I don’t remember exactly when the memories of my previous life began to return, but I can trace them to the time I started keeping a diary. By my best guess, I was ten years old. There is no exact date or month mentioned, but one moment stands out: an anniversary visit.

  We lived in zone 010, under the control of Atmatek systems. A corporation that controlled various zones of our world. My father was a debugger officer at one of the information mines established by them in zone 010.

  When I say “mine,” I mean it only in reference to primitive mines i.e. only in name. The place was really a facility of super quantum computers and a drone management center that recorded information of the city. At that time, the facility had just made a breakthrough in its field. My family, consisting of father, mother, younger sister and me - were there for a celebration organized by the whole facility.

  For that occasion, many from Atmatek system’s top brass came to attend, or rather to make sure they could gobble the credit for themselves.

  The party was as usual: food, beverages, social class circles, elite cliques and all the nonsense that we children were oblivious to. The only detail that disturbed me were the collars. If anyone asked how to distinguish the elite from the poor in the crowd, I would have said, look for the collars. That was the giveaway. A sore thorn sticking out openly, yet no one dared to question it.

  That aside, the moment that stirred my past memories and set in motion the countdown that would eventually lead my memories to return to me came next.

  It began when it was time for honours. The announcer, one by one, introduced us peasants to the very people who controlled this world and destiny: THE GODMEN. They were elites among elites. One who worked in the headquarters of Atmatek systems.

  For a while, everything unfolded as expected. The announcer called a man; he walked to the podium, spoke a few words and then returned to his gold crated luxury seats. To me, it was all blurry, a monochrome of monotony.

  That was until she appeared: Kiyara Aryavane

  The instant she stepped into the room, the dull ordered world fractured like glass under her presence. Her serene elegance and her sharp features seemed to absorb every color — red, yellow, pink, blue, black and even the shades in between— leaving only her figure in pure, radiant whiteness that contrasted with the black gown she wore.

  That is how she appeared to me.

  I felt a connection that couldn't be explained in words. It was not an attraction; it was beyond that. It was something innocent, as if I had known her forever. She filled me with a strange catharsis. Even with her expression, calm, almost lifeless, as if she had no joy in living, my chest ached with an unfamiliar pang. And just as she opened her mouth to speak, tears spilled from eyes, uncontrollably. I could not stop them, nor the wailing that followed.

  I cried and cried, drawing everyone’s attention to me. I felt their strange, probing looks. I could hear my mother and father speaking, trying to say something, but the words didn't reach me. The tears didn't stop

  From the corner of my eye, blurred but unmistakable, I saw her staring at me. Her expression was cold, and filled with sadness but strangely, it didn't feel harsh. Instead, warmth bloomed in my chest. Strange, isn’t it?

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  That was my first encounter with Kiyara Aryavane in this world. One of the heroines from my favourite light novel series. The heroine I liked most, and the one who had a terrible fate awaiting her.

  ….

  Though the memories didn't return all at once from that single meeting, something had been triggered. That night, I dreamt of a world far different from ours. There were no deviants, no collars. It was brighter, warmer and filled with beauty I had never seen. The dream was so vivid, so precise, that I felt as if I was truly living it.

  That is what led me to start keeping a diary. A digital one would have been dangerous, so I chose a more primitive method, writing manually on paper.

  From the age of ten to twelve, these dreams became a constant. Since then, I have recorded every detail of those dreams in my diary. But that wasn’t the only thing that I noticed. I also discovered that I was becoming smarter. It was harder to explain, but my mental functions had sharpened. Even my father remarked that my reasoning ability had improved. My understanding of concepts deepened and the way I wrote those details also evolved. The mere fact that I could recognize these changes was proof enough.

  The other changes were more subtle, behavioral, small shifts in taste like how I liked my milk, the way I carried myself, but it didn’t change my personality. Hence, I thought they were merely co-effects.

  Until then, I had not realized that I was reincarnated into another world. I took the dreams as a strange phenomenon. I never once thought the dreams were anything else than that. What triggered the realization took me days and nights to digest.

  It happened on the night of August 23rd. I dreamed again. This time, I was in a strange room, a bed that felt more comfortable that I used now. I was reading a book. Even though I said reading, the letters were not fully clear. Yet, somehow, I understood as if I had already read those letters. The gist of it was that it described an event, illustrated with a picture of a strange creature. While a bubble of information was written just below. It felt like some sort of background information of origin and collapse. And as I read through them, I felt closer to something, and lines between dream and reality began to blur. Until, every detail had vanished except the book, my eyes and endless darkness.

  And then it broke. The vast expanse of darkness into some kind of puzzle pieces, attempting to align themselves. The fragments of memory clicked in order, and I woke up with a hard, gasping jolt. I was wrenched in sweat and breathing like I’d run. I sprinted towards the digital library in my father's study.

  My fingers were flying as I typed over the digital keyboard and searched for what I had seen in my dream. And the moment I pressed search, it appeared, my eyes scanned in disbelief of what was in front of me: the undeniable truth of my existence.

  The information matched. Word by word. Detail by detail. It was the same thing. It had to, after all it was already written, and I had already it. The origin of deviants, the creatures that had brought humanity to extinction and those who led the collapse of the world I am currently living in.

  Then, a violent surge struck inside my head, as if synapses circuited and neurons inside my skull exploded. Within seconds, I lost my vision and collapsed.

  When I came to, I was back in bed. My younger sister was sprawled on top of my chest, and my mother was trying to pull her away. She looked down at me. “Oh, you’re awake. You gave us quite a shock there” she calmly said.

  “...”

  “I will leave you alone. Rest up, okay?” She said in the motherliest way and left the room with my sister.”

  I said nothing back to her. The thought of responding didn’t even come to me. But, not because of confusion, rather the clarity inside me. The fragmented memories, I had thought of as mere dreams, had slotted into their grooves. I hugged my knees to my chest and let out a breath. It was the desperate breath, the final gasp of certainty.

  I was in the world of Kōrō no Grairu, my favourite light novel series.

  “I’m so dead.”