What is this? There is only darkness.
"That's what usually happens when you die," someone answered.
But there was no one around me. There was no "around." No up or down, no cold or warmth. Only a thick, silent black.
Just what I needed. Going insane.
Then something else appeared: a sensation. Thousands of tiny things crawled over my body, brushing against my skin, slipping between my fingers. It was so revolting that, if I'd had a stomach, I would have emptied it.
Worms, I thought.
"Because they are," said the voice.
It spoke calmly, almost amused.
"Lucky you, isn't it? Reborn in a body the worms had already started to devour. But allow me to introduce myself: I'm your system, as they call it in this world. My creator took notice of you. Of your will, your selfishness, your narcissism... and the fact that you had nothing to back you up."
My creator?
"It's astonishing," I murmured, without even knowing whether I had a mouth, "that a god would notice someone as insignificant as me. It's so absurd that I'm still convinced I've gone mad."
"Is that what you think?" the system replied. "I'll prove you wrong."
And I came back to life.
My senses began to switch on one by one, like lights in an empty house. First, the air, cold and heavy. Then, a thick dampness on my face. I tried to open my eyes, but I still couldn't see anything.
I lifted my head a little, and the world peeled away from me with a sticky sound.
Being alive hurt more than I remembered.
My fingers closed, searching for my mother's ring. They caught only mud.
My face was buried in a puddle. A few inches away, a small hand, dirty, foreign, lay open on the stones, and a handful of white worms was trying to burrow into its flesh.
"Still think it's a lie?" the voice asked. "It's your fate to live again, to experience something no one else ever has. Consider yourself lucky. Though the body isn't the best fit: an outcast boy from the slums of the city of Ashmere. They call it the Mud."
I coughed. I spat blood into the mud, and something stirred inside my chest. It wasn't pain.
It was laughter.
"Hey," the system said, baffled. "Are you laughing?"
I was. I laughed like a madman, that broken body convulsing in the mud, and I couldn't stop.
"It doesn't matter under what circumstances," I managed between coughs. "It doesn't matter who. It doesn't matter how. I will fulfill my dreams. I will stand above everyone. I will have everything."
I spat more blood and kept laughing.
"Not even the gods will be able to look me in the eye."
I laughed like a lunatic until I had no air left. Only then did the system speak again.
"Done? Good. I can only do two things. First, I can show you your stats, something only you can see. No one else in this world has a system. Second, I can give you this body's memories."
Before my eyes, floating in the darkness of the mud, a window of pale light appeared.
[HOST STATUS] Name: Vesper Age: 9 years Condition: critical (internal bleeding, extreme hunger) Affinities: [LOCKED until the Awakening]
"Locked?"
"We'll get to that. Memories first."
My body began to twist, and my mind flashed with images that weren't mine.
My name was Vesper.
A wooden crate in front of the door of a house, and inside it, a baby wrapped in rags. My mother hadn't even left a note. In that house lived one of the few kind people in that place: an old woman, very frail, with trembling hands. She lifted me into her arms, gave me a roof and something to eat.
But life was hard. The whole neighborhood suffered from poverty, and gangs ruled it. One in particular, the Dispossessed, charged everyone dues for the simple fact of living there.
One day, while they were collecting their toll, I heard screams. And something else: stabbing sounds. I jumped out of bed and ran toward the noise.
I found only the lifeless body of Nariah, the old woman I called mother.
"Mother Nariah, answer me, please! You're all I have left!"
The culprits were laughing at the door.
"That's what happens to those who don't pay, little Vesper," they said, stepping closer. "Understand that well. And as payment, we'll take your little house."
I was four years old.
From then on, I devoted myself to stealing. The little food I found, I swallowed at once, because otherwise they would find me and beat me.
But how did he die? I wondered, as the memories kept passing before my eyes.
Until I reached that day. The merchant Dester caught me stealing. He beat me so hard that he ended up killing me, and threw my body into the street, into that puddle, the way you throw out trash.
Five years of hunger. Nine in total. And no one noticed.
I felt no sorrow. What I felt was closer to recognition: a boy no one had ever looked at, thrown away like garbage. I knew that feeling. I had worn it for thirty years, beneath a suit.
"How were the memories?" the system asked. "Rather unpleasant, in my opinion. But that's going to change starting today."
I stayed a moment, watching the fine rain beginning to fall on the mud.
"Tell me what this world is like."
"Mages and knights rule it," said the system. "They're ranked in ten levels, and climbing even one costs half a lifetime. You're in Karthen, in Ashmere, a small, forgotten city far from the capital."
I clenched my teeth and pushed with my small arms. The body refused to move.
"Don't strain yourself. My creator gave you just enough life to move. Make use of it."
I dragged myself out of the puddle, inch by inch, into a narrow alley between two closed market stalls. I leaned against some damp crates and breathed. Every breath burned inside me.
"And how do those people know who is worth something?" I asked. "How is talent measured?"
"It isn't. A child with unmatched talent can live and die in the Mud without ever finding out. And the nobles, of course, always have some advantage."
I let out a short, dry laugh that hurt my ribs.
Some things don't change from one world to another.
"Except one," the system continued. "The Awakening. It's mandatory for everyone, nobles and beggars alike, in the year you turn fourteen. That's when it's revealed who awakens affinities. Almost no one awakens any. Having two is extremely rare. And having three... that's a peerless genius."
"And mine are locked until that day."
"Correct. Five years remain. You have five years to avoid dying before then. I suggest starting by eating something."
I fell silent, listening to the rain beat against the wooden roofs. Somewhere far off, a dog barked. Across the alley, an oil lamp burned behind a window. There were people sleeping under roofs, bellies full, ignorant of everything.
I had been killed for lacking power. And now I had come back with less than ever: a broken body, no family, no name, not a single coin.
Perfect, I thought.
"One last thing," said the system, and for the first time its voice sounded serious. "When your Awakening comes, you'll understand why my creator chose you and no one else."
I didn't ask. There was no need.
I raised my hands in front of me and looked at them in the pale light of the window. They were small, dirty, with broken nails. The hands of a stranger.
And for the first time in a long while, they closed into a fist without anyone stopping me.