The beast's claws tore through Elias Thorne's abdomen before he even registered the attack.
He stumbled backward, hands clutching uselessly at the ragged wound. Blood too much blood spilled between his fingers, dark and warm in the fading evening light. Twenty-three years of mediocre existence, and this was how it ended. Alone in some forgotten alley behind a tavern where he'd just been fired from his third job this month.
The creature before him was barely worth the classification of "magical beast." A corrupted wolf, maybe a rank two threat at best. Any competent mage could've dispersed it with a thought. But Elias Thorne had never been competent.
His legs gave out. The cobblestones were cold against his back, still damp from afternoon rain. Above, the sky was doing that thing where twilight painted everything in shades of purple and gold. Beautiful. He'd never paid much attention to sunsets before. Funny, the things you noticed when dying.
The wolf circled, wary now. Even a predator could sense there was nothing worth taking from this kill. No mana signature. No defensive wards. Just a failed academy dropout bleeding out in an alley that smelled like refuse and rotting vegetables.
Four years since the expulsion. Four years since Astralheim Magic Academy had deemed him "insufficient in both talent and application." The official letter had been almost polite about it. They'd given him until the end of sophomore year before making it permanent, as if those extra months might somehow transform him into something less pathetic.
They hadn't.
Elias's vision blurred. He blinked, trying to focus. The wolf was gone fled or bored, he couldn't tell which. Didn't matter. The damage was done. He'd seen enough death in the academy's practical courses to recognize fatal when he felt it. Internal bleeding. Probable organ damage. No healing potions in his pockets because he couldn't afford them. No emergency beacon because the academy confiscated his upon expulsion.
No one coming to save him.
A laugh bubbled up, tasting like copper. Save him. Right. As if anyone had ever bothered.
The memories came then, unstoppable. His mind's last desperate attempt to make the dying mean something, maybe. A highlight reel of failure.
First day at Astralheim. Age sixteen, fresh-faced and stupidly hopeful. He'd thought actually believed that acceptance letter meant he was special. That the academy saw potential others had missed. That magic would be his salvation.
It wasn't.
The entrance exam rankings came back within a week. Ninety-fourth out of one hundred freshmen. "But you still got in," his mother had said, trying for encouragement. "That's something, isn't it?"
It wasn't something. It was everything. At Astralheim, rankings weren't just numbers they were prophecy. The bottom tier stayed bottom tier. The academy made sure of that through course placement, resource allocation, and the casual cruelty of institutional indifference.
First semester. Professor Aldric's Elemental Theory class. Elias remembered struggling with basic mana circulation while classmates wove fire and ice like breathing. "Focus, Mr. Thorne," Aldric had said, not unkindly. "Magic requires intention backed by will. Find yours."
He never did.
Second semester, worse. The gulf between himself and even the middling students grew impossible to cross. He watched Lyra Ashwyn brilliant, beautiful, untouchable Lyra master advanced spellwork he couldn't begin to comprehend. Watched Damien Cross argue magical theory with professors as equals. Watched Seraphine Vale accumulate power through political acumen he completely lacked.
Watched everyone else succeed while he drowned.
Sophomore year. The beginning of the end. Professor Aldric had pulled him aside after a particularly disastrous practical exam. "Mr. Thorne, have you considered that perhaps magic isn't your calling? There's no shame in pursuing other paths."
There was. Elias knew there was, even if Aldric pretended otherwise. Leaving the academy meant admitting defeat. Meant facing his mother's disappointed face. Meant acknowledging that the one thing he'd dared to dream about was forever beyond his reach.
But staying became impossible.
The Founding Festival. His last real memory of the academy. He'd stood in the crowd watching the stage performances, nursing a drink he couldn't afford and contemplating dropping out before they could expel him. Save some dignity. Leave on his own terms.
Then the stage collapsed.
He could still hear the screaming. Twelve students crushed under failing timber and decorative stone. Dozens more injured. Lyra had been nearby close enough that the edge of the collapse caught her, breaking her arm. He'd stood there, frozen, useless. Couldn't even help pull debris off the injured because his mana control was so poor he'd be as likely to hurt someone as help them.
Damien organized the rescue. Seraphine coordinated the healers. Even Finn Torrin, quiet, nerdy Finn, used his enchantments to stabilize the structure enough to extract the trapped.
Elias had just stood there.
Three weeks later, the academy sent the letter. He'd been expecting it. Almost welcomed it. The pretending could stop. The daily humiliation could end.
Except it didn't end. It just changed shape.
Four years of different failures.
Apprenticeships that lasted weeks before masters realized his inadequacy. Jobs that started promising and ended in disappointment. Rooms in progressively worse parts of the city as his savings evaporated. Watching former classmates' successes from a distance Lyra's research papers in academic journals, Damien's appointment to a prestigious magical corps, others making names for themselves while Elias Thorne faded into obscurity.
The final insult: dying to a rank two beast. Something any first-year student could've handled. He couldn't even fail impressively.
The alley was darkening now. Not just twilight his vision failing. Elias's breathing had gone shallow and rapid. His body trying desperately to compensate for what couldn't be compensated. How long did he have? Minutes? Less?
Cold was spreading from his extremities inward. His fingers had gone numb. The pain was actually fading, which probably meant things were shutting down. He'd read about this once, in some dusty academy textbook. The stages of traumatic death. How clinically accurate those descriptions turned out to be.
Thoughts were scattering now, harder to hold. Fragmented.
His mother would cry when they told her. If anyone bothered telling her. How would they even identify the body? He didn't carry identification anymore lost his academy papers years ago, never replaced them. Just another nameless casualty. The city guard would incinerate his corpse with the other unclaimed dead.
Fitting, really.
Lyra was probably still beautiful. Successful too. He'd seen her name in a journal six months ago, some breakthrough in temporal magic theory. Temporal magic. The kind of advanced work that made Professor Aldric's eyebrows raise with genuine interest. She'd gone so far beyond what Elias could even conceptualize. Good for her. He meant that, sort of. She deserved success. Worked for it.
Unlike him.
Damien had made captain by now, probably. Always driven, that one. Elias remembered the fierce intelligence behind those eyes, the way Damien had known exactly what he wanted and pursued it with frightening focus. That kind of determination got rewarded. That kind of person shaped the world.
Shaped it while Elias Thorne bled out in an alley.
The darkness was creeping in at the edges of his vision. Not long now.
Regret was too small a word for what he felt. Too inadequate. The weight of unlived life pressed down on him heavier than the cobblestones. All the things he could've done, should've done, would've done if he'd just been... better. Smarter. Stronger. Worth something.
If only.
Two words that summed up his entire existence. If only he'd worked harder. If only he'd been more talented. If only he'd made different choices. If only the academy had given him another chance.
Another chance.
The thought stuck, circling through his dying mind. What would he do differently, given the impossible? If somehow, impossibly, he could go back to that first day with everything he knew now. Would it matter? Could he actually change anything, or was he fundamentally, irredeemably inadequate?
He'd like to think he could. That knowledge would be enough. That understanding his mistakes would let him avoid them.
But probably not. Probably he'd just fail differently. More creatively, perhaps. But still fail.
His vision was almost gone. Just a pinpoint of that purple-gold sky remaining. Pretty. He focused on it, this last beautiful thing. Breathing was hard now. Each inhalation required thought, effort. How many breaths left? Ten? Five?
One?
"If only..." The words escaped on a whisper of air. Blood bubbled at his lips. "Second... chance..."
The pinpoint of light went dark.
Elias Thorne died at age twenty-three in an unnamed alley, unmourned and unremarked. The city would forget him by morning. The world would never notice his absence. He had made no mark, left no legacy, touched no lives in any meaningful way.
A complete and total failure.
Even in death.
But death, as it turned out, was not the end.
In the void beyond life, in the space between heartbeats and eternities, something heard his dying wish.
Something answered.
"Second chance," a voice echoed through the darkness. Not his voice. Something other. Something vast. "Interesting. Shall we see what you do with one?"
And in the absolute black of not-existence, a blue interface flickered to life.
[SECOND CHANCE SYSTEM INITIALIZING...]