Red Coren was putting the finishing touches on a doll's wedding dress when his phone buzzed with the ringtone that meant blood was about to be spilled.
He ignored it. The lace on the hem wasn't sitting right, and after three hours of work, he wasn't about to rush the last detail. His large, scarred hands—hands that had broken bones and split lips—worked the needle with surprising delicacy.
*Bzzt. Bzzt. Bzzt.*
"For fuck's sake." Red set down the doll carefully, making sure her tiny veil didn't slip, and checked his phone.
**Kenzo: Red. URGENT. East warehouse. Bring your fists.**
Red looked at the doll in her half-finished wedding dress. Looked at the shelf behind his desk where three hundred and forty-six other dolls sat in perfect rows, each one dressed in outfits he'd carefully chosen or made himself.
Then he looked at his phone again.
"This better be worth it," he muttered, grabbing his jacket.
-----
Twenty minutes later, Red stood in front of a warehouse in the industrial district, watching smoke pour out of a busted window.
Kenzo stumbled out, blood running from a cut above his eyebrow, grinning like a maniac. "Red! Perfect timing! There's like eight guys inside and they brought chains and—is that a designer jacket?"
Red looked down at his jacket. "It was on sale."
"You're wearing designer clothes to a gang fight."
"You called me at midnight. What did you expect?"
An angry roar came from inside the warehouse, followed by the sound of metal scraping concrete. Then they came—all eight of them, pouring out like angry wasps from a kicked nest.
The first guy was the size of a refrigerator, swinging a chain like a medieval flail. He took one look at Red—the bright red hair catching the streetlight, the tall frame, the slit eyebrow that made him look perpetually aggressive, those black eyes that seemed to stare straight through you—and hesitated.
Bad move.
Red sighed, shrugged off his jacket, and handed it to Kenzo. "Hold this. If it gets dirty, you're paying for the cleaning."
"It's a gang fight—"
Red walked forward. The refrigerator-man swung the chain. Red ducked under it, stepped inside the man's reach, and hit him once in the solar plexus. The man folded like cheap furniture.
Two more came at him from the sides. Red grabbed one by the wrist, used his momentum to throw him into the other. They went down in a tangle of limbs.
A fourth guy with a knife. Red disarmed him in two moves, kept the knife, used the handle to crack him across the temple. Down.
The remaining four looked at each other. Looked at Red. Looked at their four friends on the ground.
They ran.
"Well, that was anticlimactic," Kenzo said, handing back the jacket.
Red checked it for dirt. His reflection caught in a warehouse window—six-foot-three, broad shoulders, that distinctive red hair that made him impossible to miss in a crowd. The face that made women do a double-take before they noticed the scar through his eyebrow and the intimidating height and quickly looked away.
Every single time.
"You're welcome," Red said.
"I had them."
"You were bleeding."
"It's a cool scar. Chicks dig scars."
Red started walking back to his car. "You wouldn't know. You haven't talked to a woman in six months."
"Says the guy who makes dating sims and has never been on a date."
Red shot him a look that could peel paint. Kenzo raised his hands in surrender.
"Touchy subject. Got it. Anyway, thanks for the save. The family appreciates it."
The family. Right.
Red looked at the warehouse, at the groaning guys on the ground, at Kenzo's bloody grin. This was his life. Had been since he was eight years old and the Coren family found him half-dead in an alley.
They'd saved him. Raised him. Loved him in their own violent, chaotic way.
And now they wanted him to lead them.
"Kenzo."
"Yeah?"
"I'm not taking over for Dad."
Kenzo's grin faded. "He's been asking about it again?"
"Every week. Every dinner. Every phone call." Red reached his car. "I'm not built for this life."
"You just took down four guys in under a minute and scared off the other four without even trying."
"That's not what I meant."
Kenzo caught up to him. "Then what did you mean?"
Red didn't answer. How could he explain it? That he'd spent the last five years building something that mattered to him. Something that wasn't about territory or blood or fear.
Something where people could be saved, where women could be happy, where love was actually possible.
His game. *Destined Hearts: Save the Heroines.*
A dating sim that had somehow, impossibly, become successful. Half a million downloads. Glowing reviews. Fan art. Forum discussions analyzing character motivations like they were real people.
Red scrolled through the forums, pausing on a comment from "StarryGamer99":
"Seraphina actually feels like a person? Not just 'holy maiden waifu #47'?
This game gets women." His chest tightened. If only they knew who wrote it.
If they only knew. The scary-looking enforcer with red hair and a permanent scowl had spent years studying women from a safe distance because he was too terrified to talk to them.
"Red?" Kenzo was staring at him. "You good?"
"Fine. Go home. Get that cut looked at."
"It's not that bad—"
"Kenzo."
"Fine, fine. Mom mode activated." Kenzo headed toward his own car, then paused. "Hey. Your dad loves you. You know that, right? Whatever you decide."
Red nodded. "I know."
He did know. That was what made it harder.
-----
Red's apartment was in a nice building in a good neighborhood. Paid for entirely with money from his game, not the family. That distinction mattered.
The front room was minimalist. Clean lines, neutral colors, nothing personal. A space that could belong to anyone.
The second bedroom was different.
Red unlocked the door—always locked, even though he lived alone—and stepped into his sanctuary.
Dolls. Hundreds of them. Covering every shelf, every surface, arranged by theme and color scheme. Ball-jointed dolls in elaborate historical gowns. Fashion dolls in modern streetwear. Custom art dolls in fantasy armor.
Red picked up the wedding dress doll from his work desk and examined the hem. There. That was better. He adjusted the veil, positioned her carefully on the shelf next to a doll dressed as a medieval queen, and stepped back to admire his work.
Perfect.
He moved to his other desk—the one with his drawing tablet and stacks of sketchbooks. Opened the current one. Pages and pages of women's faces, poses, outfits. Studies in anatomy and expression. Fantasy designs and modern fashion.
Years of work. Years of admiration from a safe distance.
Red picked up his stylus and started sketching. A new character design for potential DLC content. Dark flowing robes, silver hair, eyes that held secrets. He lost himself in the work, in the peaceful quiet of creation.
This was what he wanted. This life. This calm.
Not the violence. Not the fear. Not the weight of leading a criminal empire.
His phone rang. His father.
Red stared at it for three rings before answering. "Yeah?"
"Red." His father's voice was warm. Always warm, with family. "Dinner tomorrow. Six o'clock. Don't be late. We need to talk about your future with the family."
Red's jaw tightened. "I have a job."
"Red—"
"I said I'll be there."
A pause. Then a sigh. "I love you, son. I just want what's best for you."
"I know. See you tomorrow."
Red hung up and stared at his sketch. At the peaceful fantasy world he'd created. A world he could control. A world where heroes actually won and love was possible and no one had to choose between family and freedom.
He wished he could live there instead.
-----
Family dinner was at the Dragon's Pearl, an upscale restaurant in the business district. One of the family's legitimate fronts—actually profitable, actually legal, but the private room in the back told a different story.
Red walked through the main dining area, and as always, people noticed. Hard not to notice a six-foot-three guy with bright red hair. Women glanced up from their meals, did a double-take at his face—handsome in that sharp, striking way that photographs well—then noticed the scar through his eyebrow, the intimidating height, the way he moved like violence was just one bad word away, and quickly looked away.
Every single time.
Red had learned to ignore it. Mostly.
The private room was full. Fifteen men in expensive suits, his "brothers," all looking up as he entered. His father sat at the head of the table—fifty-six years old, iron-gray hair, eyes that had seen too many bodies.
"Red!" Kenzo waved. "Saved you a seat!"
Red sat. Food arrived immediately—expensive cuts of meat, imported wine, dishes that cost more than most people's rent.
Dinner was loud. Arguments about territory, jokes about rival families, stories that got more exaggerated with each telling. Red ate quietly, letting the noise wash over him.
Then his father cleared his throat, and silence fell.
"Red," his father said. "Your game. I hear it hit half a million downloads."
Everyone turned to stare.
"It's doing well," Red said carefully.
"Well? Son, that's incredible!" His father's smile was genuine. Proud. "You built something from nothing. Created something people love."
Red felt his throat tighten. "Thanks, Dad."
"But." There was always a but. "You're twenty-eight now, Red. I'm not getting younger. The family needs leadership. Someone strong, someone smart, someone people respect."
"I have a job."
"You have a passion project. Which is fine. Keep making games. But your real work—your real future—is here. With us."
Red set down his fork. "I don't want to run the family."
The silence was deafening.
"I don't want this life," Red continued. "I never did."
His father's expression didn't change. "What do you want?"
What did Red want? A normal job. A normal life. Maybe someday, impossibly, a relationship with a woman who wouldn't run away from him.
A life without violence.
"I want what I have now," Red said. "My work. My apartment. My life."
His father studied him for a long moment. Then nodded slowly. "We'll discuss this later. For now, let's eat."
But the atmosphere had changed. Red felt eyes on him. Disappointed. Judging.
He left early, claiming work to finish.
-----
Red was in his apartment, sketching a new heroine design, when his phone rang at 11:47 PM.
Kenzo. Voice tight with fear. "Red. South docks. Now. It's bad. They brought guns. Real ones. We're pinned down and outnumbered three to one—"
Red was in his car before Kenzo finished talking.
Family first. Always family first.
Even when you wanted something different.
-----
The fight at the docks was chaos.
Red arrived to find his family pinned behind shipping containers while a rival gang—much larger than intelligence had suggested—fired from elevated positions. The crack of gunfire echoed off metal walls.
"Red!" Kenzo waved frantically from behind cover. "You made it!"
"You said weapons. You didn't say they brought half an arsenal."
"Surprise?"
A bullet pinged off the container near Red's head. He ducked instinctively.
This was bad. Really bad. Guns changed everything. The kind of bad that ended with body bags and police investigations.
But his family was here. His brothers. The men who'd raised him.
Red assessed the situation with the cold clarity he'd learned on the streets. Six shooters on the left, four on the right, unknown number in the warehouse behind them. His family had eight fighters, half already injured.
They needed to retreat. Regroup. Come back with better planning.
"Everyone fall back!" Red shouted. "Get to the cars—"
An explosion rocked the container nearest him. Not a gunshot. Something bigger.
"Grenade!" someone screamed.
Red grabbed Kenzo and dragged him away from the container as it erupted in shrapnel and flame. They hit the ground hard, ears ringing.
When Red looked up, the rival gang was charging. No more hiding. No more shooting from a distance. They wanted this personal.
The gunfire stopped—too close quarters now, too much risk of hitting their own people.
Fine.
Red stood. Cracked his knuckles. Let the cold calm wash over him—the same calm he'd felt in a hundred fights before this one.
The fight blurred. Red moved on instinct, on training, on muscle memory built from years of violence he'd never wanted. Disarmed a knife. Caught a baseball bat mid-swing and used it to block another. Threw one attacker into two more.
He was good at this. Too good.
That was the problem.
Bodies hit the ground. Red's family rallied, pushed back. They were winning.
"Red! Behind you!"
Red spun. Saw one of the rival gang members—barely conscious, bleeding from a head wound—crawling toward something.
A baseball bat.
Red saw the bat coming. Saw Kenzo, back turned, oblivious.
Time didn't slow down. There was no moment of clarity. Just the cold
certainty that if he didn't move, Kenzo died.
Red moved.
The impact was a sound first—a wet crack that echoed inside his skull.
Then came the pain, white-hot and all-consuming, radiating from the point
of contact like someone had detonated a grenade inside his brain.
His legs gave out. The concrete rushed up to meet him.
*No. Not like this.*
But his body wasn't listening anymore. Limbs numb. Vision darkening.
The distant sound of Kenzo screaming his name.
Red's thoughts fragmented.
*The wedding dress. I didn't finish the wedding dress.*
*Dad's going to find my room. He'll see everything. All of it.*
*Five years building that game. Half a million people played it.*
"RED! RED, STAY WITH US!"
Kenzo's voice. Panicked. Red had never heard him panicked.
Sirens in the distance. Someone had called the cops. Good. Maybe they'd make it.
Red tried to speak. Couldn't. His tongue wouldn't work. Nothing would work.
The pain came then—hellish, overwhelming, radiating through his skull like someone had set his brain on fire.
The hospital. Bright lights. Machines beeping. Voices shouting medical terms Red didn't understand. His body convulsing on the table, fighting to hold on.
It couldn't.
Red felt his control slipping. His limbs going numb. Vision darkening at the edges.
*This is it.*
The thought came clearly. Almost peacefully.
*I'm dying.*
The darkness closed in. Red's last thought was simple, pathetic, the same regret he'd carried for years.
*I never even held her hand.*
A woman's hand. Any woman. That simple touch he'd dreamed about while sketching and dressing dolls and writing love stories he'd never experience.
Then nothing.
-----
*Drip.*
*Drip.*
*Drip.*
Water.
Red's eyes snapped open.
Everything was blurry. Not hospital-light blurry. Not concussion blurry. Just… unfocused. Like looking through frosted glass.
The ceiling above him was a vague mass of cracked plaster with what might have been a water stain. The smell hit him next—mold, stale ramen, something that might have been a dead animal in the walls.
*What…*
He tried to sit up. His body obeyed, which was wrong. Very wrong. He'd felt himself die. Felt every system shut down.
The moment he was vertical, nausea slammed into him like a freight train. The blurry room spun violently.
"Shit—bathroom—where—"
He stumbled off a bed he didn't remember getting into. His legs nearly buckled. Wrong. His legs felt wrong. Too short. His center of gravity was completely off. And why the hell was everything so blurry?
There. A vague rectangular shape that might be a door, slightly open. He lurched toward it, crashed through, barely made it to what he hoped was a toilet before he puked.
It went on forever. His stomach trying to turn itself inside out. When it finally stopped, Red slumped against the toilet, gasping.
"The hell…" His voice sounded wrong. Higher. Weaker.
Something black and blurry fell across his vision.
Red froze.
Hair. Black hair.
His hair was red. Unmistakably, brightly, *everyone-stares-at-it* red.
Slowly, Red lifted his head toward where the mirror should be.
A blurry face stared back. He could make out dark hair, pale skin, dark circles under eyes, but no details. Everything was frustratingly out of focus.
"Why can't I—" Red squinted. Rubbed his eyes. Nothing changed. "Am I blind? Did that bat make me blind?"
He raised his hand. The blurry figure raised its hand.
He touched his face. The blurry figure touched its face.
The face felt wrong. Smaller. Softer. Not his face.
"Okay. Okay. This is… I'm hallucinating. I'm dead and hallucinating. Or in a coma. Definitely a coma."
He looked down at his body—or tried to. Everything was blurry. But he could tell he was shorter. Much shorter. His shoulders were narrow instead of broad. His hands were smaller, softer.
He looked back at the blurry mirror. At the completely unfocused stranger.
"What the actual fuck."
Memories that weren't his slammed into his brain like a sledgehammer.
*Black Vance. Twenty-three years old. Failed college student. No job. No friends. Parents stopped calling two years ago. Spent every day in this shithole apartment playing video games and eating instant ramen. Vision terrible since childhood, glasses broken three days ago, couldn't afford new ones. Slowly stopped going outside. Stopped trying. Stopped caring.*
*Decided three days ago that there was no point anymore.*
The pills scattered on the floor outside suddenly made horrible sense.
Red pulled back from the memories, breathing hard. "Okay. Okay. So. I died. This guy died. And now I'm… what, in his body? And he had shit vision? Fantastic. Just fantastic."
He stumbled back into the main room, squinting at everything. The apartment was small, cramped, depressing. Trash piled in corners—he could see the shapes even if the details were blurry. Instant ramen cups stacked on every surface. Dirty laundry creating its own ecosystem.
"This guy lived like this?" Red looked around in disbelief. "How do you even—there's mold on the mold. And where the hell are the glasses?"
He started searching. Patted down surfaces, knocked over cups, trying to find anything that might help him see.
There. On the floor near the bed. Something that crunched when he stepped on it.
Red picked it up. Felt the shape. Glasses. Broken glasses. One lens completely missing, the other cracked down the middle, frame bent at an angle that was almost artistic in how useless it made them.
"Perfect. Just perfect." He tried putting them on anyway. The remaining cracked lens made things worse—now everything was blurry AND had a jagged line through it.
He took them off and threw them across the room.
That's when the window appeared.
Not on a screen. Not projected on a wall. Just… there. Floating in mid-air in front of his face. Even blurry, it was impossible to miss—bright blue, aggressively cheerful, with a pixelated shape that might have been a cat wearing a top hat.
Red stared at it.
Blinked.
Rubbed his eyes.
Still there.
**[SYSTEM INITIALIZATION COMPLETE!]**
"What," Red said flatly.
**[Welcome, Creator! Or should I say… Former Creator? Dead Guy? The Man Who Really Should Have Seen This Coming? Let's go with that last one!]**
"I'm hallucinating. Brain damage from the bat. That's what this is."
**[Nope! You're super alive! Well, sort of. Technically you're alive in the body of Black Vance, who—let's be real—wasn't doing much with it anyway. But now you're here! In your very own creation! *Destined Hearts: Save the Heroines!* The game you spent five years building! The world you designed! The story you wrote!]**
Red went very still.
The game.
His game.
*Destined Hearts: Save the Heroines.*
"No."
**[Yes!]**
"That's not possible."
**[And yet!]**
"People don't just wake up in fictional worlds they created."
**[Well, here's the thing—it's not fictional anymore! It's very real! You're in it! Living it! Breathing it! And also, fun fact, you can't see worth a damn because Black Vance had terrible vision and broke his glasses three days ago! How's that for immersion?]**
Red looked at the blurry blue window. At the cheerful pixelated shape that was definitely mocking him.
"This is insane."
**[Yep!]**
"This is impossible."
**[Also yep!]**
"I'm dead."
**[Nope! But you WILL be if you don't pay attention! Because here's where it gets interesting!]**
The cheerful blue turned warning red.
**[You've transmigrated as an UNNAMED EXTRA!]**
**[Identity: Black Vance]**
**[Role in Story: ABSOLUTELY NONE]**
**[Relevance Level: 0.03%]**
**[Character Importance: Literally Who?]**
**[Special Status: CAN'T SEE SHIT]**
**[Time Until Erasure: 167 hours]**
Red stared at the blurry red numbers. "Erasure?"
**[Yep! See, this world runs on narrative importance! You programmed it that way, remember? Characters who don't matter to the story tend to… fade. Disappear. Poof out of existence! And right now, buddy, you matter about as much as a background tree in Act 3. Actually, that tree near the academy has more screen time than you. Players commented on that tree. Nobody's commenting on Black Vance because Black Vance doesn't exist in your code!]**
"That was a game mechanic for minor NPCs, not—" Red stopped. He was arguing with a floating window he could barely see. "I'm having a breakdown. This is a breakdown."
**[But here's the good news! You can EARN relevance! Interact with main characters! Change plot events! Make yourself matter! Do literally anything except sit in this depressing apartment eating ramen and being blind!]**
**[Or don't! And cease to exist in seven days. Free will is great, isn't it?]**
A new window appeared. Still blurry, but Red could make out text.
**[MAIN STORY STATUS]**
**[Current Arc: The Beginning]**
**[Story Start: 72 hours from now]**
**[Location: Capital City, Kingdom of Astraval]**
**[Your current location: The Slums (Where you thoughtfully placed all the irrelevant poor people! Including yourself, apparently!)]**
**[MAIN CHARACTERS:]**
- **Protagonist: Elias Crowned** (Chosen One, Pretty Boy, Has Plot Armor)
- **Heroine #1: Seraphina Lightborn** (Holy Maiden, Trauma, Best Girl According to Forums)
- **Heroine #2: Vivian Ashcroft** (Tsundere Noble, Daddy Issues, Second Most Popular)
- **Heroine #3: Raina Stormcall** (Warrior Woman, Surprisingly Soft, Fan Favorite)
- **Heroine #4: Luna Evernight** (Mysterious Mage, Definitely Not Suspicious, Plot Twist Incarnate)
- **Antagonist: Duke Malveus Drakken** (Evil Noble, Excellent Cheekbones, Surprisingly Complex Motivations)
Red sank into what he hoped was a chair. It creaked ominously. Everything was blurry shapes and vague outlines. He couldn't see details. Couldn't see faces. Couldn't see anything clearly.
He'd created this world. Spent five years designing every character, every location, every plot point. He knew every route, every ending, every secret.
And he was nobody in it. A nobody who couldn't even see.
He looked at his hands—blurry, small, soft, unmarked. Not a fighter's hands. Not a creator's hands.
Not his hands.
Then he looked at the system window, at the cheerful pixelated shape that seemed to be judging him.
"This is insane."
**[Yep!]**
"This is impossible."
**[Also yep!]**
"I'm supposed to just… what, become relevant? In a story I wrote? Where I'm not even a named character? Where I can't see more than two feet in front of me?"
**[Now you're getting it! Think of it as a challenge! Like a really high-stakes game of "Notice Me Senpai" except the senpais are your own characters and if they don't notice you, you literally stop existing! Also you're blind! Fun!]**
The pixelated cat did a little cheerful flip.
**[So! What's it gonna be, Red? Or should I call you Black now? This is confusing. Let's stick with Red. What's it gonna be? Gonna fight for relevance? Gonna change your fate? Or just sit here in this depression apartment and fade away like original-Black was planning?]**
Red thought about his old life. The mafia family he'd wanted to escape. The violence he'd never wanted. The women he'd admired from a distance but never approached.
He'd died saving his brother. Died with his biggest regret being that he'd never even held a woman's hand.
And now he was here. In a world full of women he'd personally created to be kind, strong, complex, worthy of admiration.
Women he couldn't even see clearly.
Women who wouldn't know he existed.
Unless he did something about it.
Red Coren had survived fifteen years in a mafia family. Had built a successful game from nothing. Had died saving someone he loved.
He'd be damned if he was going to fade away in this shithole.
He looked at the blurry system window. At the cheerful, judging cat.
"Alright," Red said. "Tell me how this works. And tell me how to fix my fucking eyes."
The system window exploded in cheerful sparkles.
**[YES! THAT'S THE SPIRIT! Welcome aboard, Player! Let's turn you from a complete nobody into somebody who matters!]**
**[Tutorial Starting Now!]**
**[Lesson One: Your New Body Sucks! Let's Talk About How to Not Die Immediately!]**
**[Lesson Two: You Need Glasses! Badly! Like, Really Badly! But Glasses Cost Money! And You Have None! So That's Problem Number One!]**
Despite everything—the death, the transmigration, the existential horror of being trapped in his own creation as a literal nobody with vision so bad he couldn't see his own hands clearly—Red felt something shift in his chest.
Not quite determination. Not quite resignation.
Something in between.
He'd created this world. Every character, every plot point, every ending.
And now he was going to have to survive it.
As a nobody.
Who couldn't see.
"Yeah," Red muttered to the blurry room. "This is going to be a problem."
Somewhere in the distance, church bells began to ring.
The story was starting in seventy-two hours.
And Red refused to let it start without him.
Even if he had to squint the whole damn time.