Escapism means nothing when you’re still powerless.
Nasir learned that on the run.
The rain fell in sheets as the storm’s roar commanded attention. The clouds stirred lightning as it strobed in the dark skies of this strange alien world known as a dungeon.
Nasir’s dreads slapped against his face, waterlogged and heavy, each loc a rope of misery. He couldn’t see his own hand in front of him, much less the monster horde they’d been running from.
Four horses emblazoned with glowing symbols streaked the night like lasers in a slipstream. Running from monsters that moved in the darkness.
His eyes once full of wonder now only carry fear and rain. The horse beneath him—impossibly fast, mach speeds—didn’t care. It just ran. They all ran. The storm faster, thick walls of water and thunder that swallowed the world whole.
He’d wanted this.
Another world. Another chance. Someplace where the conspiracy theories were true, where the powers he’d read about on dark forums at 3 AM weren’t just coping mechanisms for a life going nowhere.
New world, different government, same shit different toilet.
Lightning cracked.
Lightning split the sky, and for a few terrible, beautiful seconds, everything went crimson. The leaves of the strange field glowed like molten copper. The rain turned to suspended diamonds. And Nasir saw them—the other riders, fighting to keep pace, But the attacks kept coming. Fireballs igniting behind them Forced them to separate in the darkness of the storm.
Then the thunder hit, and the world went blind again.
“Hold on!” Elara shouted, but her voice was already eaten by the storm.
I bring the same me everywhere I go.
The same optimistic bullshit that hopes to change a world and actions that fear it.
A glowing projectile hissed through the rain.
He didn’t duck. Too fast. The same me. The same weaknesses. The same man that couldn’t keep up before the big bads showed up.
The arrow hit Aldric’s hand like it belonged there.
Attached was a pouch full of gold.
“Thanks for the gold.”
The shove didn’t even hurt. Neither did the ground. Neither did the arm that broke when he landed. Pain was just information. And the information was this:
Somewhere ahead, hoofbeats didn’t slow. Didn’t turn back.
Aldric’s voice drifted through the storm, casual as commentary.
“I was going to kill you myself.” A pause. “But you’re not worth the experience points.”
The pouch jingled.
“Not personal. It’s just business”
He was never going to save you.
He was never going to let you matter.
You were always the mark.
He tried to stand. Tried to reach for that thing they called ki, that breathing nonsense he’d practiced in back on Earth between conspiracy forums and late-night rabbit holes. Will power. Mysterious energy. The truth they didn’t want you to know.
Nothing.
No wind. No trembling earth. No glow or aura. Just desperate hope and embarrassment.
The lizardman found him first. Big. Green. Smelled like a slaughterhouse floor. It grabbed his arm with a smirk. Whipped his body through the air and slammed into the ground—not to kill, just to harm. Bones crunched. Muscles tore. Nasir stared at the rain and thought about every conspiracy he’d ever heard. Every late-night theory about hidden powers. Every secret he thought would set him free.
The truth was always this.
Power doesn’t care if you believe in it.
Power cares if you have it.
Then the chanting started.
“C.M.O! C.M.O! C.M.O!”
The horde dropped. Dozens of monsters, all those glowing eyes, all those wet snouts and dripping fangs— They hit their knees in perfect unison, chests beating like war drums, and Nasir felt something worse than fear.
Recognition.
He knew this feeling. The smallness. The irrelevance.
She descended out of the lightning.
Six feet. Skin red as roses. 2 ebony horns like daggers. Indigo pigtails. A smile that had never asked permission for anything.
She stepped over the kneeling lizardman like he was furniture.
Her foot landed on Nasir’s chest. Pressed. Ground his sternum into his spine.
She didn’t speak.
She didn’t have to.
Power. Speaks volumes
She just raised a finger.
The laser that shot from it didn’t burn him. It shot up—a thin, perfect beam of violet darkness that punched through the storm clouds like a needle through cloth. The clouds didn’t just part. They evaporated. In less than a second, the sky above them was clear. No rain. No thunder. Just the moon and stars, arranged behind her head like a crown.
The sky screamed and fled.
Stars poured through the hole she’d punched in the storm. Moonlight made her a silhouette. The chanting swelled until the ground shook.
“C.M.O! C.M.O! C.M.O!”
Her finger lowered.
Pointed at his face.
Her shadow blanketed him. Ate his thoughts. Ate his hope. Left behind something harder. Something colder.
Nasir looked up at her and felt something he’d never felt before. Not fear. Not rage.
Clarity.
I’ve given every opportunity I could to be helpful how many times can I die to be accepted?
I’ve been trying this nice shit my whole life. Running from a world that didn’t love me. Running toward a world that didn’t exist.
I can’t run with this kind of baggage.
So I’ll drop it.
Nasir’s last conscious thought wasn’t fear. Wasn’t prayer. Wasn’t even the face of his mother back on Earth.
A promise with teeth.
I’ll get my Lick back.
Not because it’s right. Not because it’s fair.
Because it’s the only thing left.
I don’t care if I have to be the pettiest, smallest, most vindictive person in every world that exists.
I will get my lick back.
And I put that on YOUR world.
He woke up later.
Darkness.
Cold.
The taste of copper.
And somewhere, very far away, a voice that sounded like breaking glass:
“Put him with the others. The challenge ritual needs three more.”
Nasir’s fingers twitched in the mud.
He wasn’t dead yet.
They’d regret that.
Only the summoned players can save this world. It’s up to Nasir to survive this kingdom, kill the dungeon boss, and return to Earth — to collect the debt a good man left unpaid.