I did not write this to be understood, but to leave behind what I thought
when I could no longer tell if I was truly alive
or only dreaming of it
— When the Dream Refused the End — doesnt ask what a dream is
It asks—if truth itself begins to deceive us,
what is left for us to believe in?
I only wish to hear the voice of someone
who still dares to question,
even when they already know
there is no answer
ผจญภัย,แฟนตาซี,ยุคกลาง,แอคชั่น,ย้อนยุค,ปรัชญา,ผจญภัย,แอคชั่น,ต่อสู้,ตามหาความจริง,พระเอกเก่ง,plotteller, ploteller, plotteler,พล็อตเทลเลอร์, แอพแพนด้าแดง, แพนด้าแดง, พล็อตเทลเลอร์, รี้ดอะไร้ต์,รีดอะไรท์,รี้ดอะไรท์,รี้ดอะไร, tunwalai , ธัญวลัย, dek-d, เด็กดี, นิยายเด็กดี ,นิยายออนไลน์,อ่านนิยาย,นิยาย,อ่านนิยายออนไลน์,นักเขียน,นักอ่าน,งานเขียน,บทความ,เรื่องสั้น,ฟิค,แต่งฟิค,แต่งนิยาย
The cry of a bird slipped through a cracked window.
Evening sunlight filtered in through the fracture like a blade,
dust swirling above an old wooden bed.
A damp cloth rubbed gently across a blackened suit of armor—polished to a sheen,
its surface lined with scars too many to count,
and yet, it still looked far too noble
to be resting in a chapel without a god.
There were no idols here, no prayers, no candles—no god.
Or perhaps there was one,
but He had simply chosen never to speak to us again.
What remained was an emptiness,
a hollow space that the shattered stained glass could no longer fill.
Some said the crack was the gaze of one who had once watched from above,
before falling.
Others simply repeated what they had been told.
Outside, the laughter of children echoed—
light, alive, unburdened.
Their laughter was new to this village—
a village once burned half to ash three years ago.
The adults who survived rarely spoke of that day.
Only the children,
who had never seen the fire,
could laugh so freely in a place that still felt like it was mourning forever.
Their laughter made the village feel alive again.
Yet that same sound wormed its way into someone’s ears,
until it throbbed like pain.
Noisy little bastards… may you rot in hell for waking me up…
The curse slipped through a half-conscious mind—
judging them like a dream’s magistrate—
before the rest of me began to wake,
slowly, piece by piece.
I opened my eyes—
but my whole body ached,
as if I’d been lying in chains.
Which made no sense—
I’d just finished streaming last night,
gone to bed right after, like always.
Funny.
I’d once gone days without sleep, gaming through dawn and dusk,
and never felt a thing—
but now, I woke as if I’d carried the weight of the world in my sleep.
My fingers moved stiffly, clumsy and untrained—
as though they’d once clutched something
and refused to let it go.
Not a keyboard.
Not a mouse.
Something heavier.
The strain wasn’t just in the muscles.
It ran deeper—
to the eyes,
to the nerves,
to the strange ceiling above me—ancient wood scrubbed spotless.
What the hell?
“Sir—Sir Knight! You’re awake?!”
The shout startled me.
The voice was English, crisp and formal.
I turned—slowly—
to see a thin old man, belt tied neatly around his waist.
He looked exactly like a butler from some period drama.
He set a bowl of water down, startled,
then rushed toward the door.
“I-I’ll fetch the priest! Please, do not move, my lord! Your wounds—”
Priest? Wounds?
I looked down at myself.
Bandages wrapped around my chest, tight and precise,
and under them—
a blackened mark, numb and cold,
not pain exactly,
but something that felt like a scar that refused to die.
Beside the bed lay armor—dark, polished,
the same one that had been cleaned,
resting on a bench with a cloth beside it.
No relics.
No books.
No holy crystal.
Just a rag, used every day by someone who refused to let it rust.
Through the window,
sun-dust drifted over withered fields and dead trees,
over half-collapsed houses,
toward a rotting watchtower that stood like a finger against a gray sky.
The air smelled of smoke, rust,
and something bitter—like herbs steeped too long in stale water.
What the hell happened?
I tried to reconstruct,
as if this were another simulation—
a game world I’d tested in my head too many times.
Except no simulation had ever captured this—
the taste of incense, the ache under my ribs,
the weight of a breath that wasn’t mine.
Then—
the door opened again.
A priest stepped in, smiling with the kind of joy that didn’t reach his eyes.
He pressed a hand over the sigil on his chest—
a pyramid with a single large eye,
crossed through by a scar.
The symbol of a fallen prophet—
from the war of ages past.
The day people called The Silent Dawn of Seraphim,
when rumor claimed God Himself had died.
This church had once been holy,
a cathedral large enough to birth a city around it.
Now it was only a shelter—
where believers still performed rituals,
long after their faith had gone cold.
The priest bowed slightly.
Too polite.
Too practiced.
Like a man afraid to stop kneeling—
because if he did,
he might discover there was no one left to kneel to.
He lifted his head.
“Sir Knight... we are blessed to see you awake.
Your spirit never left us.
We prayed every day that you would return.”
His accent—British, archaic—was clear as theater,
and yet I understood it perfectly,
as though my mind had grown up in his tongue.
I frowned.
“Man, what did you just call me?”
He blinked, confused.
“Forgive me, Sir... The word you used—‘Man’—
I do not know it. Is it... a title of your people, my lord?”
‘So they use sir instead of คุณ, huh.’
“Then tell me,” I said, “What did you just call me?”
“Ah! My apologies, my lord... perhaps I misspoke.
We simply assumed you were a noble.”
The word noble left his lips with unease,
as though even speaking it might summon something listening beyond the walls.
“After you drove the dragon from this village three years ago,”
he said, voice trembling,
“you collapsed.
We believed you were an honored knight.”
Three years?
No way. Yesterday I was just...
Then—
a flash.
A memory.
I saw myself lying in bed,
saw my brother crying beside me,
saw my own funeral fire.
He buried my ashes behind our house.
It was too real to dismiss.
Except—
I wasn’t a woman, like in that vision.
And I never had a younger brother.
Only two older ones.
Yet the name carved on that gravestone—
it was one I somehow recognized,
though I’d never used it before.
“... No one knows your true name,” the priest continued.
“No family ever came for you.
Though... there is one young woman.
She visits once each year.
She sits right there, in that corner, until dusk...
then leaves without a word.”
Someone sitting by a comatose man for three years—
without ever speaking—
that was its own kind of horror.
“She never said her name either,” he went on.
“The first time she came, I wanted to ask...
but the magic that split open around her—terrifying, impossible.
It was like the air itself could devour you.”
He glanced toward the far corner of the room.
“No one stands there anymore.
Not even me.”
I half listened, half argued with myself.
This has to be a lucid dream, I thought.
No dream feels like this, another voice replied.
It was too vivid.
Too detailed.
And yet unreal enough to disorient.
When I pressed my palm to my chest,
pain shot through me like cold needles stabbing every nerve.
The breath caught in my throat—
“Ugh!”
“Sir! Are you well?!
It must be the dragon’s poison—it still lingers! I’ll have them brew more—”
“Don’t.”
The word came rough, sharp—
like it wasn’t from my throat at all,
but from the bones that still ached beneath.
“I just... want some quiet.”
The tone startled him into obedience.
“Yes, my lord. I’ll tell the butler to bring food.”
“...Thank you.”
He bowed again and left.
I was alone.
Leaning back,
the wood groaned beneath my weight—
as though the world itself was testing whether it could bear me.
Maybe this is just a body-training scenario, I thought.
A pre-awakening simulation.
The thought made me thirstier than before.
I reached for the water by the bed—
drank—
then paused.
Please don’t let that have been bath water.
Nothing made sense.
Body transfer?
Dimension shift?
Dream?
No... if it were a dream, I’d know by now.
And yet—
Even in dreams where we know we’re dreaming,
we never realize when the dream changes scenes.
Dreams have their own sound—silent, yet louder than the real world.
But if the real world becomes more senseless than the dream—
then which one is truly real?
That question hung with me,
long after the priest’s footsteps vanished.
I exhaled slowly,
then smiled to myself.
Should’ve asked for a mirror.
I’d seen more beautiful worlds through screens,
but the glass had never been this cold.
Screens could take me anywhere—
but they never made me fear
that one wrong step could shatter everything for real.
I looked around the room—
the walls, the air,
the faint hum of a world built like an old English game.
“I imagined this a thousand ways,” I murmured “None of them looked like this.”
A dry laugh slipped out.
I once dreamed of changing the world.
But the world changed me first.
Now, just figuring out whether I’m dreaming
feels harder than surviving.
I stared out at the unmoving light—
the same color, the same stillness.
No new sounds.
No new questions.
Only stillness.
I understood nothing of this world.
But I didn’t want to stand up yet.
Because the moment I did,
the story would begin—
and I wasn’t sure
I wanted to know how it would end.
Then—
Knock. Knock.
I didn’t move.
Not because I feared who might be outside—
but because I’d just realized something worse:
The terrifying part
wasn’t who stood beyond that door.
It was that everyone here
seemed to think they already knew me—
when I didn’t even know
if I knew myself.
