Chapter 1: The Fall of an Ordinary Life
It was the dead of winter in Tokyo. The streets were quiet, dusted with a thin layer of snow that crunched underfoot as people hurried home. For Haruya Kuroda, a 28-year-old office worker, the night was no different from countless others he had experienced. He lived a life measured in routine: wake, commute, work, return, repeat. Office deadlines, endless paperwork, the hum of fluorescent lights—this was his existence, and it had grown as monotonous as the frozen air that filled the streets tonight.
Haruya's day had dragged longer than usual. An unexpected overtime assignment at the office kept him chained to his desk until well past eight in the evening. His colleagues had already left, leaving the office eerily silent except for the soft hum of computers and the distant echo of a janitor sweeping the empty corridors. Finally, he packed up his things, his shoulders sore and stiff, and stepped out into the winter night.
The city felt different tonight—quieter, colder, emptier. Haruya pulled his coat tighter around himself as he walked down the familiar streets, the neon lights from convenience stores reflecting off the thin snow. He decided to stop by a vending machine near his office to grab a hot drink. The warmth of the can in his gloved hands was small comfort against the biting chill. Sipping the drink, he felt the heat crawl down his throat and momentarily awaken him from the haze of fatigue.
Normally, he would have taken the main road home, but tonight he made a decision that would change everything. The main roads were long, and he felt unusually impatient. The city was empty, save for a few distant silhouettes disappearing into the shadows. On an impulse, he decided to take a shortcut—a small path that cut through a nearby hill that was lightly covered in snow. Haruya told himself it would save him time, maybe ten minutes, but little did he know how fatal those ten minutes would be.
The slope of the hill was steeper than it looked, the snow making each step treacherous. His boots slipped occasionally, sending him scrambling for balance. He was halfway up the incline when he took another step—a single miscalculated movement that sent him sliding uncontrollably. He tumbled down the snow-covered slope, the cold biting through his coat and gloves, his body rolling and sliding like a leaf caught in a winter storm.
Haruya's mind raced as the ground rushed toward him, a blur of white and brown. Panic gripped him, but there was no time to think, no chance to correct his trajectory. Then, with horrifying clarity, he realized where he was headed: a highway that cut past the base of the small mountain. Cars were passing in the distance, headlights glowing like predator eyes in the dark. Before he could even scream, the world seemed to slow. A car came racing toward him at that exact moment. The collision was violent. Pain exploded through his body as he struck the vehicle, the impact throwing him away from it with terrifying force.
Everything went black.
In those final moments of consciousness, Haruya's mind seemed to separate from his body. He felt weightless, as if his very existence had been reduced to nothing more than memories. The monotony of his life flashed before him: endless workdays, the fluorescent glow of office lights, the empty apartment he returned to each night, the silence that greeted him where friends or family might have been. He realized, with a pang of bitter clarity, that his life had been… insignificant. Alone in a city that never truly noticed him, he had lived, and now he was dying, a life that had been ordinary in every possible way, ending in the most mundane of tragedies.
And then darkness consumed him.
When Haruya opened his eyes again, it was not to the chaos of the street, the blaring horns, or the pain of shattered bones. Instead, he found himself in an unfamiliar space. His body felt heavy, yet oddly intact, as if he had somehow escaped the brutality of his accident. He blinked repeatedly, trying to take in his surroundings.
He was lying on a massive bed, one that looked far too large for a single person. The sheets were soft, pristine, and impossibly white. The room around him was lavish beyond comprehension. Rich pink walls adorned with intricate patterns, golden accents on every piece of furniture, and a huge window draped with heavy curtains that swayed gently despite the stillness of the air. Glass chandeliers hung from the ceiling, reflecting the light like a constellation frozen indoors. Every object in the room spoke of wealth, of luxury, of a life far removed from the ordinary existence he had known in Tokyo.
Haruya's mind struggled to comprehend it. "Where… am I?" he whispered to himself. His voice sounded foreign in the cavernous room. He tried to move, and as his hands brushed against the silky sheets, reality struck him with cold, shocking clarity: he was alive. Somehow, impossibly, he was alive.
But that realization brought with it a chilling question: how?
He forced himself to sit up, the bed surprisingly comfortable as it supported his weight. Looking around, he noticed details he would never have noticed before: the delicate patterns etched into the walls, the small trinkets of gold and porcelain on the shelves, the faint scent of flowers perfuming the room. It wasn't a hospital. There were no machines, no sterile smells, no sense of medical intervention. This was… something else entirely.
Haruya pressed a hand to his chest, feeling the steady thrum of his heartbeat. His brain refused to catch up, running on instinct and confusion. "I… I died," he muttered. "I was hit… the car… I—"
He paused, struggling to articulate the impossibility of his situation. His death in Tokyo had been real. The accident, the fall, the collision—they had been fatal. Yet here he was, breathing, whole, alive in a room that seemed more like a palace than a bedroom.
The world he had known—the dull routines, the loneliness, the endless winter nights—seemed like a lifetime ago. And yet, the weight of it lingered in his chest. He was still processing, still reeling from the stark contrast between his previous existence and the one he now occupied.
Haruya's thoughts spiraled. Was this a dream? A coma? Did I survive somehow? He tried to piece together the sequence of events, but nothing made sense. The last thing he remembered was the car, the highway, the snow, and then… nothing. Now, he was here, in this unfamiliar, luxurious room, alive but completely unmoored from reality.
As he sat there, taking in the enormity of his surroundings, he realized a profound truth: nothing about his life from before mattered anymore. Tokyo, his office, his lonely apartment—all of it had been left behind. He had been given something impossible, a second chance, though in what form or for what purpose, he had no idea.
And so, amidst the silence of the lavish room, Haruya Kuroda began to awaken to a new reality—one that promised confusion, challenge, and a life unlike any he had ever imagined.
He did not yet know the rules of this world, the family he belonged to, or the strange fate that awaited him. But one thing was certain: his ordinary life in Tokyo was gone forever.
This was only the beginning.