1 Where the Hell am I?!

'Life...is garbage. You get bullied either mentally or physically, tragedies happen more frequently than child-birth, family troubles is also more than likely to happen at least once in a lifetime, some are more fortunate than others, some are born better-looking than others, and then....there's school,' the teenage boy sighed, 'My point is, life's a rollercoaster, you gotta go over so many tracks, the same tracks, yet they're tracks that are going in all directions. And sometimes...sometimes there aren't enough seats for everyone to have fun...'

'I'm one of those people without a seat.'

'My seat's been stolen....'

He walked in the heavy rain without an umbrella at hand, and his hair appeared glossy from moisture as he traveled without any particular destination in mind. Without even shooting a glimpse, he could already tell that people were looking at him...or, maybe they were looking at the blood all over his clothing, 'My fun's been stolen, but.' The boy then stopped as a violent gust of wind pushed against his body, and he looked up with relaxed eyes, letting raindrops fall upon his face, and lastly, he smiled, "but today," he whispered calmly, "...I killed...my uncle..."

After the first gust of wind, many came thereafter, yet the teenage figure, covered in genetic blood, stood amidst the violent wind with a smile on his face.

'I took back my seat.'

Suddenly a storm started to take place. At this time, the winds, nor the rain showed mercy. The sky then gradually became anomalously dark, and citizens began to lock themselves away.

'Yet..'

Out of nowhere, millions of glowing yellow sparkling particles began to circulate the teenage boy. At this point, he felt serenity to the extremes. He looked around as the glittering particles orbited his body at an exponential pace.

'Yet I'm not sitting on it,' he looked up at the sky again.

In the sky, there was nothing but blackness, and there was also something that looked much like a giant hand being formed. However, the teenager questioned not a second of it.

'This feeling, this strange feeling, ' he outstretched both his arms and smiled wider, 'Just what is this feeling?!'

'I've never felt this much peace in my life before! I just murdered my only family member in the country....why would this feeling arise at such a time?'

His facial muscles relaxed, 'Am I...dying? I feel as if my soul is leaving my body...'

Then, he noticed that he was slowly ascending. And when he looked down, he realized that he was looking at himself laying on the floor. Next, he hovered higher than the misty clouds, and then there was what seemed like a luminous hole in the universe, which he himself involuntarily went into. From there, he began to travel even faster than the velocity of light, and he saw thousands of stars of different colors passing by so quickly as he traveled at this speed. He went deeper and deeper into the colorful hole, and then, he supposedly reached the end of it.

His eyes began to close as a blinding light grew bigger, and his final words were: "What's happening to me?"

After those words, there was nothing but darkness. The very fabric of the teenager's being had seemingly vanished in such a short space of time. He felt no emotions. He felt no pain. Yet there was this one feeling he felt during all of this: emptiness. He couldn't move, he couldn't see. He couldn't hear, he couldn't speak.

On the contrary, after an hour, he felt something. It felt like...breeze. That cool feeling of little force; wind, he knew this feeling. To get away from everything, he used to go high up on "his" building, just to feel this kind of wind. He didn't know for sure, but he thought he also heard its whistling. Then, he slowly opened his eyes. As he lifted his eyelids up, rays of light started entering his retina, and his pupils began to shrink. With fully opened eyes, the teenager couldn't yet assimilate what kind of scenery he was looking at. Confused, he used his hands to help himself up to his knees, and in this position, he realized that he was surrounded by pink grass, "What's that stuff?"

"The more important question; just where am I anyway?"

Quickly after seeing such a thing as purple grass, the teenage boy was fast at presuming he was a amidst another dream.

"No doubt—I'm in a dream. I also feel as if I've forgotten something important. I'm pretty sure I was about to ask uncle a question. But what question?" He put his hand on his head, "And how did I end up falling asleep?"

"Gotta say, this dream feels a little realistic now that I think of it; since when am I capable of lucid dreaming? And if this really is a lucid dream, maybe can I do a little bit of exploring before I wake up," he stood.

Then slowly, he turned around only to see a scenery that made his eyes widen in awe. He was on a hill—a hill perfectly good enough for him to see: a sky of gradient color with thick white clouds hovering slowly, floating islands that are sure to make you question physics, multi-colored grass, and trees, trees that seemed more like giants; so huge that one tree would've probably sufficed to make more than 100 million pages of paper. Peacock blue rivers, water that looked too beautiful to even bathe in. The landforms were huge and excessively thrilling to look at. Never before has the teenager seen anything like this in his entire life. He was utterly speechless. The scenery was so visually powerful that he wanted to start using words, however, its power made him only amount to one. After seeing such a magnificent sight, he was only able to utter, "Waw..."

After a while, he managed to speak normally again, "Paradice, is this what Paradice looks like?"

"Also, is it just me, or am I shorter? Also, my ears feel heavy. Can you even experience this kind of stuff in a dream?"

He then slapped himself in the face to make sure he was sleeping, "The hell? That felt way too real. I don't know what are the limits when it comes to lucid dreaming but this...this is something else. I suppose, after all those years of not remembering my dreams have finally come to an end. Damn, if this is like those Isekai mangas I've read all my life, then, that would actually be cool. But, let's be real, this is just a mere dream. That's all there is to it," he started walking, "That river. It looks so good from here; definitely checking it out for sure!"

With that said, the teenager went down the hill and walked his merry way to the blue river. As said before, the water looked too good—too good to even drink, let alone bathe in. However, thirsty, the teenager felt that it was absolutely necessary to quench his thirst, after all, it was exploring he was going to do afterward. At the riverbank, the teen went down to his knees, bent his back forward, and was about to use his hands to scoop out some of the freshwaters to drink. However, upon seeing his reflection, he immediately paused with widened eyes.

What made him pause was the fact that he wasn't staring at his body, but a figure with sharp long pointy ears, blonde hair, deep blue ears, and a tiny body that looked like that of a twelve-year-old instead. After a while, the teenager promptly started crawling backward and away from the river, in a nervous way.

"What the hell is that thing? Is that an elf!? Is that my reflection? Wait, that means I'm an elf? Wait, composure, Axel! This is nothing but a dream, why did I even react that way?"

He laughed, "Boy, I just gotta laugh at myself sometimes."

Then the teenager heard a high-pitched female voice that sounded as if it came from behind, "Hey, you there!"

He turned around in a stupid way looking up, "Ah, where are you?"

"I am down here, fool."

He then looked down to see a tiny figure, about the height of his hand, with beautiful translucent wings, a white dress, and a white crown hovering above her head in a fixed position—she was a fairy.

"First was an elf, and now a fairy!? Yeah, I'm dreaming alright..."

"If you don't apologize for almost sitting on me," she flew about eye-level to him, "Then I will make sure you really are out cold and dreaming."

Now that the boy got a good look at her face, he noticed just how pretty she was and remained speechless. Another thing that remained was a goofy look on his face as he stared at her.

She folded her arms, "You, what is it with that look of yours?"

"Ohh, sorry," he snapped out of it, "It's just that I never thought I'd get to speak to a fairy in a dream before."

She swayed remotely, "Are you going to apologize or not?"

"What did I do again? Oh, that's right. I almost sat on ya! I'm sorry about that one."

"You speak differently. What country and province are you from?"

"Ohh, I was born in Japan, but my Japanese mother died while giving birth to me, and my dad, an American, made me move to America to live," he replied, looking up at the sky."

"There are only 7 continents here, with each continent being a country. There's no 'America' here. Sir, are you insane?"

"Huh? Never expected to hear something like that in a dream," he pinched himself.

"What are you talking about? This is no dream."

He started to doubt the fact that it was a dream, and became incredibly nervous, "It's a lucid dream, you're fake. This elf body of mine is fake. Everything here is fake. The reason why you're saying it's not a dream is because you're fake."

The fairy furrowed her eyebrows, "First of all, that was very rude of you. Secondly, if this really is some lucid dream, then try waking yourself up. There are multiple ways in which one can easily wake up from a lucid dream. So go ahead, try waking yourself up."

He then closed his eyes, and tried waking up, "Come on, wake up! Wake Up!"

The fairy then flew down to a leaf, about twice her size, and laid down on it with her hands behind her head, left eye closed and right eye looking over at the teenager, "Take all the time you like," she looked ahead, and closed her right eye, "I am going to get some shut-eye in the meantime..."

The boy tried everything while attempting to wake himself up: from slapping himself, and screaming to biting into his own flesh—none of which worked. No matter what he did, he couldn't find a way to get up again.

"Is it still not obvious? Can you not yet see that you are in fact not dreaming at all? Or are you a fool?"

"If you were actually dreaming, then I am sure pain would have wakened you up by now."

And at this moment, he knew he wasn't sleeping for sure.

His eyes widened at this moment of realization, and he dropped to his knees and placed his hands on top of his head, "If I'm not dreaming...then Where The Hell Am I?"

"I believe you already know the answer to that question, " said the fairy, " Also young sir, what is your name? You look awfully familiar..."

He stood, "Axel Woods. What's your name?"

"My name is Snow..."

"Waw, what a nice name. Not to mention, your attire is white like snow too, " he leaned on the nearest tree, which had yellow leaves.

"Thank, you."

He put his hand on his chin, 'Hhhmm, Madam Snow is simply beautiful," a smug look appeared on his face, "Heh Heh. So it looks like I'm in a different world. Believe it or not, I actually like this a lot! Not like Earth had anything good thing going for me. No more stupid bullies, and no more abusive uncle. So I can finally have fun here. Furthermore," his smug look became more apparent, "I'm thinking of starting a harem myself, starting with Snow here as the first subject," he grinned.

He looked over at Snow, and she immediately looked away, 'Wait, I didn't reincarnate—if I did, I'd still be a new-born. So I wasn't hit by Truck-Kun, that explains it.'

"Now that you know you are not asleep, can you tell me why you thought you were dreaming?"

"It's really nothing. It's just that this isn't my home-town..."

"That was not a good answer."

'I could tell her the truth about the whole transmigration thing, but that might be a dumb thing to do. You know what, I'll tell her, it's not like she'll believe me anyway, and besides, she's the only one around right now."

"Okay. I'll tell you the truth. I'm not really from this world of yours. You're not gonna believe me, but who cares?"

"Ha Ha, nice joke, Axel."

'Yup, exactly what I expected as a response.'

"Believe it or not, Snow," he folded his hands, "That's up to you."

He looked at her, "Also, what's the name of this planet."

She scoffed, "What idiot does not know about the planet they live on?"

"As dumb as I act, Miss Snow, my grades are sky-high, despite being a stupid depressed shut-in."

"Ohh, I see. That's because you are an 11-year-old going to Kindergarten, no?"

A grimace stretched across his face, "Was that an insult?"

she folded her hands, "Take it how you want it."

'Damn, that hurt.'

Axel then noticed that it suddenly became dark all of a sudden. No. It was a shadow. Which meant, something big was blocking the sunlight. Hit by a curiosity-bow, Axel gradually looked up to see a giant figure. It stood even taller than the giant trees in the surroundings. However, it walked on two feet just like a man. In fact, it had the physique of a human being, but it was far too tall to be one. Without saying anything, the giant suddenly grabbed Axel, and leaped into the air with him!