Cassian had always hated mornings.
Not because he was lazy. He just didn't see the point in rushing through life. The world wasn't going anywhere, and people who moved like the clock was a whip never seemed to enjoy anything they were sprinting toward.
He rubbed the sleep from his eyes as his alarm buzzed for the third time. The voice of a cartoon duck cheerfully screamed that he was going to be late.
"Yeah, yeah. You've got zero chill for a duck," he muttered, slapping the phone off his desk.
Tiny apartment. Dusty window. Half-packed ramen boxes on the counter. A hoodie tossed over the back of a broken gaming chair. This was Cassian's kingdom—and honestly, he didn't hate it.
Twenty-two years old. Former university dropout turned IT intern. Social life limited to his terminally online Discord server and a half-dead cactus named Spike. Some would call him a failure. Cassian called himself efficiently invisible.
But that was fine. He liked the background. People didn't expect much from the background.
And right now, he had bigger things to think about.
Because his favorite webnovel had just updated at three in the morning, and he was still salty about the main character pulling a new bloodline out of thin air. Again.
"Of course you're secretly a triple godspawn. Why wouldn't you be," he muttered, scrolling through the comments. "Plot armor so thick it might as well be a tactical nuke."
The novel was called Divine Ascent: Rise of the Forgotten Son. Classic underdog-to-godhood story. Great worldbuilding, questionable pacing, and more bloodline ranks than a collectible card game. Cassian had started it as a joke. Stayed for the lore.
He knew the characters. The politics. The organizations. Even some of the hidden weapons that the protagonist would find two hundred chapters later.
But today wasn't about fantasy.
Today was about making it to work on time without getting chewed out by his walking corpse of a supervisor.
He dressed quickly, hoodie and jeans. Slung his bag over one shoulder. Locked the door to his apartment with the usual creak. The sky outside was clouded, city-smog gray. People bustled like ants—headphones in, eyes glazed.
Cassian slipped into the stream. Just another body in the flow.
He was halfway across the crosswalk near Fifth and Ark when everything went quiet.
Not muted.
Not distant.
Silent.
Cassian stopped walking.
He turned.
No one moved.
Not the cars. Not the people. Not even the pigeons.
It was like the entire world hit pause—except for him.
"…Huh," he said slowly. "Okay. This is new."
And then the sky split open.
Not like lightning. Like glass.
A vertical fracture carved itself across the clouds, glowing with violent, pale light. Like a sword made of lightning had slashed the air itself.
Cassian stared at it.
Not panicking. Not running.
Just watching.
Because deep down, something in him already knew this wasn't natural.
The crack widened.
And from it came a sound that wasn't a sound at all. It felt like someone whispering every name he'd ever known directly into his skull.
Cassian blinked.
And in that blink, the world vanished.
He didn't fall.
He shifted.
Like a page turning in a book, and he was the ink sliding to the next line.
He woke to silence.
Not city silence.
Real silence. Empty, vast, humming silence.
He opened his eyes.
He wasn't in his apartment.
He wasn't anywhere he recognized.
He was lying on a bed carved from obsidian, in a chamber that looked like it had been built by ancient aliens with a taste for Gothic drama. Tall windows poured in blue light. Faint glyphs floated across the air like dust motes that hadn't decided whether to be real.
Cassian sat up slowly, hands gripping unfamiliar sheets.
He took in the room, the way someone might inspect a crime scene—calm, measured, thoughtful.
Then he glanced at his hands.
They weren't wrong.
But they weren't exactly his either.
Smoother skin. Longer fingers. A certain sharpness to his bones, like someone had photoshopped the imperfections out of his body.
"…Did I die?" he asked the room.
No answer.
He swung his legs off the bed. Stood up. The air was cold against his skin, but not unpleasant.
There was a mirror across the room.
He walked to it.
And the man who stared back was like a better-drawn version of himself. Same hair, black with hints of silver that hadn't been there before. Same eyes—blue now, almost electric. Face sharp, faintly smirking even when he wasn't.
Cassian tilted his head.
"Okay," he said, voice steady. "So I look like a fan-made character sheet. And I just watched reality glitch like an unpatched MMO."
Still no answer.
Then something flickered in the air.
A status window.
Just like the ones from the novel.
[Status Window – Cassian Elor]
Race: Human
Bloodline: ???
Fate Alignment: Null Path
Class: Undesignated
Talent Limit: Unknown
Primary Attributes:
Strength: F
Agility: E
Arcane Sensitivity: D
Perception: E
Traits:
[Displaced Consciousness] — Your soul does not belong to this realm.
[Cognitive Anchor] — Retains full memory of prior existence.
[Unwritten Fate] — Immune to preordained divine threads.
Cassian stared at it.
He blinked once. Twice.
And then he laughed.
Not hysterically. Not broken.
But calmly. Dryly.
"Oh," he said. "I'm in the goddamn book."
Not fully believing it yet. Not accepting it.
But recognizing the signs.
He wasn't the protagonist. That much was clear. The name wasn't Ren. The bloodline wasn't awakened. No dramatic monologue or flashback. No god-voice guiding his destiny.
He wasn't a hero.
He wasn't a villain.
He was just… here.
In the background.
Where he'd always been.
Cassian cracked his neck.
"Well," he muttered. "Let's not break anything important. Yet."
He wasn't about to start saving kingdoms or fighting fate. He wasn't noble. He wasn't evil. He just didn't want to mess up the story—or get squashed by it.
But he knew the plot.
And for now
That was enough.