SOLARIN

Rain drummed softly against my apartment window, filling the silence that had become so familiar over the years. It was the kind of steady rainfall that blurred the lights of the city into colorful streaks, making the world outside feel distant, almost unreal. I barely spared it a glance as I slumped deeper into my chair, one hand lazily guiding my mouse across the screen while the other rested beneath my chin. My room was exactly what anyone would expect from someone who spent more time online than outside-empty energy drink cans crowded the edge of my desk, yesterday's instant noodle cup still sat forgotten beside my keyboard, and clothes were draped over the back of my chair instead of folded away. It wasn't filthy, just... lived in. There had never been anyone around to complain about the mess anyway.

Another Friday night. Another weekend with nowhere to go.

I let out a quiet sigh, opening GameCord more out of habit than excitement. The familiar dark interface greeted me immediately, dozens of servers lighting up the side of my screen with unread notifications. Guild advertisements, patch discussions, fan art, pointless arguments about which MMORPG deserved the title of the greatest ever made-it was the same every night. Even so, I found myself scrolling through it all without thinking. Maybe I was hoping something interesting would happen for once.

A message near the top of one gaming server caught my attention.

Has anyone heard of an MMO called Solaris?

The replies beneath it were almost immediate.

Dead link.

My antivirus deleted it.

Pretty sure it's malware.

Didn't even open for me.

Urban legend game.

I couldn't help letting out a small laugh. "Let's see if it works" Every abandoned game eventually attracted stories like that. Someone couldn't get it to work, someone else exaggerated the rumor, and before long it becomes some creepy internet legend. It was ridiculous... but I clicked the link anyway.

For a second, nothing happened.

Then every browser tab on my monitor vanished. "...Huh?"

A tiny black window appeared in the center of my screen with a single line of white text.

Initializing...

Before I could even process what I was looking at, another window popped up.

Downloading Solaris...

The progress bar raced across the screen at a speed that made absolutely no sense. Ten percent. Thirty. Sixty. Ninety. One hundred. The entire thing finished in less than five seconds, and I simply stared at it, half expecting Windows Defender to scream at me for making a terrible mistake.

Nothing happened.

"So... either I just downloaded a virus..." I muttered, leaning back in my chair with a resigned smile, "...or this is the weirdest game launcher I've ever seen."

The window disappeared on its own, and my monitor faded to black before elegant golden letters slowly emerged from the darkness.

SOLARIS

Despite how suspicious everything had been up until now, I had to admit the title screen was beautiful. Two enormous moons hung above a sprawling white kingdom, their light reflecting off marble towers that seemed to stretch into the heavens themselves. Everything looked strangely alive, almost too detailed to be pre-rendered artwork, yet the only options beneath the title were Start, Options, and Exit.

"No settings? No login?" I frowned, clicking Options first.

A menu filled the screen.

Or... something pretending to be a menu.

Every line was complete nonsense.

Symbols twisted across the page in impossible shapes, shifting ever so slightly whenever I tried to focus on them. They weren't letters from any language I'd ever seen. Some looked like stars connected by thin silver lines, others resembled flowing vines, and a few almost seemed to move on their own.

"...What am I even looking at?" I clicked through every tab I could find, hoping something would eventually appear in Japanese-or at least English-but every page was just as incomprehensible as the last. After another minute of trying to make sense of it, I gave up with a sigh and returned to the title screen.

"Guess I'll just hit Start." The moment I clicked the button, the title vanished.

Three children appeared on a character choice screen.

I blinked. "...Kids?"

That was it? Do you start this game as a kid or something?

No character customization. No race selection. No classes.

Just three children staring back at me.

The first was a blond-haired boy with bright blue eyes dressed in the plain clothes of a commoner. The second had neat black hair, deep crimson eyes, and elegant noble clothing embroidered with silver thread. The third was a red-haired girl wearing an expensive-looking dress, her vivid green eyes carrying a confidence that somehow made her seem older than the others.

No names.

No descriptions.

Nothing to explain why these were my only choices.

I frowned, tapping the edge of my desk as I looked between them. "Well... if I'm going to be stuck playing as one of you..." My cursor drifted toward the black-haired boy. We look similar, I have black hair aswell my blue eyes and his red eyes being the only difference.

I clicked on him.

The screen immediately faded to black.

I waited.

Five seconds.

Ten.

Thirty.

"...Did it freeze?" I clicked the mouse.

Nothing.

Pressed Escape.

Nothing.

Even Alt-F4 refused to respond.

"Seriously...?" I really fucking downloaded a virus..

I reached toward the computer to force it shut, but the moment my hand entered the light of the monitor, tiny glowing squares drifted away from my fingertips.

I froze. "...What...?" Another followed.

Then another.

Within seconds, my entire hand began breaking apart into countless shimmering pixels, each fragment floating toward the dark screen as though pulled by an invisible current.

My heart stopped.

"No..." The glowing fragments multiplied before my eyes until I could barely recognize my own hand anymore. Every second another piece of me dissolved into countless shimmering squares, drifting silently through the air toward the monitor. Panic finally broke through my frozen thoughts. "No... no, stop!" I stumbled away from the desk, nearly tripping over my overturned chair as I desperately tried to brush the pixels away with my other hand, but the moment my fingers touched them they simply scattered before reforming and continuing their slow march toward the screen.

The room suddenly felt much smaller than it had only moments ago. My heartbeat thundered inside my ears as I lurched toward the apartment door, each step heavier than the last. "Someone...!" I reached for the doorknob, only to watch in horror as my arm dissolved before my eyes. My fingers disappeared first, then my palm, my forearm, everything breaking apart into tiny glowing cubes that floated away without leaving so much as a drop of blood behind. My knees buckled beneath me and I crashed onto the wooden floor with a sharp gasp, my legs already crumbling into the same impossible fragments.

"This isn't real..." I whispered, shaking so violently I could barely breathe. "This has to be a dream..."

My words died in my throat.

The monitor wasn't simply displaying a black screen anymore.

A swirling vortex had opened in its center, twisting endlessly like a whirlpool carved from pure darkness. The glowing pixels pouring from my body disappeared into it one after another, vanishing without a sound. It was pulling at me now. Not physically at first, but with an invisible force that wrapped itself around every remaining piece of my body.

I dug my nails into the floorboards, desperation lending me one last burst of strength. "No! I'm not going!" I shouted, my voice cracking as my chest began to break apart. The floor slipped farther away no matter how tightly I clung to it, my apartment stretching unnaturally as though the room itself had become nothing more than a reflection on water. The pull became overwhelming, swallowing the last of my resistance, and the world blurred into streaks of color.

Then everything disappeared.

Silence.

Utter, complete silence.

There was no sensation of falling.

No wind.

No pain.

When I finally opened my eyes again, I couldn't even tell if they were truly open. There was no sky above me, no ground beneath me, only an endless abyss that stretched farther than I could comprehend. Darkness surrounded me on every side, yet somehow I could still see.

"...Where am I?" The words echoed strangely, not through the void but inside my own mind.

I looked down instinctively. "...Huh?" There was no body.

No hands.

No feet.

Nothing.

Where my body should have been floated a small, softly glowing sphere of pale white light. Wisps of mist drifted lazily from its surface, making me look less like a person and more like some wandering spirit from an old fantasy game.

"What... what happened to me?" My thoughts raced faster than I could keep up with them. I tried to move my arms, only to remember I didn't have any. I tried to take a breath, only to realize I didn't seem to need one anymore.

Fear clawed at me. "Am I dead?"

The question hung unanswered within the endless darkness.

I spun in place, searching desperately for anything that might tell me where I was, but there was nothing. No stars. No walls. No floor. Just an infinite emptiness that made my own existence feel impossibly small.

"I don't want to be here..." I whispered, my tiny glow flickering slightly. "Please... someone..." As if responding to my plea, something appeared far in the distance.

A single point of light.

It was so small I almost mistook it for my imagination, yet unlike everything else in the abyss, it was undeniably there. Warm. Gentle. Real.

Hope surged through me.

Without thinking, I willed myself toward it.

The moment the thought crossed my mind, the darkness rushed past me. There was no running, no flying-I simply moved, the tiny light growing larger with impossible speed. What had first seemed no bigger than a candle soon became the size of a lantern, then a house, then a mountain.

"...It's huge..." The brilliant glow expanded until it filled my entire vision, its warmth washing over me like sunlight after a long winter. I tried to stop, but there was no stopping. The light embraced me completely, swallowing every trace of the endless abyss.

My consciousness faded.

AI art: