Lucas was neither a hero nor a genius.
Nor was he a failure, nor a hopeless dreamer.
He was… simply Lucas.
At twenty-two, he led a discreet existence, almost erased in the vastness of the world.
His days were divided between his day job in a logistics warehouse—a gray building lost on the outskirts of the city—commuting on public transportation with scratched windows, and his small apartment on the fifth floor of an anonymous building, where the elevator often broke down.
Every morning, he rose before dawn, roused from sleep by the squeaky sound of his alarm.
He got ready quickly, putting on simple clothes, wrinkled from lack of time or desire. Then he went out into the cold or the heat, depending on the season, without ever really complaining about it.
He had no parents he could remember. No close friends to send him late-night messages or ask him out for a drink.
His coworkers, with their noisy discussions about topics that didn't interest him, kept a polite distance.
And that suited him just fine.
Lucas wasn't a bitter man.
He didn't envy anyone.
He regretted nothing.
His solitude wasn't a prison, but a calm sea he navigated with simplicity.
His life, however modest, suited him.
In the evening, after long hours of toil moving heavy boxes and scanning barcodes, he would return home.
He would throw his bag in a corner, kick off his shoes, and collapse into his chair in front of his computer, a patched-up but faithful old model.
It was there, in this pixelated and luminous universe, that Lucas felt truly alive. He escaped to distant worlds where he could wield mystical swords, tame divine beasts, and climb the ladder of a celestial existence unattainable in reality.
He became, for a few hours, another himself: stronger, freer, larger than life.
Cultivation MMORPGs were his great passion.
He knew the names of secret techniques, the esoteric paths of Qi, the systems of realms and ascension by heart.
He also spent long evenings reading, sometimes until his eyelids burned with fatigue.
He devoured novel after novel: stories of lone heroes defying the heavens, of ancient immortals falling and rising, of powerful sects battling for supremacy. The pages became portals, the words spells, and Lucas a tireless traveler in these worlds of mist, swords, and stars.
Sometimes, closing a book or reluctantly leaving a game to sleep, he would lie down on his narrow bed and stare at the cracked ceiling.
He would find himself smiling softly, thinking, "I don't need much... as long as I can dream a little further."
And that was enough for him.
His routine was simple. Predictable. Comforting.
Lucas didn't need more to be happy.
Even when the end of the month was difficult, even when loneliness weighed slightly on some evenings, he smiled, thinking that many didn't have the peace he had found within himself.
That morning, the sky was gray, frayed by rushing clouds.
The air smelled of damp and dust.
Lucas, a bag slung over his shoulder, walked along the sidewalk without really looking where he was putting his feet. His mechanical steps guided him out of habit, but his mind wandered far, far away.
"So... Where do I start?" he muttered, his lips barely moving.
Today saw the release of "Rebirth of the Immortal World," the game he'd been waiting for for months.
A cultivation MMORPG just like he loved, but billed as revolutionary: a living world, millions of techniques, infinite roads to divinity.
His heart beat a little faster just thinking about it.
"Lone swordsman, that's cool... Walking around with a big sword on your back, like a cold and distant master..."
He gave a small smile. "Or else…"
He frowned slightly, lost in the crucial choice.
"A master of formations… These guys put three rocks on the ground and bam, they blow up an entire army. No need to move. I could just watch them run around like headless chickens…"
A small laugh escaped his throat.
"No, but seriously, what if I start as a blacksmith? A guy who sells his artifacts instead of fighting… Calm, relaxed, rich before he even breaks a rock."
He could already imagine himself in a large market, dressed in a long robe, casting haughty glances at the poor players who would beg for his legendary weapons.
"Yeah, well… everyone always ends up wanting to beat someone up eventually."
He sighed amusedly.
Then his mind raced, jumping from one idea to another. "And the Qi type? Fire, lightning, ice, shadow… If I take fire, it's cool, but everyone catches fire. Lightning is so cool, I'll get nerfed. Ice is classy, but slow… Shadow is dark, but I don't want to look like an weird either."
His hands fluttered a little, unconsciously miming the options.
"Maybe I should choose something rare. Like… Wood Qi? Nobody wants to be a tree, so I'll be unique!"
He burst out laughing, shaking his head at his own stupidity.
Time seemed to stand still around him.
The sound of cars, the voices of passersby, even the morning wind—they all faded away, replaced by his quiet excitement. "Come on, Lucas, this time it's certain, you'll achieve virtual immortality…" he whispered to himself, his eyes shining.
At that precise moment, he was no longer walking down a gray street in an ordinary city.
In his mind, he was already treading endless plains, the skies rumbling above him, a luminous sword in his hand.
And so, his mind too light, he unnoticed a pedestrian light that had just turned red…
He didn't see the red light.
He didn't hear the frantic honking.
He didn't see the truck emerging from around the corner.
The impact was brutal. A searing pain shot through his entire body, like a silent explosion.
The world tilted.
The ground greeted him with a cold brutality.
Half-conscious, Lucas felt the sticky warmth of his own blood spreading beneath him. His thoughts, still disordered, clung to an absurd memory: all those stories he'd read where the hero died after being hit by a truck before being reborn in another world.
A painful chuckle escaped him, distorted by the thick blood trickling from his lips.
Each breath was torture; his lungs felt like they were on fire, his vision rocked like a ship in a storm.
"Ha… like in one of those damned novels…" he murmured, his voice barely audible, almost drowned out by the surrounding.
The metallic taste of his own blood invaded his mouth, sickening and hot.
His whole body seemed to be crumbling, fragment by fragment, like a cracked statue ready to collapse.
His gaze, misty, was lost in the steely sky above him.
The gray of the clouds suddenly seemed magnificent, vast, strangely soothing.
"It's stupid…" he thought, his mouth twisted into a sad smile. "Stupid to die like this… for a game…"
Scattered memories came back to him, floating like fragile bubbles in his mind.
The long nights spent reading under a flickering lamp.
The solitary bursts of laughter in front of glowing screens.
The silent dreams he had never dared to share with anyone.
He also remembered that ridiculous thought he had sometimes had while laughing: "What if I too, one day, get knocked down and wake up in another world?" A thrill of amusement touched him despite the pain gnawing at his insides.
The ground seemed to slowly suck him in.
The world was becoming increasingly distant, blurred, as if he were watching an old photograph burning.
"What if…" he thought again, his consciousness flickering like a flame about to go out.
"What if, for once… it really was my turn?"
An absurd, childish hope blossomed in his battered heart.
Not a hope of survival. No.
A hope of renewal.
Of an adventure finally worthy of him.
His eyelids, heavy as lead, trembled one last time.
Then, slowly, in a strange peace, Lucas sank into darkness.