Chapter One: The Last Line
The sky was gray over London, and fog hung over the alleys as if history itself were whispering in his ear. Mark Henry, a man in his sixties, sat at his antique wooden table, his weary back hunched over his latest notebook. The room was eerily quiet, save for the scrape of pen against paper.
"Maybe... that's all it is," Mark said to himself as he scribbled the last line. "Humans don't learn. They just repeat the same wars with different faces."
He took a deep breath, then closed his eyes. His body had been betraying him for years, but tonight he felt something different. His heart had quietly failed him... and he slumped back onto the table.
Darkness.
---
When he opened his eyes, he found no floor beneath him, no ceiling above him. Only a dark space with a distant light shining, like a watching eye.
A deep voice, unspoken or merely felt, spoke:
"Mark Henry... you are now outside of time."
Mark looked around. "Am I... dead?"
"Dead? Yes. From your world? You no longer belong there."
"What is this? Is this heaven? Hell? Or just a trick?"
The entity replied. "None of what you know. I am an entity that entertains those who fall into its hands. You are now my plaything."
Mark frowned. "A plaything? Are you mocking the life of a man who has spent his life studying history?"
"Rather, I am testing you, Mark. I will ask you: Do you want to live again?"
Mark fell silent. He could have said yes right away... but he wasn't that type. He kept thinking, staring into the nothingness around him.
"If there was a chance... to live in a different world... a world I don't know, a world built from scratch, perhaps..."
The entity interrupted him. "You only have three wishes. Choose carefully."
Mark, in a low voice, said, "Three?"
He kept thinking, his mind revolving around the thousands of stories he'd read, the thousands of characters who'd studied kingdoms, wars, and ambitions.
"I want... to be a skilled swordsman."
The entity replied, "First wish, accepted."
Mark continued thinking, "And I want a quick-learning mind. I don't want to remain ignorant in the middle of a new world."
"Second, accepted."
Mark paused, staring into space. "But... I don't want to be reincarnated if I die there. I want my god to judge me, not you."
A long silence. The entity looked angry.
"A third wish... rare. But... I'll accept."
Mark smiled sarcastically. "So be it. Now what?"
The entity replied, "Now... my game begins."
Before disappearing, the entity whispered, "Immortals won't be okay anymore."
---
Then Mark vanished in a beam of light. The beginning wasn't the end... but the birth of a storm.