*(Alternate title: "I Didn't Die. I Got Suspended for Excessive Reality")
Darkness.Silence.Peace.
And then—a beep.
BEEEEEEEEEP…
"Already?" I croaked, with a voice drier than sandpaper in a heatwave.
The beep didn't answer.Spoiler: it was a heart monitor.Spoiler #2: I was hooked up to it.Spoiler #3: I was back.
—
I opened my eyes like someone rebooting a game from 2007.Everything was white.Everything was clean.Everything was disgustingly futuristic.
Smooth walls.Floating screens.And a nurse—robotic, with unnecessarily round boobs—who scanned me like today's lunch special.
"Renji Kurogane," she said in a depressed GPS voice. "You are awake."
"No way. And here I thought this was a Black Mirror trailer."
My soul hurt.And my back.And my brain.Worst of all: my dignity.
Because if memory served me right… the last thing I saw before blacking out was…
"I passed out because of a rake, didn't I?"
Silence.Even the robot looked away.Confirmed: that was my season finale.
—
📅 Year: 2035🧊 Time in coma: 19 years🛌 Physical status: Incredibly stable🧠 Mental status: Elegantly wrecked
My stasis capsule looked like a designer fridge.And inside it: me.No beard.No wrinkles.No damn idea what was going on.
The first thing I saw when I woke up—after the tech ceiling and Tesla-sponsored nurse—was a glowing message on-screen:
"Renji Kurogane – Seal Active. Status: Unstable. Avoid Emotional Contact."
—
"Where the hell am I?" I asked.
A door slid open.A man entered in a white coat, shiny glasses, and the aura of "I've been watching you sleep, but not in a creepy way."
"Renji! Oh my God! You're conscious!"
"Yeah. And you're the new chapter of my anxiety. Who the hell are you?"
"I'm Dr. Khaled. I've overseen your capsule since you were transferred to the Erosion Institute."
"The what now?"
"An international foundation dedicated to studying physical, cognitive, and symbolic anomalies."
"And what does that have to do with me?"
He smiled like he was about to hand me a birthday present that was actually a curse.
"You were the first."
"First in what?"
He activated a screen.And there I was.
Videos.Photos.Recordings.A cult.People with Eye tattoos.Crowds chanting my name.And a damn YouTube channel called 'Renjiverse', debating if I was a god, a demon, or the millennial reboot of Jesus Christ.
"What the hell… is this?"
"History didn't forget you, Renji.History turned you into myth."
—
Boom.Existential crisis: activated.
"Let me guess. I'm the new Messiah?"
"No.You're worse.You're the variable.The glitch.The hole in logic.The guy who triggered a global symbolic pattern… while in a coma."
"Wow. I did absolutely nothing and still ruined the world. Efficient."
—
I tried to get up.Error.
My body trembled like a glitched-out leaf.The Eye on my chest began to glow.And glow.
Dr. Khaled stepped back.
"What's happening?"
"Your seal… it's responding to reality.And reality… isn't the same anymore."
—
An alarm went off.Red lights.Wall codes.
And on the screen, a single word blinking:
"SENKU.""ACTIVATION DETECTED."
—
"What the hell does that mean?"
"It means…you weren't the only one who woke up."
The ground trembled.A crack spread across the ceiling.
The glass window fractured as if the world remembered something it tried to forget.And my tattoo burned—**burned—**like it was whispering:
"Welcome back, dumbass."
—
And there I was.Waking up in a world that had turned me into a legend,without knowing that the worst part…hadn't even begun.