I awoke to the glaring sun.

Not the sun glare that comes streaming through your window, but the actual sun.

The sun and the sky.

“What the fuck?”

I was lying on a grassy plain, the sun beating down on me from its high perch in a clear blue sky. I wasn’t wearing the clothes I had gone to sleep in, but some sort of blank tunic and ragged pants, along with a big blanket that felt suspiciously like the Ethereal Cape I had gotten from the foxy eyed man in my dream.

“Oh! You’re awake!”

There was a voice, a voice that sounded like the tinkling of tiny bells, or maybe the light singing of a wild thrush. I tilted my head to look in the direction of the sound, and there I saw a beautiful young woman standing amid the tall grass. Long, golden locks that tumbled over her shoulders, the left side of her bangs hanging low over her wide, grey eyes. Delicate features, pointed ears, rosy cheeks that boasted health and prosperity. A perfect smile, filled with charm and childish innocence. Upon her tall, slender figure, was what seemed to be the Rose Shawl, Petal Skirts, Flower Crown and Fae Slippers from the SSR Blossom Charmer equipment set, except grander and more graceful than the version available to players.

There was no mistaking it. It was Rosa.

If Rosa was really here, outside the game in her full, perfect glory, it would explain the unusual waking spot. This was probably another dream.

“Welcome, Bad_Luck,” she said my ingame username so naturally, almost as if it weren’t meant to be a joke username, as if it were a real name, that I owned. “Welcome back to Briarwood.”

I struggled to sit up, waves of the Ethereal Cape rippling around my body. Which still seemed to be much smaller than I was used to. It looks like this dream is in cohorts with the other one.

“Hi, Rosa,” I raised my small hand and touched her cheek. It was warm, and sent tingles of sunshine through my fingers, down my arms, and into my heart. It made me happy, in a trance-like manner, to be able to feel the Rosa I had always loved in person. It’s Rosa, my mind babbled happily in its stupor. Rosa Rosa-

The trance was broken when she grabbed my wrist and pushed my arm roughly back down by my side, her grip firmer than I had expected from such a dainty lady.

“I’d love to let you take your time, Chosen One,” she smiled again, that same perfect smile, and yet, out of my trance, something felt off. Missing, almost. “But the other noble Chosen Ones are rather eager to speak with you, so I’m afraid we’ll have to hold this off till the next time we’re together.”

She gestured to a side, and I followed her pointing finger to a small camp of people nearby. It was a very diverse group, filled with people of different sizes, race and equipment. Yet the one striking similarity about all of them, was that they were all wearing an Ethereal Cape and a fancy “Chosen One” badge. They saw me staring and waved.

This dream was getting stranger and stranger.

One member of the group, a tall, dark woman with frizzy hair tied into a high ponytail came sauntering over, her deep brown eyes holding a sort of observant glint to them. She crouched down next to me and held out her hand.

“Username is LarkspurXX. I’m a Level 100 Pixie, and Guildmaster of the Chosen Ones’ Alliance,” she recited. The mechanical way in which she said those words, felt as if she’d repeated them many times over, so many times that it came as automatically as breathing. “Currently number 4 on the PVP Arena Leaderboard. I’ve been here for 5 years and a half. You can call me Marge.”

She looked expectantly at me, until I realised that I was supposed to introduce myself.

“Bad_Luck,” I shook her hand, noticing just how small my own hand was compared to hers. Like the hand of a grade schooler, still covered in baby fat and silky smooth skin. “What do you mean you’ve been here for 5 and a half years?”

Marge stared at me, puzzled.

“Here. Stuck in this world. In Briarwood Rebirth.”

She didn’t look that young, but then dreams were odd.

“So you’re 5 years old?”

She stared at me as if I were stupid.

“What? No. I mean stuck stuck. Like, as in stuck in another world stuck. As in shitty isekai webnovel stuck. As in I haven't eaten real food in 5 years stuck,” I must have been making a really blank expression, because after another bout of prompting, she sighed and called back at the camp of waiting people. “Trix? I need a bit of help here. I think this guy’s in shock.”

One of the cloaked people, Trix, I presumed, stood up and made his way over to us. He was a large, hulking man that stood at height almost twice that of Marge's, with a bushy beard and bulging muscles. He bent over and thumped me on the back, his large, calloused hands carrying enough strength to knock the wind out of me.

“Don't worry, chap,” Trix boomed. “It feels strange at first, but you’ll get used to it.”

“Get used to what? It feels fine to me.”

“The change in stature,” Trix gestured to me, then himself and Marge. “Muscle mass. The inability to eat, drink, sleep or use the bathroom. Rain doesn’t feel wet and neither does snow. Having your physical limits controlled by stats. Suddenly shrinking or growing when you change your class. Aging a year every time you level up. All that stuff. People usually either freak out or think they’re the hero of some shounen anime when they start to realise the difference,” his steady voice turned bitter. “It all comes in the grand old care package of beating The Decay.”

Parts of that description sounded oddly specific to some of the stranger game mechanics of Briarwood Rebirth, while some just sounded foreign. Rain not being wet, and not being able to eat. With all the sensory details my subconscious had kindly provided me in this dream, I wondered where that all came from.

“I guess that would be pretty weird,” I admitted. “Even by dream standards.”

“A dre- Oh. Oh.” Marge groaned, her head in her hands. Next to her, Trix was muttering, “I wish it were a dream.” Rosa just watched, her perfect smile still plastered on her face, her hands placed daintily on the grass.

“I mean, isn’t it?” I looked around in confusion.

“Look, sweetheart,” Marge’s voice suddenly grew a lot more sympathetic. “It’s probably easier thinking that it’s a dream, and I won’t stop you if you insist on continuing on that train of thought, but hear me out. The moment you beat the final boss and became a Chosen One, you were doomed to be stuck here with the rest of us. This isn’t a dream, but it isn’t a whole new world either. There are plenty of regular players who didn’t beat the final boss logging in and out every day, playing the game as usual while we’re just stuck here all the time. They don’t know about our situation, and even trying to mention it in world chat will just get our messages deleted. If you act too out of place, someone will report you for hacking, then you’ll get your account suspended, and trust me, you don’t want that to happen.”

Not a dream? I stared at Marge, then at Trix. Now that I was paying more attention, I could see translucent character labels floating arily above their heads, like a makeshift halo that displayed their username, guild, and equipped badge, just as how it was in Briarwood Rebirth. I stared up at the sun, and could feel the blazing warmth on my skin, but on closer inspection, the heat wasn’t coming from the sun at all, but rather, from the air around me. I stared at Rosa. It was Rosa, there was no mistaking it, but she was no longer a pixelated sprite, or a painted character in a visual novel. She was real.

If this wasn’t a dream, how could all this be happening? How did I get out here, if this weren’t a dream? How could I be seeing Rosa in real life if this weren’t a dream? I knew for a fact that I had gone straight to bed right after I sealed The Decay. I vividly remembered setting my alarm clock before I clambered under the covers, thinking how lucky I was to have a day off on Sundays so that I wouldn’t have to worry about oversleeping. I went to bed, and I never got out of bed, so this should be a dream. Other worlds didn't just… happen, right? The second option was that I got kidnapped in my sleep to take part in some sort of sick joke, but I didn’t even know anyone who had the money to pull off this kind of thing just for fun.

“How is any of this not a dream?” Somehow, my voice came out more frantic than I had anticipated. “The ‘trapped in another world’ bullshit can’t happen in real life.”

There was silence.

“If it helps clarify anything,” Trix said gently. “You won’t ‘wake up’ even if you kill yourself.”