It was a beautiful, sunny day. Hayato Saito was holed up in his room, like usual, playing video games.

“Dammit, I’m so close to getting the new skin,” he said with a hint of anger. He had been grinding for days for the chance to get a new skin for his favorite character, Yuu-chan. “So close, come on, come on!” Hayato exclaimed. “Man, I really don’t want to pay for this one…” Hayato focused so much he zoned out. As he was clicking buttons, there was a knock on the door.

“Hayato?” It was his older sister, Sakura. “Hayato? Get out here,” she said while knocking harder. She finally had enough and just opened his door.

“Sakura!” Hayato yelled, “Can’t you knock before coming in?”

“You were so absorbed in your game that you didn’t hear me.”

“Oh, sorry” Hayato mumbled. Sakura felt a little bad for her little brother; he rarely got to talk about things he liked. So, she decided to ask him about something she knew he loved: his video game.

“What do you do in that game anyway?” she asked, knowing this could take a while. Hayato’s face lit up.

“Well that’s the cool thing! It has multiple paths where you can do what you want.” Sakura knew how excited he was so she didn’t stop him. “First you can choose your character’s race, which decides where you start off at and your base stats. Then from there you can basically do what you want. Your main goal is to defeat the Demon Lord, so you work to get stronger.” Hayato was a bit of a shut-in, so his sister and parents did all that they could to try to help him get out and about. Alas, nothing had encouraged him to get out. The original reason that Sakura had come to his room was to tell him about an after-school gaming club that he might be interested in joining. Sakura was only half listening at this point and let Hayato finish his speech.

“Hey,” she interjected, “there’s a new club at school that’s about gaming. I came here to see if you wanted to join.”

“Really?!” Hayato asked, “That sounds fun!”

“It’s a bit expensive, but I think Mom ‘n Dad would do anything to get you out of the house at this point. Well, I’ll go tell Mom.”

“‘Kay,” Hayato said coolly, although Sakura knew he was just trying to hide his excitement. Sakura exited the room while Hayato sat back down at his desk. Hayato’s social life was basically non-existent, although he did have a few online friends that he played games with. Because of this, his parents have tried anything short of paying people to get him some friends; sports, clubs and the sort. However, Hayato was determined to not have anything to do with things that aren’t video games or anime.

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“Hey Mom,” Sakura said, “unsurprisingly, Hayato said he’d join the club.”

“Oh, that’s a relief,” her mom replied. “That boy,” she sighed.

If only he got out of the house, maybe he could get a girlfriend, Sakura thought, he’s handsome and kind enough. Hayato was decently good looking afterall, some might even say handsome; pale skin, deep green eyes, and long, dark hair. Along with this, he was pretty skinny, not too much so that it was unhealthy, however.

“Ah, sometimes I wish I could be reborn in another world,” Hayato whispered to himself, “But that only happens to anime protagonists, not to some shut-in like me. But, I guess a man can dream.” He sighed.

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The next day, Hayato failed to wake up to his alarm and instead found himself faced with an angry older sister shaking him awake.

“Hayato!” Sakura said, getting angrier. “Wake up, dumbass!”

“Huh?” Hayato asked, still groggy from sleeping. “What happened?”

“If you wanna eat breakfast before school, you better get up now,” Sakura said, still annoyed.

“Oh, ok,” Hayato responded, “Sorry about that.”

“It’s ok,” Sakura sighed. “I can’t stay mad at him,” she muttered to herself.

“What was that?” Hayato asked.

“N- Nothing.” she mumbled. Hayato and his sister walked downstairs to eat their breakfast—Hayato at least, since Sakura woke up on time. Hayato ate quickly and got ready to go to school. Hayato was in tenth grade, his sister in twelfth. They would walk to and from school together except for when Sakura had club meets. They were about to cross the road when Hayato asked his sister a question.

“So,” he started, “where is the club? Is it right after school? How many people signed up?”

“Woah, slow down,” Sakura started to say, but before she could answer her brother’s questions, a car came out of nowhere, barreling down the road. They hadn’t been paying attention to the road while Hayato was talking. “H-Hey!” Sakura yelled, “Get out of the way! Hayato!” Right as they thought the car would hit them, everything disappeared. Absolute darkness. Hayato looked around.

“Sakura?” he asked, “W- where are you? What happened?”

“I’m over here Hayato,” she responded from the pitch black abyss.

“I can’t see anything,” Hayato continued, “Can you?”

“No,” she responded from the darkness. Although there was no light to illuminate the room—or what they thought was a room—the siblings could faintly make out each other’s outlines.

“Do you have any idea how we can get out of he–”

“You can’t,” a voice from the darkness answered Hayato’s question.

“Wh- Who’s there?” the siblings asked in tandem. The voice responded from the darkness,

“Oh, no one important, just the God of Death.”