A Dream Turned Reality

In modern-day, humanity has become something of a parasite or a leech to the world. The world itself has yet to fall completely, however with the number of problems facing the world, where acid rain, a seemingly purely sci-fi idea to many, became reality and would occur twice a month, causing unsuspecting people harsh skin corrosion and would cause damage to property around the world, it's fair to say that the world is near collapse. With this in mind, it's easy to see why so many people no longer care for others. Humanity hates humanity more than anything else. With this in mind, we meet a 17-year-old young man who despises humanity. Someone who doesn't care whether or not life itself was wiped out, but for some reason, still wishes to help people. Whether it's due to an amazing amount of empathy or unknown psychological reasoning, he does want to help people. However, no matter who he sees, what he does, or who he helps, his ideas towards humanity remains the same, they are the lowest of low, something that can never be redeemed. Something that should be erased.

Heading towards a bookstore to pick up a new entry in a light novel series that he's been following since it was initially created, it starts to rain little by little, and it escalates as it gets a bit colder due to the combination of rain and the evening winds. Even with his quick but warm and comfortable get up of a t-shirt, a sweater, some sweatpants, and sneakers, the chill caused by the time of day and weather made him start rushing to the store. Upon entering the store, he finds the light novel he was looking for. Examining the spine and cover, as though testing the light novel as to whether he even wants to buy it or not even with the answer already set in place, he takes it to the cashier to complete his purchase.

Upon returning to his small apartment, where the only things of note are some bookshelves filled with light novels and manga, and a sorry excuse for a kitchen that only has a microwave and a griddle and stacks of empty cup noodles, he heads to his bedroom to dry himself off and he prepares himself for a reading session involving his new light novel. After about 7 hours, he finishes the light novel and puts it right next to the other light novels of the same series.

"Oh crap, it's way later than I thought it was! Or would it be considered early now? Either way, I'll probably be late tomorrow for work if I don't get some sleep now."

Having noticed the time being 3:00 a.m, he didn't bother to take off the clothes that he had on at that moment and went to sleep after tossing and turning for a while.

Waking up, he sees an unfamiliar ceiling, or rather, an unfamiliar sky. Seeing the sky made him realize that he wasn't on Earth (given the fact that Earth's sky is often dark and strangely murky even during the day) since the sky currently in view looked pure, but not in a conventional way. The sky he saw had colour similar to that of a peach, with clouds that were whiter than snow without any visible moons or even a sun. After standing up and observing his surroundings, the only other things he saw were some bonsai trees that had blue, glowing leaves and a neat-looking shrine-like creation made from rocks and wood with moss covering the parts adjacent to the ground. The shrine itself, however, was what had caught his attention. Visible on the back of the shrine, he saw some symbols, possibly runes, that he had never seen before in his life and if given an eternity, could never figure out what they meant. Upon seeing everything present to him, the only response he could muster was:

"This is a pretty, I don't know, I guess lame but neat dream? I mean the environment part of the dream gets full points, but points are lost since it doesn't seem like there is anything to do, at least without putting effort in making something that would give me something to do."

Interested yet unimpressed, he went to lay back down again, but then, almost as though a force was pulling him upwards, he stood back up haphazardly and was unsteady on his feet. When he was stable on his feet, a blinding light engulfed his vision, blinding him for a little while. After rubbing his eyes to help them readjust, what he saw could simply be described as beautiful. A woman with long, silky purple hair wearing a black dress with a flower-like design and a pure white fluffy scarf which had the longer side hanging off of her right shoulder. She stood in front of the shrine gracefully with her divine amber eyes looking at the young man.

The young man stood there, in awe of her looks, but after some time, returned to reality and asked her an important question.

"Who are you supposed to be? Have we met somewhere before? I don't remember you if so."

"I am what you would call a goddess. If you desire, I will allow you to kneel before me."

Egotistical bitch. Those were the immediate words that came to his mind upon hearing what she had just said as his face cringed in disgust.

- I'm sorry? Did this bitch have the audacity to tell me to kneel before her? Look, she's hot as hell, don't get me wrong, ten out of ten. However, to claim yourself a goddess and telling me to throw away what little pride and dignity I've accumulated in my life, the respect I have for you has basically been completely destroyed!

"Sorry, I don't feel like prostrating myself for you, and admittedly, I have a hard time believing you're a goddess, sorry."

He said all of that whilst bowing slightly with just his head. In case you couldn't tell already, the young man rarely says what he thinks. However his reasons aren't due to cowardice or the inability to say his harsh thoughts to anyone, rather he takes the best course of action to resolve a situation. Understandably, the more he dislikes a situation and doesn't really want to be there, the faster he'll try and finish the situation, similar to the issue currently occurring.

"I see, that's a shame. I will not force you to kneel before me, and after this is all done, you will believe me to be a goddess, however, that's not the point. The reason you are here today is because you have died, now then, upon hearing about your de-"

"Wait what! How did I die!? I was, like, ridiculously healthy! People wished they were as healthy as I was! How did it happen?!"

"You were murdered by a desperate woman who needed a roof over her head for the rain outside developed into acid rain and she chose to enter your accommodation due to the door being unlocked. Out of fear of being discovered as a criminal for breaking and entering, she chose to kill you. Admittedly, not the smartest tactic as she would then be a criminal for sure, given your laws and rules for justice, however, the outcome remains the same that you have died."

- Really, so it's game over because something chose to kill me? Where did all the good karma that I had saved up go? Helping humans out of some form of obligation wasn't a mistake, was it? Those damn things are more worthless than dung under my shoe. Well, either way, it's all over. I guess this is fine too, I mean now that I'm dead, I won't have to see another human ever again. I wonder if I'll get to see a really pretty angel or something that says something like, "good job for what you did in your life" or something as nice as that.

"Now that you're curiosity has been satiated, I shall now inform you of why I allowed you to talk to someone as great as me. You see, twelve gods chose to play a game, myself being one of them. We wanted to see what would happen if we took freshly dead spirits and brought them to another world, to see which one of our chosen spirits would do something unimaginable in scale that would have a ripple across the entire world that they were brought into."

"So it's like gambling?"

Looking unimpressed, the goddess said in a very monotone and annoyed voice.

"If that is how you wish to see it, yes, us gods are gambling right now with you as the horses in a horse race."

Clearing her throat, she started again,

"Anyways, each candidate chosen by a god will be given one amazing ability each, however, it's best for you to be quick as things chosen by other god candidates will be incapable of being chosen by someone else. The world you will be headi-"

"Hey wait then, let time pick my ability then! All the good things will be taken soon, also yeah yeah I get it, do something awesome and cool in the new world, which is probably based on fantasy, and then you win a bet, am I right? Now let me pick an ability or whatever!"

After hearing his words, her eyes were glaring at him, as though looking at something completely worthless and grotesque, the goddess simply said, "As you wish," in a rather rude tone, and in an instant, several dozen cards showed up that had small signs of aging on their sides, floating in front of the young man's eyes. All of them had the ability's name written on them with small descriptions written on them about what they do, along with difficulty shown in stars on the cards out of 12.

"Now it's getting sta-"

Immediately interrupting himself, the young man instantly grabbed a card and told the goddess,

"Hey, can I have magic like this card says?!"

"Are you certain you do not wish to look over the others? Not to mention the difficulty on tha-"

"No way! You said that if someone else picks a certain ability, it's gone right? Well, I don't want someone else to take this from me! Magic would be cool as hell! So come on, chop chop, I pick this one."

Once again giving the young man an unpleasant glare, she once again said, "As you wish," and after those words were said, the goddess made some symbols appear out of thin air after writing them out that had sparks emanating from them, and soon after, the card the young man had picked glowed and swiftly disappeared into some yellow sparkles. With the process seemingly done, the goddess started drawing a lot more, a lot faster, and a lot more complex-looking symbols in the air with the same sparks as before. Underneath the young man, things that could only be described as numerous magic circles appeared, which were starting to take him to the parallel world that the goddess had mentioned. Before departing, the young man wanted to say a couple more things to the goddess.

"Hey thanks a bunch, it's always been my dream to go to a parallel world! Say, I don't think I caught your name, can I have before I leave so that I can thank you while on my journey in my head?"

As he said that, half the woman's face slowly started to rot away with that part of her head losing more and more flesh by the second, where it was developing ragged purple hair with a gloomy, downcast amber eye. The beauty once found in her was no more, causing this feeling to well up inside the young boy, that which can only be described as fear. She looked at him, stating her name and who she truly is.

"The name of the goddess that picked you is Hel, otherwise known as the goddess of death. Do not disappoint me for a fate far worse than death will be due if you make me look like a fool."

Upon hearing her words, the young man fell silent, unable to speak. The young man had a face filled with a mixture of shock and dread as he slowly but surely, became dust. Hel's spell was finished and the young man had been brought to the new world with some abilities and a few perks to help him out. After all was said and done, Hel finally sat down, with a satisfied look on her face. She drew more symbols in the air with the same sparks, and summoned some wine, drinking it with a job well done.

Waking up once again, the young man saw the sky, the sky this time around, however, was a deep ocean blue without a cloud in the sky. The sun shone down brightly appearing as the sun normally would and with it, came a feeling of comfort. Getting off the ground and looking around, the young man saw something he rarely saw in his old world. Proper life. Large trees that were incredibly tall with normal, green leaves covering its tops along, with bushes, shrubs, and other plant life such as large leaves and mushrooms surrounded the young man. Birds calling to each other in the distance could be heard, creating this beautiful sound of harmony for the young man. With this, it was safe for the young man to say,

"I guess my spawn point for another world is here then huh? Not bad."