Arcane: Broken Mechanism

The night before the first day of school at university is a special occasion. People usually prepare for it in advance: they choose clothes that will highlight their style, go to bed early to look fresh, and get ready to meet classmates with whom they will spend the next few years. For most, it is a chance to make an impression, starting a new stage of their life with confidence and shine.

But not for Damir. As always, he treated it with disdain. Clothes? Whatever he could get his hands on in the morning. Sleep? Who cares if he looks cheerful or not, if he is not going to communicate with anyone anyway. For him, university was just another stage that needs to be passed without going into details. The hustle and bustle that would surely await him in the morning seemed something distant and insignificant.

He was a young man who was about to turn eighteen. His Asian appearance with subtle European features gave him an unusual charm, typical of the inhabitants of Central Asia. Black hair of medium length slightly carelessly framed his face, and dark eyes, deep and thoughtful, involuntarily attracted the gaze. Many girls would consider him quite attractive, but his isolation and introverted nature always prevented him from making new acquaintances. Damir never felt comfortable in large society, preferring to remain alone with his thoughts.

His circle of friends was always limited. He felt uncomfortable in a large group, and maintaining a conversation in such conditions seemed like something impossible. Social skills were never his strong point, and many of his peers' hobbies remained a mystery to him. He did not understand their jokes, especially those that seemed too rude or vulgar to him.

His interests lay in a completely different plane. Where others preferred to make dirty jokes, he considered it inappropriate. Where many were happy to skip classes, he considered it wrong. Raised in a strict but friendly framework, Damir remained a home boy from childhood.

He spent most of his time at the computer or watching a new TV series, immersing himself in worlds that seemed much more interesting and understandable to him than the surrounding reality. Perhaps this is what further alienated him from his peers. While they were having fun in the streets, he found solace and peace in solitude, where he did not have to adjust to other people's expectations.

— Well, that's it, the last episode, and it's definitely time to sleep, — he muttered tiredly, glancing at the phone screen. The circles under his eyes and the feeling of heaviness in his head reminded him that sleep would be the best solution right now. But as soon as he looked at the time — three o'clock in the morning — a slight wave of sadness rose up inside him. There were only a few hours left until the start of the new school year, and he still hadn't closed his eyes.

"Damn this idiot, I lived peacefully without this Arcane," he thought, pressing the play button of the last episode of the first season with annoyance. The series captivated him much more than he expected. Each scene was like a work of art: animation, the likes of which he had never seen before, a gripping plot that kept him in suspense, and characters — bright, memorable, even too colorful for his taste.

He ran his hand over his face, fighting off fatigue, but he could no longer stop. The story grew deeper with each new episode, and the tension only grew. This world, where magic and technology intertwined in a dangerous and unpredictable dance, seemed to beckon him to itself.

In many ways, as an introvert, Damir spent a lot of time in his imagination, preferring fairy-tale worlds to the real one. Large-scale projects with elaborate lore, characters and stories always attracted his attention. He immersed himself in these universes, building his own adventures in his head, where there were their own rules, their own logic. All this allowed him to escape from reality, which sometimes seemed too loud and inconvenient.

The first season of the series came out a year ago, but until that moment he could not find the strength to be interested in it. Despite all the noise and hype around Arkane, Damir remained indifferent. He had never played League of Legends and could not even think that a project based on this game would somehow hook him. He believed that this series was created exclusively for devoted fans, and it would be difficult for ordinary viewers to understand all the nuances and depth. However, practice has proven otherwise. But he still decided - after watching it, he would definitely get to know the lore of the world and characters in more detail, because it was quite a work of art.

"Oh, if only Valve loved Dota as much as Riot Games loves League of Legends," a sad thought flashed through his mind while the intro of the new series was playing on the screen. Damir thought about how other companies approach their products, but quickly drove these thoughts away. 

He continued watching the episode, captivated by the developments, but the fatigue that was creeping up on him was gradually taking over. His eyes were becoming heavier and heavier, and he could barely focus on what was happening on the screen. At first, it was just a slight shaking of his head, which he tried to fight by blinking slightly and stretching his neck. But with each frame, it became more and more difficult.

Unconsciously, he began to lean back in his chair, his shoulders relaxed, and his breathing became even and deep. He didn't even notice how his head slowly tilted forward, and his eyes became more and more foggy. With each passing moment, his thoughts became heavier and heavier, and the scenes on the screen began to dissolve in a foggy haze. At some point, he realized that he could no longer follow the events. The whole room around him became silent, and he did not even notice how the next moment he simply fell asleep - the phone fell onto his chest with a soft click, and the screen went dark.

***

Awakening came as suddenly as sleep had come. His eyes opened, but the reality around him was not what he expected. He could not immediately understand where he was. Doubt - was this a dream or reality - instantly seized him. It was a familiar feeling that he had experienced more than once when, having woken up, he continued to live in the semi-darkness of sleep. His body did not feel the usual support, there was no floor under his feet, no walls around. The world seemed alien, vague and elusive.

He remembered how he had once been interested in this state, when his awakenings were just as confusing. It was called hypnagogia - a moment when consciousness has not yet fully awakened, and a person lives between sleep and reality, unable to understand where one ends and the other begins. That very moment when everything around seems implausible and shaky, as if the world itself had just woken up and was not yet quite ready for perception.

He tried to focus, but it was difficult. All his senses were distorted, and even the air he breathed seemed different, heavy and unreal. He closed his eyes and tried to force himself to remember how he got here, but all he could come up with was a feeling of absolute emptiness all around him.

"I don't get it. I haven't had such strange dreams in a long time," the thought flashed through his head. He couldn't see his body, his arms, or his legs. There was nothing but fog and darkness around him. He was supposed to be in his bed, so what had happened? The feeling he was experiencing at that moment could only be described in one word - weightlessness. He was floating somewhere out there, either in his dream or in reality, it was hard to tell.

He closed his eyes again, hoping that this was just a residual feeling of sleep that would disappear as soon as he collected his thoughts. But when he opened them again, everything remained unchanged - the same alien world, the same weightlessness. Suddenly, a detail caught his attention. He felt his chest moving with each breath - not the sluggish breath of sleep, but a real, tangible process. His body was here, he was here. In this space that did not resemble the world he knew.

He tried to move, but the movement was not the same as usual. He did not touch the ground, did not feel the usual weight of his body. He felt his muscles tense, and his arms and legs move, but all this was happening in emptiness. He did not fall, did not collide with something solid, but simply... moved in the air. The lightness he felt was no longer the familiar comfortable feeling. It was something else - the emptiness in which he was lost.

His heart began to beat faster, and despite all the strangeness, he felt a cold sweat appear on his forehead. This could not be a dream - dreams did not give such sensations. It was all too real to be fiction. He knew that this was not a hallucination. This was not a dream. This was something much more frightening.

Before panic had time to fully take hold of him, a small window suddenly appeared before his eyes, as if out of nowhere. It appeared unexpectedly, as if his very thoughts had been suddenly interrupted by something from outside. The text inside was clear, like a cold blow to the face, leaving no room for doubt.

"Congratulations, you have won the interdimensional travel lottery. Your new world will be selected according to the memory of your brain."

He froze. The words seemed to cut through his perception, leaving an emptiness behind them. At first, he could not understand what it meant. These words were too strange, too alien to his mind. Interdimensional lottery? Travel? A new world? He tried to understand the meaning, but his mind refused to believe what was happening.

His gaze remained glued to the screen, to the text, which seemed something unimaginable and unreal. His brain tried with difficulty to comprehend what was happening, but instead, confusion grew in his head. How is this possible? Why him? He had always been an ordinary student, not someone who could win some kind of lottery, much less an interdimensional one.

The panic returned, squeezing his chest, and he tried to find an explanation, but it kept slipping away. It all seemed like madness, some kind of nightmare that was not like his usual dreams. Where was he? What was happening? And what kind of system was this?

He closed his eyes, hoping that this was just delirium, that the world around him would return to normal, but when he opened them, everything was the same. This was not a dream.

A new window appeared before his eyes just as the first had - suddenly, without warning, as if the space around him had shrunk and this new screen was the center of his attention.

"Brain memory scanned. World selected. Transfer will begin in 3... 2... 1..."

Before he could even think, his consciousness seemed to be pierced by some invisible force. The feeling of weightlessness intensified, and the air around him became oppressive, as if he was being pulled into something larger than just space. As if the world itself was losing its shape, and all that remained was a sense of approaching inevitability.

His heart began to beat faster, his body tightened with tension, and instinctive fear clouded his mind. He tried to scream, tried to resist, but his voice disappeared into the void, as if he could not express either thought or sound.

The moment the count reached zero, the reality in front of him, which had seemed so stable just a second ago, seemed to disappear. The whole world fell apart, and with each passing moment he felt how he himself—his essence—was being pulled out of the familiar world into the unknown, where space and time no longer obeyed the usual laws.

The moment the final countdown disappeared, the space around him simply vanished, as if he had been ripped from his normal reality. There was a deafening silence in his ears, and then, in the utter emptiness, a voice spoke. It was cold and emotionless, but it sounded both mechanical and alive, like something that existed outside of time and space.

"Welcome. We hope you find your time here to your satisfaction."

The voice had no source, it was just there, in the air, and the words passed through him, leaving him with the feeling that his thoughts could not find a way back. There was no anger or fear inside, only an empty, mechanical recognition, as if he was not the first and would not be the last. As if this moment - his passage, his movement - was just part of some much larger, impersonal system.

Damir didn't know what to think. The panic remained, but it was crushed by the strange silence that seemed to have come from those words. He tried to focus, but only felt his body begin to lose its bearings again, as if his very consciousness was being pulled into something greater than he could have imagined.

He continued to be pulled into something unknown, and with each passing moment the sensations became more and more blurred, more and more distant. The world around him was losing its outlines, turning into vague shapes and strange flashes of light. His consciousness was overwhelmed by a feeling of weightlessness and emptiness, and despite all his attempts to hold on, everything was shrinking, disappearing, as if he was being pulled into some new, unimaginable world.

And then, at the last moment, when his mind could no longer perceive anything that was happening around him, when thought could no longer hold on to reality, his consciousness simply disappeared. It was swallowed up by empty space, leaving behind only darkness and absolute silence.