The glow of three monitors bathes the dim room in blue light as Ashton's fingers fly across his keyboard. A half-eaten bowl of instant ramen sits forgotten beside a pile of manga volumes. He adjusts his headset with one hand while mumbling to his Discord group about optimal gacha pulls, his other hand rapidly clicking through another anime game's dailies. Outside his blackout curtains, the real world might as well not exist.

When his stomach finally growls loud enough to break his focus, he reluctantly grabs his hoodie and heads out into the blinding afternoon sun - the first time in 38 hours according to his sleep tracker. The city noises assault his ears as he shuffles toward the conbini, already composing a tweet in his head about "grass-touching penalties".

A sudden screech of tires—

His phone clatters to the pavement mid-shitpost. There's a flash of headlights, a crushing impact, then... darkness. Endless, weightless darkness swallowing his consciousness whole.

Just as the void threatens to consume him entirely, a single pinprick of light appears in the distance—