Consciousness returned not as a gradual dawn, but as an instantaneous snap into being. One moment, there was only the memory of roaring earth and the shriek of tortured metal; the next, there was… nothing. A profound, absolute, and unnervingly silent nothing.
I opened my eyes, though the sensation of having eyelids was a mere memory, a ghost of a feeling. Before me stretched an infinite, seamless expanse of pure, luminous white. There was no ground beneath my feet, no sky above my head, no horizon to give the space dimension. It was a void, but a void filled with light, a canvas wiped clean of all existence. I tried to feel my body, to raise a hand or turn my head, but I was disembodied, a point of pure awareness floating in a sterile eternity. The landslide. The final, crushing weight. It wasn't a dream.
My analytical mind, the only part of me that seemed to have survived, tried to process the data. Conclusion: I am dead. This is the afterlife. Hypothesis: a state of sensory deprivation, possibly a pre-processing stage for the soul. It was a detached, clinical observation, the kind I might make when examining a failed experiment. The emotional component—the terror, the grief—was strangely absent, as if submerged beneath the placid surface of this white ocean.
Then, the whiteness before me began to shift. It didn't tear or open, but rather… coalesced. The light gathered, thickened, and flowed into a shape, like ink dropping into water, but in reverse. A figure formed from the void itself, not with a grand explosion of power, but with the quiet, deliberate grace of a thought taking form.
He appeared as a man, old but not frail, with kind, deep-set eyes that seemed to hold the wisdom of millennia. His hair and beard were the same pure white as the space around us, and he wore simple, flowing robes that could have belonged to any era, any culture. A calm, benevolent aura radiated from him, a peace so absolute it felt like a fundamental law of this strange new reality. It washed over my detached awareness, and for the first time since awakening, I felt a flicker of something other than clinical observation. It was awe.
The figure offered a gentle, unassuming smile. His voice, when it came, wasn't a boom from the heavens but a soft, resonant tone that seemed to speak directly to the core of my being.
"Do not be afraid, child. I am the God of Life. Your time in the mortal realm has ended."
The words were simple, factual, and utterly final. They confirmed my hypothesis. Dead. The life of Satvik Arya, the prodigy, the genius, the generational heir, was over. And in that moment, the dam of my detachment broke. It wasn't fear that flooded in, not the terror of oblivion I might have expected. It was a wave of sadness so profound, so soul-crushingly heavy, that my spectral form seemed to dim under its weight.
I didn't beg for my life. I didn't rage against the injustice of a premature end. What was the point? My life had been an injustice from the start. Faced with the being who presided over existence itself, the carefully constructed walls I had lived behind crumbled into dust, and the truth of my hollow existence spilled out in a torrent of despair.
My voice, a disembodied echo in the void, was raspy with a lifetime of unspoken regret. "My whole life was a gilded cage," I began, the words tasting like ash. "To the world, I had everything. Fame, wealth, a mind celebrated as a national treasure. My parents were proud. The nation honored me. But it was all a lie. A performance."
The God of Life listened, his expression patient, his ancient eyes holding a universe of empathy. He didn't interrupt. He simply provided a space for my soul to finally confess.
"I never wanted to be an engineer," I continued, the confession feeling like a physical weight lifting. "I hated the cold logic of it, the endless equations and schematics. I did it because it was expected of me. The prodigy son, the perfect heir. I spent my entire life building things, designing systems, solving problems for everyone else, but I never once built a life for myself. I… I wanted to create beauty. I wanted to design clothes, to understand the art of a perfect silhouette, the story a fabric could tell. I wanted to learn how to bring out the beauty in a person's face, to be a cosmetologist, an artist."
I thought of my secret sketchbooks, the vibrant designs locked away in a hidden file on my laptop, the only place I had ever truly been myself.
"But I never did. I didn't have the courage. And I was… lonely. So incredibly lonely. I could command a boardroom of a hundred people, but I couldn't hold a simple conversation with a woman. I had no friends, no one to share anything with. I achieved everything a man could want, but I never experienced anything. I never felt love. I never held someone's hand. I never lived. I just… existed. And now, I'm dead."
The finality of it all settled upon me. A wasted life. An unfinished design. The God of Life remained silent for a long moment, his gaze penetrating, as if he were looking at the entirety of my twenty-six years of quiet desperation. When he finally spoke, his voice was laced with a soft, genuine sympathy.
"Your sorrow is deeply felt, Satvik Arya. A soul so full of potential, yet so constrained by circumstance. It is a tragedy I have witnessed too many times." He sighed, a sound like the gentle turning of the cosmos. "I cannot send you back to your old life. The great texts, the Bhavishya Puran, which map the threads of fate, forbid such direct violations of a timeline. Your story on that Earth is written. It is complete."
My non-existent heart sank. So this was it.
"However," the God continued, a flicker of light in his ancient eyes, "your unique circumstances and the genuine regret in your soul allow for a… variance. I can offer you a choice, a privilege not afforded to many."
He raised a hand, and two shimmering portals of light appeared in the whiteness beside him.
"Option one: Restart. I can cleanse your soul of its memories and attachments, and you can be reborn as a baby on a new world, starting a fresh life cycle. It is the path of a normal soul, a true blank slate."
I considered it. A new life, free from the expectations of the Arya name. But also free from my own mind, my own knowledge. I would be a different person entirely. The thought felt like a second death.
"Option two: Continue. In another universe, entirely separate from your own, there is a young man whose thread of life is about to be severed. At the moment of his death, I can transmigrate your soul—your mind, your memories, your very consciousness—into his body. You would inherit his circumstances, but you would be yourself, free to live as you see fit."
My mind raced, analyzing the variables. Restarting was a gamble. I could be born into another gilded cage, or worse. But continuing… continuing meant I could finally take control. I could use the mind that had been my prison and turn it into my greatest tool for freedom. The choice was obvious. There was no hesitation.
"The second option," I said, my voice firm for the first time. "I choose to continue."
The God of Life smiled, a warm, approving expression. "A wise choice. You wish not to erase the man you were, but to build upon him. I respect that." The two portals vanished. "Because of this, and because I wish to see a soul like yours find the happiness it was denied, I will grant you a boon. Three wishes, to aid you in your next life. Choose them well."
Three wishes. The ultimate variable, the power to define the initial conditions of my new existence. My mind didn't gravitate towards wealth or power over others. I had already had those, and they had brought me nothing but misery. I thought about the core of my pain, the root of my regret. My unfulfilled passion. My crippling loneliness. My physical inadequacy.
The answers came to me, clear and certain.
"For my first wish," I began, my spectral voice filled with a passion it had never known in life, "I want to become the world's best and most skillful fashion designer and cosmetologist."
The God's smile widened. "A noble desire, to create beauty. However, those are two vast and distinct domains of creation, each requiring a lifetime of mastery. A worthy goal. That counts as two wishes." He held up two fingers. "You have one left."
I didn't argue. It was logical. Two grand arts, two wishes. Fair. That meant my last wish had to count. I thought of my awkwardness, my lack of confidence, the way I felt like a ghost in my own body. The rejections, the feeling of being a "beta," as the internet would so crudely put it. My passion and skill would be useless if I was still trapped in a vessel that betrayed my every social attempt. I needed a foundation upon which to build my new self.
"For my final wish," I stated, my resolve hardening. "I want a superhuman physique."
A body that would not fail me. A body that radiated the confidence I never had. A vessel that was as perfect as the creations I dreamed of making.
The God of Life nodded, his expression one of complete understanding. "An artist needs a worthy vessel. A wise and practical choice. So be it."
He raised his hand, and a light, warmer and more powerful than the ambient whiteness of the void, began to emanate from his palm. It was golden and felt… real. I could feel its energy infusing my very essence.
"The knowledge of your skills will be innate," the God's voice boomed, now filled with divine power. "You will not only have the ability, but the wisdom to know how, where, and when to use it. Your body will be remade, a perfect synthesis of strength, grace, and vitality. Now go, Satvik Arya. Live the life you were meant to."
The golden light exploded outwards, consuming the white void entirely. My consciousness, once a placid point of awareness, was now a comet streaking through an infinite, star-strewn cosmos. I felt myself being pulled, stretched, and reformed across universes. The sensation was overwhelming, a torrent of information and energy flooding my soul—the history of fashion from a thousand worlds, the biological secrets of a million alien species, the fundamental principles of aesthetics itself. It was the education of a lifetime, of a thousand lifetimes, condensed into a single, blinding moment.
And then, just as suddenly as it began, it started to fade, replaced by a new sensation. The feeling of weight. The sound of a frantic, rhythmic beeping. The dull ache of a body that was not my own.
My journey across the void was over. My new life was about to begin.