Mark had always known he was going to die in some ridiculous way.
A heart attack at forty. A slip in the bathtub. Getting run over because his mind wandered while staring at his phone.
He never thought it would be because he couldn't keep his mouth shut.
That night was the worst kind of cold—the damp kind that soaks into your soul before it soaks into your clothes. Mark felt it the moment he stepped out of the office with his cardboard box tucked under his arm.
Ten years of his life packed into a box.
Funny, really.
He could still hear his boss's voice rattling around in his head.
"Company restructuring.""Your services will no longer be necessary."
And that idiot smile the man had probably practiced in the mirror.
Ten years. Ten years of his life thrown in the trash with a handshake and good luck.
The alley was a shortcut he'd taken a thousand times. Always the same, always fine.
That night, though, a silhouette was waiting in the shadows.
"Give me everything you've got."
Young voice. Nervous. The gun trembled in his hand just enough to make it obvious this was his first mugging. Probably his first time, maybe his last, depending on how this went.
Any other night, Mark would've cooperated. Empty wallet, cracked-screen phone, and keep walking. No drama.
But that night…
That night something snapped inside him.
"You know what?" he said, and his own voice sounded strange to him. Too calm. "If you're going to shoot, then shoot already."
The thief blinked. "What?"
"I just got fired," Mark continued, in the tone of someone discussing the weather. "I don't have a girlfriend because mine left six months ago for a guy who does yoga. I don't have money because it all went to paying off debt. Next month I'm getting kicked out of my apartment because I can't make rent."
The kid lowered the gun slightly, clearly unsure what to do with that information.
"Hey, man, I just want—"
"The only decent thing I've got," Mark cut in, with a laugh he didn't quite recognize as his own, "is my videogame account. Level 100, legendary gear, a thousand hours invested. That is, literally, the best thing in my life. Do you have any idea how pathetic that is?"
"Look, just give me the wallet and—"
"Honestly, I'd be better off dead."
The silence that followed was thick. Uncomfortable.
Mark could see the confusion in the kid's eyes, the way his brain was trying to figure out if this was some kind of trap or if he'd just found the most miserable man on the planet.
Maybe I went a little too far, he thought, feeling something vaguely resembling regret.
BANG.
The sound was deafening in the narrow alley.
He felt the impact before the pain—a dull punch to the chest that sent him staggering backward.
Son of a bitch, he actually shot me, was his last coherent thought before the world went dark.
—
The darkness was absolute.
No up or down. No cold or heat. Just an infinite void stretching in every direction.
Mark floated inside it—aware, but bodiless—existing in a state that made absolutely no logical sense.
Well... Guess this is death.
No tunnel of light. No angels. No demons. Just… nothing.
A nothing so complete it was almost comforting.
Maybe I pushed it a little too far, he reflected, feeling something faintly resembling regret. Though technically I never asked him to shoot. I just said I'd be better off dead. That's not the same as "please kill me." There's an important nuance there.
Time lost all meaning. Seconds or centuries—it didn't matter.
And then, a voice echoed through the void.
"Well, well, well. Another suicide."
The voice was… strange. Not male or female. Not young or old. It was like the very concept of "voice" had decided to show up without bothering to pick any specific traits.
"Technically it wasn't suicide," Mark protested. "I got shot."
"You deliberately provoked an armed individual after expressing your desire to die. That counts."
"That is a very liberal interpretation of the facts."
"I'm a cosmic entity. I interpret the facts however I damn well please."
Mark would've sighed if he still had lungs.
"Fine. So what now? Hell? Reincarnation as a cockroach? Eternal nothingness?"
"Hm. Let me check your file…"
Pause. Theatrically long. Almost insulting.
"Oh, interesting. You're not particularly bad. Also not particularly good. You're… mediocre."
"Thanks, I guess."
"Mediocrity is boring. Heaven doesn't want you because you did nothing memorable. Hell doesn't want you because you did nothing terrible. You are the spiritual equivalent of a glass of lukewarm water."
"Is there a point to any of this?"
"The point is: I have an opening. A world that needs… let's say, a bit of controlled chaos. And you, my dear accidental suicide, are going to fill it."
"Wait, what?"
"Enjoy your new life. Try not to die quite as pathetically this time."
"Wait! I didn't agree to anything! You can't just—!"
But the voice had already faded, and with it, the darkness began to crack apart like shattered glass.
—
Mark opened his eyes.
The first thing he registered was pain. Dull, throbbing, radiating from every single part of him.
The second was the smell: damp, mold, and something metallic he recognized as dried blood.
He sat up slowly, joints protesting with every movement.
He was in a cave—or something like one. Ancient brick walls covered in moss and dark stains he decided not to examine too closely.
Where the hell…?
His hands.
Something was wrong with his hands.
He raised them in front of his face and went still.
The fingers weren't his. Longer. Paler.
And on the back of his left hand, a tattoo he knew very well glowed with a faint violet light.
No way.
Heart pounding—did he still have a heart?—he scrambled desperately for something reflective. A puddle of stagnant water near the wall would do.
The face staring back at him wasn't his.
It was his videogame character's face.
Jet-black hair. Unnatural violet eyes. Sharp features he'd spent hours customizing in the character creator.
"That bastard," he muttered—and the voice that came out was deeper, more resonant than his own. "He actually did it."
Mark—or whoever he was now—slumped against the damp wall, processing.
He was in his videogame character's body.
A level 100 necromancer named… well.
He'd named him "DarkLord69" because he'd been fifteen when he made the account and thought it was funny at the time.
Please don't let anyone ask my name. Please.
But there was a problem. A big one.
In the game, his character was level 100.
Here, though, when he tried to mentally access his status… what he found was very different.
[Status]
Name: Mark
Class: Necromancer
Level: 1
Rank: F
Skills: Wake Up (Lv. 1)
"Rank F?" he blurted. "Level one? What kind of cosmic scam is this?"
The entity, of course, didn't respond.
Mark stared at the stone ceiling, letting the reality of his situation settle in his gut like a dead weight.
Unknown world. A body that wasn't his. The power of a complete beginner.
And his only skill was called "Wake Up."
"Well," he muttered to himself, in the tone of someone who had fully accepted that the universe hated him personally, "at least it can't get any worse."
From somewhere deeper in the dungeon, something roared.
"…I had to open my mouth."