In cartoons and movies from Eric’s childhood, the screams of characters falling to their death would often fade out slowly, their voices growing quieter until they finally petered out completely. Sometimes there’d be a comical thud.

But the terrifying thing about the freefall where Eric found himself was that it was muffled, quiet. He screamed his lungs out and the sound died right in front of his face. It was like screaming into an ice-cold, black blanket—if that blanket were the size of the known universe. Like a child, he found himself reaching out instinctively for his mother’s help, someone’s, anyone’s.

The next thing he knew, the falling was over. Eric was floating in a dark abyss with no sensation of motion. It was cold, but a passive sort of cold, not like the biting chill of a winter day. It was just the numb absence of heat. He swam in something thinner than air where there was no resistance at all. There was no gravity here; without that, there was no sense of up or down.

They got what they deserved. No... They got off too easy.

Whose thought was that? Was that a dream?

Already, he could feel the details of his life slipping away from him. The apocalypse. The flesh-hungry zombies sinking necrotic teeth into the necks and bellies of the living. The convenience store, all those people on the floor, the weight of a gun in his hands...

His parents. His childhood. The world after, and the world before—he was losing it all like sand through his fingers. Everything that made him who he was.

Everything but his name.

[Universal language calibrated.]

[Soul translocation complete. Welcome, ERIC.]

[Souls translocated: 10,000,000,000/10,000,000,000. Soul recruitment processes terminated permanently.]

The text hovered in his mind’s eye, glowing cyan on black. Where? Eric wondered. Where...? The question was incomplete, a fledgling thought struggling to surface from the depths of his drowning consciousness.

Something had been taken from him—this much he knew. But what? It didn’t seem to bother him all that much now. He found himself at peace, having lost some vaguely distressing thought he’d been thinking, like walking into a room and forgetting what brought him there.

[Traits loading... Loaded.]

[Select Patron Rune:]

Eric saw a row of symbols scrolling by his vision, left to right, like a... like a... the word escaped him. They were strange symbols he’d never seen before—or had he? He couldn’t remember. He could read the symbols underneath just fine, though, spelling words like DRAGON and ANGEL and WARRIOR.

Absentmindedly, he reached out toward the symbol that said MAGE, wondering if the glowing letters were tangible or if he could put his hand straight through them—it was the latter. When he did so, the runes all vanished.

[Patron Rune selected: MAGE]

[Tenkei Starter Deck Discovered! Mage Deck (50)]

[Bonus OMNI RARE card granted! (1)]

What is all this? Mage? Eric’s mind was moving slowly, laboriously, wading through glue. Patron Rune... Tenkei... Starter Deck... Every time he was on the verge of forming a coherent thought, it slipped away again.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

[Rendering universe... Rendered.]

A light switched on, an optical flashbang illuminating a bright blue sky all around him. It came from a yellow-white sun.

[Loading gravity... Loaded.]

Suddenly, he was plummeting through wispy white clouds, deafening wind roaring past. His shirt ruffled violently like a half-open parachute on the way down. This is not good! With death on the table, his thoughts crystallized razor-sharp. How do I stop myself? How do I brace for—?!

Thud. He hit the ground like a meteor, crunching into the crust of the earth and kicking up a plume of dirt. He pried his head out of the soil like an ostrich.

[Installing damage physics... Installation complete.]

He gulped. Good timing, I guess.

Eric stood up and surveyed his surroundings. He was in the middle of a forest clearing. It was daytime—midmorning, if he had to hazard a guess, based on the cool air, the dewiness of the grass, and the position of the sun in the sky. It was nighttime just now... wasn’t it? A fire. Glass. A door. Freeze frames flashed through his mind, gone in a blink. How had he gotten here?

[Error: Memory transposition incomplete.]

[Integration complete! Applying traits...]

While his memories were fleeting, these incorporeal messages lingered in his mind until he was done with them, and he brushed them away with a gentle mental swipe. A moment later, the next popup materialized.

[ERIC RAO – LV1 (♡10/10)] [Mage]

[STRENGTH: 9] [DEFENSE: 8]

[RUNE POWER: 1/1 (REGEN: 1/hour)]

[Cards Discovered: 50/10,000)]

[Runes Unlocked: 1/100]

What is all this? Eric wondered now that he was lucid again. I’m a Mage? What are all these stats? ...Runes?

As if in response to these fragmented thoughts, the popup shuffled to something completely different.

[Welcome to the Hundred Realms.]

What?

He sighed, shaking his head to clear the blue onslaught of information. It was too much to take in all at once. Eric made his way across the clearing, his old white tennis shoes gray and disintegrating.

Just then, his eyes caught a detail he’d overlooked—the soles of his shoes were caked with dried mud, a different shade of brown than the surrounding landscape. Was that a streak of blood across his right shoe?

[Error: Integration finalizing...]

[Equipment reset.]

His baggy graphic tee, torn jeans, and raggedy shoes were all replaced in an instant. Now he was wearing a plain gray tunic, tan pants, and thick, ankle-high boots the color of rust. A belt around his waist held a rectangular box at the hip; the box had a very slight weight to it, no more than a quarter pound contents and all. There were also five rectangular holsters spaced equidistantly along the front of the belt.

[Integration complete!]

[Welcome, Cardcaster.]

He was so bombarded with information and witness to so many things that defied logic that he couldn’t even protest anymore. He pinched the fabric of his tunic; it was thick, the material coarse, but it was strangely light and comfortable. His pants fit perfectly. His new boots provided better protection against the elements, too.

He supposed that not all these changes were bad.

Eric strolled through the clearing, parting ankle-high grass as he went. Butterflies alighted on colorful wildflowers. The breeze was brisk without being too cold. He had no idea where he was, but he had the vague intuition that he was far from home, and that it was important that he return home as soon as possible.

But where was home? And how would he even get there? Without the answers to these questions, his homesickness was just a vague pang of longing for something he couldn’t even name.

“It looks like I’m stuck here for now,” he muttered to no one in particular. It was like he was coming to terms with this strange new development, convincing himself it was true. “I’d better get used to it.”

It was a pretty place. He had no idea where to find food or shelter, though. His survival instincts told him that these would be top priority for him to seek out sooner rather than later. But before he could attend to his passive survival needs, a much more active one presented itself.

It was about as tall as Eric’s waist, give or take, and it crawled out from behind a tree wearing nothing but a grubby loincloth and a twisted look of disdain. Its long, jagged ears bobbed with each step. Two slits of red eyes glared at him between sickly lime skin, its bared teeth curved like barbs, like a piranha’s. Was that a slingshot in one of its three-fingered hands?

“Is that a gob—?”

Then it shot him in the head.