Mark stepped out of the admissions office, the heavy oak door swinging shut behind him with a dull thud that matched the pounding in his chest. The air conditioning hit his face like a wall of cold reality after the stifling warmth of interview anxiety.
"Well, that was probably a disaster," he muttered, loosening his tie—the same one his dad had lent him for senior prom. He replayed fragments of the conversation in his mind, each remembered response sounding worse than it had in the moment.
Did he actually tell the admissions counselor that his greatest achievement was reaching level 99 in Final Fantasy VII? Or had he managed to pivot to something about "perseverance" and "goal-setting" like he'd rehearsed?
The corridor stretched before him, lined with photos of successful alumni—doctors, engineers, politicians—all staring down with expressions that seemed to say, "We knew exactly what we wanted at your age."
Mark shoved his hands deep into his pockets and trudged toward the exit. His footsteps echoed against the polished floor, each one carrying him further from the office but no closer to any kind of certainty.
Outside, the campus sprawled in all directions—brick buildings, manicured lawns, students who appeared to move with purpose. Mark slowed his pace, watching them. Everyone seemed to fit here except him.
"Four more years of school," he whispered to himself, "for what exactly?" The question hung in the air, unanswered.
His phone buzzed. Probably his mom, eager to hear how the interview went. He'd tell her it was fine. That's what she wanted to hear. That's what everyone wanted—for him to follow the script. High school, college, career, retirement, death. The great American conveyor belt of existence.
Mark kicked at a pebble, watching it skitter across the walkway. Maybe he should have told the truth in there. "Actually, I'm here because my guidance counselor said I should be, my parents expect it, and I have no better ideas."
At least that would have been honest.
He stopped by a campus bench, suddenly exhausted by the weight of expectation. The thing was, he couldn't even articulate what he wanted instead. Just... something that felt less like someone else's plan for his life.
Mark pulled out his phone, thumb hovering between the bright icon of Genshin Impact and his anime news app. Both offered escape, just different flavors. He tapped the gacha game, watching it load with a familiar mixture of anticipation and self-judgment.
"If I were the protagonist in my own anime, this would be the low point before the training montage," he mumbled, swiping through daily missions. "Probably titled something like 'Average Guy: The Unremarkable Journey.'"
The game's cheerful music played through his earbuds, jarringly optimistic compared to his mood. In games like this, characters always had clear paths forward—defeat the monster, level up, save the world. Mark couldn't even save himself from an awkward college interview.
His stomach growled, a harsh reminder of biological reality. The aroma of grease and salt wafted from a McDonald's across the street. Mark's mouth watered as he patted his pockets, already knowing what he'd find. His wallet contained exactly three dollars and forty-two cents—not even enough for the value menu.
"Great," he sighed. "Kirito never has to worry about being too broke for McNuggets."
He stared longingly at the restaurant. In anime, the hungry protagonist would either find a convenient bento box someone left behind or meet a mysterious benefactor who'd feed them in exchange for joining their quest. In real life, Mark just had to deal with hunger pangs until he got home.
"That's the thing about isekai stories," he thought, pocketing his phone and continuing his walk. "Nobody ever gets transported to another world and then immediately has to figure out student loans and career paths."
The sun beat down on his shoulders as he trudged toward the bus stop. In his favorite shows, the main character always discovered hidden powers or secret legacies that made them special. Mark's greatest hidden talent appeared to be finding new ways to disappoint himself.
Mark's phone vibrated with a new message. He glanced down, expecting his mother's usual interrogation about the interview details. Instead, the notification read: "Proud of you no matter what."
Something tightened in his chest. The simple text message sat there, unadorned by emojis or exclamation points—just his mom's quiet support. Mark swallowed hard, a lump forming in his throat that he hadn't anticipated.
"Damn it," he whispered, blinking rapidly. He hadn't expected to feel emotional over something so small. His thumb hovered over the screen, struggling to formulate a response that wouldn't sound dismissive or overly sentimental.
After several false starts, he typed: "Thanks. Home soon." Three words that conveyed almost nothing of the complicated warmth spreading through his chest.
Mark pocketed his phone and continued walking, a faint smile lingering on his lips. His family wasn't perfect—his dad worked too much, his mom worried too much, and family game nights inevitably devolved into competitive chaos—but they were his. He loved them, even if the words stuck in his throat whenever he tried to say it out loud.
The crosswalk signal flashed white, but Mark barely registered it. His mind drifted to the unfairness of existence how some people seemed born with roadmaps while others, like him, fumbled through fog. He stepped off the curb, lost in thought.
A car horn blared, jolting him back to reality. Mark jumped backward, heart hammering as a sedan swerved past, missing him by inches. The driver shouted something unintelligible but clearly profane.
"Sorry!" Mark called after the retreating vehicle, though the driver couldn't possibly hear him.
He looked both ways—properly this time—before crossing. Traffic resumed its normal flow around him, the world continuing as if his near-miss had never happened.
"Watch me get isekai'd or something," he mumbled sarcastically, adjusting his backpack. "That's what usually happens in fanfics. Protagonist almost gets hit by a truck and wakes up with god-tier powers and a harem."
He snorted at his own joke, imagining himself suddenly transported to a fantasy world with dragons and magic. The thought was ridiculous, but strangely comforting a mental escape hatch from the crushing ordinariness of his actual life.
Mark continued his walk toward the bus stop, each step feeling lighter than the last. The college interview faded in importance as he considered his mother's text. Maybe his family understood him better than he gave them credit for.
A construction site on his right sent clouds of dust into the air. Mark coughed, squinting through the haze as he approached another crosswalk. The WALK signal flashed, and he stepped off the curb, still half-lost in thought.
The world suddenly erupted in noise—a deafening blast that vibrated through his bones. A truck horn blared, the sound piercing and urgent. Mark turned his head just in time to see it—too fast, too close. A massive delivery truck barreling toward him, its brakes screaming against the pavement.
Time slowed. The world became soundless.
The truck's grille filled his vision, enormous and inevitable. Mark's muscles locked in place, his body refusing the brain's frantic command to move. He saw the driver's face, eyes wide with horror, mouth open in a shout Mark couldn't hear.
In that stretched moment, strange clarity washed over him.
His thoughts turned to his parents. Dad would blame himself for working late that night instead of driving Mark to the interview. Mom would find his college essay drafts on his laptop and cry. They'd sit in his room, surrounded by his action figures and manga collection, trying to understand the son they'd lost.
"I hope they won't be too sad," he thought. "I hope they know I loved them."
Mark's lips twitched upward in a small, ironic smile. The truck was inches away now, its shadow engulfing him completely.
He chuckled weakly in his mind. "Guess I really am the protagonist now..."
The thought felt absurd and perfect. His last conscious thought—something straight out of the anime he loved so much. His life had been ordinary until this extraordinary ending.
The soundless bubble around him shattered.
The impact never came.
At least, Mark didn't feel it. One moment he was staring at the truck's grille, the next—nothing. No pain. No violent collision. Just a sudden, complete darkness that swallowed everything.
His consciousness lingered, disconnected from any physical sensation. There was no body to feel pain, no lungs struggling for air, no heart pounding in terror. Just Mark, or whatever remained of Mark, suspended in perfect blackness.
"So this is death," he thought, though he no longer had lips to speak or ears to hear. The realization should have terrified him, but fear required adrenaline and a racing heart—things he no longer possessed.
Time lost meaning. Had it been seconds since the truck? Hours? Years? Without a body to grow tired or hungry, without light to mark the passage of day and night, Mark drifted in the endless void.
A coldness began to seep in around the edges of his awareness. Not the biting cold of winter winds or icy water, but something deeper and more fundamental—the absence of warmth itself. It spread through what remained of his consciousness, but strangely, it brought no discomfort.
The cold was... peaceful. Like slipping into a dreamless sleep after an exhausting day. Mark felt his thoughts slowing, stretching out like taffy pulled thin. The worries that had consumed him—college applications, career paths, disappointing his parents—seemed distant and small now, irrelevant concerns from a life that no longer existed.
He'd always imagined death would be terrifying, a desperate fight against the inevitable. Instead, he found himself embracing the gentle cold, surrendering to its quiet pull. There was something almost comforting about the simplicity of non-existence after the complicated tangle of living.
His last coherent thought drifted through the darkness: "I never finished that anime..."
Before he could continue to think, a bright light suddenly enveloped him.
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