[Please choose your gender]

Huh?

[Please choose your gender]

I could not say if my eyes were open or closed, much less where I was. It was more of a concept, a perception of what was being 'said' to me inside my head, the letters glowing with their own purple-ish light.

The space was at the same time dark and bright, small and spacious, cold and warm. A real world inside a dream.

[PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR GENDER]

It was as if the longer I took to make a choice, the more impatient the letters got—or whatever was communicating with me. I had to shift my focus, as if I was scrolling through my cell phone, in order to see the options.

[Male]
[Female]
[Other]

So I get to choose, huh?

But what was I choosing for? The more time I spent in that space, the more confused I got. Yet at the same time, it was as if I could not think about things too much, as if my mind was being restricted, my own thoughts contained.

[MALE]
[FEMALE]
[OTHER]

As if there is any doubt which I would choose…

I imagine myself touching it, the eerie glow of those letters making my heart race. I felt that word enveloping my entire being, making the blood inside my veins run and course through my body as if until that moment I was dead and that was the breath of life I yearned for.

Then a new sentence appeared.

[Choose Your Destiny]

My destiny? Destiny of what?

I didn't want to make this kind of choice; why should I? Sure, it was better than someone else forcing me into something, but… The thought of choosing something like this now… Felt wrong. Almost dangerous—

[CHOOSE YOUR DESTINY.]

The letters' glow intensified, blinking repeatedly as if to urge me. With a tightness around my heart, I focused on the options.

[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]

What the actual fuc—

What did that even mean?! I had to choose a number for my destiny? That was starting to feel less like a dream and more like a joke.

[CHOOSE YOUR—

I pressed the number, irritated, a gush of wind blowing in my face not even a second later. My head began to hurt, a pressure from all directions as it got harder to see. Whatever was happening, whenever I was...it was unreal—no, it was a disruption. Something that should not belong there, a place I didn't belong.

[Now]
[Choose Your Fate]

For some reason, I knew that was the last thing I was obligated to choose, and even though I felt relieved, there was a sense of dread spreading inside me. Whatever I was being forced to choose…
It was not something good.

Fourteen cards jumped in front of me, out of nowhere—the cards half of my side. Their covers were made of silver with symbols that kept merging together, forming drawings that took my breath away. From all those cards, two stood out to me even though I could not see what they contained. One at each end.

Right or left.

[CHOOSE YOUR FATE]

The pressure in my head increased.

[CHOOSE YOUR FATE]

The card knew I had chosen it even before I did, floating towards me. It kept shrinking until it landed on my palm with its face down. The card was hot, as if it was made of iron and it had just left a furnace, yet my skin did not burn. There was a power emanating from it, like an absolute force that would compel me to do its bidding the moment I turned it.

For the first time since that whole weird dream state started, I was genuinely afraid. But before I could think of running away, not even sure where I would run to—or from what I was running from—my hand flipped the card on its own as if it was possessed.

I looked at the card—

Then everything disappeared.