Dante woke up with a gasp. It was as if someone had squeezed every breath out of his lungs. His heart was pounding hard, each beat drumming in his ears. After several deep breaths, he collected himself. The last thing he remembered was playing Marvel Rivals after a day of boring office work. Nothing unusual. A figure began to form in his vision, a person that should not be present in his apartment. More shadow than flesh, pale face glowing like moonlight, yet somehow brighter than anything he'd seen.
She sat nonchalantly on a throne of bones, exuding the aura of a queen as she silently judged or rather appraised him with those calm eyes.
"This vessel is quite sturdy for one week of incubation," she said, speaking to herself more than to him. "A speck of my cosmic powers should ease his burden."
"This… where am I?" His throat was dry, making his voice barely audible. "Who are you?"
Despite never meeting her in his life, he felt a strange connection with her—the thought nearly made him burst into laughter. He was definitely having the strangest lucid dream, probably the result of not having sex for nearly a year. In his defense, he was too busy working his ass off. He was wealthy enough to survive decades, but he lived the life of a workaholic anyway.
A faint smile curved the woman's lips. "I rarely intervene in mortal affairs, and when I do, it is to ferry a very special soul. Tell me, do you still wish to know my name?"
The combination of her ethereal beauty and strange obsession with death invoked a name in his mind. A name that should only exist as a character name within the pages of comic books. He truly didn't want to believe it, yet something told him he was right. That the beauty before him was one of cosmic beings and the very personification of death.
Death.
Her expression shifted almost imperceptibly. "How is it that you recognized my identity? Is that source of power aiding you?"
Dante ignored her questions and pinched his cheek. Instead of familiar roughness, his fingers touched supple, unnervingly smooth skin. He looked down at his hands, finding them pale and untainted just like the lady before him.
"Your body was destroyed in the aftermath of a calamity. This flesh and blood vessel you're occupying is created as per my standard," she spoke with a strange hint of pride in her voice. "Check it for yourself."
The ground wriggled and rose in the form of a vast mirror. On it was a pale-skinned man with black pupils, the same color as his messy hair. The face bore a resemblance to his, but it looked completely foreign at the same time. His jawline wasn't as chiseled nor was his build this athletic. He wasn't bad looking before, but right now he was attractive enough to pass off as this lady's older brother.
Gazing into the mirror, he touched his face, neck, chest, and even his little brother. "No way this is real… I'm in the Marvel Universe."
The feeling of pain as he bit his tongue forced him to accept his new reality. It was too real to be a dream.
Death stared at him with a curious smile. "What is this Marvel Universe you speak of?"
It was his turn to stare at her. Death was supposed to be a cosmic being, someone with the ability to manipulate reality, time, space, matter, energy, or magic for any purpose. Reading a human's mind would be effortless for her.
'No, maybe, she can't read mine.'
He thought back to the words she greeted him with. Death had created his new body and imbued it with a speck of her cosmic power. She wouldn't do that if he wasn't special in the first place. Alas, he couldn't sense anything new in himself other than this strange connection with Death.
He cleared his throat loudly. "Can I ask why Death summoned me to her personal realm? And am I… actually dead?"
Death lazily swept her hand, which opened a massive rift in the endless sky above. The scene within was of a starry galaxy.
"Cool scenery I guess?"
"What you see is your universe, which met an unfortunate end. You are the sole survivor…"
Her words cleaned every ounce of happiness from his face. His love for his parents and younger brother was only second to his love for himself. "How did it happen? More importantly, did they… suffer?"
"No, it could not have been painful for anyone." She crossed her legs, her gaze sharp. "I can't reveal more since I'm in the dark myself."
Dante couldn't help but chuckle. "The very embodiment of death can't understand why a universe perished. The irony."
She closed the rift with a smile. "You're the key to understanding it."
"Is that why you resurrected me?"
"My creed is to never interfere with the balance. Reviving you will go against the Natural Order of the universe." Propping her right elbow on the throne's armrest, she looked at him with a smile. A very gentle smile. But this very smile sent a shiver down his spine. "Why must I defy the Natural Order I have upheld for eons for you? What makes you worthy of Death personally overruling your annihilation? "
He clenched his fists. There was a very good chance Death was simply toying with him. She was patient enough to create a body for him and even give him some of her power. It wouldn't make any sense for her to kill him after all that effort. But there was still a chance she would. He wasn't facing a normal being, after all.
The very personification of death wasn't someone a human could comprehend.
However, he had a secret weapon to turn the situation around—the knowledge from his previous world.
He closed his eyes and sank into thoughts. There was no reason to rush since Death set no time limit.
Suddenly, golden and blue letters surfaced in his mind.
[Accessing Universe-X's Null Repository.]
[Searching for data related to 'Death.']
[Search complete.]
[Transferring information to Administrator.]
A flood of information smashed through his mind. He saw the birth of the Multiverse, Death's own beginning, and how the first life came to be. Her loneliness stretched across eons caused by the universal fear of death, despite the necessity of her existence for the birth of new life.
Information that shouldn't be known to a human continued flowing in him. His mind buckled under the weight. That brought agony. It felt like his head would explode. Warm blood began flowing from his nose.
A cold hand touched his temple, and the storm of information inside him calmed instantly. He slumped to the ground, clutching his head. Everything he witnessed just now made him feel so small and insignificant. His mind would've snapped for sure without Death's intervention.
He continued lying there for what felt like hours but was probably minutes. The pain somewhat faded, but his mind… he would never recover after being exposed to that maelstorm of knowledge.
"Thanks for that." He got up while rubbing his aching temple. His existential dread faded away at the realization that Death, a cosmic being, barely reached his shoulder. "What just happened? Why did I suddenly get… visions?"
"You used it just now," Death said, gazing at him, or rather, his chest. "The power within you."