Warning before anything it is made with AI so please read with the right mindset.
The ending of Game of Thrones still pissed me off.
I stared at my ceiling, phone in hand, scrolling through yet another rant about how they butchered Daenerys. Eight years of build-up. Eight years. And for what? So a blind guy with a birds' eye view could become king?
But that wasn't what really got to me.
What got to me was the whole damn point of the show. All those seasons of watching people scheme and lie and kill. The Starks got butchered at a wedding. The common folk got roasted by dragon fire. The clever ones got poisoned. The honorable ones lost their heads.
And in the end? The same greedy bastards just picked a new king and called it a day.
Nobody learned anything. The smallfolk still starved. The lords still played their game. Nothing changed. Because that's what humans do. We see a better path, and then we look at our pride, our gold, our grudges—and we take the shitty one instead.
I was still fuming about it when I crossed the street.
Didn't see the truck.
Didn't hear it either. One second I was thinking about fictional injustice. The next, I was thinking about how the pavement felt very cold against my cheek. And how I couldn't feel my legs.
Then I stopped thinking at all.
---
White.
Not light. Not a tunnel. Just… white. Like someone had deleted the universe and forgot to paint a new one.
I stood there. Or floated. Hard to tell without a floor.
"Oh good, you're here."
The voice came from everywhere. A middle-aged guy materialized in front of me. Casual clothes. Messy hair. Looked like a bored professor who'd given up on grading papers.
"Where's here?" I asked.
"The waiting room." He yawned. "You died, by the way. Truck. Very messy. The driver was texting."
"Great."
"Don't worry. You get a prize."
I blinked. "A prize?"
"Congratulations." He made jazz hands. "You've been selected for random omnipotent intervention. One reincarnation, one custom power set, one fantasy world of your choice." He squinted at a clipboard that hadn't been there a second ago. "You picked… oh. Game of Thrones. Bold move."
"I didn't pick anything."
"Semantics." He waved a hand. "So. Power. What'll it be? Super strength? Magic? The ability to make people shut up about modern politics in a medieval setting?"
"Shadow Monarch," I said.
He raised an eyebrow. "From Solo Leveling?"
"You know it?"
"I'm omnipotent, not illiterate." He scratched his chin. "Necromancy, shadows, an army of the dead. Dark aesthetic. Very edgy. You sure?"
"People in that world deserve worse than death," I said. "The ones who start wars. Who burn villages. Who rape and pillage because they have a last name with a 'Ty' in it." I shrugged. "Figured I'd give them what they earned."
The being grinned. "I like you. Most people ask for dragons."
"Dragons are just flying nukes. I want an army that never tires, never betrays me, and doesn't need to eat."
"Fair point." He snapped his fingers. A screen appeared. My face, but different. Sharper. Dark circles under the eyes. "You'll wake up in Westeros. Timeline's around when the show starts. Robert's still king. Ned's still alive. The fun hasn't started yet."
"And my power?"
"Full Shadow Monarch. Raise the dead. Command shadows. Teleport through them. The whole package." He paused. "One thing, though."
"What?"
"You'll feel them. The ones you raise. Their pain, their rage, their last moments." His voice lost the joking tone. "It's not a clean power. You'll carry every soul you touch."
I thought about it. About the Starks. About the farmers whose fields got burned. About the women in the background of every battle scene, the ones the show never followed.
"Good," I said. "Someone should."
The being nodded once. Then he pushed me.
---
The smell hit first.
Blood. Shit. Copper so thick it coated the back of my throat.
I opened my eyes.
Bodies. Dozens of them. Hundreds. Scattered across a muddy field. Broken shields. Shattered lances. A sigil I didn't recognize—some kind of red fish—stained into a banner half-buried in the mud.
My hands were clean. No armor. No sword. Just black clothes and a shadow that moved wrong when I turned.
To my left, a boy couldn't have been older than sixteen. His throat was cut. Eyes still open. Staring at nothing.
To my right, a man in half-plate armor clutched a locket. His fingers were frozen around it. Dead for maybe a day, based on the stiffness.
I heard screams in the distance. A village burning somewhere beyond the treeline.
The system appeared in my vision. Cold blue text.
[Shadow Extraction available.]
I looked at the boy. Then at the man. Then at the hundred other corpses who never got a choice about dying for someone else's pride.
My hand reached out before I decided to move it.
The shadow under the boy twitched.
And for the first time since I woke up, I smiled.
It wasn't a nice smile.