Ryan POV
My eyes open to white. Complete white. There’s no floor beneath me, no sky above, no walls around.
Just white in every direction. I’m standing—I can feel my feet on something solid—but I can’t see it.
My hands are in front of me. I can see them clearly. But when I look down, the ground doesn’t exist.
My heart is fast.
This isn’t normal. This isn’t part of the game. I try to move, and my legs respond.
I walk forward. The white doesn’t change. I walk for a long time. The white stays the same.
"Daniel?" I called out.
Nothing. The word just disappears into the white.
I turn around. Same white. I try walking in a different direction. Same white. It’s like I’m inside the color itself. Like white is all that exists.
Then text appears.
It just manifests in front of me. Black letters on the white nothingness.
"Welcome, Ryan."
I step back. The text doesn’t move.
"What’s happening?" I ask.
The text changes.
"Character Creation Interface Activated. Please configure your avatar for Eternal Realm."
I blink. The white space shifts. Suddenly, I’m standing in front of a mirror—except the mirror shows me, but not exactly me. The reflection is holding a menu. The menu has customization options.
Hair color. Hair style. Eye color. Face shape. Height. Build. Skin tone. Scars. Tattoos. Every detail I can think of, and many I can’t.
I reach out to touch the reflection. My hand passes through it like it’s not there.
The menu is responding to my attention. When I focus on hair color, a palette appears. Different shades.
I choose dark brown—similar to my real hair but slightly darker. The reflection changes instantly.
I spend time on the face. The system offers presets, but I can also customize individual features.
I adjust the jawline. The nose. The cheekbones. I make the reflection look closer to me than to a stranger, but not identical. Something feels right about that.
The reflection stares back at me with my chosen features.
"Name," the text prompts.
I don’t speak. I just think about it. A keyboard appears in the white space. I reach out and my hands interact with it perfectly. Each letter I press appears above the keyboard.
I type "Ryan" again.
It’s simple. It’s honest.
The name appears on the reflection’s chest like a name tag.
"Class selection is next," the text says.
But the class options don’t appear. Instead, something else happens.
The white space darkens. Not to gray. To a deep, impossible black.
I can still see the reflection. Still see my chosen face. But the background has changed to this consuming darkness.
And my reflection is looking at me differently now.
It tilts its head. The movement is too smooth. Too deliberate.
"Do you know what you are?" the text asks.
I don’t respond. I can’t respond.
"Do you know why you’re here?" The text continues.
My reflection reaches out. Its hand passes through the mirror—except there is no mirror anymore. Just the reflection, reaching toward me.
I step back.
The reflection steps forward.
"System error," the text says. "Correction required."
The reflection stops. It goes rigid. Its face goes blank.
Then the black space shatters.
Like glass. Like reality itself is breaking apart.
For a moment, there’s chaos. Pieces of white and black falling away. I’m falling too. Or flying. I can’t tell which. The sensation of movement but no direction.
Then I’m standing again.
I’m in a large circular chamber. The walls are stone. Ancient stone. The kind that’s been here for a very long time.
There are symbols carved into the walls—geometric patterns that don’t quite make sense when I look at them. The more I stare, the more they seem to move.
The chamber is empty except for a stone pedestal in the center. On top of the pedestal is a book.
An actual book. Leather-bound. Old.
I walk toward it. My footsteps echo. Each step sounds hollow. Like this chamber exists in multiple places at once.
I reach the pedestal. The book doesn’t have a title. No marking. Just worn leather.
I opened it.
The pages are blank.
Except as I watch, text begins writing itself across the blank page. Not appearing. Writing. Like an invisible hand is penning words in real-time.
"This is your beginning."
I close the book quickly.
When I open my eyes, the stone chamber is gone.
I’m standing in a vast library. The shelves stretch forever in every direction. Books upon books upon books. Millions of them. All of them identical to the one I was just holding.
"Class selection awaits," the text says. It’s written in the air now, floating in front of me.
A new menu appears. It’s different from the one Daniel described. The options are there—Warrior, Swordsman, Knight, Archer, Mage, Healer, Assassin, Summoner—but there’s something else below them.
A scroll bar.
There are more options. Hidden options. Below the standard classes.
I scroll down.
More classes appear. Classes I haven’t heard of. "Seeker." "Void Walker." "Chronicle Keeper." "Anomaly." Each one has a brief description that doesn’t quite explain what it does.
I keep scrolling.
The classes become stranger. "Error." "Undefined." "?????" Some of them don’t have names. Just symbols. Symbols that hurt to look at the same way the wall symbols did.
At the very bottom of the list, there’s one class that’s separate from all the others. It has no name. No description. Just an empty box.
I hover over it.
The description appears: "Not Recommended."
I move back to the standard classes. I selected Warrior. It’s safe. It’s normal. Nothing strange about it.
A window materializes in front of me. The library disappears.
I’m back in white. Pure white. Peaceful white.
The window is asking me to confirm my choices.
Name: Ryan
Class: Warrior
Appearance: [Custom]
I’m about to confirm when I notice something.
Below those options, there’s one more line.
It wasn’t there before. I would have noticed it. But now it’s there.
Status: [ANOMALY DETECTED]
Before I can read further, the text changes.
A new window appears.
It’s asking me to select my starting class.
But the options are different now.
Instead of the twelve classes I saw before, there are only four visible.
And at the very bottom, a fifth option that’s highlighted in red.
"Unknown Class - System Access Restricted"