Arin Walker's eyes flicked open to a green-tinted blur.
For a long second, he didn't move.
He blinked slowly.
"Where… am I?"
He sat up with effort, his fingers sinking into the damp soil.
Everything felt real. Too real.
And yet, he couldn't remember how he'd gotten here.
"I don't remember what happened," he muttered under his breath, though it was more to himself than anyone else.
He closed his eyes again, trying to summon anything more concrete.
Images surfaced; he'd been alone, somewhere remote.
He'd climbed a hill and reached a small restaurant built right into the rock, its terrace looking out over an endless sea of trees.
He remembered sitting at the edge, a cold beer in hand.
That part was clear.
He could almost taste the bitterness of the drink.
And then… nothing.
Until now.
He opened his eyes and slowly got to his feet.
A breeze passed through the trees, and Arin inhaled deeply.
"…The air's different," he said aloud, pausing mid-breath. It wasn't just cleaner. It had weight. A pressure. A hum, almost, like the world itself was alive and watching.
Something was off.
He turned slowly, taking in the forest around him. Towering trees he couldn't identify rose high into the sky, their trunks broad and twisted like ancient sentinels. Vines draped between them like lazy traps, and the underbrush was dense with oversized ferns and strange plants.
"This isn't Earth," he whispered, almost laughing at how absurd it sounded. "Right?"
Then came a voice within his mind.
A mechanical voice that he can safely say that he does not like.
"You are now in the world of Hunter x Hunter."
Arin froze. His breath caught, and he scanned the forest again, heart quickening.
"What the hell?"
The voice didn't return, but the message had landed.
It wasn't just a thought.
It felt like a statement of fact, a confirmation of something he had no way of knowing.
Hunter x Hunter.
He'd watched the anime and read the manga. Nen, Hunters, the Chimera Ants are world-class danger.
"This can't be real…" he thought with a grin.
He wasn't dreaming.
He wasn't hallucinating.
Somehow, impossibly, he'd woken up in the world of Hunter x Hunter.
And no matter how much he doubted it, his senses kept confirming the truth: everything here felt heightened.
Arin took a step forward.
"Alright," he exhaled, glancing up at the trees.
First: assess surroundings.
Second: secure shelter and food.
Third: establish orientation; figure out where he was, who or what was nearby, and whether they were friendly.
But most importantly: don't die.
"Don't die," he said quietly.
Then, a grin tugged at the edge of his lips despite himself. It was absurd. Completely, utterly insane. But somewhere beneath the confusion and fear… there was a flicker of excitement.
"I was bored..."
he said to himself as he looked at his surroundings this time in a different light.
"I…"
"I was bored of the ordinary world."
"I was not a good person there, just a small-level killer..."
Yes...
Arin Walker was not an ordinary human and did not live an ordinary life.
One thing he started doing after living without any family and someone to look after him is killing people to live another day.
It could be said that he was an individual from Earth that lived in an alternate version of Meteor City.
This world was brutal, sure, but it was also beautiful.
He had always been drawn to it, fascinated by its freedom.
"I'll need to learn Nen," he muttered, the thought forming out loud as if to help it settle in.
"But that's far off. First, get out of this forest."
"Back then, one of the only things that I liked to research and read was Hunter x Hunter, especially Nen."
He smiled to himself as he thought about it.
He reached down, picking up a long, sturdy branch from the ground, his first makeshift weapon.
His stomach growled.
"Great," he said dryly. "One hour in and I already miss that beer."
The forest didn't answer. Instead, it seemed to shift around him, the breeze growing stronger, carrying with it the howl of something distant and angry.
He gripped the branch tighter.
The game had begun.
And Arin Walker wasn't planning to be its first casualty.