Darkness.
Absolute, never-ending darkness.
There was no sound, nor ground beneath my own two feet.
It was a void so complete that it felt less like a place and more like... a state of non-existence.
I tried to speak, but no sound came out.
I tried to touch my face, but I couldn't feel my hands or my face.
'Was this death? It is far more boring than I had anticipated to be honest.'
I had expected hell. Or maybe nothingness, just a sudden cut to a permanent blackscreen, like a TV being unplugged.
But this? This felt like a loading screen that had frozen.
'Is this my punishment for being so useless?'
I didn't save them. I didn't save myself. I just died, crushed under a few tons of steel like a bug.
Step.
'Huh?'
I looked down. There was nothing there, yet I felt the sensation of movement. Instinctively, I took another step.
*Step.*
The sound resounded through the silence, loud and crisp.
I wasn't floating. I was walking.
But... where?
I looked around, straining my eyes against the abyss. For a long time, or maybe just a second, time felt irrelevant here.
There was nothing.
And then, I saw it.
A faint, minuscule speck of light in the distance.
It was so small that if I blinked, even though I can't do that, I might have missed it.
But in this void, it was as bright as a lighthouse.
I didn't know why, but my body moved toward it.
*Step. Step. Step.*
I walked.
I walked for what felt like hours.
Then days.
Then years.
Eons might have passed by.
My mind started to wander. I thought about the construction site.
About the unfinished novel on my phone.
'I wonder how it ended.'
It was a stupid thought to have in the afterlife, but it was the only thing keeping me sane, sadly.
*Step. Step.*
But, slowly but surely, the light grew.
It had transformed from a speck into a marble.
From a marble, into a baseball.
Then into a door.
It was blindingly white, radiating a nice, calming warmth that I hadn't felt in God knows how much time.
And, as I drew closer and closer, the silence of the void began to disappear.
*Riiiinnng...*
A faint, ringing sound suddenly filled my ears.
It grew louder and louder with every step, vibrating against my skull.
In the end, I stood before the light, a wall of pure brilliance that blocked my path.
'Is this the Gate To Heaven? Or the entrance to a furnace of a crazy ass demon?'
I hesitated for a moment, but do I really have any other choice?
I mean... Yes, I can still go back to the darkness, I guess.
Do I want to? Fuck no.
'Hah'
A lifeless, soundless laugh escaped me.
'Let's get this shit over with.'
So, with no other thought in mind, I stepped into the light.
"Ugh..."
All of a sudden, my eyes snapped open.
'Where... Am I?'
I tried to sit up, but my body felt heavy. Not the heaviness of exhaustion, but the heaviness of a deep, drug-induced sleep.
*Haa...*
I took a breath.
And then I froze.
I waited for the catch. I waited for that familiar rattle in my chest, the sharp stab of pain that accompanied every intake of air. I waited for the metallic taste of blood in my mouth.
But it didn't come.
*Haaa.....*
I took a deeper breath. Then another.
The air flowed into my lungs, smooth as water. It filled my chest completely, expanding my ribs with no ache.
"I can... breathe?"
My voice.
It sounded different. Deeper. Clearer. It carried a resonance that my old, hoarse voice never had.
I sat up abruptly, the movement fluid and effortless.
I looked around the room.
Opulence.
That was the only word for it.
The first thing to greet my waking eyes was the ceiling.
It wasn't the rotting, mold-stained concrete of my shitbox apartment, nor was it the suffocating, murky-gray sky of the construction site.
It was a masterpiece of excess.
Soaring impossibly high above me, the vaulted surface was alive with intricate golden filigree and a sprawling fresco of seraphs locked in an eternal dance.
And, suspended from the center like a teardrop of a goddess was a massive crystal chandelier, radiating a soft, rhythmic shimmer that felt less like light and more like magic.
Thick crimson curtains covered a massive window on the far side. A mahogany desk sat in the corner, piled high with books and scrolls.
'This isn't a hospital.'
The loan sharks didn't have safe houses like this. The construction company wouldn't pay for a room like this.
'Did I... survive?'
No. That was impossible. I felt the steel crush me. I felt my bones turn to paste.
Then...
My gaze landed on a large, full-length mirror standing in the corner of the room. It was framed in dark obsidian, swirling with faint red energy.
Swinging my legs off the bed, I walked towards it.
My steps were silent, graceful. I felt a strange power humming beneath my skin, a vibrancy I had never known.
I reached the mirror and looked up.
"..."
The person staring back at me was a complete stranger.
He was tall. Lean, but not the starving thinness I was used to. This was the lean of a predator—wiry, compact muscle that looked like it was carved from marble.
His skin was pale, almost ghostly white, flawless, and free of the grime and scars I had accumulated over twenty-three years of manual labor.
But it was the face that stopped my heart.
Sharp, aristocratic features. High cheekbones. A nose that was perfectly straight.
And the hair...
Long, flowing white hair that cascaded down to his waist like a waterfall of ashy snow.
I raised a trembling hand to my face. The reflection did the same.
I pulled down my lower eyelid.
Crimson.
My irises were a deep, blood-red crimson, glowing with a faint, eerie luminescence in the dim light of the room.
"What... the fuck?"
I touched the glass.
This wasn't me.
'Is this... reincarnation?'
The thought barely formed before—
*Thump*
A sharp pain spiked in my temples.
*Ugh!*
I stumbled back, gripping the edge of the mirror for support.
*Thump! Thump!*
It wasn't a headache. It felt like someone was driving a railroad spike directly into my frontal lobe.
*Argh...!*
I fell to my knees, clutching my head.
Images.
They weren't mine. They came flooding in like a tidal wave, crashing against the barriers of my mind, forcing their way in.
A cold, stern man looking down at me with disappointment.
A woman crying in the distance.
A sword piercing through a monster's head.
Magic circles. Equations. Formulas. History.
Names. Faces. Places I had never seen.
"STOOP..!"
I screamed, but the flood didn't stop. It accelerated.
The Academy. The fearful faces. The obsession with power.
The memories of a life I hadn't lived were overwriting my own, blending with them, merging into one chaotic soul.
My brain felt like it was being rewired without anesthesia.
*Haa... Haa...!*
I curled up on the marble floor, gritting my teeth so hard I thought they would shatter.
'My name is...'
Not Adam.
Adam was dead. Adam was a pile of meat under a steel beam.
'My name is...'
The pain reached a crescendo. A white light exploded behind my eyes.
And then, just as quickly as it started, it vanished.
"Hah... Hah..."
I lay there panting, sweat dripping from my forehead onto the cold floor.
Slowly, the confusion faded. The chaos in my mind settled into a coherent structure.
I knew where I was. I knew who I was.
I slowly pushed myself up, using the frame of the mirror for leverage. I looked at the reflection again. The crimson eyes stared back, no longer strangers, but... me.
A bitter, twisted smile made its way onto my lips.
"Of all the trash novels I read..."
I recognized this name. I recognized this world.
I wiped the sweat from my brow, my fingers tracing the sharp jawline of this new vessel.
"I really had to end up in this one?"
The memories settled. My new identity settling in.
I wasn't the protagonist. I wasn't the hero.
I looked at the crimson eyes in the mirror and let out a long, ragged sigh.
"I am..."
But... before I could even finish speaking to myself, my thoughts came to a sudden pause.
Because something... just appeared right in front of me.
[DING!]