Inside a little apartment, there was an even smaller bedroom. There was very little decoration on the walls, and the grey wallpaper was torn in a few areas. On the bed that was in the middle of the room, there was a teenager of average height lying down, sleeping. His head was devoid of anything on top, combined with a head that seemed to be missing all of its features, except for a large question mark imposed on the white void where the boy’s face should have been. Past the faceless head, his whole body was fairly average, not fat, but not skinny, his skin being a light tan color. His skin was nearly spotless, with only a few marks and freckles marking it.

Suddenly, the boy started to shift around, and a small groan came out of his mouth. If he actually had a face, his eyes would currently be opened, as he had just woken up from his slumber. He stretched his arms out, and moved his body around, trying to loosen up his stiff body. After that, he slowly got out of bed, so he could do his morning routine and get ready for the day. 

The boy then realized something, he had absolutely no idea where he was. He looked around in confusion for a second, and noticed that he couldn’t see any of his personal belongings, the only things that were in the room was a small closet and a cabinet. With a sinking feeling in his chest, he quickly checked the few drawers in the cabinet, along with the closet, but he only found hung up clothes that were not his own, and a digital watch. He normally carried his phone everywhere with him, but it was nowhere to be found.

His confusion turned to panic, as he quickly thought about what could have happened to him.

‘How did I even end up here? I don’t remember ever going drinking last night, so there’s no way that I ended up here in a drunken stupor. All I did last night was to send that email, and then go to sleep. Could I have been kidnapped? It’s not like my family is very wealthy, so the amount they could earn from a ransom is low. The risk vs reward is too slanted. Ugh, this is so confusing. Enough thinking why I’m here for now, I should check out the rest of this place.’

After that train of thought, the boy, whose name was Kim Hajin, went to take stock of the situation. Before that though, Hajin went to put on some of the clothes in the drawers. He thought it would be better to be dressed if he had to meet anyone. As he took a moment to look at the neatly folded pants and hung up shirts, he noticed that they were smaller than what he usually wore, but would barely still fit him. He was annoyed at having to wear such tight clothing, but when he pulled a black t-shirt over his head, it fit perfectly, as if it were tailor made for him.

This gave Hajin another shock, which prompted him to examine his body. Looking down he observed that his belly seemed to have been pushed in by a good few centimeters, with the diameter and length of his arms and legs having received a similar treatment.

At this point, Hajin was hyperventilating, extremely shocked at what had happened to his body. Him waking up in the room was concerning, but it still seemed possible that there was something he hadn’t thought of. But this should have been impossible to achieve through modern science, no matter how good plastic surgery was, it was impossible to completely change a person's body in a single day. He then noticed a door that should lead to the bathroom. After he had seen what had happened to his body, he needed to know if his face had changed. He rushed over to the door to the bathroom, grabbed and pulled down the handle and slammed the door open.open, revealing a small shower and toilet, along with a mirror and sink. He skidded across the floor, nearly tripping on the tiled floor, and ended up at the mirror. He looked in it, not knowing what he was expecting. His original face, maybe one that had just received a bit of tweaking, or perhaps completely new one. But what he absolutely wasn’t expecting was the pure white spot where his head used to be, and the pitch black question mark over it. 

Hajin stood in stunned silence for a moment, trying to process this shocking revelation. All that could be heard in the small bathroom was the sound of Hajin’s quick, panicked breaths echoing across the walls. That is, until a quiet chuckle emerged from Hajin’s mouth.

“Hahahahahaha,”.

The laughter that emerged from his mouth was quiet at first, but quickly became louder, growing into an ear splitting cackle.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA,”!

This was not a laugh of joy, it was a laugh of sorrow, a laugh where Hajin condensed all of the confusion, panic and fear he had just experienced into a single, long laugh. If someone else was there, they would have thought that he was a madman.

“HAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahaaa, haha, haa, haaa, fuck,”.

As his laugh tapered off, he noticed that although his lungs were strained, they didn’t hurt nearly as much as his original lungs would

‘Well, at least my body seems to be in better condition,’ he consoled himself, trying not to think about how his lungs, and by extension, most of his organs had likely been changed in some way.

After taking a few more seconds to catch his breath, he exited the bathroom, trying not his best to avoid thinking about what he saw in that mirror, that white space where his face should have been.

As he stepped into the bedroom, he slowly traced his face with his right pointer finger, and noticed that he could still feel his features. His eyes, nose, ears and mouth were all still there. He supposed that this made sense, how could he be able to see without his eyes, but the discrepancy between what his hand felt and what his eyes saw made him feel an even greater sense of unease than before.

He sat down on the bed, and after pinching himself to make sure this wasn’t a dream, he took another moment to take stock of the situation, and think about why his body has changed so much.

‘Okay, so it seems like my body is completely different from how it was before, and I have no idea where I am. I can only think of two possibilities, I was experimented on, causing me to lose my memories of the event along with this new body. Second, I am in a completely different body than before, through either scientific or magical means. Given the state of my face, it's more likely magical. If it’s scientific, the government has been keeping a lot of secrets, while if it’s magical, that means magic exists, somehow. I’m betting on option two, but if it is that, why would they choose me? Maybe I fulfilled a few specific traits that they needed, like creativity or intellect, but I don’t think a failed web novel author would be able to satisfy the likely high requirements for intelligence, and if it’s based on physical ability, I’m not winning any awards there.'

As Hajin’s head was throbbing with the thoughts pounding around it, he realized he still hadn’t checked that watch on the drawer. If it didn’t hold anything important, at least he could still tell the time.

He got off from the bed, happy to have a thing to distract himself from his own mind. As he took a closer look at it, it somehow seemed familiar. Hajin knew he had never seen a watch like this before, he never had a digital watch, only classic ones. He assumed that the familiarity he felt was likely just the violent combination of emotions he was suppressing influencing him, at least he hoped.

Hajin lightly grasped the watch, and looked around the front of it, trying to see if there was anything written on it, hoping for a clue. He then turned the watch around, and saw the words ‘Cube Smartwatch’ engraved into it. After he read those words, Hajin froze. He had previously thought that nothing could surprise him anymore, not after what had happened to his body, but this gave him a similar, if not even greater shock.

‘Returner Hero’ was a web novel that Hajin had been writing, and this watch was a Smartwatch, a watch that served similar functions to a phone in ‘Returner Hero’. Cube was also the name of a place in ‘Returner Hero’, being the academy where the top hero candidates are nurtured, also serving as the main setting for the beginning of the story.

Hajin’s mind reeled from the implications of this watch, that he was in the world of his own creation.

‘What the hell! Oh shit, this is so bad! Since I have that Smartwatch, it means that this body was originally a cadet at Cube, but I don’t have any training in combat at all! This also means I took over the body of a living person, I’ve essentially killed him!’.

Hajin’s freak out was very, very reasonable. Other then him realizing he had basically (even if accidentally) committed murder, the world of ‘Returner Hero’ was not a kind place to live for the weak. Since this body was a cadet in Cube, he’d at least be able to have access to good training equipment, but even if the owner of this body was the weakest of the weakest cadets, Hajin would stand no chance against them. Although Hajin had never mentioned a case where a student was too weak to keep up with Cube’s curriculum in ‘Returner Hero’, it was likely that he would quickly be expelled.

Another downside that Hajin quickly realized was that the original likely was of low standing in the world, given the living conditions of the apartment, so he couldn’t rely on an influential family to get by.

Family. The second Hajin thought those words, he realized something. He might have transmigrated, but his family didn’t travel with him.

His parents, his friends, all the people who cared about him, and all of the people he cared for. He would never again see his father, the man who raised him. The man who no matter how much Hajin messed up, was always there to support him, to give him pep talks, to play with him. He would never get to see his mother, the woman who birthed and raised him. Never again would he be able to get her advice on life, be able to confide his worries in her, have her hug and comfort him when he was depressed and lost in life.

Never again, would he be able to see them, talk with them, or even be in the same room as them.

Never again.

At this realization, Hajin broke. All the negative emotions he was keeping from bubbling over burst with the addition of this realization. Hajin dropped to the floor, the watch falling out of his grasp, as he curled into a fetal position and let out a small wail to the floor. Tears fell like raindrops from his eyes, as he wallowed in his sorrow, oblivious to the tragedies that were yet to come.