What happens when we die?
Does the soul drift into an endless void, swallowed by eternal darkness? Or does it enter the fabled cycle of reincarnation, starting fresh in some mystical world of swords and magic?
Questions like these haunted me for as long as I could remember. Not because I was particularly wise or philosophical, mind you, but because I was a fan of webnovels. You know the type—some loser meets their untimely death, wakes up in a new world, and suddenly has cheats that make them unstoppable. A System, a harem of beautiful women, and an endless supply of bad guys to kill.
It's ridiculous, right? Pure fantasy.
Or so I thought. Turns out, life—or death, in this case—has a sense of humor.
"Yep. I'm dead," I muttered, staring into the nothingness around me. Just like every other clichéd story you've read. My name is William, and I died… after getting hit by a truck. I know, I know—Truck-kun strikes again. Go ahead, roll your eyes. I would if I were you.
But hey, before you jump to conclusions, let me clear something up. I wasn't some loner or virgin loser whose only escape was the internet. No, sir. I was the captain of my high school basketball team, the guy everyone wanted to be friends with—or date. Girls used to fight over me, for crying out loud. Jealous? Don't be. It's not as glamorous as it sounds.
And yet, here I am. Dead.
All those years spent wondering about the afterlife, and now I get to experience it firsthand. Do we reincarnate? Do we fade away? Or is the truth something even stranger?
Well, I guess we're about to find out. Let's see what this world has to offer me now.
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[ A long time later ]
"WTF!" I cursed. Time? What's time anymore? Minutes? Hours? Days? It's all just a blur. My mind's slipping, the questions swirling faster than I can catch them.
At first, I entertained myself with thoughts of reincarnation. Of adventures in magical worlds, of systems and harems. But now? Now, there's nothing but the sound of my own thoughts echoing in the dark, gnawing at my sanity.
Am I abandoned? Forgotten in some corner of existence?
What did I do to deserve this? I know I'm no saint, but this... this is worse than any hell I could have imagined.
Rumble... Rumble...
Wait.
A sound. Faint, but unmistakable. My mind stirs, suddenly alert. Was that... real?
Another rumble, this time deeper. A tremor that shakes the very core of my being. The void around me ripples, as if some invisible force is stretching it. The silence cracks. Something, anything, shifts.
Rumble... Rumble...
It's like the world—if this even is a world—is waking up. I can feel it now—something. My body, no longer lifeless, stirs in response. A flicker of warmth in my chest, the faintest brush of air against my skin, a tingle in my limbs.
Breath.
I gasp, my lungs working, trying to inhale something that hasn't existed for who knows how long. I don't even know how to describe it—relief, disbelief, wonder. It feels like waking from a nightmare, only to find that I'm still in the dream. The void, that suffocating nothingness, seems to shudder in response, recoiling from whatever's starting to crack through it.
Rumble... Rumble...
It grows louder. More intense. As if something—someone—is coming. The trembling world around me seems to pulse with it, a deep, steady vibration that's pushing against the very fabric of the universe. I want to move, but I can't. The space is closing in on me, the walls pressing tighter, and my limbs are frozen in place. My heart races, a suffocating panic beginning to claw at me.
What's happening? Am I... am I being crushed?
And then—a pull.
A soft tug, like a whisper in the wind, drawing me forward. The pressure, the tension, the endless void suddenly feels less... real. The pull is gentle but unyielding, as though it's guiding me, urging me toward something greater.
A light.
A glow, soft at first, then growing stronger, radiating warmth that sinks into my very soul. The cold dread in my chest begins to dissolve, replaced by something I can't explain—a sense of purpose. My body reacts instinctively, pulling toward the light as if it has always known the way.
The space around me shrinks, but now, it doesn't feel like a prison. It feels like a tunnel, a gateway. I'm moving toward it, drawn by an unseen force.
I don't know what waits on the other side of this light, but for the first time since I died, I feel something. Alive. Alive in a way that makes everything that came before feel like a distant memory.
I move forward.