At 11:42 PM on a rainy Tuesday, Ren stopped breathing.
He didn't know it was going to happen. If he had known, he would have closed his calculus textbook. He was looking at a problem about the conservation of energy.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed.
"Ren! The delivery is here!"
His grandmother's voice drifted up the stairs. Ren sighed, spinning his pen. He was eighteen, rational, and tired. He believed in gravity, thermodynamics, and strong Wi-Fi. He definitely did not believe in the "spirits" his grandmother claimed to talk to.
He walked down the narrow stairs. The air downstairs smelled of burning sage and ozone. His grandmother stood by the door, clutching her prayer beads so tightly her knuckles were white.
In the hallway sat a crate. Wet, heavy, and dripping with rain.
"The return address says 'Site 404, Shaanxi'," his grandmother whispered. She stepped back. "Ren. Do not touch it."
Ren rolled his eyes. His parents were archaeologists. They sent weird gifts all the time—broken pottery, jade coins, dust. "It's probably just a replica, Grandma."
"It is not," she hissed. "The air... it tastes like iron."
Ren grabbed the crowbar. He was a man of science. Science didn't care about "bad vibes."
He wedged the crowbar under the lid. Crack.
The wood splintered, revealing the object inside.
It was a black box, carved with geometric patterns that hurt to look at. It was roughly the size of a violin case, but shaped distinctly like a coffin.
Ren frowned. "What is this? Obsidian?"
He reached out.
"Ren, no!"
His finger brushed the cold black surface.
Zap.
The world didn't fade. It was deleted.
00:01.
Ren's heart stopped.
00:10.
He wasn't in the hallway. He was standing on a platform of white jade, suspended above a churning sea of clouds. The air smelled of sulfur and old blood.
He looked down at his hands. They were pale, scarred, and draped in black imperial silk.
00:20.
Ren tried to scream, but he couldn't move his jaw. He was a passenger in his own body. He could feel emotions that weren't his flooding his brain—arrogance. Pure, cold, ancient arrogance.
"My Lord," a voice boomed.
In front of him stood a man in scholar's robes, tapping a black jade fan against his palm. Behind him, a thousand soldiers with hollow, blue-fire eyes knelt in silence.
"The Emperor has requested your death," the scholar smiled gently, snapping the fan shut. "The ritual is complete. You are no longer needed."
Ren felt panic. Who are you? What is this?
But the mouth that wasn't his opened. The voice that came out wasn't Ren's terrified tenor. It was the sound of grinding stones.
"You think a mortal King can dismiss the Heavens?"
Ren felt the words burn his throat. He wasn't saying them. He was being used to say them.
00:40.
The scholar widened his smile. "The Underworld has a place prepared for you, Shaman."
The sky tore open. A massive, skeletal hand descended from the clouds, crashing down toward him.
Ren wanted to run.
The body wanted to fight.
The body laughed.
00:47.
Impact.
Ren gasped.
The air rushed back into his lungs with the violence of a car crash. His back arched off the floor, his spine cracking audibly.
He was back. The hallway. The rain.
He was convulsing on the floor. His grandmother was kneeling over him, sobbing.
"Ren! Breathe!"
Ren's eyes snapped open.
For a second, the pupils weren't brown. They were a glowing, toxic green.
He grabbed his grandmother's wrist. He looked at her, but he didn't see an old woman. He saw a civilian. A subject.
He opened his mouth to ask for help.
"ZHAO HUAN!"
The command tore out of his throat, vibrating the glass in the windows.
The lightbulb in the hallway exploded. Pop.
Ren blinked. The green faded. The strength left his body, and he slumped back, coughing violently.
"What..." Ren wheezed, his throat burning like he had swallowed hot coals. "What... did I just say?"
The hallway was dark.
His grandmother didn't answer. She pulled her wrist away, trembling. She looked at him with a specific kind of horror—not the fear of a grandmother losing a grandson, but the fear of a rabbit noticing a wolf in the room.
Ren looked at his hand. It was shaking.
He thought of his textbook upstairs.
Energy cannot be created or destroyed.
He felt a cold draft on his neck. The hair on his arms stood up.
Only transformed.
And from the shadows of the open coffin, Ren felt something looking back at him.