I never dreamed of becoming a king.
If someone had asked me what I wanted from life, my answer would have been painfully ordinary: a stable career, a peaceful home, and enough time to read one more chapter before going to sleep.
Reality, unfortunately, had other plans.
My name is Adam.
At twenty-nine years old, I worked as a chartered accountant in a city where numbers mattered more than people. Every morning began the same way—an alarm that came too early, coffee that was never hot enough, endless spreadsheets, tax regulations, financial statements, and deadlines that multiplied faster than they disappeared.
People imagined accounting to be boring.
They weren't entirely wrong.
But I loved it.
There was something satisfying about bringing order to chaos. A company on the verge of collapse could survive with proper planning. Waste could become profit. Debt could become investment. A nation, I often thought, wasn't so different from a business. It needed revenue, discipline, capable leadership, and above all, trust.
It was a strange hobby.
While my colleagues watched football or spent weekends at clubs, I buried myself in history books.
The Roman Empire.
The Ottoman Empire.
The rise of Britain.
The unification of Germany.
The Meiji Restoration.
Ancient China.
The Mughal administration.
Whenever I wasn't reading history, I was reading fantasy novels.
Kingdom-building stories were my weakness.
I couldn't count how many nights I had stayed awake until dawn watching a broken village become a mighty empire or an abandoned castle transform into the greatest kingdom on the continent.
I admired those protagonists.
Not because they were powerful.
But because they built something.
They inspired loyalty.
Created prosperity.
Changed history.
Sometimes I would laugh to myself.
"If they had hired a good accountant," I'd mutter while reading, "half their financial problems wouldn't exist."
My bookshelf was overflowing.
Economics.
Military history.
Political philosophy.
Leadership.
Agriculture.
Infrastructure.
Trade.
Diplomacy.
Taxation.
A strange collection for someone whose job was balancing ledgers.
Still...
Reading about history and changing history were two very different things.
That Friday evening, I left the office later than usual.
The streets shimmered beneath the orange glow of the setting sun. Cars crawled through traffic. Street vendors packed away their stalls while children chased one another along the sidewalks.
Everything felt...
Normal.
Comfortably normal.
I stopped at my favorite bookstore on the way home.
There wasn't anything I actually needed.
There never was.
Yet somehow I always walked out carrying another novel.
The old shopkeeper smiled as he handed me the bag.
"Another kingdom-building story?"
I grinned.
"You know me too well."
"Maybe one day you'll write your own."
I laughed.
"I'll leave that to people with talent."
He chuckled.
"Sometimes talent starts with a single page."
Those words stayed with me as I stepped back onto the street.
I had no idea they would be the last ordinary conversation of my life.
That night, rain began to fall.
The city lights blurred behind the wet windshield of passing cars. I tucked the novel beneath my jacket and hurried toward the pedestrian crossing.
My phone vibrated.
Another work email.
I sighed.
"Tomorrow," I whispered.
The traffic light turned green.
I stepped forward.
Then came the sound.
A horn.
Too loud.
Too close.
Someone screamed.
Bright headlights filled my vision.
Time slowed.
For a heartbeat, the entire world became silent.
I didn't think about money.
Or work.
Or unfinished reports.
I thought about all the stories I had read.
All the kingdoms I had watched rise from ruins.
All the heroes who had been given another chance.
A bitter smile crossed my lips.
"If only..."
Darkness swallowed everything.
And somewhere beyond that endless darkness...
Someone called my name.