrete, a barrier even a speeding truck would struggle to penetrate.

"Is this what I actually think it is?"

Slowly, the reality of the situation started to dawn on me.

'Did I miss some spots while cleaning and allowed some toxic or hallucinogenic shrooms to grow undetected?'

That was the rational thought.

'Is this a damn gate to another world?' My naive yet hopeful side came to the rescue with a different approach.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. Yet, even after opening them back again, the purple, oval frame continued its hypnotizing flux.

"Haaa…" I raised my right hand towards my face to wipe my eyes.

And the gate vanished without a trace.

"Huh?"

My hand stopped, soon followed by the rest of my body. Guided by instinct, I moved my hand back… and swiped it to the side again.

And there it was, the purple gate, the alleged last gift from my long-missing father, back to its purple dance of colors as if nothing had happened.

I gulped my saliva down.

'So that's how it is.'

The connections appeared in my thoughts, drawing lines between all the dots.

It likely wasn't a random stroke of luck for this vision and gate to appear right now. For someone capable of bending the laws of the universe and making something impossible to appear in this strictly physic-governed world…

For someone on this level, setting up a message without a trigger would be a shoddy work!

And what could that trigger be? The answer couldn't be more obvious.

"So I was really stuck on such a childish misconception of my mom's wishes…" I muttered while breathing out a long sigh.

And it was the change in my perspective, my renewed will to actively fight for my own fate, that likely triggered this strange vision.

A part of me wanted to throw everything aside and take a plunge into the gate. If my hopes were right just this once, then all my problems…

A more rational side wished for a more careful approach, befitting of someone as calculative as I prided myself on being.

But my calculating side forced my body up and reached out for the phone.

"Hello, I was talking to you just a few moments ago," I threw into the cheap, hand-on from my little sister.

Knowing my aunt, it was wire-tapped… Just because I couldn't afford to get a new one even if I was aware of the fact.

"I'm going to solve this issue within a week," I spoke with endless confidence fueled by the strange fire of my new, changed belief. "Could you be as kind as to wait until then?"

"Yes, that's perfectly doable. I will await your call on the next Friday, then," the clerk on the other side of the phone replied, as happy to help as he was certain this delay would prove ineffective.

I concluded the call and lowered my hand-wielding phone, only for my eyes to dart toward the purple gate.

It was drawing my eyes like some kind of charm, promising prospects I would never deep possible otherwise.

My leg moved on its own, taking a step toward this strange anomaly…

"No, going in like that would be flat out stupid," I voiced out my concerns to the audience of me, myself, and I… But my hand moved on its own, reaching out for the alluring potential hidden in that gate.

What kind of world would I see on the other side?

I've read enough novels to guess what this gate entailed… But I still had yet to determine what kind of surprise was hidden behind this hypnotizing, pulsating object.

"Shit, I nearly reached out for it," I forced my arm to freeze, stopping it mere inches away from the anomaly. "For now, let's prepare," I muttered, using my left hand to pull my right arm back. Doing so, somehow freed me from the strange call of the gate, allowing me to swipe my right hand and close the portal.

"Let's prepare so that I will be ready for whatever might await on the other side!"