Life's a fucking unpredictable thing, isn't it?
Most of the time, we think we're going to live forever. That our parents will live forever. That there's always going to be a tomorrow, so why worry about today? We coast through our days on autopilot, half-asleep, never really thinking about the fact that it could all end in an instant.
Take me, for example.
Robert Hoover. Sixteen years old. A completely unremarkable high school student who spent his entire existence doing absolutely fuck-all except studying just enough to pass, jacking off to increasingly questionable hentai, binging anime until 3 AM, and grinding ranked League of Legends matches while screaming at teammates who definitely couldn't hear me.
Looking back now... what a shitty life I was living.
But it's way too late to think about that now, isn't it?
Why am I saying this, you ask?
Well... it's because I'm currently suffering from a slight case of being dead.
Yeah.
Dead.
Just like that.
Kicked the bucket.
Bought the farm.
Shuffled off this mortal coil.
Bit the big one.
My number came up.
Who would've thought that pulling an all-nighter—alternating between playing League, jerking off, and mixing Red Bull with Monster Energy like some kind of deranged alchemist—would give me a fucking heart attack?
At sixteen years old.
*Sixteen.*
I don't even want to think about what my sister or my parents thought when they came to wake me up for school and found me. Dead in my computer chair. Pants around my ankles. Computer screen still glowing.
With an Nhentai tab open.
God, I hope they closed the laptop before calling 911.
Actually, you know what? I hope they didn't. I'm dead. What do I care about dignity anymore? At least give them something to remember me by. "Yeah, Robert? He died doing what he loved—being a complete degenerate."
Well, the past is the past.
And I'll tell you something: the afterlife isn't as great as I imagined it would be.
If this even *is* the afterlife.
First of all, I have no fucking clue if I went to heaven or hell. There's no St. Peter at the pearly gates. No demons with pitchforks. No divine judgment or karmic weighing of souls.
It's just... black.
Everything black.
An endless void of absolute nothingness.
I can't see anything. Can't hear anything. Can't feel anything—no body, no sensation, no sense of up or down or forward or back. Just consciousness floating in an infinite expanse of *nothing.*
I'll admit, for the first few months—I think it was months, time is weird when you have no sensory input—I completely lost my shit.
I tried to scream. Couldn't. No mouth.
I tried to move. Couldn't. No body.
I tried to cry. Couldn't. No eyes.
I just... existed. A point of awareness in an ocean of darkness, slowly going insane from the sheer sensory deprivation of it all.
I had no mouth, but I needed to scream.
But after a while—after so much time spent going crazy—I got tired of being crazy.
And I became sane.
Extremely, unnaturally sane.
The kind of sane you only get after you've exhausted every possible avenue of insanity and come out the other side with nothing left but acceptance.
Now I spend my time like this: floating in the void, talking to a nonexistent audience like some kind of cosmic stand-up comedian, counting time even though there's no time to count.
I think I've been here about ten months.
Or maybe a year.
Or maybe a week—I lost count several times, and it's not like there's a sun to mark the passage of days. Just darkness. Eternal, suffocating darkness.
I think... I'm in hell.
Not the fire and brimstone kind. Not the torture and suffering kind.
The *nothing* kind.
The kind where you're completely alone with your thoughts for eternity, slowly forgetting what it was like to be human, to have a body, to feel *anything* at all—
Then suddenly, for the first time since I've been trapped in this void, something changes.
Light.
Actual, honest-to-god *light.*
It starts as a pinprick in the distance—or what I think is distance, spatial relationships are weird here—and then it grows. Spreads. Expands until it's rushing toward me like a tidal wave, and it's the most luminous thing I've ever seen in my entire life.
Brighter than the sun.
Brighter than anything.
Pure, white, all-consuming light.
*Finally,* I think. *Oblivion.*
Whatever this is—reincarnation, true death, divine judgment, the heat death of the universe—I don't care.
I'm just glad it's *something.*
Anything is better than the void.
The light swallows me whole.
---
I open my eyes.
*Wait.*
Eyes?
I have *eyes?*
I blink. Once, twice, three times. Holy shit, I'm *blinking.* I have eyelids. I can feel them moving.
I'M NOT DEAD!
"Oh fuck, my Google history!"
The thought hits me like a freight train and I bolt upright in—
*In bed?*
I'm in a bed.
I look around wildly, my heart pounding—except it's *not* pounding, why isn't it pounding—
Where the fuck am I?
I'm in some kind of bedroom. A really, *really* old bedroom.
The furniture has that medieval aesthetic—all dark wood and wrought iron, elaborate carvings and gothic designs. The bed I'm in is absolutely massive, easily big enough for four people, with a black silk canopy overhead and thick curtains tied back with silver cord.
Everything is luxurious in that ancient, aristocratic way. This isn't IKEA furniture. This is the kind of stuff you'd see in a museum behind velvet ropes with a little placard that says "DO NOT TOUCH: 15th Century."
It's immaculately clean, but there's a feeling of *age* to everything. Like this room has existed for centuries.
And it's *cold.*
Not uncomfortably cold—I'm not shivering or anything—but there's a deep chill in the air that I can *sense* even though it doesn't actually bother me.
Which is weird.
That should bother me, right? The fact that I'm in what feels like a freezer and I'm completely fine?
I swing my legs over the side of the bed and look down at myself.
I'm wearing some kind of silk robe. Black, expensive-looking, with silver embroidery along the edges. The kind of thing Drácula would wear while brooding dramatically in his castle.
I look at my hands.
They're pale.
Like, *really* pale.
Corpse-pale.
I thought it was impossible for me to get any paler than I already was—I was the palest kid in school, the guy who never went outside, whose idea of "touching grass" was playing a Druid in World of Warcraft—but this is something else entirely.
This is "I have not seen sunlight in two hundred years" pale.
This is "I am literally a walking corpse" pale.
I stand up from the bed.
No dizziness. No vertigo. No moment of disorientation.
I feel... strong.
Stronger than I've ever felt in my entire life.
My body feels powerful. Efficient. Like a machine that's been perfectly tuned and optimized.
But at the same time, something feels *wrong.*
Not bad wrong. Just... *off.* Like I'm wearing someone else's skin. Like this body doesn't quite fit.
I walk across the room—my footsteps are completely silent, what the fuck—and approach the large window set into the far wall.
I look outside.
And my brain short-circuits.
Snow.
*So much snow.*
Outside the window is a winter landscape that looks like it came straight out of a fantasy painting. A vast frozen forest stretches as far as I can see, the trees skeletal and covered in frost. Beyond that is an enormous lake—completely frozen over—with a massive stone bridge arching across it.
The sky is grey and overcast, and snow is falling in thick, heavy flakes.
It's beautiful.
It's *terrifying.*
Where the fuck am I?
I take a step back from the window—and nearly have a heart attack.
There's a suit of armor standing in the corner of the room.
Just... standing there.
Upright.
Empty.
Like it's waiting for someone to put it on.
I press my hand to my chest, feeling for the panicked racing of my heart—
Nothing.
No heartbeat.
No pulse.
*Why isn't my heart beating?*
I stare at the armor, trying to process what I'm seeing, because now that I'm actually *looking* at it—
"Is that fucking Mordekaiser's armor?"
I say it out loud, and my voice sounds wrong. Lower than it should be. Deeper. With a faint echo that shouldn't be there.
But the armor—yeah, that's definitely Mordekaiser's armor from League of Legends. The same spiked pauldrons, the same jagged helmet, the same massive gauntlets designed to crush skulls.
What the fuck is going on?
Did I... reincarnate?
Is this an isekai?
Oh my god, am I in an isekai right now?
I spin around, looking for more clues, and spot a full-length mirror leaning against the wall near the door.
I practically sprint over to it—and then freeze.
The mirror shows the room behind me.
The bed. The furniture. The window.
My silk robe, hanging in the air like it's being worn by an invisible man.
But no me.
No reflection.
"Okay," I say slowly. "Either this mirror is broken, or I don't have a reflection."
I wave my hand in front of the mirror. The sleeve of my robe moves, but there's no hand visible inside it.
So I'm not a ghost—ghosts wouldn't have clothes that show up in mirrors.
Which means...
I run my tongue over my teeth.
Sharp.
Very sharp.
Especially the canines.
"Oh fuck," I whisper. "I'm a vampire."
I should be panicking right now.
I should be freaking the fuck out.
But I'm not.
I'm eerily calm. Detached. Like I'm watching all this happen to someone else.
Is this what being undead feels like? Do vampires not feel emotions properly?
Or have I just been through so much in the past few months—dying, floating in the void, going insane and then sane again—that my brain has just... given up on panic?
I don't know.
I don't know anything right now.
I walk back to the bed and lie down on my back, staring up at the black silk canopy.
I need to think.
I need to figure out what the fuck is happening.
---
After about half an hour of lying there, running through every possibility I can think of, I finally sit up.
Okay.
Facts:
One: I died on Earth.
Two: I spent an indeterminate amount of time in some kind of void afterlife.
Three: I woke up here, in a vampire body, in what appears to be a medieval castle in the middle of a frozen wasteland.
Four: There's Mordekaiser armor in my room, which suggests this world has *some* connection to League of Legends, or at least to fantasy video games in general.
Five: I don't have a heartbeat, I don't have a reflection, and I have fangs. I am definitely a vampire.
So... isekai. Has to be. I died and got reincarnated in another world as a vampire.
The question is: *which* world?
I was thinking Castlevania earlier, but now I'm not so sure. The aesthetic is right—gothic castle, winter landscape, vampire protagonist—but something feels off.
I need more information.
I need to get out of this room and explore.
I start to head for the door, but then that strange sensation passes over me again—that feeling of a thought that isn't quite mine.
*'You shouldn't leave without your armor.'*
I pause.
That's... not my thought.
But it's not *wrong,* either.
I look back at the Mordekaiser armor standing in the corner.
Even if I am a vampire, I have no idea what kind of world this is. There could be vampire hunters out there. Paladins. Demon slayers. Whatever.
Better safe than sorry.
I approach the armor.
Up close, it's even more impressive. The craftsmanship is incredible—every piece is perfectly fitted, engraved with intricate designs that seem to writhe and shift when I'm not looking directly at them.
"Alright," I mutter. "Let's see if I remember how armor works."
Spoiler alert: I do not remember how armor works.
---
One hour later, after much cursing and fumbling and nearly impaling myself on a spiky pauldron, I finally manage to get the armor on.
It's heavy—probably would've been impossible to move in if I was still human—but with my vampiric strength, it feels like I'm wearing thick winter clothes. Restrictive, but manageable.
I don't have any weapons, which is concerning, but at least I'm protected.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror as I pass—or rather, I see the armor moving on its own, which is deeply unsettling—and head for the door.
Time to figure out where the hell I am.
I pull open the heavy wooden door and step out into a long corridor.
The hallway is dimly lit by torches that burn with blue flames—*blue* flames, what the fuck—and stretches off in both directions. The architecture is the same gothic style as my room: high vaulted ceilings, stone walls, narrow windows that show nothing but falling snow.
I pick a direction at random and start walking.
My armored footsteps echo loudly in the silence.
After a few minutes of walking, the corridor opens up into—
"Holy shit."
I stop dead in my tracks.
I'm not in a castle.
I'm in a *cathedral.*
A massive, soaring cathedral that makes Notre Dame look like a garden shed.
The ceiling is so high I can barely see it through the gloom. Enormous pillars rise up like petrified trees, and between them are rows upon rows of... are those *stairs?* Multiple levels of balconies and walkways, all interconnected by staircases that seem to defy physics. A single Massive Bell hanging above.
And there are figures moving through the space.
Knights.
Armored knights walking patrol routes, standing guard at doorways, crossing bridges between levels.
Headless knights.
"Dullahans," I whisper.
The word comes to me instinctively—not from my memories, but from that same place as the thought about the armor. Some lingering knowledge from whoever owned this body before me.
Knights of Dullahan. Undead warriors. Level 40-something, if I remember the lore correctly.
And they're... mine?
Subordinates?
Something tells me they're not my enemies, at least.
I need to test this.
I approach the nearest Dullahan—he's standing at attention near one of the pillars, his headless body perfectly still.
As I get closer, he immediately bows.
No hesitation. No question. Just instant recognition and respect.
Okay. So I definitely have some kind of authority here.
I clear my throat—which feels weird, since I'm pretty sure vampires don't need to breathe—and try to make my voice sound commanding.
"Knight Dullahan, I order you to tell me where we are."
My voice comes out deep and resonant, echoing slightly in the huge space. It doesn't sound like my voice at all—it sounds like a vampire lord from an anime, all melancholy and dramatic.
The Dullahan just... stands there. Motionless.
Staring at me with the empty space where his head should be.
Right.
*Right.*
No head. No mouth.
He can't talk, you idiot.
"Forget that," I say quickly, feeling my face heat up with embarrassment—can vampires even blush? "Just... take me to the entrance of the cathedral."
The Dullahan bows again and immediately starts walking.
I follow behind him, trying to take in as much of the cathedral as I can.
It's massive. Impossibly huge. The kind of place that would take hours to fully explore.
And it's *cold.* Not temperature-wise—I still can't feel the cold properly—but atmospherically. Everything is dark stone and blue flames and deep shadows. It feels like a tomb.
We walk for several minutes, descending staircases and crossing through vast halls, before we finally reach what must be the main entrance.
Two enormous doors, at least twenty feet tall, carved with intricate reliefs of... battles? Conquests? It's hard to tell in the dim light.
And standing guard in front of the doors are two figures.
Women.
Incredibly beautiful women wearing white kimonos.
Their skin is pale—even paler than mine—and they have snow white hair.
But their eyes...
They don't have eyes.
Just empty sockets. Black voids where eyes should be.
'*Frost Virgins*,' that not-quite-my-voice whispers in my head.
"Frost Virgins," I echo out loud.
And suddenly, my blood—or whatever vampires have instead of blood—runs cold.
I know these creatures.
Not from this body's memories.
From *my* memories.
From Earth.
From late nights binging anime with the lights off and a bag of chips in my lap.
From my Overlord phase.
Oh no.
Oh *fuck* no.
"Alukard-sama."
The Frost Virgin on the left bows deeply, her voice perfectly calm and emotionless.
"Cocytus-sama has ordered that none of the Area Guardians may leave their respective domains while Nazarick is at maximum alert level."
The one on the right continues, as if they're speaking with one mind.
"We apologize, Alukard-sama, but we cannot permit you to leave the Frozen Cathedral at this time."
Cocytus.
Nazarick.
*Alukard.*
I'm in Overlord.
I'm in the Great Tomb of Nazarick.
I'm a fucking NPC in Overlord.
*I'm so fucked.*