William opened his eyes.
Wrong word. His eyes opened like someone restarting a flickering screen. He didn't lie on wet asphalt anymore; he existed again — or rather, existence existed around him. Infinite. Blank. An emptiness that felt less like a place and more like the absence of one.
"About damn time," said a voice that sounded too smooth for the space it occupied, like thunder wearing silk.
William turned. There was a figure — or rather, a suggestion of a figure, Tall. Wrapped in light so bright it made the corners of his vision ache. Not human; not anything he'd ever seen in real life.
"Who the hell are you?" His voice didn't ricochet off walls; it simply hung there, unanswered, then absorbed.
The figure chuckled. The sound vibrated in William's teeth, settling strangely inside him. "I am what you might call… God. The name is just a convenience though."
William raised a brow without meaning to. The casualness of the declaration made him resent the moment almost as much as his own ruined lungs. "God, huh? So this is the part where you give me a lecture about wasting my one life? Or do I get a restart button and a refund?"
The thing — God, if that's what it preferred — didn't rush to answer. Instead, a wash of calm settled over William, as if the panic that still clung to his skin had been gently scrubbed away.
"You lived small," the figure said at last. The voice felt like a book closing and reopening. "But your mind was sharp. Restless. You built worlds in the dark and called it practice. You dreamed of power, of escape. Such desire is… amusing."
Then it continued, "I'll give you a choice, you may fade into darkness, or you may begin again. A new world. A new chance if you may."
"Reincarnation?" William said. "Like those fanfics I read at night?"
"Precisely." The figure's tone was almost fond. "You'll reincarnated in a series you know very well, House of The Dragon.
The reference clicked in William's chest. He'd watched the series in his free time. He knew the names, the cruelty. House of the Dragon. Just the thought of reincarnting in that world filled him with dread and excitement.
"Wait." William took a breath that felt borrowed. "You're telling me I get dropped into that madhouse? I'll be a corpse within a week."
"Which is why ill give you an System." A soft chime chimed out of nowhere, crisp and electronic in the empty white.
Letters unfurled in front of him like a banner of light:
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING…]
William squinted at the glowing text. For a ridiculous second he expected an app icon to appear as well.
"Think of it as infrastructure," the figure said. "A guide. A ladder. You will be able to grow, to hone, to collect power. Complete tasks. Earn rewards. Survive long enough, and you may even alter the course of events."
Something in William — hunger to be something great.
He felt a grin form and he then said, "Alright then. I accept. Worst-case scenario, I die again. Best-case? I live like a king in a world of dragons. Or at least I don't die being a loser who never sent his drafts."
"Wise choice." the figure said.
[CONFIRM: ACCEPT SYSTEM — BEGIN TRANSFER? Y/N]
William's thumb twitched on a phantom screen. The word accept felt heavy.
But then his eyes sharpened and he made up his mind.
As he nodded once and said. "Yes. I accept."
The system accepted him with a sound like a bell and a heartbeat layered over it. The figure smiled, and the void around William began to unweave.
This time, he thought as his form dissolved and the chime became wind: I won't live small.
The world folded in on him with the gentle inevitability of a trapdoor closing. The last thing he heard — or felt — before black took him was not thunder or the figure's final words, but a new voice, clear and mechanical and near enough to be intimate:
[SYSTEM BOUND. REBIRTH IN 3… 2… 1…]
Then everything turned dark.