This… wasn't a hospital room.
The bed was too low, too hard. The mattress underneath me creaked with springs, not foam. Each time I shifted, it made this dry, metallic whine like something ancient being disturbed. There were no monitors. No IVs. No beeping heart rate machines or soft footsteps in the hallway. Just a wooden nightstand with a chipped glass of water and a single dim lamp that buzzed faintly like it was ready to die any second. The walls were off-white—no, yellowed. Like paper soaked in time. There was a window, but it was boarded up from the outside. Not nailed shut—just blocked. As if someone wanted to keep the outside out. Or keep me in.
The air was stale, filled with dust and something faintly metallic. Like rust. Or blood. The floor was wood, too, worn down by years of footsteps and something else—something dragged. The room was bare but somehow felt... used. Occupied. Like someone had been here before me, and maybe left in a hurry. Or didn't leave at all.
I wasn't in a hospital.
I wasn't even sure I was in a real room.
This place felt… off. Like it was halfway real and halfway something else. Like a memory someone had tried to forget, but couldn't quite erase.
My skin crawled.
Was this… a morgue?
No. Too warm. Too lived-in.
A shelter?
A trap?
A dream?
My fingers twitched against the coarse blanket. I needed to get up. I needed to move. I needed to know.
I braced myself, slowly swung my legs off the bed. Pain flared. Not a scream, but a dull roar of discomfort that washed over my body like a tide. Every joint, every muscle, every damn nerve screamed at me. My foot hit the ground—bare, cold wood. Splinters danced beneath my heel. I put some weight on it. Not great. Not even good. But I could stand.
Barely.
I wobbled like a drunk deer, catching myself on the edge of the nightstand. The lamp almost toppled. My fingers dug into the wood just to stay upright. I took a deep breath, tasted dust and something that might've been rot, and looked around again.
Still no machines. No wires.
No sign that I was ever in a crash—except my body.
It didn't make sense.
The memories came back in flashes. Metal crushing inward. Glass slicing through air. The sound of bones snapping. The taste of blood. The cold.
I remember dying.
I didn't pass out. I died. That truck hit the side I was sitting on. There was no surviving that. I remember my ribs caving. I remember my leg getting pierced by something jagged and unforgiving. I remember floating.
And yet here I was. Standing. Breathing.
Hurting.
I hobbled to the door. Old, wooden, with a rusted doorknob that looked like it had tetanus built into it. My hand hesitated just before touching it. A chill ran down my spine. Something about the room—no, this whole place—felt wrong. Like it was... watching me.
I gripped the knob.
Twisted.
It turned easily.
But I didn't open it. Not yet.
Because just then, something clicked in my head.
I wasn't supposed to be alive.
And yet, I was.
Not in a hospital.
Not in a morgue.
Not even in pain the way I should've been.
The truck hit me dead on. It tore through the car like a beast starved for carnage. My body folded in ways no body should fold. I felt my ribs snap. My skull hit the glass. I died.
I know I died.
But I was standing here.
And suddenly, all those thoughts I'd had before—about heaven, hell, reincarnation, endless voids—they all seemed too... simple.
Because whatever this was?
It wasn't death.
And it wasn't life.
It was something else. Something in between. Something that didn't have a name yet.
And strangely, it didn't scare me.
That thought settled over me like a warm coat in a snowstorm. A weird comfort in the face of the unknown. Maybe it was shock. Maybe I was broken. Maybe I was dreaming. But right then, I didn't care.
With that final thought, my vision blurred and I crumpled to the floor, my body giving out like a puppet with its strings cut.
"Are you sure he woke up?"
"Well, I saw him in front of the door. Unconscious."
"Are you sure someone didn't just leave him there?"
"But the door was locked."
Voices. Young, feminine, half-whispers.
My head throbbed like someone was beating a war drum inside my skull. I felt like I'd been hit by a truck. Well, technically, I had. So I guess it checked out.
I blinked slowly. My eyelids felt like sandpaper. My tongue was dry. My limbs ached. My ribs hummed with a dull pressure, not quite pain, but a firm reminder that I shouldn't be alive.
My eyes fluttered open. Blurry shapes came into focus. Three faces hovered above me. Girls—young, maybe thirteen at most—regarding me with wide, curious eyes. They looked like they'd been waiting for me to wake up, like I was some experiment they were monitoring.
And as soon as it was confirmed that I was awake, they started talking again—fast, chaotic, overlapping like kids on too much sugar.
"See? I told you he was alive."
"Huh. I guess you were right after all."
"Why do you sound so surprised?!"
"You're not right a lot of the time."
"What does that mean?!"
"You're… quite thick."
"How dare you?!"
Their words flew like bullets. If I had any energy, I might've laughed. Actually… I did.
A weak chuckle escaped me, then a wince. The pain still lingered. The ache reminded me that I wasn't quite healed, wherever the hell I was.
"Stop shouting, you idiot! His head's probably aching and you're making it worse!" one of the girls snapped, and the other two immediately fell silent like scolded puppies.
Now that they stopped yammering, I actually got a good look at them. And… huh.
They looked similar. Too similar.
Identical.
The only difference was their hair color. One had jet black hair, another had rich brown, and the last one had a wild mess of blonde curls. It was eerie. Uncanny. Like a glitch in a video game.
My brain ticked once. Then twice.
This was familiar.
"By... by any chance," I rasped, "are your names Blackie, Brownie, and Blondie?"
The girls blinked.
"Yes," said the black-haired one, eyeing me like I'd grown another head. "Don't you already know our names?"
"Lorien's probably messing with you," said the brunette, smirking. "You're not funny, big bro."
"Lorien?" I muttered. The name pinged through my memory like a grenade through fog.
Lorien.
That wasn't just a random name.
That was a name from my novel.
And then, just like that, it clicked.
I burst into laughter.
Loud, hoarse, manic laughter that tore through my throat like fire and didn't stop. The girls stared like I'd gone mad. Maybe I had.
It seemed the universe actually really hated me. Instead of granting me the sweet release of death, it had given me one of the most cliché endings known to mankind.
I'd been transmigrated into my novel.
The same novel I wrote when I was depressed, bitter, and trying to escape everything. A world filled with gods and demons, broken magic, broken people—my twisted little sandbox of sorrow and mayhem.
Joke's on the universe though.
I didn't care.
I'd spent my entire life in a world that hated me, cursed me, spat in my face every chance it got. I'd been born unloved. Raised unwanted. Beaten. Neglected. Forgotten. Even my death hadn't been peaceful.
But now?
Now, I was out.
I was free.
I threw my head back and laughed, even as pain sparked behind my eyes.
"I'm finally fucking free!" I shouted in between breaths. "I've escaped! I've finally escaped! HAHAHAHAHA!"
The three girls stared at me like I was nuts.
Maybe I was.
But for the first time in my life...
I didn't care.
Because for the first time in my life, the rules were mine.
And I wasn't going back.