Wu Hei's room was a battlefield of unwashed laundry and empty instant noodle cups. The glow from his computer screen cast long shadows across the chaos, illuminating his focused expression as he navigated through the virtual landscape of PUBG. At 3 am, with finals looming on the horizon, Wu Hei should have been buried in textbooks. Instead, he was immersed in the game, his fingers dancing over the keyboard while the staccato clicks of his mouse punctuated each precise movement.
"Almost there," Wu Hei muttered to himself, eyes fixed on the screen where only two players remained. His character crouched in the bushes, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. A bead of sweat trickled down his temple as he held his breath, the tension palpable. Then, with the suddenness of a thunderclap, gunfire erupted. Wu Hei reacted with lightning speed, but it wasn't enough. His character fell, the word "Better luck next time" splashing across the screen in bold letters.
"Second place... again!" Wu Hei groaned, frustration gnawing at him. He glanced at the clock—it blinked back an accusatory 3:06 am—but the thought of sleep never crossed his mind. Eager to redeem himself, he moved to queue for another match, but the ready button flickered oddly. The Chinese characters that usually beckoned him to another round shifted into an alien script, morphing and twisting into symbols he had never seen before.
"What the f*ck," he mumbled, clicking the glitched button relentlessly, hoping it would revert back to normal. Each click seemed futile, but Wu Hei persisted, driven by the gamer's stubborn refusal to end on a loss.
Without warning, a blinding flash of light washed over him, stark and intense like a flashbang grenade detonating right before his eyes. Wu Hei flinched, throwing up his arms to shield his face. A high-pitched ringing assaulted his ears, drowning out all other sound, and for a terrifying moment, he thought he was having a seizure. Panic clawed at his throat; his heart hammered against his ribcage as he stumbled back from the desk.
The world around him dissolved into a sea of whiteness, and darkness crept into the edges of his vision. Wu Hei's mind raced—had the lack of sleep finally caught up with him? Was this what collapsing from exhaustion felt like?
"Focus," he told himself, trying to anchor his consciousness as reality itself seemed to unravel. What was happening to him?
The whiteness that enveloped Wu Hei's vision began to dissipate like mist at dawn, revealing an environment far removed from his cluttered dorm room. Blinking rapidly, he attempted to process the scene before him—a sprawling expanse of broken columns and shattered marble, under a sky so vast it seemed to swallow the horizon, dotted with galaxies that spiraled and shimmered above.
"Am I... in a hospital?" The thought was a fleeting one, absurd even to his own ears. Hospitals didn't have open skies flush with cosmic wonders, nor did they echo with the distant sound of stone grinding against stone.
A sharp yet oddly hollow sensation snapped his attention away from the heavens. A brick bounced off the side of his head, followed by another, each contact painless but insistent. Wu Hei turned, squinting in the direction of their origin. Atop a precariously angled column sat a man with hair like gold, casually tossing more rocks in his direction, a smirk playing on his lips.
"Hey, you awake now? Or you need another love tap?" the blond man called out, his voice reverberating among the ruins.
Wu Hei stood frozen, mind racing for an explanation. This had to be some sort of dream, a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation and too many hours staring at a computer screen.
Before he could muster a response, movement caught his eye. To his left, a figure with feline grace and unmistakable cat ears was spinning on the ground, her limbs moving in fluid, mesmerizing patterns. The catgirl's breakdancing would have been entrancing if not for the absurdity of the situation.
"Jin, cut it out," she chided without missing a beat, her body twisting and turning in an intricate dance. "Can't you see he's confused?"
"Confusion is the start of enlightenment, Lian," the masked man beside her remarked dryly, his voice muffled. "Or so the sages say."
"Enlightenment?" Wu Hei echoed, his confusion deepening. His gaze flitted between the trio, trying to grasp the reality of what was happening. He wasn't prepared for this—whatever this was. But years of gaming had honed his instincts for the unpredictable. He steadied his breathing, pushing down the panic that threatened to rise.
"Where am I?" he ventured, his soft-spoken tone barely carrying over the distance.
"Battle Arena, newbie," Jin replied, hopping down from his perch with ease. "You clicked the shard, and here you are. Lucky you."
"Shard?" Wu Hei's mind flickered back to the glitched ready button, the alien script. Could it be related to this 'shard'?
"Yep. You're in for quite the ride." Jin tossed another brick, this time aiming for Wu Hei's feet. "Better get used to it fast."