PART-1

  *Click*

  “Yes.” I mumbled under my breath as I clicked ‘yes’.

  Gently pulling the headphones off, I sighed deeply, reminding myself of the frustration I had been containing for all this while.

  What was I frustrated about? I’d be damned if I knew. Initially, I thought it was because I was not being productive, but turns out it wasn’t true. Then I thought maybe it was because of the stress of preparing for the entrance exams for college- Who am I kidding? I’d be the last person interested to go to college in the entire nation and me getting stressed for exams? What a joke.

  Even after suffering from these endless waves of temper for a year now, yet I am clueless about its causes. I doubt if it is depression, because of how much I can relate to the interviews of actual people diagnosed with depression on YouTube. Though I didn’t take any steps towards concerning a psychologist or anything, that is still a work in progress.

  The pain in my backbone, a result of staring down at a computer screen for 8 hours long, snapped me back to reality. I immediately jumped out of the ‘not very comfy chair’ and stretched my back, popping a few bones back into their place. It was bliss to feel the muscles sore from lack of exercise tense up. Breaking the silence with a satisfyingly loud sigh, I rub my dried eyes and look around the room.

  The only word that came to mind to best describe was “Chaos”. I saw a paintbrush alongside a kitchen knife on a PSP, beside a stack of papers in one corner of the room. I am pretty sure that you can easily imagine the remaining.

  The sight of the unclean room instilled even more anger in me. As they say, your surroundings affect how you feel. And with my surroundings like this, I wanted to punch someone in their face with all my might. Of course, doing that is not very recommendable considering how weak I am. Even someone 5 years younger than me can beat me to a pulp. At least that’s what I think.

  I shut the only source of light in the room, the laptop screen, and turn on the lights. I reflexively narrowed my eyes because of the sudden intensification in brightness that stung my eyes. After a few seconds, I focus my eyes on the wall clock.

  “6 o’clock, huh?” I say to myself, “Another unproductive day, I believe.”

  It truly was an unproductive day. Neither did I learn anything new, nor did I practice things I have already learned. By learning, I don’t just mean academics. I have learned nothing AT ALL, today. Not like it differs from other days. This feeling of being unproductive has been lingering in me for the past year, ever since the beginning of the lockdown.

  Right after a week of lockdown, my high school switched to online means of teaching, months before other institutions did. At first, I listened to the classes, even better than when I attended school. But after a few days, I started getting bored. I mean, who would listen to a boring lecture, when you have other forms of entertainment like ‘websites where you can talk to strangers’, web series, anime, novels, manga, hen- you get the idea. So, from the past year, all I did was join the online class and watch or read something on another tab. No wonder why I cannot pass my exams.

  I yawn and rub my eyes again, trying to get some moisture in them to avoid the irritation because of the dryness. This was another problem I was facing nowadays. Google says it is because of staring at something for way too long, which would strain the eye muscles or something.

  Now that there were 4 more hours before my time to sleep, I wanted to do something different for once. I didn’t want to go back to watching the same anime that was watching until a while ago, only for one reason: It is for people who are very very very horny. I think I was horny when I started watching it, but I didn’t feel like watching it anymore. Honestly, I didn’t feel like watching anything thing for a while.

  I want a break from this boring routine of being uninterested in everything. I want it so badly that I am fine with anything, even a walk. With that, I decided on a whim and grabbed hold of a mask and sanitizer.

  I slipped the sanitizer into my pocket and wore the mask over my face. Before locking the front door, I glanced at the mirror in a corner of the room for confirmation that my attire was acceptable to the public. After setting my hair with my hair, I switched the lights off, locked the door, and set off to go for a walk.

  PART-2

  I had this lingering fear in the back of my head for a while, yet I was reluctant towards it. If I was paying enough attention to the events happening lately, I wouldn’t have been in this situation. Then again, staying at home would’ve been all the same, considering how desperate my Grim Reaper is.

  As I was saying, my Grim Reaper is dedicated to his occupation. Not to mention, he is very hard working and earnest, though with a downside of not being very creative. He is a man of many skills, one of which being ‘Shape-shifting’. This skill allows him to transform into many things, both living and inanimate. Thanks to this skill of his, he comes in many shapes and forms, ranging from a stupid murderer on a contract, who mistakes you for someone else and attempts to kill you; to a ten thousand pound, diesel engine-d, heavy load carrying truck which takes an interest in squashing female humans crossing the road.

  The methods that my Grim Reaper uses to get rid of me, are very similar (In fact, the same) to the ones used in ‘Isekai’ anime to teleport the MC to another world. For example, getting hit by lightning on a day with clear sky, or accidentally getting stabbed by your classmate during one of the Cooking classes... You get the idea. Like I mentioned before, he is not very creative.

  (But he sure is an otaku. From what I have observed, it seems like he has watched way more isekai anime than I did.)

  While my Grim Reaper’s methods were pretty common, his sheer will to get the job done made one thing crystal clear. His intention to kill me.

  But there is still the question of why? The methods he uses are the ones used to teleport to another world, so maybe he is trying to do exactly that the entire time? His ulterior motives aren’t that clear as his intentions are, but if he wanted to transcend me to another world, I would comply without a second thought. I could do that right now, but as I was saying, I still don’t know if my speculations are reality.

  I halted my useless thought-train and got back to trying to breakdown the situation at hand.

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  A woman is crossing the road. There’s a truck moving swiftly towards the woman. Through the windshield of the truck I can see that truck driver is dead. How you ask? Well, his neck is bent humanly impossibly; which is more than enough to determine if he is dead. And the last detail that I would like to add is that I am the only living human near this situation who could save the woman.

  Did any bulb’s glow in your brain? Yeah, now my grim reaper is as our beloved Truck-Kun.

  So, am I going to push that lady out of harm’s way? Hell no. You know it; I know it, everyone knows it. It is a rule of thumb. Never push someone out of the way of a rushing truck; you’ll get yourself killed (and eventually teleported; but that’s not the point). This rule is especially true if you don’t have parents, or if they seem non-existent while you are trying to be killed; and when you are a shut-in, NEET and have no friends. In my case, I meet all the prerequisites to be isekai’d... Except one. I’m not Japanese.

  Anyway, the reason I am still thinking about this situation when I didn’t want to jump in the way to help the lady is because I don’t want to spend my remaining life depressed for doing nothing to save this lady. So I have to do something, at least “try” to do something, and if save the lady without risking my life.

  I had the idea of shouting at the top of my voice to alert her of the truck. But I don’t know how effective it would be. I could also throw a stone at her, but there were other real-life problems, like how much my aim sucks. If I do throw it at the woman with some miracle, where am I going to find a stone in the first place? Well, if I looked hard, I might find one or two on the concrete road, but I’m sure it would take long; long enough for the woman to be squashed.

  In the end, I did what I believed a logical person would under these conditions.

  “TRUCK!” I screamed at the top of my voice, which is a loud shout in the ‘TRU-‘ part and the ‘-UCK’ part in a broken voice. My throat felt sore after I yelled one word. I gulped audibly, checking at the woman’s reaction.

  To my relief, she immediately turned and jumped out of the way, noticing the truck. I almost let out a sigh of relief, but I stopped when I observed something weird.

  When her eyes met with mine, the first thing I saw on her face wasn’t gratitude or shock, but a pained expression that roughly translated to ‘Poor kid’.

  I would’ve raised a sceptical eyebrow at this if my mind didn’t put two and two together instantly.

  The truck that was moving forwards all this time had suddenly changed its direction and dashed towards the side. Towards me. Don’t ask me how is it possible? I’d be glad if someone told it to me.

  3 metres...

  2 metres...

  1 metre.

  That’s how far the truck is from killing me.

  In the end, it has come to this. What I was trying to avoid all this time, is happening. All this time I was trying to save myself and now I'm the one in danger.

  Though the fact that I am a very eligible person to be teleported, on one hand is a relief that I can start a new life, it still is a pain to die. I know that in most of the anime, manga, light novels and whatnot the customary method to be transcended is death; but there are still numerous other ways to do it. For instance, I could be summoned by someone from the other side. Imagine how cool it would be if a shining circle of sigils appeared beneath you and the next thing you know is that you are in another world. Or how about walking out of a convinience store and- (Okay, if I continue anymore, I might be sued for copyright infringement. I doubt if they are signing the documents already.)

  There is no point in blaming Truck-kun now for not thinking it through. All I should concentrate now on is how to stay alive. The part of my brain that still worked (unlike the other fraction which occupied itself with panicking) yelled at me to jump out of the way.

  But I doubt if it will work. The truck is simply way too fast for me to reach a safe position without turning into a two dimensional being.

  And yet, I decided to try. I wanted to try because I wanted to live. I wanted to live the life I always wanted. I am going to jump out of the way just so that I can survive and see the light of another day. I have to survive. I have to survive to change my now bland life to something better. I have to survive to make new friends. I have to survive to make a family that I always dreamed for.

  ...

  My body swung to the right and my feet pushed the floor beneath me, sending me flying in air. I felt the air slip through the gaps in my non-aerodynamic body as I travelled through space and time ever so slowly. I knew that the speed I developed in the short span of time was far from enough to dodge the truck crash. I don't understand the point of this trial of mine, but I tried nonetheless.

  Ten centimetres. That's how further the truck is from me.

  As I flew I noted my surrounding. I might sound like I'm exaggerating, but from this close, I could feel the heat radiating from the truck. I could also feel the wind against my hair, due to the approaching truck. The smell of diesel was evident. From the corner of my eye, I saw small wrinkle in the metal of the truck, strangely similar to a smile.

  Ah, the smile. I might have nightmares of it if I survive.

  The smile itself isn't scary, but the fact that it's a truck that is smiling is just disturbing. The smile implies my Grim Reaper is happy cause he can reap the fruits of his effort.

  The truck now is approximately 2 centimetres away from me.

  Huh, so I am going to die. Anyhow, I did enjoy my life on earth. Okay, who am I kidding? I probably have the worst possible life any person would have. Nevertheless, remembering the days I spent on earth would make me nostalgic, if I have an afterlife that is.

  Since I screwed up this life of mine, I'll make sure to fully enjoy my next life if I have one.

  My head hit the truck's wind shield. The glass broke with a cracking noise and my head sank through into the truck. I felt my shoulder against the cold metal of the truck, breaking my collar bone instantaneously. My eyelids were about to shut when it happened.

  PART-3

  The colours around me suddenly bleached. All of the sounds around me ceased. An exhale felt impossible, as if air never existed. The pain I felt until a millisecond ago went blank. In fact, my skin seemed to have lost its sense of touch too. The force of gravity wasn't acting on me anymore.

  This strange happening would have caused quite a bit of surprise in me if it were not for the recent revelation that Grim Reapers and Isekai-ing are very much real.

  Unlike any other MCs, I comfortably ignored the building up surprise and shock and observed my surroundings carefully.

  Fractals. That's the first thing that I noted. Everything in my vision appeared to be made of fractals. All of them were made up of the same shape. It looked like circle at first glance, but the shape changed with time. Actually scratch that. Time itself came to a stand still, so I have no idea with respect to what the shapes are changing. After so time... No, after some observation, the circles deformed into loops similar to the symbol of infinity. Later the loops collapsed into itself and formed points. These points weren't in the shape of fractals anymore. They looked like collection of points, except they were all I could see. The point dots then expanded back into circles, completing a cycle of deformation.

  The cycle continued and I stopped paying it attention. Instead I searched for other details, but my trial was in vain. My vision was the only working sensor and I all I could see were fractals. Or so I thought.

  Suddenly, I was snapped back to reality, which greeted me with a sharp sound of crashing echoing through my ears. My vision returned instantly, as if I just opened my eyes.

  My blurred vision became more clear and the influx of information I recieved made no sense when processed.

  The first thing I noted was that I wasn't near the truck anymore. I am around 20 meters away from the truck which is now reduced to metal scraps due to crashing into one of the buildings. The only logical answer to how I came this far is that I jumped or ran till here. But, I don't remember doing any of those nor do I think, given the time span I came here in, I could be the world's fastest living being.

  Oh, maybe I am dreaming all of this, cause I hit my head to the truck right?

  I spontaneously rub my palm gently over my forehead, checking for any signs of bleeding but I found none. It wasn't hurting either.

  Am I dreaming all of this while in a coma or something of that sort? Or is it the case where the soul of the person comes out of the body after death and views at the scene in third person?

  Despite how dumb those ideas sounded , under the current circumstances I considered all those seriously as possible reasons and did the primary check that they usually do in fiction. First to know if I was out of my body, I tried pinching myself and yes, I felt the stinging pain in my skin. So, I still am in my body and alive and conscious.

  Then what the heck just happened now? Just a moment ago, I was positive that the truck hit me head on, but now... It didn't make sense. As a matter of fact, NOTHING made sense. How am I still alive after getting hit by a truck? What the heck were those fractals that I saw until a few moments ago?

  I got to calm down. Think. If you don't understand what is going on, then all you have to do is get information from an outsider who witnessed it. An outsider. The woman.

  From the corner of my eyes, I see her gawking at me with a dropped jaw. From the expression itself, I could guess what her reply would be, but I asked her nonetheless. "What just happened?"

  Her expression changed, what I perceived to be a reply to my question, as an incomprehensible expression spread over her face. I knew she had heard me, but I repeated myself. "What just hap-"

  Before I could finish, I was interrupted by a loud cracking noise from the other side of the road. More precisely, from the building, which the truck had crashed into. I heard another set of cracking sounds, after which I saw a huge chunk of concrete falling right on top of me.

  And just like that, the looming shadow of concrete fell on me, crushing my ribs and almost every bone in my lower body. My eyes blurred and darkness engulfed my vision.

  The last thought I had before I lost consciousness was, 'Why is my death rushed?'