"This... wasn’t supposed to happen."

  The pale girl in front of Alex let out a long sigh. It seemed to echo through the strange, shadowy void around them. She was dressed in a gothic Victorian-style dress, black lace and velvet. Her skin was porcelain, her lips bloodless, and her eyes a cold silver.

  "Where... am I?" Alex muttered. His voice was hoarse, like he hadn’t spoken in years. Or like he wasn't supposed to be able to speak at all.

  His thoughts felt distant, scattered like leaves in the wind. He remembered breakfast. His mom making pancakes. His older sister and younger brother arguing over syrup. The usual morning chaos. Then leaving for school, earbuds in, backpack slung over one shoulder.

  Then the kid. A little boy stepping into the street.

  The truck.

  The scream that had left his throat before his body moved.

  He had pushed the kid. He remembered that. The impact came a split second later. A crushing force. Pain. Then darkness.

  Now this.

  "You are in the afterlife. Well... the place between your original life and the afterlife," the pale girl said with another sigh. "It’s kind of a waiting room. Except no coffee."

  Alex stared. "So I’m... dead?"

  She gave a tiny shrug. "Technically."

  He took a step back, heart racing, though it didn’t feel like it was beating in his chest anymore. "What does that even mean?"

  "It means," she said, brushing a nonexistent speck of dust off her skirt, "you weren’t supposed to be here. Not yet."

  "What?"

  "You weren’t supposed to die. That kid was."

  Alex blinked. "Are you serious?"

  "I messed up," she said, rubbing her temples. "I’m the Grim Reaper. Or rather, a Grim Reaper. An aspect of the Grim Reaper. Don’t think too much about it, it gets confusing. Point is, I tagged the wrong soul. Yours."

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  "You picked my soul instead of his." The words left Alex’s mouth slowly, like he was trying to taste them, make sense of them. "So I’m dead... because you screwed up."

  "That’s the long and short of it, yes," she admitted. "You were supposed to live to eighty. Die peacefully. Surrounded by family. Instead, well... truck."

  Alex dropped to his knees. Not from pain. There wasn’t any. Just numbness. Cold, quiet numbness that seeped into his bones.

  The girl, Grim Reaper, aspect, whatever, gave him a moment before speaking again.

  "Look, I’ll try to make it up to you."

  She held out a hand, and a scroll shimmered into existence, floating between them. It unrolled itself, golden thread glowing faintly across its surface. The text shifted as he looked at it. Dozens of languages he didn’t recognize, yet somehow understood all at once.

  "I’m offering you a second chance," she said. "Rebirth. In another world. With some perks."

  "Perks?" he asked, still dazed.

  "Powers. Abilities. A cheat system, basically. You can design your stats, pick your skills, even choose a class if you want to go full RPG about it."

  Alex stared. "You’re serious."

  "As serious as a Grim Reaper can be."

  His eyes dropped to the scroll. It listed things he couldn’t believe were real. Strength, magic affinity, stealth, charisma modifiers, resistances, even world options.

  "Where do I... wake up?" he asked.

  She twirled a finger, and the scroll shifted, displaying vivid images. Forests under twin suns. Cities of floating glass. Mechanical worlds buzzing with sleek machines.

  "You’ve got options," she said. "The world you remember? Just one of many. Most people pick paradise. Like this one: high fantasy, noblebright, everyone’s nice, magic schools, no hunger, no war. Wizards coming up with cool spells. All that."

  Alex frowned. "Can I go back to my own world? To my family?"

  "Nope. Once you die in a world, you can never return to it. Those are the rules. Even I can’t break them."

  Silence.

  "I’m sorry," she added quietly.

  Alex clenched his fists. It wasn’t fair. But it was real. He could feel it in his bones, in the weight of the void pressing down on his chest.

  She cleared her throat. "Well, on the bright side, there are lots of other choices. Want a hentai world? Big tiddy elves waiting to breed with a human hero? Mindless orgies, all day, every day."

  "I’ll pass."

  "Okay, okay. Sci-fi utopia? Endless beach planets? Eternal youth?"

  "Most people pick paradise, don’t they?"

  "Of course they do. Who wouldn’t?"

  Alex looked at her. Something had shifted inside him. A flicker of fire in the dark. Not rage. Not sadness. Purpose.

  "Then I want the opposite."

  She blinked. "What?"

  "I want to be reborn in a broken world. A place that’s falling apart. Grim. Dark. A world that’s given up on hope."

  She stared at him. "You sure about that? Most people who are reborn in worlds like that die again in a week."

  "I’m sure."

  She tilted her head slightly, as if trying to see through him. "Why?"

  "Because if I’m going to be given power, I want to use it to fix something. To bring light to a place that’s forgotten what it means to hope."

  For a long moment, she didn’t speak. Then her lips curled into a slow, genuine smile.

  "All right," she said. "You’re the first person we’re sending there... willingly."