Kael didn't remember dying.
He only remembered buffering.
One second he was falling asleep on his desk, half a sandwich in his mouth, system update running on his holo-screen—
The next, everything turned blue. Not sky-blue, not sea-blue—Windows-error-blue, the color of every soul's worst nightmare.
> [System rebooting…]
[Fatal Exception Detected: DEATH PROCESS TERMINATED]
He blinked. "Wait. What?"
A soft ping echoed, and suddenly, text began typing itself midair, as if God had hired a lazy coder:
> [Death has logged out.]
[Would you like to log in instead? Y/N]
Kael stared. Then he snorted.
"Oh yeah, sure. What could possibly go wrong?"
He tapped Y.
The universe crashed.
---
When he opened his eyes again, the first thing he saw was a glowing status bar above his head.
The second was the fact that he was naked in a field of floating cubes.
The third was the woman screaming at him from across the air.
"You— you corrupted file! You're not supposed to be here yet!"
Kael blinked. "That's the first time a woman's said that to me."
Her glare could've deleted him on the spot. "You— what node are you from?"
"Earth?"
She froze. "Oh no. Oh no no no. Not another organic bug."
"Excuse me—bug?" Kael sat up, trying to cover himself with a conveniently-placed floating cube. "Listen, I was promised either reincarnation or a refund."
The woman sighed, snapping her fingers. A robe of digital static wrapped around him. "You shouldn't exist," she muttered. "Death logged out three minutes ago, and somehow, you logged in using his credentials."
Kael squinted. "So I'm… what, the new Death?"
A small chime answered for her:
> [User authenticated: Kael Varen.]
[Permission Level: ROOT ACCESS GRANTED.]
[System Alert: Reboot of Reality scheduled in 48 hours.]
She paled. "You didn't."
Kael's grin widened. "Apparently, I did."
---
The world pixel-shifted before his eyes, fragments of light rearranging into a massive city — half digital, half divine. Floating towers, rune-lit highways, clouds shaped like circuitry. And over everything, a sun made of rotating code fragments pulsed slowly, like a colossal heartbeat.
He stood at the city gate as the interface unfolded before him:
> [Welcome to EternaNet.]
[A multiversal server designed to host souls post-deletion.]
[Tutorial Mode activated.]
A floating screen popped up beside him — shaped like a cat wearing a headset.
"Congratulations, user! You've illegally accessed the Administrator Terminal!"
"Wait, so this is… heaven?"
"Heaven was discontinued after the Memory Leak of Year 9,002. You're in Version 13.2 — EternaNet: Reincarnation with optional upgrades!"
Kael pinched his nose. "Optional upgrades?"
"Yep!" the cat chirped. "You can pick a starter class, generate a body template, or—"
"I'll take all."
"All what?"
"Yes."
The cat blinked. "You can't—"
> [Command accepted.]
[Body generation merging all templates.]
[Warning: Result may violate metaphysical stability.]
Kael's body glitched. His reflection flickered through hundreds of shapes — a swordsman, a sorcerer, a cyborg, a literal blob of darkness — before finally stabilizing into something… almost human.
He flexed his fingers. Sparks of black and white energy tangled between them, like light trying to decide whether to exist.
"Nice," he murmured.
"Nice?" the cat yowled. "You're holding annihilation and creation in one hand! That's not nice — that's a lawsuit!"
Kael just smirked. "Guess I'm ambidextrous, then."
---
He wandered through the sprawling streets of EternaNet, where souls traded data like gold and angels rode code-streams like hoverboards. Vendors yelled out:
"Fresh memories for sale! Half price on heroic regrets!"
"Upgrade your halo today—limited bandwidth!"
Kael passed by an alley glowing with neon glyphs. He caught fragments of conversation:
"Did you hear? The System's been unstable since Death went missing."
"Yeah. Rumor says the Reboot's coming. Whole universe getting wiped clean again."
Kael's grin faded. "Reboot?"
The cat bobbed beside him. "Yep. Reality runs on cycles. When too many errors pile up — corruption, paradoxes, mortals refusing to die — it resets. Total wipe."
"And I have root access," Kael said slowly.
"Which means," the cat said, "you could stop it."
Kael turned to look at the burning code-sun above. It pulsed again, slower this time, like a dying heart.
For the first time, something inside him stirred — not fear, but familiarity. Like he'd been here before. Like this wasn't his first login.
---
That night, he found a quiet rooftop and pulled up his interface.
> [User: Kael Varen]
[Title: ???]
[Skill Trees: ALL LOCKED]
[System Integrity: 1.4% (critical)]
[Root Command Line Available]
He typed without knowing why:
> /trace death.log
The screen flickered. For a heartbeat, the stars vanished. Then a single message appeared:
> [Last Logout Detected: User "DEATH" manually transferred access.]
[Recipient: Kael Varen.]
[Attached Message: "Finish what I couldn't."]
The screen shattered into static.
Kael sat back, staring at the night. "Finish what you couldn't, huh?"
The cat tilted its head. "You gonna do it?"
Kael's grin returned — sharper this time. "I don't even know what I'm finishing. But if Death logged out…" He cracked his knuckles. "Then I guess it's my turn to play admin."
Above him, the sun of code dimmed another shade. A single line of red text appeared across the sky:
> [System Alert: Entity 'Kael Varen' identified as Unauthorized Override.]
[Purge Protocol initializing.]
Thousands of eyes opened in the heavens.
And Kael smiled up at them.
"Finally," he said, "something fun."