Awareness returned with the subtlety of a physical blow. Not gentle awakening, but a thump. Consciousness felt leaden, alien, like sinking into cold water fully clothed.
Where? The first sense was whiteness. Blinding, sterile, overwhelming whiteness. Walls, ceiling, even the surface beneath him – all pristine, unnaturally clean, glowing with a chill light that felt… judgmental.
Heaven? Panic, cold and sharp, lanced through him. No. No... no.
The thought clawed its way out. With the browser history burned into his soul – the hentai, the doujins, the specific, depraved tastes he'd only just perfected – heaven was patently impossible. He'd earned a one-way ticket south, if anywhere.
This wasn't pearly gates; this felt like an interrogation room for the damned. The sheer, immaculate purity of it felt invasive, making his very thoughts feel greasy and stained against the blinding backdrop.
He tried to sit up. His body refused. It felt… wrong. The limbs were too long, too heavy, moving with a fluid strength that was utterly foreign. When he attempted to swing his legs over the edge of the ridiculously large bed, they stretched much further than his muscle memory expected.
The silk sheets, cool and slick, offered no purchase. He slid sideways, a wave of vertigo washing over him, and tumbled gracelessly onto the cold, hard floor.
"Ouch!" The impact jolted him, a dull thud echoing in the vast, silent room.
"What the hell?" The voice that emerged stopped his breath. Deep, resonant, smooth like aged whiskey. It was the voice of the guys who got the girls, who commanded attention without trying.
"My voice?" The disorientation deepened into genuine fear.
It took several clumsy, undignified attempts. He pushed himself up, limbs feeling powerful yet disobedient, like operating heavy machinery for the first time. This body was taller, broader, moving with an unconscious, athletic grace that felt completely alien to his own remembered clumsiness.
He stumbled towards a wall-sized window, catching his reflection distorted in the glass. A stranger stared back. Sharp jawline, high cheekbones, clear, bright eyes, skin that looked like it had never known a pimple. Like an impossible, hotter version of… Timothée Chalamet? Maybe? But younger, harder, more... perfect?
The glass couldn't lie. He was undeniably, breathtakingly handsome. Magazine-cover handsome. Movie-star handsome. The face that launched a thousand ships and a dozen tabloid headlines.
Holy shit. Reincarnation? The thought was a thunderclap. As… as THIS? The seventeen-year-old pervert inside reeled. The ultimate cosmic joke! Or… maybe not a joke? Maybe a reward? Excitement, fierce and dizzying, began to bubble beneath the panic.
He stumbled again, getting used to the longer stride, the surprising ease of balance once he stopped fighting it. He found the bathroom – a cavern of marble and gold that dwarfed his entire old bedroom.
The wall-to-wall mirror above the floating vanity offered the undeniable truth.
He was gorgeous. Not just attractive. Stunning. Hair that fell just so, eyes that seemed to hold an impossible depth, a face sculpted by some indulgent god. A surge of pure, unadulterated pride surged through him.
This face could get anyone. This body was a weapon.
Heart pounding with a newfound, arrogant confidence, he turned his attention downward. He pulled the soft, expensive pajama top over his head. The reflection confirmed his suspicions: lean, defined muscle.
Perfectly sculpted abs that looked carved from marble, not earned through awkward teenage gym attempts. Broad shoulders tapering to a narrow waist.
He was a fucking Adonis. He ran his hands over the planes of his chest, feeling the solid, real heat of perfection. This is it, he thought, a grin spreading across the beautiful face. This is the life I was meant for.
Fingers trembling slightly with anticipation, he hooked his thumbs into the waistband of the pajama pants. He slid them down over lean, powerful hips, eyes fixed on the mirror, ready to witness the final, glorious proof of his divine rebirth.
The pants pooled around his ankles.
He stared.
And stared.
And. Stared. Even. Harder.
The grin froze, then shattered. The arrogant pride evaporated, replaced by a vacuum of absolute, soul-crushing horror.
"No." The whispered denial was choked, thin. "No. No, NO!"
His knees buckled. He collapsed onto the cold marble floor, the impact hard and meaningless. He crawled closer to the mirror, desperation etched onto the perfect face, distorting the beauty into a mask of anguish. Tears, hot and furious, streamed down the smooth cheekbones, dripping onto the flawless skin of his chest.
"Take me back!" he shrieked at the blinding white ceiling, his new voice cracking with raw despair. "Fucking TAKE ME BACK! I don't want this! My old body was better! Anything is better than this… this… useless fucking thing!"
The body of a god. Ruined. Utterly, cosmically ruined. What lay nestled between the powerful thighs was… inadequate. Inadequate was too kind. It was microscopic. A pathetic, shriveled nubbin.
Not a member, not a tool, not a cock this body had to have but a joke. A cruel, cosmic punchline. The size of his damn pinky finger. All that beauty, all that power, all that potential… neutered. Rendered utterly moot. At least his old, scrawny, pathetic Darius body had possessed a functional, if unimpressive, five inches.
This? This was a living hell wrapped in divine packaging.
He curled up on the marble floor, the beautiful body shaking with gut-wrenching sobs. There was no pride in this existence. Only a crushing humiliation more profound than any invisibility he'd ever known. He wanted dissolution, oblivion, a return to the nothingness of death. Anything but this parody of perfection.
As he lay there, broken and weeping in the immaculate white hell, a soft chime sounded, like a single, clear note plucked from thin air. Before his tear-blurred vision, a translucent blue screen shimmered into existence, hanging silently in the sterile air:
[DING! EXECUTIVE HAREM SYSTEM ACTIVATED!]