I woke up to something damp and heavy pressing against my face. The smell hit me first—sharp and ammonia-like. It wasn't quite piss, but it was close enough to make me question my life choices.
Scratch that; I already knew my life choices had been questionable. Now, apparently, someone had decided to suffocate me for them.
I tried to move, but my body, my old, brittle body, wasn't having any of it. My hands fumbled beneath the thin hospital sheets, weak and slow, grasping at the edges of whatever was smothering me. It was soft, like a pillow. And then the pressure increased—enough that I could no longer smell the pissy stench. I couldn't breathe.
Someone is actually trying to kill me.
My first instinct should've been panic. I mean, obviously. But at my age, I guess the instinct to survive isn't as strong as you'd think. Still, I wasn't about to go out without a fight. My hands clawed at the pillow, trying to yank it off, but it was like wrestling with a boulder.
"Don't struggle, Mr. Johnson," came a disturbingly chipper voice. "It'll be over soon. Promise!"
Oh sure. Sounds great! I thought, let me just relax while you suffocate me to death. Maybe I'll take a nap while you're at it.
And then it hit me—that voice. That dopey, over-the-top cheerfulness. It was Jimmy. Jimmy, the nurse. The guy built like a mountain and, unfortunately, as dumb as one, too.
"Jimmy?" I croaked, though it came out more like a muffled grunt. The pillow pressed harder against my face. "What the hell are you doing?"
I wriggled my head, desperate to find a sliver of air, but his grip was like a vice. No amount of head swiveling was going to fix this.
"I don't know why you're struggling so much," Jimmy said, his voice still inappropriately sunny for someone currently committing murder. "You asked for this yesterday, remember?"
I did what? I mentally screamed, even as I continued thrashing beneath the pillow.
"You said you wanted to die," Jimmy continued, like he was reminding me about our plans to go get ice cream. "So, I'm just helping you out!"
My mind whirled. Yesterday? I could still remember it clearly. Breakfast. Tea. I finally finished Hunter X Hunter—took long enough, considering I started it when I still had hair. Then there was a nap—interrupted, of course, by Delores, the wandering octogenarian who somehow thought my bed was a perfect place for an unsolicited kiss. And her breath? It could've peeled paint off a wall.
I might've said something about wanting to die then. I mean, her breath really was that bad.
But I didn't mean literally!
You've got to be kidding me, I thought, my panic rising. This idiot is going to kill me over a misunderstanding.
My hands, frail as they were, gripped Jimmy's arm and tried to yank it away. No luck. I scratched at his skin, feeling the dull scrape of my nails, but he didn't even flinch.
Jimmy let out a laugh, oblivious to the fact that I was very much not trying to die.
"I didn't know you had a tickle kink, Mr. Johnson!"
Oh. My. God.
How does a man this stupid manage to become a nurse? He can count calories like a fitness coach and create complex workout plans, but somehow misses the fact that people fighting for their lives don't actually want to die?
My arms were growing weaker. I could feel my strength draining with every passing second, my lungs burning, desperate for air. And my life—like in every cliché—flashed before my eyes.
Born in the Lower East Side of New York to an alcoholic mother and an abusive father. Crawled my way out of that hellhole, made it to college, got a few degrees, and became one of the top brain surgeons in the country. Married twice—first to my secretary (bad idea), then to a younger, more… impressionable woman (even worse idea). Both ended in divorce, of course. I was good at saving brains, but when it came to relationships? Disaster.
My kids hadn't spoken to me in decades. Couldn't really blame them. I spent most of their childhood either at the hospital or in a bottle. Funny, right? The man who fixed people's brains couldn't manage his own.
And now I'm lying in a hospital bed, penniless, with a brain full of tumors that I, the great neurosurgeon, couldn't do a damn thing about. Life's got a twisted sense of humor.
Isn't it ironic? The best brain surgeon in America dies of brain cancer. A cosmic joke, if ever there was one.
The pillow pressed harder. My chest ached. My vision tunneled. I could feel tears burning at the corners of my eyes. I wasn't a crier, never had been. But something about realizing I was about to die—like this, suffocated by an idiot nurse—brought it all crashing down.
I'm really going to die.
It was suffocating, both literally and figuratively. This wasn't peaceful. There was no gentle fade into the night, no quiet slipping away into a better place. Just cold, creeping darkness and the sting of regret.
I wish I had another chance. I would do it all differently.
It was so dark.
So cold.
I couldn't breathe.
I wanted—I wanted to…
###
…To live.
I didn't know what happened next. Maybe I passed out. Maybe I'd already died. But when I opened my eyes, there was light—blinding, brilliant light. Not the sterile hospital lighting, not the dim fluorescent bulbs I'd grown so used to. This was different. Warm. Almost inviting.
And I was… awake.
The second thing I noticed was that I wasn't lying down anymore. There was no rhythmic beeping of heart monitors, no rough hospital sheets cocooning me in their familiar sterile embrace. Instead, I was upright—standing, actually. And I wasn't in the hospital, that much was obvious.
I blinked and looked around. It felt like I'd stumbled into some high-end retail store. Sleek, modern, minimalistic. It had the same cold, glassy aesthetic as an Apple store, except instead of overpriced phones, there were rows of stations with people ushered by what I could only assume were employees. A giant sign hung above the room, its clean letters almost too cheerful given the circumstances:
WELCOME TO THE REBIRTH BUREAU!
I squinted, scanning the scene. A receptionist sat at the front, looking as normal as anyone could in this bizarre place, directing people—no, beings—of all shapes and sizes to various doors and desks. Some of these so-called "people" had wings, others had tails or snouts, or… were those feathers? A few even had antlers. Antlers!
But nobody else seemed fazed. Just me and a few other poor souls were in line, glancing around like we'd accidentally wandered into a strange Halloween party. I was about to ask someone where I was, but I figured I'd already embarrassed myself enough for one day.
Still, it was too weird. I tapped the woman in front of me on the shoulder. "Excuse me, miss—"
She turned, and my words died in my throat.
What I had thought was a woman turned out to be some kind of… snake. Her hair—if you could call it that—hung in limp, slimy strands down her back, and her eyes were bright yellow, with slit pupils that stared into my soul. Buck teeth jutted out from her mouth, making her look like the world's creepiest hybrid of a snake and beaver.
"Don't touch me, you freak!" she hissed, recoiling like I'd just tried to infect her with rabies.
I'm the freak? I wanted to yell. Lady, I'm not the one out here looking like a failed science experiment.
Instead, I plastered on a tight smile. "My apologies."
She huffed—hissed, really—and turned away.
Great, I thought, sighing inwardly. If I wasn't crazy before, I sure as hell am now.
I took a breath and tried to collect my thoughts. Maybe Jimmy hadn't killed me after all. Maybe this was all just some weird coma dream my brain cooked up while my body clung to life in that godforsaken hospital. If so, I'd like to request a new dream because this one was starting to resemble an LSD trip gone wrong.
"Hello, sir. Are you okay?"
I blinked and suddenly realized I had somehow reached the front of the line. Standing in front of me was a receptionist, and let me tell you, if this woman was a figment of my imagination, then my brain had seriously outdone itself.
She was stunning—like, impossibly stunning. Golden-bronze skin, warm hazel eyes that literally sparkled, like little galaxies that had decided to take residence in her irises. Her smile was soft, inviting, with lips that curved in just the right way to make me forget I was supposed to be freaking out right now.
"Am I okay?" I repeated, my voice coming out more dazed than intended. "Uh… are you real?"
She smiled—of course, and the world somehow got a little brighter. "Yes, Mr. Johnson. I'm very real."
I couldn't help myself. "Well, you must be the most beautiful woman I've ever seen."
Was I thrice her age? Perhaps. But what's the worst that can happen? It's not like I have much time left to be embarrassed.
Her smile widened, and she laughed—it was sweet and warm, like hunny. "You're quite smooth for a young man."
I opened my mouth to correct her, but the line behind me had other plans.
"Hurry it up, gramps! Quit flirtin' and get movin'!"
I froze, glancing back. But there was no one behind me.
"Down here, you big oaf!"
I lowered my gaze to find a man—if you could call him that—barely taller than my knee, with a grumpy expression and a pair of teeth that looked like they'd been competing in a game of hopscotch. He glared up at me, arms crossed, looking every bit the part of a tiny, angry elf.
"What?" he growled. "You got somethin' to say?"
I wonder how far he'd fly if I punted him. "I do not."
"Thought so. Now move it!"
Maybe just a light kick… I was still mulling it over when the receptionist—no, angel—cleared her throat.
"Mr. Johnson," she said, her voice drawing me back from my violent fantasies. "Please follow the door behind me. Someone will assist you further."
I nodded, not entirely trusting my voice to reply. I turned toward the door, but just as my hand touched the handle, she called out again.
"Oh, and Mr. Johnson?"
I about broke my neck trying to turn around and face her. The same teasing smile danced across her lips.
"If you were a thousand years older," she said with a wink, "I might have entertained you."
My brain stuttered. She's a thousand years old? I thought.
Before I could reply, she laughed softly, a musical sound. "A woman never tells her age, Mr. Johnson."
Oh, and she can read minds, too, apparently… I shook my head, a smile tugging at my lips. Great, now my hallucinations are flirting with me.
With one last glance at the impossibly beautiful receptionist, I pushed open the door and stepped into—
The universe.
I blinked as the vastness of space stretched out before me, filling with a dazzling array of stars, colors swirling and shimmering in every direction. It was breathtaking, like standing in the middle of a Vincent Van Gogh painting, the kind that makes you realize just how small you are in the grand scheme of things.
I was speechless.
But before I could fully appreciate the beauty, a white screen—a literal white screen— popped up in front of me, kind of like a video game menu.
[Welcome, Duke Johnson! Congratulations on completing your first life. Because of your medical achievements and the vast amount of good karma you earned, your last wish was granted, and you get another chance at life! Please begin by selecting the world you want to reincarnate into to start your new journey.]
I blinked at the message, my eyes narrowing as it disappeared, replaced by a list of different worlds in alphabetic order. Hundreds—no, countless of them, all just waiting to be chosen.
Reincarnate? I thought. Wait, wait, wait. Is this real? Am I actually dead? And more importantly, is this seriously some kind of RPG system? I squinted at the options, scrolling through.
There was a search bar at the top, so instinctively, I said, "Search for Earth."
The list immediately filtered, and Earth popped up, but there was a problem—there were multiple Earths.
[1. Earth-001]
[2. Earth Prime]
[3. Earth-X]
[4. Earth-42]
[5. Earth-Aeon]
[6. Earth-Beta]
[7. Earth-Zero]
[8. Earth-9K]
And on and on. It was like someone decided to throw the multiverse at me. I rubbed my chin thoughtfully, an idea forming.
"Search for Earth-616."
The list filtered again, and sure enough:
[Earth-616]
Sweet mother of Mary. I stared at the screen, my lips twitching into a grin.
I can reincarnate into the Marvel Universe?!
===
[A/N] Time to have some fun! Let's get it!