How Not to Die in Magic School (Again)

  Chapter 1: A Strange Awakening

  The air in Guwahati was always thick with humidity. It felt sticky, and even the ceiling fan whirring overhead couldn’t cut through the heaviness in Avik Bordoloi’s room. Avik was staring hard at his laptop, trying to finish his final year project paper. His eyes narrowed as he focused on the half-written sentence on the screen. Meanwhile, outside his window, the late afternoon sun beat down on the city, and the noise from the traffic droned on endlessly. Avik was close to finishing his studies. Just a bit more, and he would have his degree. Then he hoped to gain a spot at the university he wanted.

  Again, his phone buzzed. He figured it was Ritesh or perhaps Pooja. His friends had been badgering him for weeks to watch a show called "Chronicles of Eternal Failure." They kept saying it was funny because in the show, an author gets trapped in his own story as a villain who is destined to die.

  Avik chuckled to himself as he leaned back in his chair, stretching until he heard his back pop. All this fantasy and magic stuff seemed silly to him. He preferred the real challenges of fluid dynamics or macroeconomics. But his friends wouldn’t let up, so he gave in and downloaded the first episode of what sounded like a ridiculous anime just to make them happy. The icon for the show showed a dramatically dressed character.

  "Alright," he said to the empty room, saving his work on the document. "I’ll give it five minutes, then back to work."

  He clicked to open the video and leaned back further into his worn-out chair. The opening credits rolled. Bright animation filled the screen, paired with loud, dramatic music. Characters and places tried hard to catch his attention. Avik took a sip from his nearly cold cup of tea, looking at the screen half-heartedly because he felt he had to, not because he wanted to.

  The main character showed up on the screen. Avik guessed this was the author his friends talked about. This character appeared terrified to find himself in a villain's body. Avik just rolled his eyes. It seemed too predictable to him. He took another sip of tea—

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  And then, everything went wrong.

  It wasn’t a noise or something he saw. It was like the very fabric of reality twisted, like a skipped frame in a movie. The tea did not reach his lips. The noises of Guwahati disappeared, suddenly replaced by complete silence that felt unsettling. The image on his laptop melted into swirling colors that danced in his vision. Suddenly, he felt a dizzying sensation, and his stomach turned upside down. It felt as if he was being squeezed through something impossibly tiny.

  Then, darkness. Silence. A feeling of floating.

  Out of nowhere, sensation came back. Something hard beneath him, possibly a thin, uncomfortable mattress. A rough blanket was tangled around his legs. The air was cool and carried a scent he couldn’t identify – something like old books and dust. His head throbbed with a dull ache.

  Avik opened his eyes.

  This was not his room.

  Weaker sunlight than what he was used to in Assam came through a tall, arched window. The walls were made of cold, grey stone, very different from the peeling paint of his rented flat. The ceiling fan was missing, replaced by wooden beams above. Fear, cold and unfamiliar began to coil in his chest, but he forced himself to stay calm, grasping at logic like a lifeline.

  He needed to think. Was he dreaming? Was this some hallucination? Could it have been the tea?

  He sat up, letting his legs dangle over the edge of the bed. His body felt unusual, stiff and slightly off in terms of size. He looked down at his hands. They were his, he thought – pale, long-fingered, maybe a touch thinner. He moved them. They worked fine.

  He examined his surroundings. The room was basic. There was a wooden desk and chair, a small wardrobe, and the bed he sat on. No laptop in sight, no papers, no phone buzz. The window showed stone buildings against a pale blue sky, architecture he’d never seen before. No coconut trees, no busy streets.

  This was not just a dream. Dreams didn’t provide such vivid, ordinary detail. This wasn’t his room. This wasn’t Guwahati. This couldn’t be Earth, could it? The idea was absurd, like the fantasy stories he didn’t really like. And yet...

  He stood up, feeling a bit shaky. The stone floor was cold under his feet. He took a cautious step, then another. Everything felt solid. Real. Uncomfortably, impossibly real.

  Where was he? And more importantly, how did he end up here? The last thing he recalled was starting that anime, sipping his tea, and then feeling that shift.

  He touched his hair. It felt different, maybe thicker. He needed a mirror. He needed explanations. He had to understand what had just impossibly happened to him.

  His eyes caught something on the door – a small, tarnished metal plate. There was a name engraved on it, in some script he unexpectedly recognized, even though it seemed strange to him.

  The name was not Avik Bordoloi.

  (End of Chapter 1)