Inside a cramped room barely big enough for a single bed, a young boy lay motionless. His white hair fell across his forehead, and his skin was ghostly pale, almost translucent. The room felt cold and empty.
His chest didn't move. No breath escaped his lips. Anyone walking in would have known right away - this boy was dead. But the room stayed silent, and no one came.
Then his finger moved. Just a twitch at first.
His body suddenly shot up like lightning had struck him. He gasped - a desperate, hungry sound that filled the quiet room. Then he collapsed back onto the thin mattress, his chest finally rising and falling in a steady rhythm. Color slowly crept back into his cheeks.
For three whole minutes, he had been gone. Now he was back.
"No!" The word came out rough and broken. He grabbed his head with both hands, his whole body shaking on the bed. His face twisted as waves of pain crashed through his skull. His fingers dug into his hair like he was trying to hold his head together.
The shaking slowly stopped. His breathing became normal again. His face relaxed, showing sharp features that would have been handsome if not for the confusion in his eyes.
A few minutes passed before he opened his eyes. He stared up at the wooden ceiling, blinking slowly. Then his face changed, eyes going wide.
"What the hell?" he whispered, sitting up and looking around the small room. Nothing looked familiar. The bed, the desk, the single window - it was all wrong.
"Where am I-" Sharp pain cut through his head like a knife. He pressed his palms against his temples, squeezing his eyes shut.
Pictures flashed in his mind. A whole life he'd never lived played out like a movie. Memories that weren't his own settled into his brain, finding their place. The strangest part was how familiar it all felt, like remembering a dream.
When the pain faded, he sat there breathing hard. His eyes found something on the small table next to the bed - an ID card.
He picked it up with shaky fingers and read the name out loud. "Ryker Validos."
The photo showed a boy with white hair and cold, sharp eyes that seemed to look right through him. Even in the picture, those eyes were intense.
"Ryker Validos," he said again, slower this time. Something clicked in his brain. His eyes went wide. "Wait! He's from Hero's Ascent!"
The card fell from his hands as he jumped up and ran to the small bathroom. In the mirror, a stranger stared back at him. But not really a stranger - he knew this face from countless hours of reading.
White hair that caught the light. A face with strong angles and sharp lines. And those eyes - cold and gray like winter storms.
'It's really him,' he thought, touching the mirror. 'I'm actually Ryker.'
Ryker had been his favorite character in the Hero's Ascent series. Smart, strong, and complex - but the author had wasted him. Made him into just another stepping stone for the hero to defeat early on. A side character who turned villain because bad things kept happening to him.
When Ryker died in the story, he'd almost stopped reading. He only kept going to see what the main character would do next. Big mistake - the hero ended up destroying everything in the end.
He walked back to the bed and found a phone on the desk. The screen showed today's date. His heart jumped. The academy arc - where everything started going wrong for Ryker - was still a month away.
A slow smile spread across his face. His gray eyes lit up with something that hadn't been there before - hope mixed with determination.
If the author thought Ryker was just a throwaway villain, just another obstacle for the hero to overcome, then it was time to prove him wrong.
He was going to change everything. The plot would have to deal with him now. He'd show the world what happened when a so-called 'extra villain' decided to become the main threat.
The game was about to begin, and this time, Ryker Validos was playing to win.