Volume I - Chapter 2: A Familiar Place

I just stared at the screen when the company that made The Lands of The Lunerra answered my e-mail seriously, instead of mocking or making fun of me in various ways.

The makers of the game that made me smile and feel sad so many times in my meaningless and ordinary life gave a serious answer to my ridiculous wish... did they?

Am I... am I dreaming?

The reason I got out of bed was that I forgot to turn off the computer, what if I really slept in that short time?

I quickly pinched my arm and tapped my cheeks twice with my hands. Yet nothing changed, I was in reality.

Ah, this is the 'reality'...

It is really real.

I turned back to the computer screen, looked at the email for a while, and sighed again.

Maybe I'm being played a joke, maybe they will laugh at me after I reply, but still... I still want to take a chance.

Even if this is the joke of the century, for the first time in my life I want to trust someone.

To this end, my fingers met the keyboard again. I stopped thinking again and started typing the first thoughts that came to my mind.

Am I going to write something embarrassing? So what?

Will people make fun of me? I don't care about any of that.

I just... I want to do what comes from my heart, I want to speak freely, without any restrictions.

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I'm an orphan. I am not trying to pity myself, but I am a lonely person. All my life I have never had a friend, a loving family, or a lover. The only time I really had fun in my ordinary and monotonous life was when I was playing your game, The Lands of The Lunerra.

I'm studying a good major at a good university, so I don't have one foot in the grave. Nevertheless, I am sure there is nothing in this ordinary life that would make me happier than your game. Thank you for your attention, even if this was a joke, you helped me get it off my chest. At least I feel relieved.

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So I sent the email without a second thought.

I read what I sent all the way through, then again and again. My facial expression didn't change even a little bit, I didn't really feel embarrassed this time.

Honestly, I felt relieved. It felt strangely good to just express myself with my feelings, without thinking, without any barriers.

I didn't think it would be like this.

~ri-ring!

Oh, the company responded to my email again quite quickly.

How do these guys read, evaluate and respond to emails so fast? They're talking about granting a wish... This is serious, shouldn't they have an assembly or something?

Anyway, let's see what response they sent.

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Thank you for revealing your true feelings! Please click HERE for the help we would like to offer you!

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To be honest, I was expecting something like a greeting card.

After reading the text on the screen again, an idea popped into my mind. I paused for a moment, then sighed deeply.

I... I guess I haven't even spoken to a human being. There's a good chance that I've opened my heart to some artificial intelligence created by the company. Because no human being, let alone a company, can answer an email like that so fast.

Still... I will trust them, I will believe in the Land of Lunerra.

That's how I clicked on the link they sent, holding on to this tiny ray of hope inside me.

After clicking the link, I waited for a while, holding my breath.

The room fell silent, not a single sound came out. Second after second, then a few minutes passed. The silence in my room just continued, and after a while it even became scary. So I finally stopped holding my breath when nothing really happened.

My computer is one of those at the top end of the overall market. So 'slow' is out of the question.

In short... I got ripped off.

I smiled slightly, looked at the 'here' sign, and clicked on it again. Again and again, nothing happened.

Nothing...

My smile widened, and my anger rose inside me. I jumped to my feet, looking for the closest thing to me, and I found it. I grabbed my chair, and without even waiting a moment, I threw it against the wall.

The chair broke into two, maybe three, pieces. A big black stain appeared on the wall I had just painted. I looked at the chair for a while, then at the stain on the wall. I felt the emptiness inside me grow.

What did I expect? I had been tricked by someone and frankly... my heart was broken.

Furious, I threw myself on my bed, not caring to turn off the computer.

Tears welled up in my eyes, and I put the piece of clothing in my sleeve to my face.

I thought about my life, my childhood, and the days I spent in the orphanage. The friends I thought I had made, the people who followed me like leeches after my successes.

The people who approached me in every way not because of who I am, but because of what I have done at this age and what I can do in the future...

A smile reappeared on my face, a wide smile without any hint of happiness. A smile that the arm I used to hide my eyes was not enough to hide.

Just before going to sleep, I nervously glanced at the bright screen of the computer one last time, with a small hope. What I saw was the same scene I had seen before I jumped up.

A low, whisper-like voice echoed in the silence. My voice, the sound of my laughter. And then... suddenly, as my laughter was slowly intensifying, my vision suddenly blurred.

"H-ha?"

I felt nauseous before I even realized what had happened. Something bitter rose in my throat and I wanted to vomit. I jumped out of bed and tried to run to the bathroom, but with the first step I took into the room, I felt the weakness in my legs and found myself on the floor.

Then I felt something else, the blood rushing through my veins, trying to leave my body as if it were pressurized water. An intense pain, centered in my chest, suddenly began to squeeze my heart. I put my hand over my heart, trying to separate the fingers that were holding it, squeezing it as if to burst it, but there was no such thing.

With that, countless different thoughts sprouted in my mind, yet the most prominent one was clear.

Am I... having what they call a heart attack? I'm only twenty-one and I'm having a heart attack... How many other ridiculous things can happen to me?

Am I... am I going to die like this? Is this the absurdity of my ordinary, monotonous, and painful life?

No...

I... I don't want to die

I don't want to die!

"H-Hel-"

My half-formed words froze in an instant. Because I had managed to see something with my already blurred vision.

It was an image on my computer screen. It was the small notification of an e-mail that appeared at the bottom right of the computer screen.

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:D

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Time stopped in an instant. My eyes widened as if to ignore the pain.

And then... the whole world was plunged into darkness.

******

I... I think I'm dead.

Well, I say "I think" because I'm not sure.

I'm just in the dark. I can't feel my body, but at least it doesn't hurt anymore.

So I must be dead, right?

I looked at the dense, endless darkness around me and waited for a while.

Anyway, when people die, aren't they supposed to go to heaven or hell? Although they might not be going to either of them... This dark void, for example, doesn't look like either of them.

Where am I?

Actually... Am I not a bit too calm? Is it normal for someone who has died to react like this, and even more so for someone who has experienced a sudden and unexpected death like mine

It's strange, to think about it and yet not be afraid... It's definitely strange, but I guess there's nothing I can do about it.

I looked around me for a while, but I couldn't see any light source or any other being other than myself, so I realized something else.

In fact, I couldn't even see my own body, much less my surroundings, so I just sat down and waited. Although, I don't even know if I actually sat down.

It seems that the only thing I can do in this dark void where I am not even sure if I am alive, let alone sitting, is to wait and keep thinking for a long time...

*******

What is the reason why people are afraid of the dark?

According to an article I read, it is because of the unknown. As long as there is light, a person can see what is around them, but when they are in the dark, they have no idea what is there. So the first thing that comes to mind is that there is some kind of danger.

That's why people are afraid of the dark. Because they don't know what will come out of it.

And I... just stood there in total darkness, with no senses at all, and for so long that I lost track of time.

I couldn't see anything, I couldn't hear anything, I couldn't feel my muscles, I couldn't move my body. There was no smell or presence, no sensation of cold or heat, just pure and endless darkness surrounding me.

I was not a person who was afraid of the dark, but I could still feel myself slowly going mad with the despair of the unknown.

If I could feel my fingers, I would have probably started gnawing on them out of fear a long time ago. That smile I saw on the computer screen just before my presumed 'death' and where I was now, prevented me from thinking clearly and scared the hell out of me, but there was nothing I could do. So as time went on, I became more and more afraid.

If the producers of The Land of Lunerra are responsible for what happened to me, and it's impossible for me to think of anything else after that smile I saw before I died, did they really think that something like this would make me happy by removing the mediocrity from my life?

Are they crazy...? Although... how did they manage to do such a thing in the first place?

As my pointless thoughts clawed at the last remaining fiber of my will, I began to feel my mind fading.

If I spend a few more hours here, there will probably be no more 'me' in the world.

I will go mad, not just die, but go insane just standing here.

Just then, as I was slowly disappearing into my thoughts, something happened.

The endless darkness suddenly shimmered with an extremely intense light. It was so intense, so bright, that I closed my eyes, but it wasn't enough, I had to shield my eyes with my arms.

And then, I paused. I realized something, something that felt strange; something that shouldn't have happened.

I have... hands? I even have eyes?

Slowly I moved my hands away from my eyes, so the first thing I saw was a white wall.

I focused on the wall, and when I did, I realized that it was more of a ceiling than a wall. Excited to see a real 'thing' after a long time, I sat up and looked where I was.

I was in a strange room, quite plain and small, but actually quite tidy, with monochromatic and smooth walls, a single, average-sized desk, a mirror, double-doored closet, and the bed I was currently lying on... all of this felt 'familiar' to me for some reason.

Why does this place feel so familiar?

I continued to look around curiously, but it wasn't long before I was shocked by a sudden thought.

When I confirmed my thoughts with the design of the room, I slapped myself in disbelief, but I still didn't wake up from the dream in any way.

Thus, experiencing feelings of fear, surprise, shock, curiosity, and most importantly excitement all at the same time, I thought that I had really gone crazy and started to hallucinate while staying in that darkness.

It took me a long time to realize that the fantastic animation-style graphics I had seen on the computer screen had now turned into realistic graphics, but I was sure.

This room, with its design and all the other details that gave me a heavy sense of intimacy, was clearly the room where the second part of the story mode of the game The Lands of The Lunerra began.