Prologue

Darkness. An endless pool of unbridled black, devoid of all. The pain of not being able to breathe should have been excruciating but I felt nothing. Without lungs to accumulate oxygen, without arteries to transport it, and without limbs to use it, it didn't actually matter. Although I did not have eyes to confirm my surrounding I could sense the 'nothingness'. It was strange and alarming but at the same time salvation. Salvation in the form of expulsion from my past. A past filled with nothing but pain, sorrow, and, worst of all, the feeling of empowering boredom.

I died at 25 years old with nothing. I didn't accomplish anything, I didn't have anything or anyone at my side. From being born into an ordinary family, with loving parents and siblings, I ended up with nothing. After trying my hardest to find meaning and a sense of belonging it all still ended up being a shallow life. Ironically, what gave me the most sense of fulfillment was when I got my diagnosis. Cancer, a malignant tumor with no chance of survival. I can still remember the excitement when my life got put on the edge, where my survival was at risk.

The excitement didn't last for long. Before I knew it I was stuck in a hospital, placed in a bed with only a computer and my own mind. The source of my joy was also the source of the most dramatic sense of staleness I had ever felt. All of a sudden my past boredom didn't seem all that bad, maybe it wasn't too bad hanging out with my family, studying for the seemingly endless tests at school, and playing all those video games. It might have been the worst trade in the history of man to exchange these for lying in a bed 24 hours a day, waiting for the end to come.

After some time I started divulging in an ocean of novel/adventure games. Games that would regularly update with new chapters, just like a manga or a web novel. The one I found the most joy in was "The legends of Kirkegaard". A story revolving around several youths, all with different struggles, attending the academy of Kirkegaard. Here we got to meet the hero and his friends train to protect humanity from the external threats that were threatening the survival of the human race. The reader, or the player, got to make their own character which would interact with the hero and his party and grow with them. All choices you made had some meaning, although the outline of the story seemed to be pretty much cemented.

...

Well, I digress. It doesn't matter anymore, does it? Although it was a band-aid to my struggles it didn't give me a sense of meaning. They say you don't realize all that you have until you lose it, and I couldn't agree more. I had never been a religious person, nor would I call myself one now, but even I prayed in the last moments of my life. I prayed for another shot at life, a life where my eyes could see the things that I did have. Prayed for a mind that could find relief in the normalcy and a heart that could find passion in the life of an ordinary man.

Prayed for a sense of excitement without the need for danger.

'Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced'