"Leon... Leon... Leon!" The name, a rusty hinge in the silence, swung open the creaky door of my consciousness. Ugh, can't a guy even fake a decent death around here?
"LEONNNNNNNNN!" Someone, clearly a professional lung-tester, decided to bypass the rusty hinge and just kick the door down.
My eyelids, heavy with the existential dread of being alive, reluctantly peeled back. And there she was, Sarah, the actress whose name always sounded like a sneeze about to happen. She was hugging me with the enthusiasm of a puppy meeting its owner after a week-long vacation.
"Leon! You're alive! I'm so happy!" She squeezed tighter. I felt my ribs auditioning for a xylophone solo.
Yes, I'm alive. Question is, why? And why are we in a technicolor acid trip?
"Sarah," I wheezed, "as much as I appreciate the attempt to turn my internal organs into a smoothie, could you... maybe... loosen the grip?"
She blinked, her eyes wide with innocent terror. "Oh! Sorry!"
I surveyed our surroundings. It looked like a kindergarten art project after a sugar rush. The sky was a Jackson Pollock of pink clouds, the trees sported leaves in every shade imaginable, and the grass looked like a unicorn had thrown up a rainbow on it.
"Sarah," I said, my voice a dry rasp, "do you have any idea if we've accidentally wandered into a box of crayons?"
"I woke up five minutes ago," she replied, "and honestly, I thought I'd finally lost my mind."
"Nah," I assured her, "we just lost our way. To reality, that is. We're definitely in another world."
"Or planet," she corrected. "Maybe we're on Planet Glitter-Puke."
"If we are," I said, gesturing to the multi-colored foliage, "they've clearly mastered the art of photosynthesis with pure, unadulterated whimsy. Plus, how did we get here? Did we take the interdimensional bus? Did we accidentally swallow a portal?"
Birds that looked like flying gemstones chirped in the distance, and squirrels with tails that shimmered like disco balls scampered through the branches.
"They're so cute!" Sarah squealed. "Don't you think so?"
Cute? I thought. We're in a land where the laws of physics are apparently suggestions, and you're worried about 'cute'?
"Yeah, sure, they're... cute," I mumbled, my mind still trying to process the sheer audacity of this technicolor fever dream. I bet Luca would be making sarcastic comments right now. Miss that guy.
"You seem distracted," Sarah observed.
"I'm just contemplating the existential horror of being trapped in a Lisa Frank notebook," I replied.
Suddenly, a tiny, shimmering creature buzzed past my face. It was a fairy, and it looked like it was made of pure, concentrated sparkle.
"Wow, it's so beautiful!" Sarah breathed.
"Really?" the fairy chirped, its voice like tiny wind chimes. "You think so?"
I blinked. Okay, hold on. A talking fairy? And it understands English? Is this a glitch in the matrix? Did I accidentally download the whimsical expansion pack?
"Yes," Sarah said, her eyes wide. "Do you live here?"
"Keep it busy," I said, getting to my feet. "I'm going to see if I can find the 'Exit to Main Menu' button."
Time to check for cheat codes. Or at least a map. Or, you know, a functioning brain.
"Don't leave me!" Sarah cried. "What if we get lost?"
"Relax," I said, cracking my neck. "We're already lost. It's just a matter of how lost we get."
"Status open!" I yelled at the sky. "System open! Inventory open! Cheat codes, please! I'll even settle for a 'Skip Tutorial' button!"
Nothing. Not a peep. Great. I'm trapped in a magical land without even a basic interface. This is worse than trying to assemble IKEA furniture with oven mitts.
I spotted a pink, gelatinous blob wobbling towards me. A slime. It looked like a sentient blob of strawberry yogurt.
Okay, time for some rudimentary testing.
Survival 101: poke things with a stick.
I grabbed a branch and jabbed the slime. It quivered, like a bowl of jello surprised by a spoon. I pulled the stick back. It just sat there, looking vaguely confused.
"Well," I said, "that was... anticlimactic. Maybe it's playing dead? Or maybe it's just really, really bored."
The notification, a digital snail trail, slowly unfurled before my eyes:
[You]
[You got]
[You got 1]
[You got 1 Exp]
It took five agonizing seconds for the whole thing to materialize, like watching a dial-up modem connect to the internet in slow motion. Is my system running on potato batteries? I thought. Seriously, I just arrived!
Is this world running on dial-up?
The status window was on strike, the system was lagging harder than a teenager on a Monday morning, but I was determined to find a workaround. I'd gained experience from poking a blob of pink goo, which meant leveling up was on the table. And in a world where trees wore rainbows and fairies spoke fluent English, leveling up was less a luxury and more a survival necessity.
Especially with Sarah around. She was, let's be honest, a walking, talking masterpiece. In this whimsical, potentially dangerous wonderland. I had to become strong, and fast, or risk becoming the world's most incompetent bodyguard.
I sauntered back to Sarah, who was engaged in what appeared to be a spirited debate with the fairy, probably about the merits of glitter versus sequins.
"So you came back," Sarah said, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "I was just about to send out a search party. You know, a search party of one very confused fairy."
"Oh, by the way," I asked, "did our sparkly friend happen to mention anything useful about this place?"
"Just introductions," Sarah replied, "and a spirited discussion about the best way to apply dewdrop eyeshadow."
"Human, you seem quite... glum," the fairy chirped, its voice like tiny bells.
"You've got that right," I sighed. "Say, you wouldn't happen to know where the nearest human settlement is, would you?"
"Oh, about three kilometers that way," the fairy said, pointing with a tiny, shimmering finger.
Kilometers? I blinked. Since when do fairies understand metric? But then, I remembered the rainbow trees and the talking slime. Right, logic is on vacation here.
"And how tall am I, just out of curiosity?" I asked.
"Between 1.5 meters and 2 meters," the fairy replied, as if reciting the weather forecast.
Okay, fine. Apparently, everything here is calibrated to Earth standards. I guess I can stop expecting to see a dragon using a calculator.
"Alright," I said, rubbing my temples. "I think I'm starting to get the hang of this. It's just... a lot. Like trying to assemble a puzzle where all the pieces are made of glitter and the instructions are written in interpretive dance."