Mark always figured he'd die in some pathetic way.
Not that he dwelled on it. It was more of an objective fact, like knowing it rains in April or that the coffee from the machine always tastes like dishwater. Stress-induced heart attack. Run over while checking his phone. Something like that.
He never thought it'd be because he couldn't shut the fuck up.
The night was cold and damp. The kind of night that feels personally designed by someone with a grudge against humanity. Or against Mark. Same thing, really.
He'd just left the office. His boss, wearing that shit-eating grin he probably practiced in front of the mirror, had dropped the restructuring bomb. His services were no longer needed. Ten years. Ten fucking years stuffed into a cardboard box next to a anime figure nobody had given him.
The alley was a shortcut. He'd taken it a thousand times. But this time there was something different.
A silhouette, pressed against the wall.
"Give me everything you've got," the shadow said.
Young voice. Nervous. The gun trembled. Not much, but enough for Mark to know he was a rookie.
Probably his first mugging.
Any other day Mark would've cooperated. Would've handed over his empty wallet, his cracked-screen phone, and kept walking. But that night. That night something broke. Not a click. A real break, like a bone that never sets right.
"You know what?" Mark said. His own voice sounded strange. Calm. Like he was talking about someone else. "If you're gonna shoot, just shoot already."
The thief blinked.
"What?"
"I just got fired," Mark went on, like he was discussing the weather. "I don't have a girlfriend because my ex left me six months ago for some guy who does yoga. I don't have money because it all went to debt. I'm getting evicted next month."
The thief lowered the gun. Just a little. But he lowered it.
"Dude, I just want the wallet—"
"The only decent thing I have," Mark cut him off, and let out a laugh that came out bitterer than he expected, "is my videogame account. Level one hundred. Legendary gear. A thousand hours invested. That's the best thing in my life. Do you realize how pathetic that is?"
"Just the wallet, man."
"Honestly? Better off dead."
The silence thickened. Mark saw the confusion in the kid's eyes, the way his brain tried to process whether this was a trap or if he'd just stumbled into the most miserable bastard on the planet.
Maybe I overdid it, he thought. But he didn't feel much regret.
BANG.
The sound bounced off the walls like a trapped animal. Mark felt the impact before the pain. A dull punch to the chest, a pressure shoving him backward. His feet searched for the ground and didn't find it.
Shit, he actually shot me.
That was his last coherent thought.
Then, black.
There was no up or down. No cold or heat. Just an infinite void stretching in every direction. Mark floated in it. Aware, but bodiless. In a state that defied all logic.
Well, shit. Guess this is death.
No tunnel of light. No angels, no demons. Just nothing.
A nothing so absolute it was almost comforting. Like coming home after a very long trip, even if the house was empty and no one cared you were back.
Maybe I went too far with my response, he reflected. Technically I didn't ask him to shoot. I just said I'd be better off dead. That's not the same. There's a nuance.
Time lost all meaning. Seconds, centuries. Didn't matter.
And then, a voice.
"Well, well, well. Another suicide."
The voice was weird. Not male or female. Not young or old. It was like the abstract concept of "voice" had decided to manifest without bothering to pick specific traits.
"Technically it wasn't suicide," Mark protested. "I got shot."
"You deliberately provoked an armed individual after expressing your desire to die. That counts."
"That's a very liberal interpretation of the facts."
"I'm a cosmic entity," the voice said. "I can interpret the facts however the fuck I want."
Mark would've sighed if he still had lungs.
"Fine. So what now? Hell? Reincarnated as a cockroach? Eternal nothingness?"
"Hm. Let me check your file."
A pause. So theatrically deliberate it was almost insulting.
"Oh, interesting. You're not particularly bad. Not particularly good either. You're mediocre."
"Thanks, I guess."
"Mediocrity is boring. Heaven doesn't want you because you didn't do anything memorable. Hell doesn't want you because you didn't do anything terrible. You're the spiritual equivalent of a glass of lukewarm water."
"Is there a point to any of this?"
"The point is: I have an opening. A world that needs. Let's say, a bit of controlled chaos. And you, my dear accidental suicide, are going to fill it."
"Wait, what?"
"Enjoy your new life. Try not to die quite so pathetically this time."
"Wait! I didn't agree to anything! You can't just—"
But the voice had already faded, and with it, the darkness began to crack like a mirror someone had kicked in.
Mark opened his eyes.
The first thing he registered was pain. A dull, throbbing ache that seemed to radiate from every fiber of his being.
The second, the smell. Damp, mold, and something metallic he vaguely recognized as dried blood.
He sat up slowly. His joints protested. He was in a cave. Or something like it. The walls were old brick, covered in moss and dark stains he preferred not to examine too closely.
Where the fuck…?
His hands. Something was wrong with his hands.
Mark brought them to his face. The fingers weren't his.
Longer. Paler. And on the back of his left hand, a tattoo he knew very well glowed with a faint purple light.
No fucking way.
Heart—did he even still have a heart?—racing, he looked for something reflective. A puddle of stagnant water near the wall would have to do.
The face staring back wasn't his.
It was his videogame character's face.
Jet-black hair. Violet eyes. Sharp features. All those hours he'd spent adjusting jaw, cheekbones, the curve of the eyebrows.
"You son of a bitch," he muttered. The voice that came out was deeper, more resonant than his own. "He actually did it."
Mark. Or whoever he was now. Slid down against the damp wall.
He was in his character's body.
A level one hundred necromancer named. Well. He'd named him DarkLord69. He was fifteen when he made the account and thought it was funny. He'd thought it was funny. Ten years dragging that name around like a sentence.
Please don't let anyone ask my name. Please.
But there was a problem. A very big problem.
In the game, his character was level one hundred. Here, when he tried to mentally access his status. What he found was very different.
[Status]
Name: Mark
Class: Necromancer
Level: 1
Rank: F
Skills: Wake Up (Lv. 1)
"Rank F?" he blurted. "Level one? What kind of cosmic scam is this?"
The entity, of course, didn't respond.
Mark stared at the stone ceiling. The reality of his situation settled in his stomach like a stone. Dead weight.
He was in an unknown world. In a body that wasn't his. With the power of an absolute beginner. And his only skill was called Wake Up.
"Well," he muttered, with the tone of someone who's already accepted the universe has it out for him. "At least it can't get worse."
Somewhere deeper in the dungeon, something roared.
"...Had to open my fucking mouth."