Is there anything worse than being a forty-two-year-old NEET virgin suffering from morbid obesity?
There is.
A sudden death in a muddy alley, at the hands of a group of hooded thugs fueled by alcohol and drugs. I never would have thought that a simple evening walk would put an end to my pathetic existence…
Anyone watching from a distance would have seen nothing more than a fat, unkempt loser with a greasy beard, choking on his own blood as he lay dying in a puddle. That worthless failure was me — Oskar Zelek, an economist by education, a NEET by fate. I had lived with my parents for twelve years, avoiding people and work whenever I could.
I remember the day of my death clearly.
Rain tapped against the window, and the wind swayed the tall willows behind the fence. From downstairs, I could hear my siblings talking with our parents — sounds I quickly drowned out with music blasting through my headphones. A TV series played on one screen, pornography on the other. While my parents entertained their grandchildren and my brothers and sisters talked about their lives, I masturbated to a skinny blonde and washed cheap beer down with energy drinks.
I don't know when I let myself fall this far.
At first, it all seemed harmless. I did decently in school, drifted forward year by year, wasting time on games and trashy shows. I barely graduated high school in a larger city in western Poland. Later, during university — which my parents forced me into — years of accumulated stress finally crushed me. Depression, anxiety, and eating disorders took over and stayed with me until the day I died.
The world slowly blurred.
Days passed in a haze, and I became a shadow of who I once was. That fateful day, just before Christmas Eve, my monitors burned brightly into my eyes. I felt weak. Apparently, mixing energy drinks with beer wasn't the best idea.
Pizza boxes and fast-food wrappers littered the floor. From downstairs came the voices of family members I had long since cut myself off from.
To them, I was nothing. A failure who had only himself to blame.
I couldn't stand the suffocating atmosphere any longer, so I decided to go out for some air — to think about my life for the thousandth time, only to do nothing about it and return to rotting in my room.
I slipped out through the back door so no one would notice me. I threw on a jacket that barely zipped and grabbed the first pair of shoes I could find. I bent down to tie my laces, struggling for breath. Even something that simple was a challenge for a fat slob like me.
Moments later, I was outside, wrapped in the darkness of night, broken only by scattered streetlights.
Hunger gnawed at me. I didn't want to go to the kitchen with guests filling the house — especially since they had arrived over five hours earlier.
Let hell take them all.
I considered walking farther to find a store still open at this hour, but then remembered I had left my phone and wallet at home.
The wind howled, rain pouring harder as I headed toward the park, as I often did. That's when I saw something unusual.
A group of young men — maybe in their early twenties — had surrounded a girl I didn't recognize. They shoved her and shouted crude remarks while she clearly tried to leave.
I thought about walking around them and avoiding trouble, but my bad mood got the better of me.
"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" I shouted from several meters away, foolishly thinking they'd back off when they saw an older man.
I was wrong.
One of them — huge, built like a truck, rage burning in his eyes — charged at me without hesitation. He grabbed and shoved me, trying to tear at my collar.
"You got a problem, fatass!? Want to get wrecked!?" he barked, while the rest of the pack joined in.
I managed to punch one of them in the head. Then someone came at me from the side and smashed a glass bottle against my skull. My vision swam. A storm of kicks and blows followed, filled with blind fury — as if I were some monster who had ruined their lives, not just a passerby who dared to speak up.
At least the hooded girl escaped while they were busy with me.
One small positive in this tragedy.
Not that I valued my life much. Still, every humiliation, every wasted chance flashed before my eyes like scenes from a film.
My strength faded.
Sounds became muffled, as if I were underwater. I no longer had the energy to cry for help. The last thing I registered was the sharp crack of breaking glass nearby — and then darkness slowly, inevitably closed in.
I don't know how long I drifted in absolute blackness, stripped of all senses. Endless boredom gnawed at me, broken only by my own thoughts.
Honestly, sooner or later it had to end like this.
I didn't care about life anymore — or waking from dreams that were often better than reality.
So this is purgatory?
I never believed in religion or human myths, but something was clearly happening. My consciousness hadn't vanished. And deep down, despite the confusion, I felt relieved that not everything was lost.
Then something unimaginable occurred.
In the middle of nothingness, a passage appeared — like a tunnel overflowing with blinding light, so intense I couldn't look at it. I realized I was no longer human, but a formless, helpless mass. A gust of wind pushed me toward the light, as if an unseen force had claimed me.
I felt as though I were being torn apart.
Resistance was meaningless. My screams existed only inside my head. In the next instant, I was at the heart of the light, filled with warmth and bliss.
And then — darkness again.
The pleasant sensation vanished, replaced by cold and fear. I couldn't speak. I heard a cracking sound, like a shell breaking, and wind howling in the distance. A foul stench filled my senses — so disgusting that I was almost grateful I couldn't see its source.
I didn't understand what was happening.
I couldn't walk. I couldn't speak. I felt cold stone beneath me — and something soft that squished when I stepped on it.
That's when it hit me.
I was moving on all fours.
I had four legs… and a jagged, unfamiliar mouth.
This was definitely not my fat human body.
I began feeling around, desperately trying to understand where I was. Every movement was clumsy. Every sound set my new senses on edge. Fear filled me — but so did a wild, unexplainable curiosity.
Is this really happening?Can I go back?Or am I like this forever?
I had a theory, but I was afraid to even think it.
I had read plenty of novels like this before — isekai stories, where someone is transported to another world. Like the Pevensie siblings in The Chronicles of Narnia.
Then the terrifying realization struck me.
Had I become part of such a story myself?
Had I… been reborn?