Fuck. How could this happen to me…

Dylan lay on the cold concrete, muttering over and over in his mind. Vision blurry with tears, his eyes tracked over the bodies of several people, charred remains with little semblance to what they might have looked like before. Tears streamed down his face as his remaining eye slowly started to drift closed. He had no energy left to keep it open. He could feel his life fading away with each thump of his furiously beating heart, his blood emptying itself onto the walkway through the many holes torn through his body.

How…

Just moments ago, he and his friends had been enjoying what was SUPPOSED to be an enjoyable swim meet away from his school. They had even gotten out of school early just to go to this swim meet, as it was a championship meet where schools competed against each other. Immediately after they had arrived and set up their tents, he had gone to the bathroom by himself, as there was no point in taking anyone else unless he was a child. Little did he know of the danger he was heading towards. All it took was a crowded bathroom full of excited high schoolers and one suspicious adult holding a small package of gunpowder and fire to brutalize him, and frankly everyone inside.

Laying there, Dylan knew that he was going to die. He was not doing well-with multiple gaping holes in his torso from shrapnel, missing limbs and half of his face burned off. He also knew that nearly everyone in the crowded room with him was dead, or nearly dead. Blackened corpses and whimpering cries resonated through the bathroom, and Dylan himself wasn’t sure if he was playing a part of the cacophony, delirious as he was.

This is it… He thought to himself What a shitty way to end this life…I had so much left to live for…

After what seemed like a lifetime, he felt the world going blank. Everything was fading away. He couldn’t see, couldn’t feel, and he could barely hear the screams and shouts of the concerned passerby assessing the situation. The seconds dragged on, and he felt as if his body was being lifted into the air, as if gravity could find no purchase on him anymore. And then, all was quiet, and Dylan was dead.

At least, I should have been…But what the hell is going on?!

Dylan could still feel his consciousness, yet where did the urgent panic and fear he was feeling go? He still couldn’t feel anything, but his body wasn’t giving him signals that he was dying. He couldn’t hear anything, and most importantly, why were his eyes still closed then!

Dylan’s eyes “shot” open. Except, they didn’t. He felt an intense wave of stimuli hit him all at once, and he saw the inside of what looked like a cave. A small hole in the wall in front of him, the size of a plate, perhaps, allowed a meager amount of sunlight into the cave. Attempting to look around, Dylan soon realized he didn’t even need to turn his head or move his neck to look around, or even move. Almost as if he was a pair of floating eyes, or didn’t have a body…Quickly, he glanced down.

WTFFFFF

Nothing. There was nothing underneath him. No body, just a few feet of empty space separating him from the cold, packed Earth of the cave he was in.

What the heck?!

Dylan “looked” around, his eyes drifting over hanging stalactites, pebbles, and cold hard earth as he searched for answers before settling on something. Catching his attention, Dylan willed his vision closer to it. It appeared to be a stone the size of a man’s fist, laying on the ground. It looked almost like a polished diamond, with gleaming faces which reflected the meager sunlight entering the cave, reflecting them into the cold darkness of the room. He felt as if he was looking at something…Familiar…almost as if…

Ding!

Suddenly, Dylan heard a sound in his head, and his vision was suddenly filled with a blindingly white large screen!

Welcome to the World of [Thunnberg], new dungeon.