"Step One: Don't Die"
The first thing Ren Vireo noticed was the sky.
Not the falling part. That came second.
No, the first thing was that the sky above him wasn't blue. It was… brushed—like a painting still wet, swirling with lavender clouds and golden lines of light that moved as if they were alive. He had exactly three seconds to admire it before gravity remembered its job.
"…oh no."
Ren fell.
Wind screamed past his ears. His ragged hoodie flapped like a dying bird. Beneath him: endless floating cliffs, glowing forests, a river that twisted into a spiral, and—oh good—a giant mushroom the size of a building.
He landed in it.
FLOOF.
Silence.
Then he coughed up spores and muttered, "Still alive. Technically."
He sat up slowly, blinking at the glittering air around him. It smelled like fruit tea and ozone. The mushroom was soft. The sky still shimmered.
And right beside him, sticking out of the ground like a forgotten bookmark, was a leather-bound journal—one he didn't remember packing.
Ren picked it up. His name was scrawled across the cover in looping, gold script.
"To the Traveler: Take Notes. The World Evolves as You Do."
"What."
He flipped it open. The pages were blank—no, waiting. A flicker of light danced across the first page like a pulse.
Ren looked around. Not a soul in sight. Not a road. Not a clue.
Just wild beauty. And magic that hummed through the air like a sleeping storm.
He stood, stretched, and scratched his head. "Okay. I don't know where I am, why the trees are glowing, or how I'm not splattered across this mushroom like monster soup."
A pause.
"…But this beats my apartment."
And with that, Ren Vireo—the guy who only wanted to see the world—took his first step into a universe that would reshape itself around him.
Whether he liked it or not.