Now, I know exactly what you're going to say. You're going to call me an idiot. You're going to ask why I didn't just turn on my heel and sprint in the opposite direction the absolute second I saw a gorgeous woman bite into a man's jugular like it was a juice box. But, for my own defense, I've already explicitly told you that I possess utterly shitty luck, compounded by a spectacular knack for putting myself in the most dangerous, highly compromising situations possible. My brain simply short-circuited.
The heavy, wet thud of the drained corpse hitting the pavement echoed in the narrow alleyway. The girl slowly lifted her chin, her eyes locking directly onto mine. A single, vibrant drop of crimson blood stained the corner of her otherwise pristine, porcelain lips. The oppressive, terrifying silence that fell between us was thick enough to cut with a machete.
"Ok... I didn't see anything?" I squeaked, my voice cracking pathetically as I forcefully broke our impromptu staring contest.
The first time I tried this exact same line with the mafia thugs yesterday, the excuse hadn't worked at all. In fact, it had earned me a bullet to the brain. You would think I would have learned my lesson and tried a different approach, or perhaps just kept my mouth shut. Well, you're dead wrong. In moments of pure, unadulterated panic, my brain apparently defaults to the most cliché, useless dialogue options available.
She just stood there in the flickering neon light, looking at me with a completely deadpan expression, as if she were examining someone profoundly, impossibly stupid.
Fuck this, I need to get out of here! I thought, the survival instinct finally kicking my legs into gear. I whipped around and immediately bolted toward the safety of the main street, my newly enhanced muscles propelling me forward with incredible, explosive force.
But I didn't even make it three steps.
There was a sudden, violent displacement of air, a blur of motion so fast my upgraded eyes could barely track it, and suddenly she was standing directly in front of me, effortlessly blocking my only route of escape. She hadn't even broken a sweat.
"Damn... not again," I muttered under my breath, my shoulders slumping as a heavy wave of dejection washed over me.
"You. What are you?" she asked suddenly.
Her voice was incredibly sweet, melodic, and smooth—which took me completely by surprise, given that it was originating from a literal bloodsucking vampire who had just casually sucked a two-hundred-pound dude completely dry. Getting past the sheer absurdity of the situation, I finally processed her actual question. What a weird way to put it, I thought. Not who are you, but what are you.
"I am Samsara, and you?" I answered tentatively, offering a nervous, placating smile.
Her expression didn't shift even a millimeter. "I am not asking for your name. I asked, what are you?"
"Human, of course," I lied smoothly, though my heart was beginning to hammer against my ribs.
She scoffed, a delicate but incredibly condescending sound. "Don't mess with me. Who would possibly believe that? What kind of supernatural are you?"
"Huh?" I feigned ignorance, acting dazed. But internally, I started aggressively panicking. Does she know I have a gift? Can she read minds? Is my system glitching out and showing a neon sign above my head?
She crossed her arms beneath her chest, her sharp eyes scanning me from head to toe, dissecting me with surgical precision. "First of all, if it were a normal human who had just walked in on this exact situation, there would be profound shock, pure terror, confusion, and a plethora of other volatile feelings warring inside them. But you? You just showed a slight amount of surprise, reacting as if you just found a misplaced dollar bill in your pocket. Second, your moving speed and your reaction time just now are clearly resting just above the peak human level. And finally..."
She leaned in slightly, taking a delicate, deliberate sniff of the air between us.
"...There's a heavy, lingering bit of 'death fragrance' surrounding you. You smell as if you constantly tread the fragile line between life and death. And trust me, I am intimately familiar with that smell." She delivered this terrifying deduction in a calm, completely cold tone.
I was utterly bewildered by her sharp analytical skills, but now I perfectly understood how she had arrived at that specific conclusion. The so-called 'death scent' must have been a direct courtesy of my highly untimely murder yesterday at the hands of those alleyway thugs. As for my speed and reaction time, that was obviously due to my physical 'improvements' upon resurrection. And my lack of genuine, paralyzing surprise? Well, when you've already died, met a glitchy system, and resurrected with a supernatural ability in the last twenty-four hours, a vampire having a midnight snack just doesn't hit the top of the shock charts anymore.
I think the absolute best thing to do here is to be as honest as I reasonably can. Viva partial truths, I decided, quickly formulating a game plan. Having made my choice, I straightened my posture and spoke with a forced air of confidence.
"Well, you got me. I think I am most likely some kind of supernatural. Sorry to disappoint your curiosity, but I honestly don't know what type I am yet."
She stayed entirely silent, her glowing eyes narrowing slightly as if she were deeply pondering the validity of my statement. The tense, heavy silence stretching between us was suddenly and jarringly broken by the cheerful, upbeat ringing of a smartphone.
I instinctively checked my own pocket, but realized the sound wasn't coming from me. The vampire girl frowned deeply in annoyance, reaching into her cropped leather jacket to pull out a sleek, modern smartphone. She glanced at the caller ID, her expression souring even further, and swiped to answer.
Standing a few feet away, I could only hear her side of the bizarre conversation, but it went a little something like this:
"Hello... Yes, I went out." A pause as the person on the other end spoke rapidly. "Where is he?" she asked, her tone shifting. Another pause. "Tch..." She clicked her tongue, visibly annoyed. "Why the hell would he think that? Wait, before that, we're not even together!" she snapped, her cold demeanor cracking as she started to genuinely get pissed off. A longer pause, filled with frantic chatter from the speaker. "Yes, I know it's not your fault." She sighed, rubbing her temple. "Ok, thanks for the heads up."
She hung up the phone, shoving it back into her pocket. Her previous calm was completely gone. She rapidly observed our dark surroundings, her eyes darting across the rooftops and the fire escapes before she muttered under her breath, "Damn! He's already here!"
She snapped her attention back to me. "We need to leave, fast!" she ordered, her voice suddenly stern and urgent.
I was incredibly confused. Why on earth should I leave with this highly dangerous, blood-drinking creature? What did her domestic drama have to do with me? But before I could even open my mouth to ask her why, the entire world violently tilted on its axis.
My vision suddenly went completely sideways. I saw the brick walls spinning, the damp pavement rushing upward, and the vampire girl's livid, shocked face getting further and further away from me. I wanted to ask where she was going, but then my spinning vision stabilized for a fraction of a second, and I saw something utterly incomprehensible.
I saw my own body. My headless body, still standing upright for a brief, gravity-defying moment, a fountain of crimson blood erupting from the cleanly severed stump of my neck.
Fk, not again!!!! I mentally screamed as my severed head tumbled through the air. I knew that chick was bad news!
Just before my consciousness faded into the suffocating, familiar black abyss, I heard a deeply frightening, guttural masculine growl that shook the very air. As my head hit the wet concrete, my dying eyes caught sight of a massive shadow materializing directly beside the vampire girl.
It was a towering, heavily muscled dude, standing at least 190 centimeters tall. He sported short, messy black hair, incredibly sharp, angular facial features, and a pair of glowing, piercing ruby eyes that radiated pure, unadulterated malice. He was staring down at my rolling, severed head with an expression of absolute, murderous rage.
I guess this motherfucker is my murderer this time, I thought bitterly, the sheer injustice of it all washing over me.
And then, I died for the second time in twenty-four hours.
When I finally came to, it was in the most upsetting, suffocating silence imaginable. I couldn't see a single thing. It was pitch black. And then, the physical sensations hit me. I started feeling coarse sand, heavy dirt, and sharp rocks pressing against every single inch of my body. It was in my nose, packed tightly into my ears, and filling my mouth with a dry, bitter taste.
Fk, they actually buried my body!?
Pure, primal panic seized me. The absolute lack of space, the crushing weight pressing down on my chest, was making me intensely claustrophobic. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move my legs. Relying entirely on adrenaline and whatever fresh, glitchy physical upgrades my system had just granted me, I raised my hands and started frantically clawing and digging my way out of the dirt like a deranged mole.
I tore through roots, shoved aside heavy rocks, and forced my body upward through the packed earth. After what felt like an eternity of agonizing, suffocating effort, my hand finally broke through the surface, feeling the cool night air.
With one final, desperate heave, I pulled my upper body out of the grave and collapsed onto the solid ground. I immediately started coughing violently, hacking and wheezing as I expelled copious amounts of dry dirt and mud from my burning lungs.
Regaining my breath after a few agonizing minutes, I wiped the mud from my eyes and looked around. I noticed that I was sitting in the middle of a vast, overgrown, abandoned field, surrounded by tall weeds and the distant silhouettes of trees.
Damn, I am all the way outside the city? I thought, spitting a glob of dirt onto the grass.
Upset and thoroughly disgusted by the grime coating my skin, I searched my muddy jeans for my phone. Miraculously, I found it still tucked safely in my pocket, the screen surprisingly uncracked.
At least they didn't rob me before burying me, I noted dryly.
I wiped the screen clean and checked the time. The glowing digits read 11:37 AM. The sun was high in the sky. If I had been killed sometime around midnight, that meant I had been technically "dead" for nearly twelve hours, though the actual resurrection process likely took two hours of system rebooting time down in the dirt.
Sigh. Well, at least I didn't have to search for a creative way to kill myself today. Death literally found me all by itself, I thought jokingly, though the humor tasted like ash in my mouth.
I stood up, shaking the loose dirt off my clothes, and took a deep, steadying breath. I closed my eyes and began actively analyzing my newly resurrected body.
I was feeling inexplicably, undeniably better than I had ever felt in my entire life. Everything was just... so much more. I couldn't describe it with simple vocabulary; it was a profound, fundamental change down to my very cells. My senses were absolutely terrifying. When I opened my eyes, I zoomed in on a tiny, iridescent fly buzzing around a weed hundreds of meters away—I could see the microscopic veins on its translucent wings. When I stayed completely still and concentrated hard, I could clearly hear the faint, rhythmic scratching noise of tiny ants marching through the soil beneath my boots.
Furthermore, the world seemed to have shrunk slightly. Looking down at my limbs, I realized I had become significantly taller. A quick mental measurement confirmed I had grown by about 8 centimeters, pushing my overall height to a towering 189 cm. My clothes were practically bursting at the seams. I could safely assume my physical appearance had been upgraded yet again, likely pushing me past 'handsome' and straight into 'otherworldly.'
Status, I commanded mentally.
Instantly, the familiar blue holographic screen flickered to life in front of my face.
Name: Samsara Yu Age: 17 years old Race: ?? (no longer human. new unknown race) Unique ability: Death with benefits Life span: 2000 years
I stared at the glowing blue text for a long, quiet moment.
Well fuck, the upgrade this time is completely out of this world. It literally blasted my human race away entirely.
Regarding that specific detail, I honestly didn't know how I was supposed to feel. I mean, I had always been a human. Losing your humanity is usually a massive, traumatic plot point. This brief realization plunged me into some deep, existential bullshit. Was I a monster now? A mutant?
But I got over it pretty damn fast when I looked at my hands and realized I still essentially looked like a human being. Sure, I was an unbelievably fantastic, ridiculously overpowered one, but I still had two arms, two legs, and no tentacles. So, practically speaking, there was absolutely no problem.
Now, what to do? I mused, crossing my arms over my muddy chest.
By the look of it, if that ruby-eyed, murderous bastard ever learned that I was still alive and walking around, it would be extremely bad for business. Musing about the insanely strong asshole who had appeared beside Miss Vampire just to chop my head off out of sheer jealousy... my blood began to boil.
Why the fuck does everybody in this city think it's perfectly okay to kill me?! I thought, my annoyance finally boiling over into genuine, explosive rage. First, it was the street thugs because of my shitty luck. Now, a fucking jealous vampire boyfriend chops my head off! What's next? Am I going to get blown up by a fucking toddler throwing a tantrum?!
Feeling a massive surge of righteous, vengeful fury coursing through my highly upgraded veins, I finally decided I was going to actually do something about it. I was done being the passive victim. I was done running.
I took my phone, bypassed the cracked dirt on the screen, and opened the GPS application to find the quickest route back to Nebula City. The little blue dot on the map told me I was only about 10 kilometers away from the city limits.
I didn't even pause to stretch. I dropped my phone back into my pocket, bent my knees slightly, and took off like a fired arrow.
My speed was absolutely unbelievable right now. The green fields and scattered trees immediately blurred into a continuous streak of color. I was literally parting the wind with every single explosive step I took, leaving a trail of kicked-up dirt in my wake. The sheer kinetic force of my run was exhilarating. It felt pretty awesome, like I was flying just inches above the earth.
It took me less than fifteen minutes to cover the entire 10-kilometer distance. I was a tiny bit out of breath and slightly sweaty by the time the towering, smog-choked skyscrapers of Nebula City loomed overhead, but still, I gave myself a very well-deserved mental pat on the back.
I entered the bustling city and headed straight toward the Coldstone district. Along the way, I could easily tell that people on the sidewalks were looking at me weirdly, stepping out of my path and whispering. At first, acting like a total, newly-minted narcissist, I assumed they were checking out my incredibly handsome, upgraded face. But catching a reflection in a storefront window, it turns out that because I had literally just clawed my way out from six feet underground, I was completely covered in a thick layer of mud, dried blood, and grave dirt. I looked less like a supermodel and more like a disgusting, reanimated zombie.
Slightly embarrassed, I fled the crowded public streets and navigated through the familiar, shadowy labyrinth of the back alleys. And as fate, or my incredibly twisted luck, would have it, guess which dear old friends I found chilling in one of those damp, garbage-filled dead ends?
If you guessed 'the very same armed thugs who murdered you yesterday,' congratulations, you win a million dollars.
They were leaning against a brick wall, smoking cheap cigarettes and laughing. Hearing my heavy footsteps, they stopped and looked directly in my direction, their hands subtly reaching for their holstered weapons. But they seemed completely unable to recognize me. I didn't blame them; I had grown significantly taller, my facial structure was flawless, and I was caked in an inch of cemetery mud.
I didn't run this time. I didn't raise my hands in surrender.
Instead, I casually strolled right toward the group of heavily armed killers, letting a chilling, predator-like smile stretch slowly across my dirt-streaked face.
"Hey, guys!" I called out cheerfully, my voice echoing off the brick walls. "Guess who's back?"