I died on a weekday.
There was nothing poetic about it—no final speech, no heroic sacrifice. Just shouting, panic, the sharp crack of a gunshot, and the sudden, overwhelming sensation of my body failing to listen to me anymore. I remember hitting the floor of the bank, the cold tile pressing against my cheek, and thinking—absurdly—that I hadn't even finished what I came here to do.
Then everything went black.
Not darkness like closed eyes. Not sleep. This was nothing. No sound, no sensation, no sense of time. I might have been there for a second, or for an eternity.
And then… something noticed me.
The void stirred.
Light—no, presence—unfurled across the emptiness like a thought becoming aware of itself. It didn't have a body. It didn't need one. The moment it focused on me, I understood a simple, terrifying truth:
This being could erase me without effort.
"You have concluded your existence," it said—not aloud, but directly inside me."However, you are… interesting."
I tried to speak. I didn't have a mouth. I tried to panic. Fear felt distant, muffled, like it belonged to someone else.
"What… are you?" I thought.
Amusement rippled through the void.
"Call me a curator. A god, if that makes you more comfortable. I oversee intersections—where endings become beginnings."
A choice hovered before me, vast and inevitable.
"I will reincarnate you."
Images exploded across the nothingness—countless worlds, realities stacked upon realities. Heroes. Villains. Magic systems. Science fiction empires. Animated worlds. Dark fantasy hellscapes. Universes I recognized… and countless I didn't.
"Your destination will be random."
A massive construct formed in front of me:A wheel.
It was impossibly large, its surface carved with names—every fictional world that had ever existed. They spun too fast to read at first, then slowed.
My instincts screamed that this mattered.
The wheel spun.
And spun.
And finally—
Click.
The name burned itself into my awareness.
NINJAGO.
My thoughts barely had time to process that before a second wheel manifested, smaller but no less significant.
"You will receive the powers of one random character from another world."
This wheel spun faster. Violently. As if reality itself resisted the outcome.
Then it stopped.
The name echoed like a curse and a promise.
MONSTROX.
I felt it before I understood it.
Ancient hunger.Bottomless ambition.A mind sharpened by centuries of spellcraft and obsession.
The entity paused.
"Hm."
That single sound carried more weight than mountains.
"Ninjago contains entities that could erase you prematurely. That would be inefficient."
The void tightened around me.
"I will adjust the parameters."
Something inside me broke open.
Power didn't flow in—it detonated.
"Monstrox's abilities will be amplified several dozen times.""You will receive all forbidden spells.""Every evil grimoire. Every dark tome. Every sealed incantation."
I tried to scream.
There was no room.
Memories—not mine—flooded in.
Centuries of arcane experimentation.Ritual circles etched in blood and stone.The creation of lava beasts, stone monstrosities, living spell constructs.Failures. Triumphs. Patience measured in lifetimes.
"You will inherit Monstrox's memories, magical knowledge, talent, and lifespan."
My sense of self began to fracture under the weight of it.
"You will possess his body. His appearance. His mastery.""His methods of immortality."
I felt them slot into place—contingencies layered upon contingencies.
If my body was destroyed, I would become mist.If annihilated further, I would become the Book of Monsters itself.Knowledge made indestructible.
"You will be able to summon all lava and stone monsters at will."
The final blow came without warning.
Hundreds of years.
Not experienced gradually—forced into me all at once.
A lifetime. Then another. And another.
I felt myself drown in spell formulae, sigils, lost languages, and cosmic truths mortals were never meant to understand. My thoughts stretched, hardened, reorganized to survive the load.
Something in me changed.
Not broke.
Evolved.
At last, the pressure eased.
I floated in the void—no longer a confused human soul, but something vast and sharpened.
The entity regarded me with what might have been approval.
"You will awaken shortly.""Try not to destroy the world immediately."
The void began to collapse.
Light rushed in.
And as reality grabbed hold of me, one final thought surfaced—clear, cold, and terrifyingly calm:
The world of Ninjago has no idea what is about to be born into it.