«Human…! My queen… Why am I here?… Rest now...»
"Ah!"
With a hoarse cry, Dylan bolted upright in bed, drenched in sweat and his throat burning as if he'd swallowed sand. Gasping for air, he pressed his thumbs against his temples, trying to ease the pounding inside his head.
A sharp pain stabbed through his skull, like thousands of insects burrowing through his brain. A relentless wave of strange images crashed into him, threatening to tear his sanity apart.
"Damn it, damn it, damn it... What the hell is happening to me? Is this a nightmare or one of those freakin' sleep paralysis episodes?"
He muttered between ragged breaths, as if saying it out loud might somehow lessen the torment. But of course, it didn't.
His vision swam in a hazy blur, flickering illusions clouding his sight, making it impossible to tell what was real and what wasn't. His room, once a safe haven after long, exhausting workdays, now seemed alien.
At moments, he could recognize familiar shapes around him: the nightstand by his worn-out bed that had been with him since childhood, the desk still holding the computer he'd hesitated to buy back during the pandemic, and the messy pile of clothes he had tossed aside after coming home.
All of it was so familiar, so solid and tangible.
Yet, amid it all, he also saw bodies strewn everywhere. The metallic taste of blood filled his mouth, while a sickening stench of waste clung to the air. Agonizing voices, maniacal laughter, and endless weeping echoed in his ears, mixed with the roaring of savage beasts. And, as if that weren't enough, incomprehensible words whispered in his mind like echoes from another world.
And that too felt too vivid to chalk up to the alcohol he'd downed a few hours earlier.
"Who even drinks on a Monday? Seriously, what kind of loser am I?"
He cursed himself as he stumbled toward the bathroom, barefoot, nearly slipping on the damp floor.
He barely made it to the toilet before emptying his stomach. Since he hadn't eaten the night before, the only thing that came up was a bitter, acidic liquid: a mix of beer and stomach acid that scorched his tongue.
'Am I dying? Am I actually dying? God, please no... Not like this... Not like this.'
Like most ordinary men in the modern world, Dylan had never come close to facing death. He didn't know what it felt like to stand at that edge, but he doubted anything could be worse than what he was enduring now.
After a few more minutes, with nothing more left to throw up and his arms giving out under the weight of his hunched body, he forced himself to stand, staggering like a newborn calf.
Maybe he was overreacting. But if he was going to die, he sure as hell didn't want it to be from choking on his own vomit.
Though the dizziness and pressure in his head didn't ease, he was the kind of person who waited until things got serious before buying any medicine. But this time, he wasn't in any condition to go out and get it anyway. So he had only one option: crawl back to bed and wait for the storm to pass.
Grabbing onto a broom for support, he tried to make his way back to his room.
However…
'A woman...? Who… who is she?'
Amid the chaotic memories assaulting his mind, one in particular stood out with great clarity—a name.
With eyes closed and face twisted in pain, Dylan whispered:
"Diane…?"
That was all it took for the broken pieces of his memory to start falling into place.
"Where... where am I? No... How the hell am I still alive?"
And suddenly, Dylan realized how wrong he'd been to think he'd never had a near-death experience.
In truth, he had already died once.
The weight of that realization made his legs buckle, and before he could even process it, his foot snagged on a pair of jeans lying on the floor. Unable to react in time, he crashed down, his forehead slamming against the edge of the bed.
It was the last thing he felt before sadness, anger, and disbelief faded away, swallowed by the abyss of unconsciousness.
. . . . .
Riiing! Riiing! Riiing...!
The shrill ringing of the phone, not far from where he lay, dragged Dylan out of sleep. He managed to sit up, feeling a bit better than he had that morning.
Moving slowly, he picked up the pants that had tripped him and searched one of the back pockets for his phone. The sight of the cracked screen made him wince, but he answered the call as he got to his feet; the number belonged to his boss, after all.
"Hello? Yeah, sir. I'm here... I'm truly sorry; I had a bit of a situation and couldn't even call... No, no, it's fine; don't worry... Yeah, I'm okay now... Sure, I'll let you know if anything else comes up... Got it. Bye, sir. Say hi to everyone for me."
Once the call ended, he tossed the phone onto his messy bed without a second thought, unconcerned about the damage it had already taken from being stepped on earlier. An unusual gesture from someone who used to be extremely careful with his expensive things.
Yet even such a trivial act was proof that something inside him was changing; something that had begun the moment his memories cleared up.
''Against all odds... I came back. I really came back to Earth. Did I?''
As he stepped into the backyard, he tried to piece his thoughts together.
"No... These memories, they can't be mine. I'm Dylan Martín Castro, just a regular guy working in a call center. I couldn't even land a job in my field. I'm nobody special—not some kind of killer. So then, why...'''
He leaned over the laundry sink, drinking straight from the faucet. When his thirst was gone, he cupped his hands to splash some of the murky water pooled in the basin over his face, hoping the cold would clear his jumbled thoughts.
Part of him wanted to reject what was stirring inside, but another part refused to let go.
Both beings inhabiting his mind were now part of him, and tearing one away wouldn't be so easy.
The situation felt unreal, unlike those fantasy stories he had read during military camp, where protagonists accepted reincarnation or time travel as casually as buying soda at the corner store. For Dylan, that couldn't be further from the truth.
He didn't remember exactly when or where he had learned about the brain's limits—how it could store more than a lifetime's worth of experiences—but even if that was true, this flood of memories must have broken something inside him.
Now, two entirely different personalities were fighting for control over his body.
'Worthless,' he thought.
There was no point in worrying, because the outcome had already been decided. Both personalities would fade, and in fact, had been for a while. Dylan had already forgotten things that should have been second nature.
'What did I have for lunch yesterday? | No clue. You tell me.
What was the face of Débora, the instructor who trained us for ten years? | Never met her.
Man... I'll probably mess up at work because I don't remember how to use half those damn programs | Serves you right for slacking off.
Were orcs gray, green, or yellow? | Wait, did such creatures exist in that world?'
The thought of not knowing which fragment would disappear next was terrifying for Dylan. So far, he hadn't lost anything vital, but how long would that last? Minutes? Hours? Or had something important already gone and simply didn't realize it?
He didn't know, but he wouldn't just sit there waiting for disaster.
Despite the lingering numbness in his body, he sat at his desk and turned on his computer. After that, with trembling fingers, he began typing everything he couldn't afford to forget.
His parents' names and birth dates.
Nicknames of old school friends.
Address of his favorite bar.
Email and Wi-Fi passwords.
An updated version of his résumé.
The date of the phenomenon known as the Recolocation.
Location where he had first appeared and its ecosystem.
The races that inhabited that world and their main traits.
Monsters to avoid and how to survive if he encountered them.
Humanity's power levels and how to rise through them.
Names of key Alliance members and its enemies.
Places, times, and causes of upcoming historic events.
A woman's name.
Everything about the Dragon King.
By the time he was done, the document had grown to over one hundred pages. Then, he reviewed it three times to ensure nothing was missing; his body ached, and the sun was already setting. On top of that, his stomach growled angrily, reminding him that he hadn't eaten a single thing in more than twenty-four hours.
After stretching a bit to ease some of the tension in his muscles, he made his way to the kitchen, determined to cook something for dinner.
The headache and dizziness that had been tormenting him all day were completely gone, as if they'd never been there in the first place. But when he picked up the knife to chop up some vegetables that were on the verge of rotting, he realized how real it all was.
''Well, that's curious.''
He mused as his hands moved with surprising ease, handling the blade like it was second nature—like he'd been doing it his whole life.
In mere seconds, he peeled, chopped, and prepared the ingredients with a precision he never would've imagined himself capable of.
But despite his newfound skill, the end result was nothing more than a simple broth: basic boiled ingredients, lightly seasoned with salt.
Even though the physical pain had vanished, the aftermath still lingered.
What truly gnawed at him was knowing that he had no way of telling just how much of his memory was gone. After all, forgetfulness leaves no trace. And in time, those gaps would surely begin to shift the way he thought, the way he acted, maybe even who he was.
In fact, maybe they already had.
With a metal tray in hand, Dylan headed to the living room and collapsed onto the couch in front of the TV. He turned on the evening news as he casually sipped the broth: a strange mix of half-rotten veggies, instant soup packets, and leftovers from who knows when.
"Huh... this is actually good," he said aloud, his eyes lighting up and a wide grin spreading across his face, genuinely surprised at how decent his bizarre creation tasted.