Chapter 1

I was falling. That was normal. I mean, who hasn't dreamt of falling? Usually though, you either fly or fall abruptly and jump awake to either your heart hammering or your body in pain because well, you actually did fall on your butt and your subconscious was trying to communicate that before it happened. This was different.

I could feel the wind whipping at my face, messing my bedhead and trying to steal my clothes and slippers. The sky was bright, nothing wrong with that perse but the colours were a combination of red, violet and lightning blue that you didn't associate with daylight. Still, dreams could be weird and then weirder and then some. So if this was really a product of my imagination, I seriously needed to give myself props. Because the world underneath me was magnificent and so detailed. At least, it must have been. My eyes were watering from the wind and the surely rising panic of my fall, along with the pain building in my stiff muscles didn't let me glimpse much. Just some mountain peaks, something that I could swear looked like an active volcano and ruins. Also green, lots and lots of that. I couldn't tell if there were water sources because anything that looked remotely liquid was too dark a colour and seemed to have broken pieces of something in them. But even underneath that, it must have been water. The world wouldn't be complete without it. 

I blinked a few times and there it was. Brighter and tinged with a still looking pretty toxic blue, running water. 

There was a voice in my head. Apart from my own that is. It was strange and unfamiliar and I couldn't tell a word it said but I somehow felt the meaning and nodded in the void. What an irony truly. Maybe my talk with my parents before going to bed had had a bigger impact on me than I had noticed. The same argument all over again. I was seventeen! I could play video games responsibly but even if I didn't, wasn't that my right? Shouldn't I be stupid and get away with it at this age? But for some reason, my parents who always communicated with me and explained every no or yes they gave me, went ballistic everytime I mentioned anything that had to do with computers. Even if it was for homework! So probably, my brain constructed this game for me to not feel left out of the experience. Uncharacteristically nice of it to be honest. But who was I to complain?

I didn't remember half of what the voice had said but I could tell I was in a game now, or whatever my subconscious thought a game would be like, and I intended to enjoy it. If I survived this fall, that is. Wasn't there some dream logic at play here? Shouldn't I be able to fastforward my crash so that I didn't have to wait for it as the ground came into a closer focus and my body gave out gradually?

The ground must have been closer than I had thought. The only move I was fast enough to make was turn to the side so that I wouldn't crash land straight on my nose but even for a video game in a dream, the sensation was too real. The pressure of the pull of gravity releasing as it did its work with bringing me down, my teeth rattling to the point of breaking, my skull feeling like it would crack open in the middle and the rest of my body feeling like I was trodden by a pack of elephants several times was the worst feeling I had ever had and if this was the kind of dream it was going to be, my mind was a real sadist. Or was I a masochist for creating a situation where I would bring me pain?

Thankfully, the effect of the pain lessened in a few moments but I couldn't move and when I tried to move to get up, my body wouldn't cooperate and my eyes shone with a bright orange symbol. I wasn't familiar with game symbols or names but I immediately recognized the four stars from a cartoon character I had seen hitting their head and laying on the ground for a bit. This was the infamous stun effect. 

I had to wait it out. I don't know if the game felt pity on me but I didn't encounter any other danger until I could finally feel my fingers again and tentatively move my body with a tingling aftereffect. I gripped the pitch black soil with my hands and tried to lift my body enough to sit back down. My rabbit slippers were scorched and my pijamas felt like too much for the heat of the location and too little for protection of anything. I didn't know if I should smile or scream over the insanity of what was going on so I settled on overwhelmed and steadily searched the terrain around me refusing to make another move before my brain caught up with me.

 Looking around didn't help at all. It actually made things worse. I was mesmerized and beyond terrified. I wasn't afraid of dying, it was my dream. But I had already experienced the whole real pain thing and this would be a 200 on an up to ten pain scale. I had landed on the volcanic terrain. I was far enough from the volcano to be able to breath and not inhale fire and ash and close enough to feel the vibrating heat under my hands and feet and discern the glistening  magma that looked only recently frozen over by most probably the snowy peaks on the opposite side of the same terrain. I was almost at the middle of a perfectly fractured opposite reflection. 

"Where the hell am I?" As if responding to my question, something like a tinkling bell went off in my head only for a piece of old parchment to appear in my hands. I unrolled it from both sides to reveal, lo and behold!, an empty gray map. My brain was an asshole and I was already tired of its shit. Until, at least, I noticed the very small part in the corner of the map that glowed a faint blue. Just to check, I moved a few steps and looked again and the glow had moved with me. So I could tell where I was but without having mapped out the rest of the terrain, I couldn't tell what or where anything else was. The Volcano and the Snowy mountains had their vague shape kinda outlined, just as much as I could tell with my own eyes anyway, and the rest was a confusing blur of shapes that moved and changed before they set to a certain position or location. I couldn't tell the names, they were written in a language that seemed locked away from me. So basically, I would have to be close enough to become barbecued or a popsicle in order to get the names. Volcano and Snowy Mountains it was for now. 

And talking about death, my health must have taken damage from the fall alone. So where and how did I discern my life points or whatever? Did I get to have a specific role or could I just choose random abilities and try to raise my proficiency in them? I think the voice mentioned some stuff about a goal in the game or something? I couldn't care then and I wasn't entirely sure I cared now. Why should I follow the rules anyway? This was my dream. 

There! 

I touched a point on the top of my head and info appeared right in front of my eyes. 

Du Mai: Governing Vessel Meridian

Lucidity: 0

Stability: 58

Well I hope those weren't important stats. I had no idea what they meant but if the highest on the scale was 100, things weren't looking that good.

I touched a point on top of my chest.

Hand Taiyin: Lung Meridian

Stamina: 43

Hand Shaoyin: Heart Meridian

Health: 67

Connection: 0

I was starting to get the hang of this. How did my mind remember the few and faulty stuff I had searched on Qi points when I had hyperfixated on series like Avatar the Last Airbender, I had no clue. But now I knew which place to touch next. 

My hand came on my stomach but I didn't need to see or think of anything to figure it out. I immediately keeled over.