Chapter Text
Tomorrow was going to be the last test of her university’s academic year. Finally, finally, she’d be done and through with all of the struggles of memorising formulas and painstakingly learning through class after class! It was a cycle she was going to repeat, sure, but there was going to be one less loop to worry about.
Of course, for as much excitement she had, she was also stressed. She’d done her best to study, she’d made it so far already, but her mind continued to plague her thoughts with the potential for failure. With this being the last test of the year as well, failure would lead to a lot more difficulty. Retaking the class, adding to even more stress the next semester, it was a lot on her mind.
As such, she was doing the usual stress relief, going around in a videogame and watching numbers get bigger. Something in her mind liked seeing big numbers and watching them grow, so games like Cookie Clicker were her favorite to occasionally play when she had the time. However, on a night like this, she wanted to do something which required a little more substantial effort to watch numbers.
Genshin Impact.
Despite the fact that she needed sleep more than she needed this, it was undoubtedly quite the stress reliever. There was a comfort in following the characters wherever she felt like it, watching her Mora grow and grow until the number seemed almost impossible for someone who was free to play.
What? Watching numbers go up required avoiding spending them, after all. Resin refills and Wishes were especially rare, avoiding the possibility of knowing that fulfilling new characters would require more time and effort than she had, even if given a whole year to do so. Talents were an especially prominent example, with their weekly time restraint. One fight per week. Seriously, she’d have to play for years before actually getting anyone to the level she wanted!
So, she was more of a casual player, only gracing the extremely storage-hungry game from time to time to fulfill her desire to relax and collect sparkly trinkets from the land. It was a calm, side activity. Sometimes, she’d give characters the time to upgrade and increase their strength, even if she wasn’t playing them. It felt good to accomplish goals that weren’t very hard to keep the mind away from the goals that were far more difficult to complete.
“Achoo!”
Ah, right. She was so engrossed in the game, for just a split second she was able to forget that she had a cold. Darn. She was really enjoying that peace too! It messed with her voice, her sleep, and her concentration. Unpleasant at the minimum, unbearable at most. She could only give her thanks to modern medicine for the wonders of cold and cough medicine.
Thus, when a cough racked her frame and she sniffled again, she took it as a sign that it was probably time to get some sleep and be properly rested for the test tomorrow. Sure, maybe being sick wasn’t the best condition to go to a test in, but it was simply how it worked. A joking “You know Selena, we’d have to die before they’d even consider letting us skip out on a test, and even if we did they’d need an autopsy note!” rang through her mind, a joke at the expense of her university by her friend that seemed to ring very true.
Even if being sick sucked and the exam was stressing her out, as she logged out of Genshin Impact, she couldn’t think of a better place she’d rather be. Friends, family, education, home… A trifecta of concepts that very few were able to enjoy.
Perhaps it was some form of karma for all her fortunes, that it would be swiped away.
The first sensation that Selena woke up to was that of the wind ghosting over her shivering form, water lapping at her waistline. It was warm on her upper half, like a mild summer, while the lower half of her body was absolutely frozen solid from the water that sought to soak up every bit of her body heat.
Next, was the novel notion of sand. Yes, sand. Of which was most certainly not located in her room, nor her exam. Was she dreaming? No, it was rare for her to dream, let alone feel the biting chill in such a fashion. A coma? Had her cold gotten worse? She didn’t know what a coma could feel like.
Opening her eyes, Selena finally blinked against the bright light of the sun shining overhead, graced only by the presence of a few passing clouds. This was most definitely not her home, and something was very wrong.
Despite having just woken up from an undetermined amount of sleep, Selena was exhausted. She mustered the strength to drag herself away from the water, but standing on her own two feet felt like an impossible task. Impossible! The best she managed was getting herself to lean up and sit properly, looking out at the horizon beyond the crystal-clear water she’d previously been soaked in.
Said horizon had a familiar skyline, all from a game that she was playing the night before. Mondstadt! This-It had to be a dream. There was no way that she was in the world of Genshin Impact, she had her test tomorrow! She needed something, anything to latch on to, so she put a hand in front of her face and shook it back and forth. Come on, an extra finger would appear and she’d know that it was a dream!
No dice. Only five fingers per hand. No more, no less.
It was then that she fell back and closed her eyes. Maybe if she went back to sleep, everything would be fine! Then she’d wake up at the sound of her alarm in the morning for that dreaded test, and her jitters could be pushed aside as just stress!
Her plan was interrupted not long after, by the insistent shoving of her shoulder by another person. She coughed a bit as she tried to complain, and the person only seemed to shake her harder.
“W-what?” It was a knight? And he kept saying something, but it only sounded like gibberish to Selena. Maybe this was the sign she was in a dream?
“I don’t know what you’re saying.” Selena sighed, soon sneezing. The knight, of which she could not pinpoint what his exact name was meant to be, noticed her illness and lack of language skills. He offered a hand for Selena, clearly a gesture meant to assist.
Tired and exhausted, Selena obliged, figuring that she’d sort out her emotions later. She had nowhere else to go, and her mind had yet to process the implications of the walled city that laid just across a bridge before her.
With an arm slung around the knight’s shoulders as best as they could, her height was significantly shorter than that of the guard, they began shuffling back towards the bustling town of Mondstadt, and Selena couldn’t be more terrified.
Every step almost felt like it burned beneath her. Her arm ached in displeasure at being dragged around, and her legs seemed as if they’d give out at any minute. Being half-submerged in water for who knows how long was most definitely the culprit. Coughs would rack her frame from time to time, leading them to stop as she felt like she was going to hack her lungs out. Yet, as the gate to the city got closer and closer, Selena was becoming ever the more worried.
She almost let go of the guard helping her when he yelled something to another knight, who promptly ran after hearing it. Selena wasn’t sure what that meant, but she hoped it was something positive. Maybe more help? That would be nice. And a roof to sleep under, but at this point she didn’t mind the ground as long as it wasn’t wet. Exhaustion made her vision blur a little here and there, and she sneezed a few times before a familiar face arrived.
“Barbara?” Selena muttered quietly, watching the pigtailed young woman quickly appeared to pull water out of the air as she began speaking that same language Selena couldn’t pinpoint. The water seemed to dance over her skin, yet unlike the water of the lake, it brought a sort of revitalization to her body. Her illness felt as if were dissipating into thin air, and the exhaustion was somewhat tempered. Still tired of course, perhaps it was a human limit that even she could not heal. Which was quite fine by Selena, as this was already far more than she had expected.
Then, as it seemed per the usual, Barbara began to try and speak to Selena. Once again, the new resident of Teyvat could not understand the Deaconess.
“Again, I don’t understand you…” Selena frowned as her voice still sounded raspy. It was better than before, but it felt like it still needed a little bit more time before it was healed.
“K usn'm iefvvsmoef nlam mfw'ii stmzpx... Xhbg rrgiakg kq si a uwk qw e pksuktemxbk, ffisg'h zv?” Alright, maybe that wasn’t the exact way that the language she heard could be translated into the latin alphabet, but that’s what it felt like to her. Nothing but gibberish!
“Ff con vrxv enrceg ks ttyv erve ht pql?” Another string of incomprehensible language.
Selena gave up trying to respond as she yawned, and they returned to fawning over her. Rest was really, really what she needed.
Thus, it wasn’t a surprise to her that the world turned dark moments later.
“Ugh, just had a strange… Dream…” Voice still a little croak-y but healing, Selena woke to a small room, lacking any windows but some small lanterns lit up the room in a golden glow. The arrangement she was sleeping in appeared to be a rather haphazard one. The ceiling and minimal decorations around the room felt almost biblical. At the very least, it was European, no doubt. While Selena was no architecture expert, she could at least pinpoint the continent.
Which only made the realization settle in even harder. This wasn’t her home. It was Genshin Impact, filled with life and beauty and magic that did not exist on Earth. Life that she did not know, life that wasn’t her friends or her family! A realm dictated by hierarchies based on birth, all under the watch of archons and monsters.
Oh no, archons! Monsters. Beasts! The strength of vision-wielders and near-gods, all of which could easily slaughter her in an instant, just by accident! Heck, if she were even just shocked with a little too much electricity, who’s to say her heart would even keep on beating!
Suddenly, Selena began to feel very small, and very homesick. She had to find a way back, she needed the safety of her bedroom and cold be damned, she would rather be hospitalized and sick in an actual hospital rather than some basement of a church in a videogame!
Tears flowed freely down her cheeks as she began sobbing, begging whatever potential higher powers existed in either worlds to bring her back to her home. Even if she didn’t actually believe in gods. Yes, she believed in no god but one’s own will, but on the off chance that they existed, she hoped her cries would convince them.
Unfortunately, her pleas went unanswered. Only the echo of the stony walls tried to bring comfort, as she heard herself cry endlessly into her hands.
Eventually, as she ran out of tears to shed and wiped away the evidence of her clearly distraught self, the door opened to a young man. Not a knight, but some sort of assistant to the church. The word for it escaped Selena, but at the same time, she wasn’t even sure if it would apply.
“Qy! Con'fv cnekx! Ocnfa mx xluk e mhavpk, M wbzc hvxca Prtsert hf cjwilh pql.” And just as fast as he’d appeared, the assistant left. Selena presumed that she wasn’t meant to leave.
To pass the time before the assistant would likely return, Selena began to try and take note of the sparse decoration within this room. It appeared that it was not used often, largely empty except for this haphazardly built bed. A symbol on the wall was the most religious figure of all within the room, yet Selena didn’t recognize it. Well, that was a lie, she recognized part of it, but it made no sense. It almost looked like an icon of a computer mouse, surrounded by halos and dots that made it fit the image of divinity.
This didn’t fit in, and it was definitely something she’d know about from the occasional peek into the Genshin Impact wiki to solve puzzles. What did it mean?
“Goguls dg? Rve rcl hvilbbx ccvizvk?” The door was opened again, revealing none other than Barbara once more. The young religious idol had returned for her?
“Still don’t know what you’re saying, sorry.” That was all she could croak out.
“Jd, mt ecfmj pids jjv hoxge'v lrdxfjvrrd mvv efqmhb ccekutuv jvve. Uik kk wonbuu... Wembzckrv. Agr jq usel vvt msivs. Ng jlonzu ivx Eezr Olwk mc ktp enw vvng, whx wj vyi bxgk qlx oy ocn fj ul kyge mt vcdgj xo eoeilegx.” A practical paragraph of words that she couldn’t understand, Selena hoped that the healer wasn’t addressing her.
“Hfv nhk, ng nmle uicex hxf jcegtnoia lrtbz jjv gag gltmmvx ce jvv opb.” Barbara continued, speaking more towards the assistant than Selena. Thankful that she wasn’t the one being spoken to, Selena turned back to face the odd symbol.
It reminded her of those fanfictions she’d read from time to time. Yes, it was a bit of a guilty pleasure, but she liked to read what others could create out of other worlds. Genshin Impact had such a large fanbase that it was almost trivial to find stories to read, unlike smaller interests she had. Some of them were along the lines of worshiping some sort of creator, or at least some god that was above the archons. Perhaps this was similar.
Selena knew that even though she was beginning to hate and regret ever touching this game, it would serve her well to study it. She doubted she would be leaving it anytime soon.