Cycle of Ruin - Arrival: A LitRPG Series

Chapter 1

Leo opened his eyes to flashes of multicolored lights. The walls around him were pitch black and the only things visible were the streaks of red, blue and yellow zipping by.

What's happening, where...where am I? he thought as the wheels in his head slowly turned once more. It felt like he was brushing away age-old cobwebs as his mind struggled to make sense of its surroundings.

He swished his hand through the empty space, letting his fingers drag against the smooth current of air washing over him. What is this?

The muscles in his jaw ached with disuse as he opened his mouth and tried to move his leaden tongue to call out for help. The sound vibrated its way up his chest, only to resolve into silence in the empty expanse before him.

Am I dead?

The wayward thought halted the churning sea of questions building in his mind. The impossible situation certainly lent that possibility credibility, but the brush of air against his skin was a reminder he was still corporeal. Last he checked, those who died tended to leave their body behind.

He scrounged through his memory, trying to weave the jumbled thoughts and images back to their proper tapestry. The last thing he remembered was traveling to an old, abandoned warehouse, his palms slick with sweat as he carefully tugged open an unlatched window to slip into its dark and cold interior. The floor had been lined with crude cages and chains. The heavy metal bars held back the shadowy forms of—

The image shattered as an intense migraine elicited a grunt of pain. The thread he had been following frayed apart as his concentration broke, and the scattered pieces of recent memories fell apart, leaving emptiness in their wake. He desperately tried to grab hold of the fleeting images, but they slipped through his grasp.

Feelings of helplessness washed over him as months of memories slipped away, until the last thing he could remember was moving into the quaint upstairs apartment of a coffee shop with his kid sister, Melody. It was a strange sensation, knowing that time had passed between now and then, but not knowing how much or what had transpired.

This is just a dream, it has to be a dream, he told himself, trying to soothe his rising panic. This whole experience was nothing more than a drug-induced nightmare and the missing memories a trick of the mind. I must've taken some bad sleep medication before bed. It was the only plausible explanation he could think of.

Accepting the answer for the truth, he took a few deep breaths to let the tension drain out of his body. All he could do now was enjoy the odd experience and wait for his body to wake up. He flipped over, tucking his hands behind his head in a makeshift pillow as he relaxed and enjoyed the light show racing past him.

As time trickled by, uncertainty began to gnaw at him. If this really was a lucid dream, then shouldn't he be able to control it?

Needing to put his fears to rest once and for all, he closed his eyes, determined to test his reality by ending this ridiculous falling. Reaching out with his senses, he willed the scenery around him to scatter, for his descent to stop. He cracked his eyes open, only to renew his previous worry with the lack of change—if anything it felt like the lights were zipping by even faster now.

Panic started to take hold of his mind once more as he refocused on his surroundings to try again. Putting all the will he could muster into bending the dreamverse to his desire, trying to break whatever subliminal thought was keeping him locked in this weird limbo.

Then the light show changed. The streaks of light accelerated, until in no time at all he found himself engulfed in a vortex of seizure-inducing color. The bright lights shifted so fast that he was forced to shut his eyes against the blinding display. A tendril of fear burrowed into him from the crazy situation. It's just a dream; it's just a dream; it's just a dream.