My last vivid memory, the one that stayed with me shortly before I lost consciousness, was—ironically enough—a brick.
The most ordinary brick, dirty-orange, with a chipped corner and a thin stripe of dried mortar along the edge. I even had time to think that, for some reason, it was flying unusually slowly. So slowly that my brain—rather than ordering my body to dodge—started to fixate on some absurd details: the crack, the rotation in the air.
With a shout of "watch out!" coming from somewhere above, it was already far too late for me to dodge. The world seemed to freeze for a second, and then—a dull impact, a flash of pain, and everything went black. In the end, that damned brick fell from the tenth floor right onto my poor head!
It was early morning—that gray, cool morning when the city hasn't fully woken up yet. I had just stepped out of my house on my way to work, anticipating another day: not exciting, not remarkable, but familiar and understandable. Just like always. Coffee on the way, overcrowded transport, meaningless conversations, a list of tasks to endure until evening. Nothing special. Just life.
So how, for heaven's sake, could this happen to me?!
I didn't cross the street on red. I didn't get into fights. I wasn't standing under a construction crane, waving my arms. I was just walking. On my usual route. On a usual morning. In my ordinary life.
Honestly, it was incredibly frustrating.
Not tragic—frustrating. Because I still had plans. Not grandiose ones, but mine: to buy a new coat for autumn, to save for a trip to the sea, finally to learn to cook something more complicated than an omelet. Maybe to fall in love. Maybe to become a little happier.
I truly didn't imagine I would live so little.
It was far too little. Catastrophically, outrageously little!
Only three years had passed since I graduated from university with a degree in financial operations. And just six months ago, I finally managed to find a good job at a prestigious company where I could earn a decent salary for my work.
Of course, sitting in an office from morning till evening was never the ultimate dream of my life. But, to be honest, I definitely didn't complain. Moreover—I was even a little proud of myself.
Thanks to this job, I had finally managed to fully support myself financially and not depend on my parents. That feeling turned out to be far more pleasant than I expected. I moved into my own rented apartment—small but cozy, with a crooked balcony and a constantly dripping kitchen faucet. And for six months, I had been paying for it myself. Buying groceries myself. Paying the bills myself. Deciding for myself what I could and couldn't do.
This was freedom. True, adult freedom.
My life was the most ordinary, routine everyday existence: work, home, occasional meetings with friends, evening TV series, and sometimes—pleasant little things like buying merch from favorite fandoms that I used to be too frugal to purchase. Nothing outstanding. Nothing heroic. But I was perfectly content with it.
Honestly.
Even if an omnipotent god from another world had suddenly appeared and offered me a new life—with adventures, magic, a chosen destiny, and other dubious bonuses—I would have refused. Without hesitation. Because my life, though ordinary, was mine. Understandable. Predictable. Safe.
And, most importantly, it was only just starting to fall into place.
So yes—I really had been satisfied with my life all this time.
Then what the hell?!
Not only did I have to die so early—at just twenty-six years old—but also because of such a stupid, miserable accident!
No, really. I could understand some kind of drama. An illness. Saving someone at the cost of my own life. Even some pompous plot involving sacrifice for humanity would have seemed more reasonable. But a brick? Seriously?
How could a brick just take it upon itself to fall on my head in broad daylight?!
The more I thought about it, the more indignant I became. If there is an afterlife, I was absolutely sure: even there, I would continue to rage about my outrageously unfair fate. I might demand a complaint book. Or at least an explanatory note from those responsible for people's destinies.
But… wait.
It seemed that the place where I woke up didn't quite resemble an afterlife.
Blinking several times, trying to clear the murky haze before my eyes, I stared up in confusion. In front of me was a ceiling. A real ceiling—not a shining celestial vault, not an endless white void, not something mystical and solemn.
Cracked.
Old.
With patches of mold in the corners.
I silently stared at it for several seconds while my consciousness slowly caught up with reality.
Honestly… I already disliked all of this very much.
Because this was not at all how I imagined life after death.
Where was the light? Where were the angels? Where was even minimal aesthetics? Why, instead, was there a ceiling above me that clearly had survived decades and, judging by its appearance, had never undergone a major renovation?
And what kind of place was this anyway?
The smell of dampness, the heavy air, the feel of a hard surface beneath my back—it all felt too… material. Too real.
I frowned.
Because this place was completely unfamiliar to me.
The room I had suddenly found myself in was quiet. So quiet that at first I thought—I had just gone deaf. No street noise, no human voices, no usual urban hum. Only a faint creak somewhere in the walls and a barely audible whistle of wind.
I slowly lifted myself from the creaky bed, trying not to make sudden movements. My body felt strange—heavy, unruly, as if not entirely my own. The mattress beneath me was thin and worn, the springs pressed unpleasantly against my back, and the blanket smelled of dampness and something musty.
The place I had ended up in was truly terrible.
Honestly, it resembled more an abandoned house… or even a shed that people definitely shouldn't live in. The surroundings looked old, ruined, and frankly miserable. Darkened walls with peeling plaster, a crooked wooden table in the corner, a tilted wardrobe missing a door, dust, dirt, cobwebs in the corners. Even the air seemed stale.
But what exactly was I doing here?
Was this a hallucination after death?
Was I lying on asphalt, in a puddle of my own blood, with a head smashed by a brick… and seeing this strange, overly detailed dream? Had my brain, before shutting down, decided to play out some absurd scenario?
But the more I looked around, the less it resembled a dream.
Honestly, I truly couldn't understand what was happening to me right now…
For a moment, a bad premonition crept over me.
And the next second, a chill ran over my skin.
Suddenly, I felt an urge to check something.
Just… to be sure.
The thought came so sharply that I didn't even have time to fully formulate it—my body moved before my consciousness. My heart somehow raced, my palms sweated, and a sharp unease arose inside me, which I tried desperately to ignore.
I desperately scanned the room, looking for any reflective surface. Just in case. Just to make sure everything was okay. That I—was me.
And fortunately… or rather unfortunately, there was indeed a handheld mirror in the room.
It was small, old, with a tarnished frame and a crack running almost across its entire surface. In another situation, I would have disgustedly set such an object aside. But right now, I didn't care at all.
I just looked into it.
And… I froze immediately.
In the reflection of the cracked mirror, an utterly unfamiliar girl was staring back at me.
For several seconds, my brain desperately tried to deny what it saw. Maybe the angle was wrong. The lighting was bad. I hadn't fully woken up. It's a dream. A hallucination. Anything—just not reality.
But the face in the mirror didn't vanish.
Honestly… she looked awful.
Tangled light hair, more like dry straw, sticking out in all directions. Pale, sickly skin with a grayish tint, deep shadows under the eyes. Chapped lips, hollow cheeks, a hunted, empty gaze. The face of someone who had gone hungry for a long time, cried a lot, and hardly slept.
She didn't even pretend to be a beauty queen—she looked like life had been exceptionally cruel to her.
This was a girl who looked tortured, broken.
And the worst part was that she moved in sync with me.
I was stunned.
My hands trembled, my fingers went limp, and in shock I dropped the mirror I was holding. It hit the floor with a dull thud, the sound deafening in the dead silence of the room.
And I still couldn't take my eyes off the place where a stranger's face had been just a second ago.
I simply couldn't believe my eyes.
This must be just a nightmare, right?
I'm just dreaming, right?
Please… please let this be just a dream!!!
I was ready to accept anything—even a coma after injury, even the ramblings of a dying brain, even the most absurd explanations—just not to acknowledge the obvious. Because the obvious seemed too impossible.
I was already about to lean down for the mirror again, as if a second check could change anything, when in the house, where there had been complete silence, suddenly came an unfamiliar noise.
Footsteps.
Heavy. Fast. Irritated.
Somewhere a door slammed, floorboards creaked, and the next moment I realized clearly—I wasn't alone.
My heart dropped sharply.
I didn't even have time to turn properly before another person appeared in the room.
His dark, slanted eyes, full of rage, were fixed directly on me.
And in that gaze, there was not the slightest doubt about whom he saw before him.
"Meropa, you wretch! What are you doing?!"