CHAPTER 1 — Did You Ever Choose?
Most people live their lives on a path they choose.
Mine... it always felt like it belonged to someone else.
I wasn't miserable. That would've at least meant I cared. I didn't care, I learned not to. Mostly, I just… endured things. I showed up. I listened. I nodded when people talked at me, and didn't complain. There wasn't a point to.
My whole life It felt like I was just drifting. I never had a dream or a goal. I never knew what I wanted for life, I mean I didn't ask for this, to be brought into this world. Yet, here I was so I just went with the flow.
I took the first job that fell into my lap, because wanting something better felt like a luxury for other people.
Even my name — Kyree — wasn't chosen. My mother picked it because she wanted a girl named Kylee. Only when she had a boy she just changed the L to a R.
She said that made it sound cool. But the bullies thought differently. It's funny, but it wasn't just my mother, growing up the men my mother would bring home would boss me around, or hit me. One of them even stole all the money from the part time job I had.
And the bullies at schools... I never even managed to eat for lunch without getting messed with at school.
But that was just my nature: make things easier for others, even if it made my own life smaller. Even when I turned 18 and and after my mother died in an accident and i finally was living on my own. I worked full time and that was nearly enough to pay rent and the bills. I didn't have any savings, just living paycheck to paycheck.
Just drifting along, day to day. Letting life pass me by.
That morning started like most of my mornings did: tired, resigned, and already behind schedule because my phone was full of messages from my boss.
Shit Head Boss: Come in early. Need you to look at something. Hurry.
No "please."
No he'd never say please. That man was just a shit head who only cared about fattening his own pocket book. He had ridiculous expectations.... And, like always, I moved to meet them.
I worked maintenance for a mid-sized construction company — the kind that cared more about meeting deadlines than following regulations. I wasn't trained for half the jobs I ended up doing, but someone had to do them, and I needed the money.
So I didn't care if things were a bit unregulated, since I got paid under the table. Meaning I saved on taxes—since I just didn't pay them—but it also meant I got texts at 5am from the shit head about doing something I wasn't trained for.
I told myself it was temporary. That someday I'd figure out what I actually wanted from life. But temporary things have a habit of becoming permanent when you don't make choices. Especially since I didn't even know where to start. I was 18, with a high school diploma, but no motivation to go to college. So here I was working a dead end construction gig.
When I got to the site, the first thing I noticed was the crane— the one set for operations next week—was on and it was already lifting a crate.
It wasn't supposed to be running.
Hell half the crew wasn't even here yet since morning shift didn't start till 7. The operator was a subcontractor I'd never seen before — a jittery guy with sleep-deprived eyes and a "get it done" attitude that usually made more a mess than help.
My boss, of course, was standing beneath him, shouting instructions like he was trying to speedrun a safety hazard.
I walked over, rubbing my eyes. "Morning. What's going on? I thought we weren't lifting anything today."
My boss waved a clipboard without looking at me. "Change of plans. We're behind schedule. I need that crate moved now. Go check the release latch on the lower rig — it seems sticky and we need this done, yesterday."
"No one signed off on the load test yet," I said quietly, the crane wasn't set up for proper usage. But my comment wasn't ment as an argument. It was never an argument. Just a timid fact tossed into the void.
He gave me a look I knew too well. The don't make this difficult look.
I sighed and turned t the crate. Swallowing whatever protests I wanted to form and walked beneath the suspended crate.
It was big — six tons at least — hanging higher than usual because the operator couldn't get a clean pivot angle. The air hummed with tension, metal vibrating above me like a held breath.
I crouched beside the lower rig and put a hand on the mechanism.
the metal was cold, and cover in a gritty, dark substance. I sighed. This was definitely jammed.
"Hey!" I called up. "Don't move anything yet! The latch isn't—"
The crane jerked.
Not much — only an inch or so. The guy probably just let go the control stick and gave it a little wiggle. Nothing much— but just enough.
A metallic crack split the air, faster than I could realize what happened. Something whisked across my vision and I heard a deep groan. It felt... wrong. Every muscle in my body tensed.
Someone shouted. Someone swore. And as if on instinct I looked up—
The world slowed.
The massive crate had shifted, tilting with the lazy inevitability of a falling moon. The cable must've not been attached properly because I could see the crate starting to fall.
I didn't have time to run. I didn't have time to think. All I had was one clean, painful thought flash in my mind:
I'm going to die because people couldn't be bothered to listen. Because I didn't speak loudly enough, and say no. Because my whole life was built around avoiding conflict… instead of choosing anything of my own, i just decided it was easier to agree to what others told me... Hahaha well if there's a next life... I'll be free. I'll do whatever I want.
The crate fell.
There was pain for a heartbeat — sharp, blinding, crushing pain. Then nothing.
___________________________________________
Static crackles.A faint voice pushes through the radio.
"We're following breaking news this morning… a fatal workplace accident at the Eastbridge construction site."
A second anchor joins in, voice calm and clinical.
"Authorities report that an eighteen-year-old employee was killed when an unsecured crate fell during an unscheduled lift operation."
Papers shuffle. A muted sigh.
"Early statements indicate the lift was conducted without proper authorization. The victim was reportedly working unlicensed in an area that should have been cleared."
The first voice had shifted in tone — a forced neutrality, barely masking irritation.
"This incident raises renewed questions about workplace safety regulations and oversight. Representatives from Larken & Co. Construction deny responsibility, claiming the employee 'should not have been in a danger zone.'"
A brief pause. Then the final line:
"OSHA officials are expected to open an investigation later this week. On other news, the Solar Salamanders won their game last night with a score of..."
The report fades, as the broadcast continues with the sporting events the previous evening.It felt cold, distant, almost procedural.
Like the world already moved on. And in truth... It had.
___________________________________________
The afterlife, it turns out, looked nothing like the stories.
It was light. A restless, shifting, flickering light — like the world was being constantly unmade and remade around me. The light wasn't a singular color, it was all the colors— none of the colors?
The bright light then seemed to snap in to place, like I could just see and make sense of the world around me.
Before me a figure lounged in it as if reclining on a couch only he could see. they had a shape like a human, but it wasn't stable, their from seemed to flicker and warp at the edge. Their features rearranged whenever I tried to focus on them — a face one moment, a storm the next.
"Mortal... I welcome you to my realm."
Their voice wasn't sound. It was power, like the air nudging thoughts into place.
"You lived your entire life obeying," They said thoughtfully. "A quiet little boy. A convenient loyal puppy. A invisible cog in a larger machine. You bent for everything around you… and somehow expected things not to snap." she sounded almost curious? Amused?
I opened my mouth — or whatever passed for one here — but nothing came out.
They chuckled. A brittle, crystalline sound like glass shattering inward.
"You want to protest. But you won't. Even now, you hesitate." Their mismatched eyes drifted toward me, bright like burning suns. "You spent your whole life letting other people choose for you. And even at the end, you were powerless to take action because of someone else's chains around your neck."
The figure was before me now, I could feel a sense of comfort someone from them, but also power. It was weird, I tried to move to look at my body, but I was nothing. I seemed like was a floating ball of light.
I bristled, I wanted to ask questions. I wanted to demand answers. But I didn't reply. I just stared at the unknown figure.
The figure leaned in, and suddenly they looked almost human — a mosaic of a thousand expressions flickering over the same impossible face.
"Tell me, Kyree," he murmured. "Once — just once — did you ever do something simply because you wanted to? Did you ever choose to live?"
I thought about it, and searched myself for an answer. For a moment I could point to.
Just one time where I took action not because mother told me, or I was ordered to by my bullies. But just one time where I acted because I wanted to?
...nothing came.
The silence stretched. I couldn't respond and the figure— god? I wasn't sure but it seemed like they knew enough about my life so I'm sure they also already knew this.
They smiled... it was a slow and satisfied smile — like a gambler seeing a winning hand.
"Well," they said softly, "let's fix that."
The light around the figure seemed to fold in on itself. The world snapped.
And something pulled me downward, into cold, into flesh, into fear—
_________________________________________________
I gasped.
Except it wasn't a gasp. It was a squeak.
Snow pressed against my fur.... Fur?
Fur I shouldn't have. I looked down at my hands only to see little white paws.
I froze.
I immediate panic and look up and around me. The world towered above me — trees like giants, the shadows deep and dangerous, as snow seemed to coat the ground as far as the eye can see.
My heart thudded so fast I thought it might burst.
A chime echoed inside my skull.
[Reincarnation Complete]
Congratulations Kyree!
Species: Snowbound Hare
Level: 1
Before I could even process what was going on I head a rustle, not close. But something was out there, and as soon as I realize that—
Another chime.
[First Quest: Survive 24 Hours]
Reward: +1 Physique
I felt my whiskers tremble. My legs tensed.
What the fuck