Darkness.
Then light.
Fluorescents buzzed above his head. The peeling ceiling stared back at him like it always had.
His bed creaked under him. The same old mattress. The same piss-stained wallpaper. The same faint stench of mold that never truly went away.
Darian blinked.
Sat up.
Looked around.
"...What?"
No new body?
No new world?
He was still in his room.
"What the hell?" he muttered. "Did it not work? Is this some kind of parallel Earth stimulation?"
Before he could move, a soft mechanical voice echoed in his skull.
[ SIMULATION COMPLETE ]
[Simulation complete. Zero deviation from base timeline]
He froze.
Cause of Termination: Acute plague infection.
Lifespan: 3 days and 2 hours.
Status: Commoner. No access to professional treatment or magic cure.
Points earned: 0.0000001
Commentary: "If failure were an art form, you'd be a forgotten sketch."
Time elapsed in reality: 0 seconds.
Time within simulation: 3 days.
Cooldown before next free stimulation: 10 days.
Note: Please choose better starting conditions next time.
The words floated in his vision.
He stared.
"…You're kidding."
[Due to premature termination, the simulation world was not fully rendered.
System resource allocation has been optimized]
Replay available: [DEATH MEMORY PROJECTION]
[ SYSTEM NOTE ] : This Death Replay feature only activates when the host dies so fast that the system deems the full simulation a resource waste.
By selecting to view the death replay, you agree to re-experience the event as if in real time. This cannot be skipped once initiated.
(Note: This feature only activates when you die so fast the system doesn't bother finishing the world stimulation.)
Would you like to view how you died?
[Yes]
[No]
Darian blinked.
"...I died so fast the world didn't even load?"
He looked at the [Yes] button.
"Fuck it. Let's see what killed me."
Darian's first breath in the new world burned.
It was thick with rot and bile. His lungs rasped like someone had poured sand into them.
A scream rang out somewhere nearby.
He opened his eyes—barely. The ceiling above him was cracked stone, flecked with mold. The air buzzed with flies.
Coughing, he turned his head. A corpse stared back at him from the bed to his left. Its eyes were open. Its skin had gone gray-blue. Flies crawled across its lips like it was just another meal.
"Where I'm I ?" Darian wheezed.
All around him, the ward moaned with sickness. Dozens of beds, no doctors. Men and women lay twitching, muttering, crying. Some stared blankly. Some didn't breathe at all.
He sat up slowly. Pain bloomed in his joints. His head spun. His skin was clammy and hot.
He tried to stand—and immediately collapsed, vomiting black bile onto the floor beside the bed.
A nurse passed by—a girl no older than fifteen, her face covered by a filthy cloth. She didn't look at him. She didn't look at anyone. Just dropped another bowl of gray slop beside a dying man and moved on like she was feeding livestock.
"Hey," Darian croaked. "You—hey."
A figure loomed at the edge of his vision. Gloved hands. Black boots. A coat stitched with faded runes and dried sigils. Tubes of strange-colored fluid clinked against a belt filled with bones and tools.
But it was the mask that took his breath.
Long. Beaked. Porcelain white with tarnished bronze filigree around the eyes.
The bird-like face leaned in close.
"Hello there," it rasped.
Its voice was a whisper and a growl layered together, like a dying priest in an echoing chapel.
"Welcome back to the land of the dying. How fortunate. You made it through the fever-dreams."
Darian blinked. "What…?"
The doctor ignored him. Reached into his coat. Pulled out a jar of black leeches, squirming in pale fluid.
"System—end the replay," Darian croaked.
[ ERROR: During Death Replay, host must relive the full missed experience. ]
The doctor turned back, tilting its head.
"Oh, hallucinating again, are we? Don't worry. You're in luck. We've just discovered something... new."
A beat.
"It's called lobotomy."
The beak twitched ever so slightly.
"A peasant like you wouldn't understand, but trust me—it'll make you feel so much better."
Darian screamed, dragging himself backward across the floor.
"Stay the fuck away from me!"
[ Death Replay Complete. ]
[ Note: This feature only activates when you die so fast the system doesn't bother finishing the world stimulation. ]
[ Reminder: All deaths are permanent. Please choose better starting conditions next time. ]
Darian sat in silence. Then—He exploded.
"HOW DO I CHOOSE BETTER IF I DIE INSTANTLY?!" he screamed at the air.
"WHAT KIND OF SYSTEM ARE YOU?! What in the name of sadism is going on?! You dropped me into a pit of dying peasants with no food, no medicine, no magic—and expected me to what? Crawl to enlightenment?! I didn't even make it a week!"
His voice cracked as he paced the room, blood still dried on his lip from earlier.
"Three days! I lasted three days! What was I supposed to do—negotiate with bacteria?!"
The system didn't respond.
He laughed bitterly, the sound hollow. "Sadistic trash heap of a god-complexed algorithm…"
Then came the next message:
[ Cooldown Remaining before next free stimulation : 9 days, 23 hours, 58 minutes. ]
Darian stared at it, jaw tight. Ten days until he could try again.
And next time, he'd make damn sure he wasn't starting life in a coffin.
"Ten days. Ten long, jobless, point-less days. Guess it's better to find a way to stay alive in this world… before worrying about the next one."