When I opened my eyes, the first thing I noticed was the silence.
There was no wind howling through shattered skyscrapers. No distant chittering of Striders. No wet, rattling cough from Lena's chest.
I lay there for a moment, muscles tensed, waiting for the crushing weight of the beast, the searing heat of its saliva, or the agonizing snap of my spine. But there was nothing. Just a lightness I hadn't felt since I was a child, before the radiation settled into my bones.
I sat up. I wasn't on the blood-stained concrete of the loading dock. I was standing on... nothing.
The ground was solid but invisible. The sky—if you could call it that—was a blinding, infinite white.
"This isn't right," I muttered, checking my hands.
They were clean. No ash. No scars. The fingernails were whole, not cracked and bleeding from digging through rubble for expired cans.
This didn't look like what Grandma used to whisper about when she tucked me in. She had promised a Golden City. She had promised pearly gates, choirs of angels, and a reunion with everyone we'd lost.
There were no angels here. Just a man.
"You're taking this well," a voice echoed.
I spun around.
Standing ten feet away was a figure who looked aggressively average. He wore a gray suit that didn't fit quite right and held a clipboard like a shield. He looked less like God and more like a tired accountant at the DMV.
"I died," I said. It wasn't a question. I remembered the teeth.
"You did," the man said, tapping a pen against his clipboard. "Messy business, that timeline. Truly unfortunate. We usually try to avoid the 'giant mutant lizard' endings, but... well."
"Unfortunate?"
The word scraped against my throat. I felt a heat rising in my chest that had nothing to do with radiation. "The world burned. Billions died. My family dissolved in a nuclear fire. I was eaten alive while trying to find a can of peaches. And you call it 'unfortunate'?"
The man sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Look, Marcus. I'll be honest with you. You weren't supposed to die like that. In fact, your whole planet wasn't supposed to go that way."
He waved his hand. A holographic sphere appeared between us—Earth. It looked sick, a swirling mess of browns and grays.
"I was in a bit of a... let's call it a 'disagreement' with another Entity. A higher-dimensional scuffle. A wave of Chaos Energy rippled out from our battle and hit your sector."
He pointed at the hologram. "That General Thorne? The one who launched the nukes? The Chaos Energy didn't just break the atmosphere; it broke him. Driven mad by cosmic static. Collateral damage."
I stared at him. The silence of the void felt suddenly deafening.
"An accident," I whispered. My hands started to shake. "All of it? The starvation? The cold? Lena coughing up blood in the dark? It was just... a typo? A clerical error because you got into a fistfight?"
I wanted to scream. I wanted to strangle him. I wanted to laugh until I choked. The absolute absurdity of it crushed me harder than the Strider ever could. Our suffering hadn't been a test. It hadn't been karma. It was just... noise.
"Essentially, yes," the Entity said, looking mildly apologetic. "My bad."
He cleared his throat, shifting to a practiced, bureaucratic tone. "However, we have protocols for this. The Reincarnation Protocol. All humans affected by the 'oopsie' zone are being given a settlement package."
He stepped closer.
"You get a second chance, Marcus. A parallel universe. A world unaffected by the Chaos. You get to live the life you were supposed to live."
I took a breath, forcing the rage down. Rage wouldn't bring Lena back. But a second chance?
"What kind of world?" I asked.
"Rule One: You don't get to pick the destination," he said, flipping a page. "To prevent overpopulation in the paradise dimensions, we assign you based on your psychological profile. I've seen your file. You were a scavenger, sure. But you spent every spare second reading."
He tapped the clipboard. "Found a rotting copy of The Hobbit in 2055. Read it until the pages fell out. Then the comics. You didn't just survive; you escaped."
"It kept me sane," I said quietly.
"Well, good news," the Entity smiled, though it didn't reach his eyes. "I'm sending you to a world teeming with them. Capes, cowls, super-powers, the works. It's a universe called... The Boys."
My eyes widened. The Boys? It sounded a bit generic, like The Justice League or The Avengers.
"You mean... actual superheroes?" I asked, a spark of genuine hope piercing through the cynicism. "Like in the books?"
"Oh, absolutely," the Entity nodded, hiding a smirk. "Hundreds of them. Flying men, speedsters, underwater kings. It's a very... eventful world."
I grinned. For the first time in twenty years, the knot in my chest loosened. A world where the good guys won. A world with blue skies.
"Okay," I said. "I'm in."
"Hold on," the Entity raised a hand. "Rule Two: Because of the trauma you suffered, you get to choose your starting conditions. You can't pick the world, but you can pick your physiology."
He looked at me expectantly. "So? What do you want? Magic? Cybernetics? Speed Force?"
I didn't even have to think. I had read the comics. I knew who the apex predator was.
"Superman," I said instantly. "I want to be a Kryptonian. Solar battery. Heat vision. Indestructible. If I'm going to live in a world of heroes, I want to be the strongest one."
The Entity winced. "Ooh. Yeah. No."
"What? Why?"
"World Balance," the Entity said. "The universe I'm sending you to... the power levels are grounded. If I drop a Silver Age Kryptonian in there, you break the physics engine. You'd be able to push the planet into the sun. It's too much variance. Request denied."
My shoulders slumped. "Okay. So what's allowed?"
I thought about the backpack I had lost. The tattered trade paperback. The boy who got beaten, bruised, and bloody, but always got back up. The boy who wasn't a god, but a soldier.
"What about Invincible?" I asked. "Mark Grayson. Viltrumite DNA."
The Entity tilted his head, calculating.
"Viltrumite..." he muttered. "Smart Atoms. High durability, flight, strength... yes. That works."
"Why does that work if Superman doesn't?" I asked.
"Because Viltrumites aren't static gods," the Entity explained. "They have to work for it. You start strong, sure—you can lift a tank, fly to the moon, take a missile to the face—but you aren't Omni-Man yet. You have to break your muscle fibers to build them denser. You have to survive near-death to trigger the recovery growth. It fits the power ceiling of this world perfectly."
He looked at me. "You're a scavenger, Marcus. You're used to fighting for every scrap. This power set rewards that. Do you accept?"
"I lived in a radioactive wasteland eating rats for twenty years," I said, clenching my fist. "I know how to suffer for a reward."
"Then it's a deal," the Entity said. He tapped the clipboard one last time.
"Enjoy the blue skies, Marcus. Try not to get disappointed when you meet your heroes."
"Why would I be disappointed?" I asked. "Heroes save people."
The Entity didn't answer. He just snapped his fingers.
The white void shattered like glass.
And then, I was falling.