I woke up to a ringing in my ears and a resounding feeling that everything had gone wrong. As I opened my eyes, that feeling was confirmed— a large, empty space that seemed to stretch on forever— there was no place on Earth like this. I couldn’t have died in my sleep, could I? Not unless I was killed, but that was highly unlikely, I had no memory of anything like that. So this had to be a dream. I lay back down and closed my eyes, so that I’d wake up for real back where I was supposed to be this time. Ten minutes…twenty minutes…something like thirty minutes passed like that. When I opened my eyes, I was still there. I sighed. Maybe I had to do something to trigger waking up, then.

I had my memory intact, at least. I knew who I was: someone with the power to get others to listen to anything I said, someone who could have the world wrapped around my finger, someone who was well on their way to graduating from university and living a comfortable life…until, of course, I had landed up here. The person responsible for this will suffer dearly, I thought. For now, though, irritating as it may be, I had to take stock of the situation. Maybe then I could wake up properly.

The first clue came with that— ‘my’ hands were no longer there. Even though I couldn’t feel it, the body that was connected to this mind was not my own. There were no mirrors, so I couldn’t see my face, but the hands I was looking down at were larger and more calloused than my own. Similarly, the clothes I were wearing were not something I would ever wear— they looked like some lame armour for a fantasy video game, or something like that. An ornate suit of sorts with way too many pieces— there were some epaulettes over a thick, starched cape that was attached to a well-tailored jacket with real-gold embroidery that covered an uncomfortably tight vest atop a silken shirt, all tied together with a brooch fastening something like a cravat to my collar…who in their right mind would wear all this! Everything about this screamed overly-pampered rich kid from a badly written historical novel. How annoying.

There was nothing around me as far as the eye could see. I tried to walk ahead, but that didn’t seem to make any difference, no matter how much I walked I had this sense that it would feel like I wasn’t moving ahead at all. It was ridiculous to just stand around and wait anymore— victory goes to the one who strikes first, right?

Taking in a deep breath, I yelled out into the void that surrounded me. “Show yourself, coward!”

Suddenly, a bright blue hologram blinked into existence in front of me. It looked something like a laptop screen with a document editor open, with a typewriter in front of it instead of a keyboard. It was a weird set-up, but most unsettling were the words on the screen. It read:

[“Show yourself, coward!” HELIODOROS said.]

I couldn’t wrap my head around what I was seeing. An involuntary ‘what the hell’ slipped past my lips. Suddenly, the typewriter keys started clacking away on their own.

[“What the hell…” HELIODOROS muttered.]

Those were my words. Whatever I was saying was being transcribed onto that document. The most annoying, of course, was that it was being attributed to someone called ‘Heliodoros’, which I knew was not my name. I looked down at my hands again. It might be this body’s name, then, I thought. Still, it was wrong— if this screen was transcribing my words and actions, they should at least attribute it to me.

“I’m not Heliodoros,” I said, glaring at the screen.

[“I’m not Heliodoros,” HELIODOROS said.]

Very funny. I had half a mind to just punch this ridiculous gag and hope I woke up right then and there, but even without any warning, I knew that that wouldn’t work out. I clenched my fist tightly, still, just in case the opportunity presented itself.

“What is this? Who are you?” I said, staring the screen down. Instead of transcribing my words this time, it glowed bright enough to blind me, and suddenly in a flash of light, there was something like a hologram of a messaging app in front of me and a device like a mobile phone in my hands. 

I didn’t see anything else to do so I began typing. As I typed, the hologram showed a flickering three dots on the right side of the messenger…so that was my side, it seemed. There’d better be someone else here. 

[ Let me out. ] —

The message was marked as read immediately. Three dots appeared on the other side of the screen. The guy on the other side was lucky that they’d decided to respond quickly. I was already pissed off. A soft ding played out, the message was here.

— [ No. ]