I died in a suit. Yeah, we get buried in them too, but that's beside the point.
Not exactly a heroic ending, right? No glorious last stand, no tragic betrayal. No swelling music or noble sacrifice. Just a worn-out office drone, running on caffeine fumes and muscle memory, stepping off a curb like a half-dead sleepwalker. There was a horn, sharp and shrill. There were headlights, too bright, swallowing everything. Then—
Nothing.
No pain, no grand montage of regrets flashing before my eyes. No final monologue whispered to the heavens. Just a clean cut, like someone had pressed "mute" on existence.
And then… I woke up.
The air struck me first. It was thick, metallic, wrong. Every breath carried the taste of rust scraped off an old pipe and smoke from a burnt offering. It clung to my tongue like a bad aftertaste I couldn't spit out.
My eyes snapped open. I gasped—a high, tremulous sound that didn't sound like it belonged to me. The ceiling above was rough-hewn stone, jagged shadows trembling with the red flicker of torchlight. My body lay inside a circle of symbols carved deep into the floor, glowing faintly as if veins of molten metal had been poured into them. The lines were drawn in something that looked—and smelled—like congealed blood.
I sat up too fast, heart slamming against ribs that weren't mine.
That's when I saw them.
Bodies.
Hooded figures slumped at the edges of the circle, collapsed like discarded marionettes. Some curled in on themselves, locked in silent agony, others frozen with mouths wide open as if their final scream had never finished. Their faces—what I could see of them—were pale, waxy, wrong. The chamber reeked of them: sweat, candle smoke, and copper rot. A mix that made my stomach churn.
A cult? A massacre? Or some low-budget horror flick I never auditioned for?
What the hell had I been summoned into?
I opened my mouth to scream, but the sound that came out was soft, almost melodic. A note, not a cry. My voice wasn't mine anymore. My throat felt strangely open, the air sliding through like silk instead of gravel.
I raised my hands. Small. Pale. Porcelain-white and trembling. My stomach iced over as I took in the slender fingers, the delicate bones, the wrists narrow enough to snap. This wasn't my body.
Panic thrashed inside me. I staggered to my feet—legs unsteady, as if the floor tilted beneath me. Something white caught my eye. A linen sheet, miraculously unstained, draped near one of the corpses. My hands snatched it, wrapping it around me fast, desperate for something—anything—to cover this fragile stranger's skin I was trapped inside.
That's when I saw it.
A shard of broken metal lay on the ground, polished enough to catch a reflection.
Silver-white hair. Skin smooth as porcelain. Eyes too wide, too bright, like glass marbles glowing in the dark. I looked like a doll—one of those fragile things locked in a cabinet, staring forever through glass.
What the hell did they summon me into?
The chamber pressed down on me. Rough stone walls veined with soot, torches coughing smoke into the stagnant air. The circle beneath my feet pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat not my own, its thrum sinking into my new bones. Every step I took echoed too loud in the silence, a hollow reminder that I didn't belong here.
Then—
Thunk.
Not me.
Heavy boots on stone. A scrape of metal. Voices, hushed but urgent, slicing through the still air.
"No way… they actually pulled it off."
"What did they summon?"
"Get ready."
The massive doors at the far end groaned as they swung open, the hinges shrieking like wounded animals. Five figures strode in, and the air shifted with them. Steel gleamed in torchlight, cloaks swayed like banners of war, and magic shimmered at fingertips like leashed lightning.
At their head was a knight clad in full plate, a crimson cloak flowing behind him like a river of blood. His eyes locked on me, sharp as drawn blades. His lip curled, voice a snarl.
"Witch. The cultists summoned a devil."
My throat dried instantly. "Wait—hold on, I'm not—"
"She speaks!" one of the mages barked, his hand already alive with power. A spear of light twisted and coiled in his palm, humming like an angry wasp nest. "Get her before she casts!"
Cast? I could barely breathe. My legs trembled too hard to run. I managed a single step backward, pathetic and small, my heel brushing the edge of the circle.
"She's resisting!"
"She's preparing something!"
"No! I—"
Then—
[System Initialisation Complete.]
[User Interface Activated.]
[Choose Alignment: White | Black | Random]
The voice wasn't theirs. It rang inside my head, smooth and synthetic, female but inhumanly calm.
My vision flickered with translucent panes of light, floating in the air like stained glass made of code. I couldn't touch them, couldn't even blink them away. Unreal, surreal, invasive.
I had no time to process.
The knight lunged. Steel flashed. The air split.
Move, my mind begged, but my body was too slow.
Something hard slammed against my temple. Pain burst like fireworks. The world tilted sideways. My breath stuttered out, and weightlessness swallowed me whole.
You have got to be joking.
Darkness, again.
---
[User Designation Confirmed: Random Alignment Selected.]
[Welcome, Host.]
[Initializing… Scholar's Mate Protocol.]