Chapter 1: The Extra’s New Beginning
The first thing I registered was the dull ache behind my eyes, a persistent throb that felt like a hangover amplified by a thousand.
Then came the unfamiliar scent – a mix of stale wood, something vaguely metallic, and an undertone of damp earth. My eyelids felt heavy, glued shut, but I forced them open.
Light, filtered through a small, grimy window. I blinked, trying to clear the fog from my brain. This wasn’t my apartment. My ceiling was white, popcorn-textured, with a fan that wobbled slightly when it spun. This ceiling was rough-hewn timber, dark, cobwebs clinging to the rafters.
’Where the hell was I?’ I tried to sit up, but my limbs felt sluggish, heavy, as if I’d been asleep for a week. My body felt... different. Lighter, perhaps? Or just unfamiliar. I looked down at my hands. They were slender, pale, with long, almost delicate fingers. Not my hands. My hands were broader, calloused from years of keyboard shortcuts and occasional DIY projects.
’A mirror’. ’I needed a mirror.’ My gaze swept the small, sparsely furnished room. A rickety wooden table, a single chair, and a wardrobe that looked like it had seen better centuries. No mirror. My heart hammered against my ribs.
I swung my legs over the side of the bed, my feet meeting a cold, uneven wooden floor. The clothes I was wearing were a simple, coarse tunic and trousers, nothing like the faded band t-shirt and sweatpants I usually slept in. This was wrong. All of it was wrong.
Then, a memory, faint at first, then rushing in like a tidal wave, hit me. Not my memory, but a memory. A name. Kai Lorne. And a place. The Kingdom of Ostina.
My breath hitched. No. No way. This was a dream. A vivid, hyper-realistic dream born from too many late nights binging NovelFires. I pinched myself. Hard. A sharp sting. Not a dream.
I had seen that name before—Kai Lorne. It was Hero’s Vow. A generic fantasy novel I’d picked up online a few months ago. A classic hero’s journey: orphaned protagonist, hidden powers, a destined quest to defeat the Demon Lord. And Kai Lorne... Kai Lorne was an extra. A minor character, barely a footnote, introduced in a single Chapter only to be brutally killed off by the antagonist, Theodric Von Alder, during a public spectacle. His death served as a plot device, a demonstration of Theodric’s cruelty, designed to spur the hero into action.
I was Kai Lorne.