You whirl around, heart hammering. The voice is deep, almost resonant, but impossible to place. The air hums with unseen energy, like a radio tuned to static between stations.
"Who's there?" Your voice sounds strange—smaller than you expect, swallowed by the vastness surrounding you. A figure emerges from the shifting ground ahead—tall, dark, indistinct at first. As it approaches, details become clearer: a man-like shape, wrapped in what might be tattered cloth or the shadows themselves. "My name is Prana. Soon, I'll become your servant, Milo." the figure halts several paces away, its face remaining obscured by the dim light. The wind picks up around you, making the fabric-like material of Prana's form ripple like smoke. His hands hang loosely at his sides, fingers long and graceful, yet somehow wrong in their proportions.
"Your journey has begun." Prana's voice is smooth, calm, as if he were discussing the weather rather than speaking of something ominous. "Welcome to the Realm of Death."
Your breath comes fast now, heart thudding in your chest. "And you, Milo Angglas, will become the Fifth God of Death.", Prana's words settle into you like a heavy stone dropped into still water. The realization sends ripples of conflicting emotions through your mind—shock, disbelief, a fleeting sense of power quickly smothered by the enormity of what he claims.
"That's... that's impossible," you manage to say, though the words sound hollow even to your own ears. "I'm just... I'm nobody. I'm unemployed, living in a shitty dorm. I drink cheap wine and... and..." You gesture vaguely at the empty landscape around you. The wind howls across the barren plain as Prana takes a slow step closer. His form shifts subtly, the edges of his body wavering like heat rising from asphalt. "No one chooses this path, Master. It chooses them." His voice remains steady, though it carries an undercurrent of something deeper—something almost like pride.
You stumble backward, your heel catching on uneven ground. The movement sends a jolt of clarity through your mind. "Wait—this is bullshit. I can't be...", "You're the fifth generation as god of death.", Prana speaks more clearly this time. His words hang in the air, heavier than the shifting shadows around you. Your mind reels—generations? Family? You've never known anything about your ancestors beyond your parents, who died so suddenly five years ago.
"I... I don't understand," you say, the words cracking as they leave your throat. "My parents never mentioned anything like this." Prana tilts his head slightly, the movement almost imperceptible in the dim light. "They couldn't. The knowledge is... not for the living. Your name is Milo Angglas. Milo means Limo and Angglas means Gangsal. In Javanese, it means five." The revelation settles over you like a suffocating shroud. Your throat tightens. You stare at Prana, his form still indistinct in the strange light of the death realm, and the ground beneath your feet feels unsteady—whether from the shifting terrain or your own shaking knees, you can't tell.
"Five," you repeat numbly. The number hangs in your mind, suddenly significant in a way it never had been before. Your parents' names, their significance—had they known? Had they chosen yours specifically? "The destiny has guided your parents to give the name to you. Your parents never knew this secret, but the bloodline knows," Prana continues, his tone gaining an almost reverent quality. "Your blood remembers what your mind does not."
Your hands curl into fists at your sides, nails digging into your palms. The sting grounds you, anchors you to something real in this impossible moment. "And what exactly do you expect me to do?" Your voice comes out harsher than intended, but the anger simmering beneath the surface is impossible to suppress. Prana spreads his hands in a gesture that might be meant to be welcoming. "Take this book.. Milo. It contains stories about the God of Death." The book Prana holds out to you is ancient—its cover worn smooth by countless hands, the edges crumbling. The smell of aged parchment fills the space between you as he holds it steady, waiting. The title is written in an elegant script you don't recognize, though the characters seem to pulse faintly in the dim light.
"You... expect me to just take this and read it?" Your voice rises despite yourself. "Like this is some fucking library book?" Prana doesn't flinch at your outburst. Then your soul teleports back to your body in the human realm. You woke up on your couch with the book on your chest. The book presses heavy against your chest, its ancient leather binding cool beneath your fingertips. The dim glow of your dorm's overhead light spills across its worn cover, catching the sheen of the strange lettering. You don't remember opening your eyes—one moment you were standing in that endless, shifting plain with Prana, and the next you were here, back in your small, dusty room, the stale air thick with mildew.
The book pulses beneath your fingers, reacting to your rising panic. The letters on the cover seem to writhe, twisting into new shapes before settling again. Your chest heaves as you push yourself upright, the worn fabric of your couch creaking in protest. Your pulse hammers in your ears, drowning out the distant hum of the city outside.
"This is not happening.. THIS ISN'T REAL!!" The words tear from your throat raw and ragged, each syllable shaking with the force of your denial. You stared at the clock on the wall, seeing it was nine o'clock now. Time hadn't moved when you teleported to the realm of death before. The numbers burn into your retinas—the same 9:00 you saw before everything changed. Your fingers dig into the couch cushions, leaving crescent-shaped imprints as you struggle to process this impossibility. The book slides slightly, its cover now open to reveal pages that seem to be made of some luminous material, the script glowing faintly in the dim light.
"This isn't just a dream," you murmur, the words catching in your throat. Your fingers twitch toward the book, hovering just above the glowing text. The ancient script pulses beneath your fingers as you say the title aloud. The glowing letters rearrange themselves, coalescing into the English words "The God of Death: Destiny" in your mind. Your breath catches as the book thrums with a low vibration, like a heart beating in your hands.
"The God of Death..." you whisper, the words foreign on your tongue. Your fingers finally touch the title, tracing the elegant calligraphy. You open the next page, it reveals a scene from the past—a painting-like illustration that shows demons and the gods standing together in an ethereal city. Their expressions are serene, their hands clasped in what appears to be a ritual. The caption reads: "Before the Great Schism, the Divine Realms maintained harmony."
You turn the page with shaking fingers, revealing a timeline in bold strokes. A line splits the center, showing the realms of Heaven and Hell initially as two halves of the same plane. After you turn to the next page, it erupts in violent imagery—demons with twisted features and burning eyes lunging at their former allies. The vibrant reds and oranges of hellfire contrast sharply with the pastel blues of Heaven. Your fingers tremble as you see the betrayal unfold, gods and demons locked in combat, their peaceful coexistence shattered.
"Fuck... they fought each other," you whisper, the violence making your stomach twist. A caption appears beneath the scene: "The Treachery of the Demons—when pride led to civil war." You can't hold yourself to open the next page. The illustration shows a single figure standing against an army of demons—his face obscured by flowing hair, his body wreathed in white light. He stands atop a crumbling pillar as chaos swirls around him. The caption reads: "The Last Stand of the God of Life—when one stood against many for the sake of all."
You lean closer, studying the details—the tears of blood running down the god's face, the way his body trembles despite the courage in his stance. The god's final moments unfold in stark detail—the demons swarming him, his white light dimming as he raises his hands. The last panel shows the god sinking into the abyss, his face a mask of acceptance. A single tear falls as the demons are dragged screaming back to their realm.
"The Great Sacrifice," the caption reads. "The God of Life became the God of Death, binding the realms in his final act." Your fingers press against the illustration, feeling the texture of the paper shift beneath your touch as if it's alive. The illustration shifts again, showing streams of dark energy seeping through fractures in the barrier between realms. The caption changes: "The Seal Weakens—only the Fifth can prevent the Coming." Your fingers hover over the glowing lines, the book's energy making the hair on your arms stand up.
"This is... this is impossible," you mutter, but the certainty in your bones tells you otherwise. You are the Fifth. You are meant to do this. Your hand moves of its own accord, tracing the crack in the barrier.