Dante Miller stared at the cracked ceiling of his studio apartment, the flickering lightbulb above casting uneven shadows across the walls. Another day in his empty life had come to an end. It was a life he had clawed and scraped to build, but one filled with nothing but disappointment and pain.

High school had been hell. College hadn't been much better. He worked himself to the bone, trying to climb out of the pit of mediocrity he'd been born into, but no matter how hard he tried, the world seemed intent on grinding him down. His coworkers mocked him, his family hated him, and his wife…

Stacy.

Dante closed his eyes, the weight of her name alone enough to send a wave of nausea through him. The woman he had loved since high school. The woman who had become his wife. The woman who had betrayed him in ways he couldn't fathom.

Ten children. None of them his.

The pain was a constant, gnawing thing. Stacy had lied, cheated, and humiliated him at every turn. Five of her children were fathered by the same man; the rest came from flings with strangers she barely bothered to hide. Dante had stayed, clinging to the hope that she would change, but deep down, he knew she never would.

And still, he endured.

Not because he wanted to, but because he had no choice. Dante had nothing—no talent, no family, no support. He was alone in every way that mattered, his only solace the faint hope that one day things would somehow get better.

But that hope was fading.

A strange hum filled the air. A sudden pressure, thick and suffocating, washed over him. He sat up, panic rising in his chest. His eyes darted around the room, searching for the source of the sensation. There was nothing. Just the oppressive weight of something other.

And then it came.

Dante Miller. You have been chosen.

The voice echoed through the room—deep, resonant, and so real it felt as though it came from all directions at once. Dante's breath hitched as the world around him began to dissolve into light. He opened his mouth to speak, but no sound came out.

Your suffering has been noted. You will be granted a new beginning. Prepare for transmigration.

"Wait!" he managed to choke out, his voice strangled with fear. "What's happening?"

The voice ignored him, continuing with an emotionless certainty.

The shabby walls of his apartment began to blur, colors bleeding into one another like watercolors in the rain. Dante scrambled to his feet, his heart hammering against his ribs. The cheap IKEA furniture he'd assembled himself—the desk where he spent countless hours working overtime, the bed where he lay awake wondering where Stacy was—all of it started to fade away.

His hands passed through the nightstand when he tried to grab it for support. The sensation was bizarre, like pushing through thick gelatin that offered no resistance. The hum grew louder, transforming into a deep vibration that seemed to resonate with his very bones.

"I don't understand," Dante whispered, watching as his own body began to turn translucent. He could see the worn carpet through his feet, and the sight sent a fresh wave of terror through him. "Please, I need to know what's happening!"

Understanding is not required. Acceptance is inevitable.

The voice maintained its neutral tone, but there was something almost gentle in its proclamation. As if it knew exactly how terrifying this moment was for Dante, but also knew that explaining would only delay the inevitable.

Memories started flashing through his mind, unbidden and intense. He saw himself at seven, watching his father walk out the door for the last time. At fourteen, getting beaten up behind the school gymnasium while other kids recorded it on their phones. At eighteen, meeting Stacy for the first time, her smile seeming like the answer to every prayer he'd never dared to voice.

The memories accelerated, becoming a blur of pain and disappointment. Each promotion he was passed over for. Each time Stacy came home late, reeking of another man's cologne. Each baby born with features that clearly weren't his, while she looked him in the eye and swore they were.

Your path has been one of extraordinary suffering.

The voice seemed closer now, as if speaking directly into his mind.

But suffering alone does not make one worthy. It is your resilience that has drawn our attention. Your capacity to endure without becoming cruel. To bear pain without inflicting it upon others.

The room was almost completely gone now, replaced by a swirling vortex of light and color. Dante felt weightless, disconnected from everything he'd ever known. Fear still gripped him, but something else was growing alongside it—a desperate, wild hope.

"Worthy of what?" he asked, his voice stronger now. "What do you want from me?"

Want is irrelevant. Need is paramount. The multiverse requires balance, and you have been selected to serve this purpose.

The swirling lights began to coalesce into patterns, forming images that Dante's mind struggled to comprehend. He saw vast cities made of crystal, floating islands in purple skies, creatures that defied description moving through landscapes that shouldn't be possible.

Your world is but one of infinite realities. Each universe vibrates at its own frequency, separated by barriers of probability and quantum uncertainty. These barriers are weakening. Without intervention, the collapse will be catastrophic.

Dante's body was almost completely transparent now, but strangely, the terror had subsided. In its place was a growing sense of anticipation, as if every cell in his body was preparing for something monumental.

"And you think I can help? I'm nobody. I couldn't even keep my own marriage together."

You are precisely what is required. A soul tempered by adversity but not broken by it. One who understands loss but has not lost himself. Your perceived weaknesses are your greatest strengths.

The vortex began to spin faster, and Dante felt himself being pulled apart at a molecular level. It should have been agonizing, but instead, it felt like finally stretching after being cramped in a too-small space for years.

You will be granted powers beyond your current comprehension. You will walk between worlds, maintaining the delicate balance that keeps reality from unraveling. You will face challenges that dwarf your previous trials, but you will not face them alone.

"And if I refuse?" Dante asked, though he already knew the answer. Something deep within him had already accepted this impossible situation, had already recognized this as the chance he'd been waiting for his entire life.

Refusal is possible but inadvisable. The multiverse will find another, but you will return to your previous existence with full knowledge of what you rejected. Few minds survive such regret intact.

Dante looked down at his hands, now barely visible in the swirling chaos of light and energy. He thought about his apartment, about his dead-end job, about Stacy and her children. About the life he'd been living—not really living, just existing, going through the motions day after day.

"I accept," he said, and was surprised by the steadiness in his voice.

The choice is acknowledged. The process begins.

The vortex collapsed inward, and Dante felt himself being compressed into a single point of infinite density. His consciousness expanded even as his body imploded, stretching across dimensions he hadn't known existed. Knowledge flooded his mind—languages of worlds he'd never seen, histories of civilizations that would never exist in his original universe, powers that operated on principles his old self couldn't have begun to understand.

The last thing he heard before his old self ceased to exist was the voice, speaking with what might have been satisfaction:

Welcome, Dante Miller, to your role as a Hyperversal God . Your real life begins now.

Then everything went black, and Dante Miller—the old Dante Miller, the failed husband and broken man—ceased to exist. What emerged on the other side would be something else entirely.

But that was a story for another universe.