The dulcet notes of a music box roused the dreamer. They let out a low groan and stretched. A mirror of all mornings previous. Their room was a cocoon of darkness perfectly tailored to their tastes. They fumbled forward, slowly rising from the floor, and knocking aside a few items in the process. They traveled in the direction of “forward” until their outstretched hand bumped into a closet door, from which they retrieved a cup noodles container that was miraculously not crushed, and a plastic bottle of water. They pored the water into a mug that they hoped was clean enough to not make them sick, then lightly tossed the empty bottle to the side. They slid along the wall until they reached a corner and squatted, narrowly avoiding smashing their knee into a microwave on the floor. As their water heated, the faint glow lit the room enough for the figure to be both disgusted with their room and themself. “I’ll clean it tomorrow”, they half muttered to themself, but it was as empty of a promise as it was yesterday. At the sound of a chime, the room settled back into comfortable darkness.

After breakfast, they moved to their working corner. The now worker’s room was divided into three sections: one corner was their sleeping corner, then there was their cooking corner, the next was their working corner, and lastly was their empty corner. Discounting all of the trash, there was no furniture, and to anyone who wasn’t used to the smell, it reeked. They didn’t mind it all that much though. Due to an old think pad they had purchased a long time ago, and their knack for IT (along with certifications they had acquired earlier in life) they were able to pay the rent of their one room apartment, and get groceries delivered to their door, so they never had any real reason to leave.

After clocking out, they returned to their sleeping corner and scrolled until they felt tired again. As they were perusing their media of choice, they came across a will you press the button meme, their favorite meme type. This time, the text stated: “Travel to a world with magic but be transported in your current body.”

“Stupid”, they absentmindedly mocked how uncreative this meme was, but added “but easy press”. At the sound of verbal acknowledgement, neon blue outlines of boxes appeared encasing the body as if they were trapped inside of a voxel model of themself. At the bottom of the outline, the voxel encasing the top left portion of their foot flashed then vanished taking flesh with it. The pain was the worst they had ever felt in their life, and as their body spasmed and the outline mirrored, the next closest voxel to the missing one flashed. This time the pain pushed the now screamer to blackout.

A gentle warmth frustrated the dreamer rousing them from their pleasant dreams. They squinted their eyes open, and as was already apparent, they were outside. This was the first time they had seen sunlight in years. With a start, they remembered the now non existent pain and looked down, but every part of themself was accounted for. They were irritated by light and unfamiliarity, and now at the sound of their stomach rumbling, their irritation of unfamiliarity compounded.

//Note: My last post had more negative reception than any other I’ve posted before and no one left feedback as to why, so I’ll assume it is because I talked about myself in the notes. I will try to avoid that from now on.

//Note: If this post doesn’t fit in this community please let me know. I’m happy to take it down and not post this type of content here.