The world around him was a chorus of sounds: cars humming down the road, the ramble of citizens, the swish of shoes against the concrete.

It was like any other normal day in New York city. People hustled, too occupied with their own agendas to notice one another, and rushed into the streets to meet their quotas.

Among the crowd of faces was a tall man, his black hair falling across his eyes, hiding them as he walked up to the bus stop.

His face was neutral, unreadable, his steps deliberate, each one the weight of someone who has been in this routine far too long.

He held a briefcase in his hand, and from the way he gripped it – it gave off his desperation.

He stepped onto the bus, the doors hissing shut behind him, and took a window seat.

The bus began moving and then he took out his phone and checked the time.

[7:50 AM]

Another interview, another chance to make it. The man returned his phone to his pocket, empty-eyed.

He slouched back in the seat and took a deep, steadying breath. It wasn't difficult — this wasn't his first interview.

In fact, it wasn't even the tenth. He'd been attending interviews all week, in hopes of getting a job.

He didn't have the luxury of being choosy, but he hoped this one would be different. Maybe this was the one that would change his luck.

His debts were accumulating, the bills were unpaid and his savings had long been spent. If this didn't work, he hadn't a clue what he'd do.

"I really hope I get this one," he thought, staring out the window as the city swept by in a blur.

His thoughts drifted toward the future — getting the job done, getting accustomed to a new routine, and then perhaps, just maybe, things would start turning around.

But his musings were sharply cut short when the bus surged ahead, tires screeching against the pavement.

He had little time to react as the bus swerved and narrowly avoided a collision with another car that was crossing its path.

Passengers jerked as the sudden stop pushed them forward and into the seat in front of them.

The man adjusted his grip on his briefcase, preparing himself. But that wasn't the end of the mayhem.

The bus slammed into an oil truck, what followed was a booming crash and then an earsplitting explosion.

It all happened too fast. He was deafened by the explosion, the flames' heat searing at his skin.

His briefcase flew out of his hands, and the blast's force threw him against the back of the seat.

The world around him was literally on fire, smoke and screams. He attempted to scream, but the air was rife with suffocating vapors.

With his body engulfed in flames, all he could feel was the searing heat as everything else around him faded to black.

And then… nothing.

For a split second, it was nothingness. A silence, thick and ever-rising, silent, oppressive, and endless.

Or maybe he thought this was the end. But when his eyes opened, the world's familiar chaos had vanished.

He was no longer about to be on the bus, nor in the middle of the fire.

No, he was lying on a soft bed, the kind of soft he'd only ever dreamed about on restless nights.

He retched and scrambled to sit up and pull his hair from his face, breathing hard, a dazed expression on his face.

The room around him was strange, too, the walls a soft color, a neutral beige, the warm golden sunlight slipping in through the window.

His eyes wandered up, and suddenly he was staring at a ceiling that felt strange, far away.

It wasn't the roof of the bus, or the one from his cramped apartment. It wasn't something he knew.

He rubbed his palms, half-expecting the sensation of burns, the residue of the explosion still clinging to his skin.

But there was nothing. His hands felt… different. His body seemed different — lighter, somehow, yet more solid.

He didn't feel as if he had been in a catastrophic explosion. He didn't feel as if he'd just died.

"Strange," he mumbled, literally through his breath, in a whisper. He looked around the room as though trying to grasp what he saw.

It felt too real to have been a dream. He pinched his arm, slowly realizing the cruel intensity of pain one can feel. No, this was real.

His heart skipped a beat. Could it be?

He glanced down at his own body again, at his clothes — a simple, but dignified robe — and at the room he found himself, which bore little resemblance to his old apartment in the City, or the bus station.

Everything seemed alien, too much beyond reach.

"Don't tell me... I reincarnated?" He muttered.

The words escaped his lips before he could stop them, and as soon as they did, a heavy weight seemed to press down on him.

Reincarnation.

The idea was so foreign, so impossible, yet here he was — alive, in a body that wasn't his, in a world that didn't feel familiar.

The bus crash, the explosion — everything had pointed to one end. And yet, here he was, breathing, sitting in a room that belonged to someone else, a life that was not his own.

He swung his legs off the bed, standing up and stumbling a bit as his body adjusted to the strange sense of balance. He ran his fingers through his hair, trying to steady himself.

"What… what is this place?" he muttered, his voice barely a sound. His mind raced, trying to piece together the situation, but it was like trying to catch smoke with bare hands. He needed answers.

The door to the room opened softly, and a figure appeared in the doorway — a young woman with long, flowing hair, dressed in simple yet elegant clothes. Her eyes were wide with surprise at the sight of him standing.

"Ah, you're awake," she said, her voice soft, but there was a certain urgency to it. She stepped into the room, and as she did, she gave him a gentle, almost knowing smile. "Young Master Luther – you're finally awake,"