"Are you my master?" asked a woman, staring at me intently. I stared back, equally confused.
The woman wore a black hijab adorned with red threads, covering most of her face except for her gray eyes, which were both dull and strangely alluring.
Let me explain how I ended up in this situation.
It was a typical Monday night. I was sitting on my bed, pretending to do my homework, when, without warning, I was sucked into what looked like a black hole.
"Hello, are you awake?" a woman with an odd-looking face asked.
"Yes, I am fine. Who are you, and where am I?"
"You are in an extraordinary space. My name is Alaya, and I need you to do something for me."
"What do you need from me? And where exactly is this place? Was I kidnapped from my room?"
"Yes and no. It's complicated."
"Then you better start making it less complicated, because I don't like being here against my will. Please, get me out of here," I demanded, feeling frustrated and scared. Every time I looked around, I saw lines with images flickering within them.
"Take a seat. Let me explain," Alaya said. In an instant, the setting changed, and we were now in what looked like a coffee shop. We were the only ones there.
"Coffee or tea?" she asked.
"Tea," I replied, still looking around, trying to understand if this was real or a lucid dream.
"Okay, calm down, and let me explain," Alaya said with a small smile. "As I mentioned earlier, my name is Alaya, and you have been chosen to live in my world."
I hesitated but finally asked the question that was burning in my mind. "Why was I chosen?"
"It was random. I needed someone to come into my world, and you were picked."
"And what exactly do you want me to do?" I asked.
"I need you to live," she replied. "It sounds simple, but my world is far more dangerous than yours."
"How dangerous are we talking about?" I asked, feeling a knot in my stomach.
"The world I am taking you to resembles your world in 1994, but that's where the similarity ends. In this world, there is magic, summoned ghosts of the past, and crazy mages," Alaya explained.
"Wait," I interrupted. "Is the world you're sending me to like the Type-Moon light novels?"
"Yes," she said, her smile widening.
"No way," I protested. "I'm not going into that world. The people there will gut me alive! And what about my family? They'll freak out when they realize I'm missing. I can't do that to my mother. She already lost one child; I don't know if she can handle losing another."
"You don't have to worry about your family. You are still in your room at your house as we speak."
"What do you mean I'm still in my room? I'm here, talking to you right now," I said, utterly confused.
"The you here right now is a time remnant," Alaya explained.
"A time remnant? Like in 'The Flash' when he makes clones of himself?"
"Yes," she confirmed. "It was much easier to take a clone of you rather than the real you."
Freaking out, I yelled, "AM I NOT REAL?"
"You are real to some extent because you are a time remnant. If I were to send you back to your world, your universe would get confused about why there are two of you at the same time. This would cause a paradox, and trust me, your universe does not like paradoxes. It would rip your atoms apart due to the anomaly you would create."