The world ended in something small.
Not a war.Not a disaster.Not even something meaningful.
Just headlights.
Blinding. Sudden. Too close.
Ethan Voss didn't even have time to think. One second he was standing on the side of the road, the cold night air brushing against his skin, his mind lost somewhere between exhaustion and routine. The next, everything was white—burning, overwhelming, swallowing the world whole as the sound hit him a fraction too late. A deafening crack of metal and force, like the sky itself had shattered.
No time.No warning.No chance.
Impact.
There was pain.
For a moment.
Sharp. Absolute. Consuming.
Then—
Nothing.
The world disappeared.
No sound.No light.No body.
Just… absence.
He tried to breathe.
He couldn't.
He tried to move.
There was nothing to move.
Panic should have come—but even that felt distant, like a memory of something he should be feeling rather than something real. Time stretched into something meaningless, seconds or hours or eternity blending together into a single endless void.
Then something changed.
Not sound.Not light.
But… awareness.
A thought surfaced.
Clear. Isolated.
Alone in the dark.
I died.
The realization didn't come with fear. Not at first. It came slowly, settling into him like cold water seeping into cracks.
No body.No breath.No heartbeat.
Nothing.
And yet—
He was still there.
That's when the fear came.
It crawled in quietly at first, tightening around what little sense of self he had left. If he was dead… then why was he thinking? Why was he still aware? Why hadn't everything just… stopped?
Something was wrong.
Then—
A presence.
Not seen.Not heard.
Felt.
It pressed against him from everywhere at once, vast and impossible, like standing at the edge of something infinite. There were no words, no voice, no form—but the meaning was there all the same.
A question.
It didn't speak.
But he understood.
What do you want?
The answer came instantly.
Too fast.
Too desperate.
"I don't want to die."
Silence.
The presence didn't react.
Didn't judge.
Didn't hesitate.
The darkness shifted.
For a moment—just a moment—something felt wrong.
Like he had said the wrong thing.
Like he had misunderstood the question.
But it was too late.
The void collapsed.
Cold.
Not emptiness this time.
Something else.
Something real.
Pain hit him first.
Not sharp.
Not sudden.
But overwhelming in a way he couldn't understand.
His entire body—no, not body—something—was firing with sensation all at once. Too much. Too fast. Every nerve screaming as awareness flooded back in, forcing him into something solid again.
He tried to gasp.
Something moved.
But it wasn't right.
His thoughts stuttered.
Something was wrong.
The world came back all at once.
Dark soil pressed against him. Damp. Thick. Suffocating. The air—if it was air—felt heavy, clogged with the scent of decay and something bitter he couldn't name. The ground beneath him wasn't flat. It shifted, uneven and crawling with movement.
Crawling.
That word stuck.
Because he was moving.
Not standing.
Not lying.
Crawling.
Too many limbs dragged against the dirt, each one responding without thought, bending and pushing in ways that made no sense. His body felt wrong—too light, too small, too fast—and every movement came with a flood of unfamiliar sensations that made his mind recoil.
Too many legs.Too many joints.
His vision flickered.
Split.
Multiplied.
The world wasn't whole anymore. It came in fragments, dozens of tiny images overlapping each other, shifting with every movement. Shapes blurred. Light fractured. The ground stretched endlessly in every direction, every grain of dirt massive, towering like uneven terrain.
Too many eyes.
Something skittered past him.
Fast.
Too fast.
His body reacted instantly.
Not by choice.
He froze.
The instinct wasn't his.
It was deeper.
Older.
Something inside him screamed:
Hide.
He didn't understand why.
But he obeyed.
The world went still.
For a moment—just a moment—everything was quiet.
Then the ground trembled.
A shadow passed over him.
Massive.
Unnatural.
He didn't have time to think.
Didn't have time to understand.
The thing struck.
Pain exploded through him as something pierced his body, lifting him from the ground like he weighed nothing at all. The world spun violently, fragments of light and motion shattering around him as his limbs flailed uselessly.
Too fast.Too strong.
He couldn't fight.
Couldn't move.
Couldn't—
Crunch.
Everything ended in an instant.
Darkness returned.
Silence.
But this time—
It didn't last.
The void came back.
But it wasn't as empty.
The awareness was still there.
Stronger.
Clearer.
And this time…
He understood.
"I died again."