So… this is it.
This is how I die?
Not in a blaze of glory. Not saving a child from a speeding truck. Not even in a dramatic knife fight in a dark alley, defending some semblance of honor. No, the universe decided my life was worth exactly one loose brick.
A single, stupid, clay-fired rectangle.
I remember the shadow first—a flicker across the sidewalk, a sudden shift in the light that made me look up. I didn't even have time to move. I just saw a blur of red, and then the world shattered.
No last words. No heroic monologue. Just gravity, bad luck, and a construction site that apparently had a personal vendetta against me.
All I wanted was to get home. I could almost taste the leftover pepperoni pizza in my fridge. I could feel the familiar, peeling faux-leather of my gaming chair. I just wanted to disappear into a digital world for a few hours—a world where I actually mattered.
Was that really too much to ask? To just… exist for one more night?
The silence that followed was the loudest thing I'd ever heard.
There was no pain. That was the strangest part. The "red" faded into a white so bright it felt heavy. I didn't have a body, yet I felt a phantom ache where my chest used to be—a lingering tightness of regret.
I tried to look down. I wasn't flesh and bone anymore; I was a smudge of light. I looked like a charcoal sketch that someone had tried to erase but couldn't quite finish.
*****
"Okay," I whispered. My voice didn't vibrate in my throat; it just was. "This is new."
There were no pearly gates. No smell of incense or sulfur. Just a soft, colorless void that felt like the universe had hit the pause button and walked away to make a sandwich.
"Is this where all souls end up?" I asked myself, my inner voice cracking with a sudden, sharp edge of panic. "Because this is going to be incredibly boring. Hell, did I fall through a cosmic floorboard?"
"Wow," a voice said, dry as parchment, from somewhere behind me. "You ask an extraordinary number of questions for someone who has just ceased to be."
I spun—or rather, my consciousness pivoted.
A man stood there. He was tall, dressed in layered white and gold garments that seemed to hum with their own light. His silver hair was perfectly groomed, but his eyes… they looked tired. Not sleepy, but old tired. Like he'd watched a thousand civilizations rise and fall and was really just waiting for his shift to end.
"Who are you?" I demanded. My mind was racing, trying to find a category for him. "And how did you hear that? I didn't say anything out loud."
"You did," he replied, his expression neutral. "Just not with a mouth. You are a soul now. You are all 'out loud' ."
I tried to think of my name to introduce myself—to assert that I was still a person, not just a "soul." I opened my mental mouth to say it, and… nothing.
The name I'd carried for twenty-odd years, the name my mother had called me, the name on my driver's license… it was gone. It felt like trying to grab a handful of fog.
"I… I can't remember who I am," I whispered, a cold hollow opening up in my center.
"The transition from the moment of death strips away the unnecessary," the man said, his tone not unkind, but clinical. "My name is Zandriel by the way. I'm the overseer in charge of the passage to the afterlife."
"That is the most bureaucratic way you could possibly describe death," I muttered, trying to hide the fact that I was trembling.
"Well I found that being factual tends to reduce panic with the newly departed ," he said.
"Well it isn't working," I snapped. "You're telling me I'm dead because of a brick? That's it? That's my story?"
Zandriel sighed, and for a second, he looked less like a god and more like a man who hated his job. "You weren't supposed to die like that. It was all an accident."
"Yeah, I noticed. Bricks don't usually aim for peoples heads."
"I don't mean that kind of accident," Zandriel corrected. He looked at something invisible in the air—a cosmic ledger. "An angel flew too close to the buildings as it was cloaked and conducting its rounds. The displacement of air from its wings loosened a brick that was already loose from natural erosion. A worker saw the brick that loosened and tried to catch it. The brick unfortunately slipped from his hands."
My memory replayed the moment it happened. The shadow passing overhead. The sudden sharp pain and the dizziness that followed. The sudden end of every hope I'd ever had.
"Great," I said, my voice thick with a sudden, hot grief. "You're telling me I'm dead because of an angel that was flying too hard? Your explanation doesn't make this any better. That angel should have known better."
Something flickered in Zandriel's eyes—a momentary softening. "I understand that you are angry and you have reason to be. The reason I am being transparent about your death is because the error is ours. You weren't supposed to die that day. The responsibility for this accident has also been acknowledged by heaven."
"Heaven? You mean God feels bad?" I asked, skeptical.
"Yes."
"And what does divine guilt get me? A gift card?"
"Compensation," Zandriel said. "Transmigration. A realm where magic is everywhere. A world where your life will not be shackled by the same rules as your previous one."
My inner twelve-year-old, the one who spent every weekend lost in fantasy novels, stood bolt upright. But the adult in me—the one who had been beaten down by reality—stayed cautious.
"And do I get a 'cheat' like in those web novels?" I asked. "Something to make sure I don't get taken out by a falling roof tile in this new world, too?"
"You are allowed to choose one ability," Zandriel said. "And you may also alter your appearance. A new life requires a new vessel. You cannot take the old one with you."
I looked at my glowing, blurred hands. I thought about the man I had been. The guy who hid behind a mop of hair because he didn't like his jawline. The guy whose voice always seemed to fail him when it mattered.
"Okay, that is better than nothing at least." I said.
I started thinking, I didn't just want to be "better." I wanted to be the man I'd always imagined I could be if the world hadn't been so heavy. I imagined myself taller, leaner with chiseled muscles and abs. I wanted a jawline that looked like it was carved from marble and a face that would make all women swoon. I also always wanted those piercing blue eyes that seemed to pierce through someones soul.
As I imagined it, the light around me shifted, thickening, turning into something like clay. It was an intimate sensation—like finally putting on clothes after waking up nude.
"Alright and now, have you thought about your chosen ability?" Zandriel asked.
"I want Summoning," I said instantly.
He tilted his head. "Please be specific. There are many different types of summoning."
"I don't want just disposable minions that appear and disappear as soon as I run out of mana," I said, my voice sounding deeper, steadier in my new chest. "I want permanent summons. The most powerful entities I could possibly reach. I want… people I can trust with my life. If I'm going to a world where everything can possibly kill me, I don't want to face all that alone."
Zandriel went quiet. He looked at me for a long time, and for the first time, he looked truly impressed. "Interesting. I will allow it."
He reached out his hand. A spark of light, deep and ancient, gathered in his palm. "To summon such beings require a source of power far greater than what a human can typically wield. In regards to that knowledge, I shall connect you to a greater well of power. Its from this well that all your summons will come from but beware some summons may still retain their past personalities."
Zandriel then moved his hand toward my chest. I expected a tap. Instead, it felt like a hook catching in my ribs.
A connection locked.
For a heartbeat, I wasn't a man anymore. I was an open door. Something infinite, something that felt like the cold, terrifying depth of the ocean, poured into me. It wasn't a number or a "mana bar." It was a weight. A terrifying, endless weight.
Zandriel's hand shook. He looked like he wanted to pull back, to sever the link, but the connection had already fused more than he expected.
"…That will be enough," he whispered, his voice sounding strained.
I gasped, my new lungs burning with the sheer scale of what I was holding inside. "What… what was that?"
"A mistake," Zandriel murmured, though he quickly regained his composure. "Or perhaps, justice. Only time will tell." "Now that everything is finished, you will be sent to the world of Aurora with the basics. An armor set, a short sword, a pouch of money and a new name."
As soon as Zandriel finished speaking, the void began to bleed into a blinding gold.
"Wait!" I shouted, reaching out as the floor fell away. "Where am I going to appear? Is there a map? A tutorial?"
Zandriel was already fading, turning back into the light. "You will have to adapt and find out on your own. You have the depth of the stars within you now. Try not to drown in it."
He raised a hand, and as the world dissolved, he spoke the final words that severed me from my past forever.
"Now go, Aleric Saint. I sincerely hope we do not meet again."
And then, I wasn't a ghost anymore. I was falling. And for the first time in my life, I wasn't afraid of the landing.