I'm currently standing in front of a massive space creature the size of the Milky Way.
I'm just floating here, some 24-year-old schmuck who thirty minutes ago was worried about whether I'd remembered to pack my knee wraps, staring at something so incomprehensibly vast that my brain keeps helpfully supplying the suggestion that maybe I should just pass out and let someone else deal with this.
But no. I'm conscious. Fully, painfully conscious, with all the existential dread that comes with realizing you're less than a speck of dust to something that could probably sneeze and accidentally create a new constellation.
How did we get here, exactly?
Well, just like your run-of-the-mill reincarnation story, I, a middle-aged 24-year-old man, was ran over and eaten by a female lion in the Amazon forest during training as a Siberian MMA fighter.
I know what you're thinking. What was a Siberian MMA fighter doing in the Amazon? And why was there a lion there? And how exactly does one get run over by a lion? To which I say: the Amazon has lions now, apparently, and she was very fast, and I'd like to see you keep your situational awareness when you're six hours into a barefoot run through the jungle while a documentary crew films you for "motivational content." The last thing I remember was stepping on something that felt suspiciously like a sleeping tail, followed by a roar that vibrated through my very soul, followed by teeth.
Pretty cliché stuff, I know.
Anyways, just before my gruesome death, I saw what seemed to be a flying pink octopus laughing at me, floating about three feet above my rapidly disassembling body, making these weird gurgling sounds that I could somehow understand as "What a fucking doofus!" before everything went white and I was transported here.
Is this Samsara, the cycle of reincarnation, I thought? If so, whoever's managing all this really needs to get better employees—
"Atsuya Nagasaki."
The voice didn't come from anywhere. It came from everywhere. From the void around me, from the creature's incomprehensible bulk, from inside my own skull. It was the kind of voice that made me understand, on a primal level, why ancient humans invented religion. My bladder, which had been doing its best under trying circumstances, gave a valiant but ultimately futile twitch.
"As someone who has yet to accomplish his dreams and has provided much merit to the planet Earth, I, Skhodurshak, give you this second chance." The giant abomination spoke, its voice resounding throughout the entire universe. I could feel it in my teeth. My fillings vibrated. "You will be transported to many different realms as you become the strongest in each of them."
I stared at the cosmic horror. The cosmic horror stared back with approximately seven billion eyes, give or take a few billion.
Uhhh... Different realms? The strongest? My brain, which had been doing a remarkable job of processing the absolute batshit insanity of this situation, finally caved as I tried to comprehend what the creature had just said.
"What kind of 'realms,' exactly? And what if I don't turn out to be the strongest?" I calmly said as my knees were definitely not shaking alongside my straining bladder. I had a reputation to maintain, even in front of a galaxy-sized deity. Dignity costs nothing, I always say, right before I lose all of it.
"You will be transferred to the realms you desire to be transported in the most, with the sole exception of previously visited realms or your original one." The creature's voice remained steady, patient even, like a professor explaining something to a particularly slow student. Which, fair. "You will then be given a vision of the state of the realms before also being provided three wishes in each one of them, which will come true no matter what with no loopholes whatsoever as long as the wishes stay within the power system of the realms. As for not being the strongest..."
The creature paused.
And then, in a move that I can only describe as the universe's greatest practical joke, it began to shrink. The galactic bulk folded into itself, dimensions collapsing, mass compacting, until what stood before me was no longer an eldritch abomination that made Lovecraft look like Dr. Seuss, but instead—
A woman.
A humanoid, demon-like woman, standing about five-foot-six with thorns protruding from both sides of her head like a crown that had decided to fight back. Her skin was the color of burnt amber, her eyes gleamed with an ancient amusement, and her body had the kind of curves that made me understand why certain myths ended the way they did. She crossed her arms—which, again, curves—under her chest and pointed at me mockingly with a clawed finger, her lips curling into a grin that was equal parts terrifying and, against all better judgment, attractive.
"I mean, seriously dude?" She said, her voice now carrying a distinctly feminine edge that did things to my already compromised mental state. "You still can't be the strongest even with multiple golden fingers?"
I didn't think that terrifying freak of nature was such a baddie... Ahem!
"Well," I managed, my voice cracking slightly, "better to make sure, right? Still, three wishes? That's completely broken." I ran a hand through my hair, a nervous habit that had survived death apparently. "Are you sure the writer of this novel planned this out properl—"
"Kids are so horny these days," She cut me off before spouting any more blasphemy, shaking her head with what might have been either disappointment or fond exasperation. Possibly both. "Honestly. I'm a primordial entity who witnessed the birth of your dimension's first atom, and you're standing there—" she gestured vaguely at my entire existence, "—thinking about my chest."
"I was not—"
"I can see your soul, Atsuya. It's a very loud one, at that."
Before I could defend myself—and I had a defense prepared, a very good one about appreciation of aesthetic forms and not at all about my monkey brain going woman shaped! pretty!—she snapped her fingers, and the universe dissolved.
I was transported into a pitch black void where I neither stood, sat, nor floated. There was no up, no down, no reference points at all. Just me, my thoughts, and a profound sense of vertigo that came from existing in a space that didn't obey any of the laws my meat-based brain was designed to process.
I was about to complain—to whom, I wasn't sure, but complaining felt like the appropriate response—when an interface appeared in front of my face.
Or rather, through my face. It was like seeing something directly in my optic nerve, a translucent screen that existed somewhere between my eyes and my brain. Text began to materialize, flickering like a candle in wind.
"P-lEaSe SeL-eC-t 3 wI-sHes-"
The voice that accompanied it was garbled, glitching, like a radio station fighting through interference. It hurt to listen to, setting my teeth on edge and making my skull feel too small for my brain.
Then, abruptly, the text vanished.
"ERROR: COSMIC INTERFERENCE HAS OCCURRED, INITIALIZING UPDATES..."
...Okay, what the fuck?
I stared at the error message, my earlier terror slowly being replaced by a growing sense of disbelief. First, I was talking to a cute babe—correction, a terrifying cosmic entity who happened to currently be a total babe—and now I've apparently already broken their system? The grand cosmic reincarnation system, the one that had presumably been running for eons, dealing with countless souls across countless realms, and I'd managed to crash it within five minutes of arrival.
They really need to up their management around here.
The void offered no response. No sound, no light, no sense of time passing. Just me, floating in nothing, watching a frozen error message that seemed to be mocking me with its very existence.
"Hello?" I called out. My voice didn't echo. It just... stopped, absorbed by the nothingness around me. "Anyone? Pink octopus? Galaxy lady? Tech support? I'd like to speak to a manager, please."
Nothing.
I waited.
"Okay," I said to myself, breathing in and out. "Okay. Don't freak out."
I took another breath. Did I even need to breathe here? I wasn't sure, but it felt right.
"I can work with this."
"..."
I could not, in fact, work with this. I had no idea how long I'd been floating. Minutes? Hours? Days? The void didn't care about time, and neither did my dead body. I tried doing some shadow boxing to pass the time, but without gravity or resistance, it just felt like I was flailing embarrassingly.
"..."
"Just when is this thing gonna stop loading—"
"Congratulations!"
The interface blazed back to life, now a brilliant gold instead of the sterile blue from before. Confetti made of light exploded around me, some of it passing through my body in a way that tickled.
"You have won the Cosmic Lottery! Changing 3 wishes into 6. Power across different realities is now stored inside the user's soul for The Grand Tournament."
...Wow.
I blinked at the screen. Then I blinked again. The words didn't change, no matter how many times I read them. Six wishes instead of three? Power stored in my soul? The Grand Tournament?.
"Okay," I said slowly, a grin spreading across my face despite myself. "Okay! NOW we're talking!"
The void around me began to shimmer, colors bleeding into the darkness, shapes forming at the edges of my vision. The interface flickered one more time, new text appearing beneath the announcement:
"REALM SELECTION INITIALIZING. PREPARING VISION SEQUENCE. PLEASE STAND BY."
I stood by. Or floated by. Whatever.
The first realm appeared before me like a dream taking shape, and I watched with wide eyes as my second chance at existence began to unfold.