Every time I wake up, I always wake up in a different world. Since everyone I’ve met in these worlds calls them by different names, I’ve settled with calling them ‘Alternative Universes’ or AUs. I try to stay up as long as I can to avoid going to a different AU but my efforts always fail. The longest I’ve gone without sleep was 2 weeks. Every time I open my eyes, it’s like I’m a character in a book or novel. It’s like my sole role in the world is to be…there. I never get the role of the main character. It’s always being an antagonist or a side character aiding the protagonist or just being there as decoration. I have to always assume how the character acted before I replaced them. For example, if I wake up in a forest with blood and armor on, I know that I am a knight who fainted in battle. I know that I need to be courageous and that I need to fight alongside whoever I fight alongside. Trust me, years of experience and reading countless AUs worth of novels got me somewhere. But It wasn’t always like this...

10 years ago when I was 15, I was living my life normally as a highschool bookworm. I loved reading novels and had a hobby for acting. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I attended a theater club. The club leader was strong on making things ‘fair’ so he would have us draw sticks to place us into roles. I always got the minor roles or the roles that I didn’t like. I always wanted to be a protagonist or someone fairly important other than a side character.

The next day, I went to the local bookstore in search of new novels to read. I found one that piqued my interest. A story about a little girl who, every day of her life woke up in a different dimension. She would have adventures in every single one of them and one day, she found a little boy who always appeared in the dimensions she was in. I was really interested in the book so I bought it and began reading. When I was barely at the beginning of the book at the part where she describes an adventure in the jungle of Alrith, the pages were suddenly blank. I looked at the page number and it was only page 20. Thinking it was a printing mistake, I put it down and thought of returning the novel and reporting it to the bookstore owner.

Next thing I knew, I woke up in an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people surrounding me. I was in a hut in a jungle. I looked around and thought that the place was familiar. I knew what this place was but I just couldn’t put my finger on it. I sat there aimlessly staring at the hut wall, pondering where I was.