"If God may hear me, I ask for the next life to be less cruel."
Every strained breath shot sparks of pain into his damaged lungs. The shot had been an especially fatal one, entering the lower half of his torso and hitting what was likely some part of his spine, considering the paralyzed state of his legs.
In a way, it was his own fault.
Although children were never to be harmed in the slums, any sane man or woman should know to never walk alone during the evening hours through the western districts of Victoria. Life was cheap and death was common.
The owner of the bullet now lodged in his intestines had long gone, taking the little coin that the now dying man had remaining saved from his official military discharge.
"The 36th Company of Alchemical Grenadiers... how sad it is that the happiest time of my life was during war."
He had no family in this world, or, at least, none that still had an inkling of care for him.
His comrades within the company had provided a proper sense of companionship in his lonely world, at least before he was discharged after suffering a hand injury from an accidental alchemic explosion. Never would he be able to pull the trigger of a rifle again.
The Army had thrown the man back where they found him twelve years ago: the slums of Victoria.
Raised as an impoverished orphan in the streets of the capital city, he often wondered why it had been named the "Crown Jewel of the Empire."
Sure, there were lavish private estates for the nobility in the northern districts, and the spires of the Ministry of Magic in the east were visible throughout the city. But, from his perspective, there was nothing that was worth staying for in the dirty streets of the Empire's capital city.
In the edges of his ever dimming vision, he could detect small movements in the nearby piles of waste and garbage. The rats get everyone in the slums in the end, but he could only hope that they would only start their savage attacks after he had officially passed.
He felt that there was something so cruelly ironic about his situation.
After twelve years of service on the frontlines of the Imperial Army, it would be neither a Revolutionary Parvian rifleman nor a Jundian disease nor even a Republican Krupp sorcerer that would do him in. Rather, it would be a fellow street rat, followed by actual street rats.
A weak laugh sputtered from his lips, as he closed his eyes and listened to the whirring of the city of steam and magic. It was cold, so cold in these winter months.
In the late evening, he could make out the sounds of horse-drawn carriages on the cobblestone as well as the crackling from the firing range in the distance.
Suddenly, there was a distinct ringing that softly reverberated throughout the city. The man had not have the strength to pull out his cheap pocket watch, but, somehow, he knew that the clock had struck twelve.
Perhaps it was from the angle of the moonlight? Perhaps it was fate.
As the man prepared for his final moments in this world, he prayed.
"If I am to be reborn, I simply hope that I may be blessed with a better life. However vague that wish may seem, that is my only wish. May God hear it."
And just like that, Sir Elric Thorndrake died in the Imperial Year of 1876 during the height of the Age of Energy and Revolution with no one to hear his final words.
.
.
.
No one but a Peculiar God of Vitrael.
As the Elric Thorndrake's shadow was forcibly pulled down from the Grace of Constellations, the Peculiar God gave him but one message that his feeble, mortal soul could understand.
"I will grant your wish. In exchange, you shall save my people."
Elric awoke in a field of golden wheat with only one thought racing through his mind.
"Thank you."