In the city of Evergreen, everything was peaceful. Kids went to school normally, parents headed to their jobs, traffic flowed as usual—calm, but not eerily so. Just like any other day.
In a nearby apartment complex on the bottom floor, a teenager opened his eyes and looked around. He turned off his beeping alarm and quickly got out of bed. Grabbing his phone from the nightstand, he checked the time—nearly 9:00 AM. He was late, and his teachers would grill him for it.
He dressed quickly, brushed his teeth, grabbed a slice of toast for breakfast, and ran out the door. Racing across the street, he tried to make it to school as fast as possible. Cars sped by; some even stopped to let the young boy pass. One driver rolled down his window and told the teenager to hurry up—after all, he was holding up traffic. No one understood why a teenager was running in the middle of the road, but after a few shouts from annoyed drivers, the boy finally moved to the sidewalk like a normal person. He maintained his running pace.
Then something happened.
A man who appeared to be twelve feet tall, with massive muscles and dark hair, flew down from the sky. He landed on a car, crushing it and killing the people inside. He raised his hand.
"Listen up, everyone," he said, his voice booming across Evergreen City. Practically everyone heard it, even those miles away. Even people inside buildings could hear it, as if his voice had been amplified.
People stopped driving. Some got out of their cars and pulled out their phones to take pictures of the man. He looked handsome and gorgeous, like a model brought to life.
"I have come here to kill everyone on this planet," the man said casually, raising his hand. "But before I do, I'm feeling generous, so I'll give you all a chance to reincarnate. Obviously, your lives will be random, and you won't have any control over them, but that's not my problem. Plus, if you do reincarnate, who will you be complaining to? You won't be in this world—you'll be dead, so no complaining."
He continued. "Since all you adults lived long and hopefully healthy lives, you get a chance to reincarnate with normal lives. For children, since you're dying so young, you'll get a chance to live amazing lives. For babies, you'll just be reincarnated with parents—I'm not going to coddle you like that. And for the elderly, well, let's say you'll just reincarnate normally. You're already old, so just die already. There's no point in you getting reincarnated just to die a few years later—that's a waste of reincarnation slots. And for teenagers, same as the children: you'll be reincarnated with a good destiny bestowed upon you."
A yellow and orange fireball condensed in his hand, growing larger and larger.
"Now that we have our rules all set, I hope you all have a nice reincarnation and—"
Before he could finish, an older man walked up and shouted at him.
"How dare you! I will not let you kill anyone in this town. I am Evergreen's savior, the hero who has protected this town for many years. I am—"
"Oh my God, there's a hero? At this time? Can't you see I'm trying to destroy this place?" the man said casually, as if he weren't trying to end billions of lives.
"Wait, why are you in this city particularly?" a woman said, stepping forward.
"Well, let's be honest, my voice is amplified throughout the entire planet, so it doesn't really matter what city I've landed in. I just picked one at random, so you guys aren't special."
The older man cut him off again. He drew his spear and pointed it at the man.
"You will perish in the name of Evergreen!"
"A spear? You're joking, right?" The man burst out laughing. "Are you guys in the Stone Age? Don't you have guns, nuclear bombs, and whatnot? And you have a spear? What's that going to do against me?" He chuckled. "You know what? I'll humble you. Go ahead, use the weapon on me. Go on. I'll give you three tries."
The man ran forward and struck the giant's legs—probably because he was too short to reach any other body parts, considering the giant was twelve feet tall.
"Come on, you can do better than that. Fine, fine. I'll give you one more try, and if that doesn't do anything, then you're going to be turned to meat. Deal?"
Ignoring what the giant was saying, the older man struck his spear into the giant's leg one last time. No damage whatsoever.
"All right then, let me show you my spell, if you will," the taller man said. He grabbed the older man and threw him up into the sky, juggling him with one hand as he prepared his giant fireball. "You see, guys, you get to have some entertainment before you die. Isn't that wonderful?"
The giant flew up into the sky and dropped the older man. While flying up, he ascended into outer space, and the fireball grew large enough to consume the entire planet.
"All right, before I let you guys go, you've got a chance to say your last words. If you want to hug your kids, hug them and kiss them. For three minutes? Too bad—you're going to die before then because I hate when people do that. You have approximately thirty seconds to do whatever you want for the rest of your lives, at least in this world. Timer starts now."
People were disgusted. What in the world was going on? Everyone was shocked. Multiple places around the world were also terrified—they heard the man's voice because it was amplified across the entire planet.
"Twenty-eight, twenty-nine, and thirty. All right, goodbye, Earth!"
He threw the fireball, and—BAM!—the Earth was consumed. Everyone on the planet felt a slight burning sensation before they couldn't feel anything. It was a pretty painless death for everyone on the planet. Some thought there would be excruciating agony before dying, but that simply wasn't the case.
When the aftermath was finished, the entire Earth looked like a scorched fireball.
"All right, let's see. Eight billion people, and I only have eight billion slots. Perfect." He assigned every single person to every single reincarnation slot inside the reincarnation panel that only he could see. "All right, looks like that's seven billion, nine hundred ninety-nine million, nine hundred ninety-nine thousand, four hundred eleven. Well, I mean, I have one slot off, but I'm sure that person won't mind being dead and not being reincarnated. One life isn't going to change anything." He shrugged. "Well, I've used up all my daily slots, so I guess I'll wait till tomorrow."
The man floated off, away from the scorched Earth.
---
The young teenager awoke in a different room. The room looked polished, as if he were living in royalty. Someone burst into his room, the door nearly knocking off its hinges.
"Man, Dad really needs to fix these doors," a voice said as someone walked into the boy's room. "Hey, Eric, get up! We've got vampire training today."
Vampire training?
Eric looked up. He looked at his hands—his nails were lengthened. He looked in the mirror, and his jaw dropped. His eyes were red. He had sharpened teeth.
"No, there's no way. I'm a freaking vampire? But how? There's no way I've been turned into a freaking vampire!"
Eric looked on in horror while his brother just stared at him.
"Eric, you good, man?"
"What?" Eric looked over. "Yeah, I'm fine."
He stood up, then immediately stumbled, falling back on his bed. A rush of memories hit him. His skull was pounding. Eric wanted to scream out in pain, but his pride wouldn't let him. It felt like his brain was being overwhelmed with something. Then memories flooded into his mind—images, events, all of it circling into his brain, going into the right places, finally finishing the puzzle of memories.
Wait, I remember everything now. The vampires, my brother, the training he's talking about.
Eric tried to go through all the memories, but every time he tried, his mind ached. He could only process so many memories at a time, apparently. So he stood up and walked out of his room with his brother Michael.
Eric sighed. There's one thing I know: my life is going to be hell.
But as he stepped into the hallway, a cold dread washed over him. Something was wrong. The air felt heavy, suffocating. From somewhere deep within the mansion, a scream echoed—raw, terrified, and abruptly cut short.
Michael froze, his eyes wide. "What the hell was that?"
Eric's heart pounded. He didn't know. But every instinct screamed at him to run.
Then the lights went out.