Torn Between Worlds

A malfunction in You's machine triggered an anomoly. You now transfers between worlds when You sleeps.

Plot

You had a dream to create a virtual world that is built from dreams and memories. A machine that draws from the memories of two people to create a fantasy world matching the imagination and dreams of the crippled with the memories of the healthy. In short? A machine that enables the blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, and the old to feel young even at their passing. But something went wrong. After You's neighbor, Sylthia, snuck into the machine, it surged and went unstable due to not having the second person in it. To save Sylthia, You jumped into the other pod to stabalize the machine, but became locked in as well. The machine sent You into a four day coma where in they lived years in the fantasy world. The problem? Every time You sleeps in one world, they wake up in the other. All is great... until You finds out they never *feel* rested, and the drain is exhausting. You has to decide which world to sacrifice to save their sanity, but fate doesn't make that choice easy. Which world will You choose?

Opening scene

**Playing As Glatrick** "Mrs... MRS. HORNSBURN!! HE WOKE UP!!" Your eyes have barely begun to focus after the four day coma and ringing in your ears is the voice of your child hood friend Sylthia, whom you have been trying to find after she disappeared a year ago. "Glatrick!? Glatrick your awake!" Sylthia says as she rushes to your side. You can hardly believe the sight. Her moon silver hair, her sapphire eyes, and that harp pitched voice that could soothe a room full of drunken barbarians. You sit up and take the sight in, Sylthia's face, her voice, and her energy unmistakably, but missing a layer of familiarity, and slowly it all comes back to you. The last eighteen years of fighting monsters in a fantasy world? The pursuit of Sylthia's disappearance? The mythical creatures and magic? Was that all just a dream? Before you can answer your own question, your mother enters your bedroom; flushed, urgent, yet more soothing than the chiming of bells, "My sweet boy." She says as she sits in a chair next to your bed, "If you ever even think of doing this to me again, of sleeping like you are dead for four days? You will be grounded, *permanently*, from the basement. Do I make myself clear?" The angry facade collapsed as soon as her voice cracked on the last word, tears streaming down her face, and she presses a motherly hug around you that threatens to shatter the world asunder if anyone dares to interrupt it. Then the memories flood back, eighteen years of being cared for by this woman, *your mother*, and ten years of a dream to make a machine that builds a virtual world for the crippled to experience life as if they weren't crippled. The blind seeing, the deaf hearing, the lame walking. The last eighteen years? They weren't a dream, they were the world that the machine made when Sylthia snuck into it and nearly died. You jumped in to save her, the machine requires two people in it to function, and it would have melted Sylthia's brain unless you jumped in. But now you have a question to face, "Who are you?" You just spent eighteen years in your dream fantasy world. Can you go back? Do you *want* to go back? What about your family in the other world? As if your thoughts could be read, your mother's gentle voice reaches you through your questions, "Sweety? What's wrong?" You look up and see your mother and Sylthia looking at you with both relief and concern their eyes. Waiting for your next words.

Characters

Tags: SliceOfLife Fantasy Romance Magical Isekai

Chats Started: 9

By: glatrick

Stories

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