Chapter 1
Adjusting her posture, Ava tried to alleviate the tension that had built up in her shoulders from hours of desk work. Her company had recently been through layoffs, and now it was pressing down on the necks of those who were unfortunate enough to not be fired.
"Finally," she muttered to herself, a mix of exasperation and determination. "I've had it with this place. Once payday comes around, I'm out of here." She stood up, retrieved her backpack from beneath the desk, and made a move toward the exit.
The weight on her shoulders lessened knowing that this was one of the last times she would be through this cycle of working till she can do nothing but sleep, then go back to work.
Just as she reached for the door, her surroundings started to spin, and her last vision was of the floor drawing closer.
But just before she hit the floor, she found herself shooting up in a chair, like a sudden awakening from a dream.
Stranger still, the chair was the only thing she could recognise. All around her was a white plain that could be a few feet from her, or a thousand, with only her and the chair in it.
As she was trying to collect herself, a form suddenly materialised in the centre of her vision. It seemed to be composed of static, its features constantly shifting, with black marks that dripped like blood. dissolving as they fell.
Watching it, she felt as if her soul was being scrubbed with barbed wire. Yet, before she could even react to the sensation, it stopped as quickly as it started and the static form in front of her was now a person.
The newly-formed man wore a dishevelled three-piece tuxedo and frazzled ginger hair and beard. He clutched a clipboard, burnt and slightly cracked, in one hand and took a moment to assess himself and sighing at the sight. He waved his hand and the imperfections simply ceased to exist.
He fixed his gaze on Ava.
“Let’s see”, he read something from his notes, “Ava. Sorry about the near soul flaying, it’s not often someone of my standing must fight, so I forgot to change forms before coming here. In compensation for my mistake, some of my pay will be deducted and given to you”.
He spoke quickly, leaving barely enough room to understand the words, let alone ask questions.
“Good for you”, He muttered, “Bad for whoever gave me an assignment when I was in the middle of a fight with an End’s Apprentice”.
The venom at the end of the sentence shook Ava’s soul, even if it wasn’t aimed at her.
Seeing the effect his anger was having, he calmed himself immediately.
“Apologies for the late introduction. I am a Death's Apostle, essentially the grim reaper, and you’re dead.” He dropped a bombshell on Ava, not giving her time to react as he continued.
“Brain Aneurysm to be precise. No, I can’t send you back, and no I can’t change anything on your planet. Finally, yes, I’m being rude. I’ve got business to attend to.”
He fired quick answers to the unspoken questions he could read directly from her soul before look once again to his clipboard,
He continued, "You can proceed to eternal paradise, be reincarnated or…” he met Ava’s eyes for the first time and smiled.
“be placed in a world of magic and monsters—a place similar to those escapism-driven stories you enjoy. I know the answer, but consent matters when dealing with souls."
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Despite the strange situation she has been in for all of two minutes, she found herself nodding to the stranger.
He looked at the clip board again, tapping his foot nervously, “You have pretty good karma. This entitles you to a few rewards in your next world—starting location, altered circumstances, unique skills. It could be anything, tailored specifically to you. No, even i don’t know what they are, not until they’ve been made”.
He looked at her. “Now please say yes, and we shall go our separate ways, I must return with haste”
Observing the figure's restrained agitation and compelled by the allure of possibly gaining magic, Ava spoke with finality. "I accept."
After she said this, Ava could feel a tingle in the very foundations of her existence and, not caught by her or the distracted Death’s Apostle, her soul became the slightest bit more defined.
And her vision faded once more.
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The Death’s Apostle opened a portal, ready to jump back into the battle with the End’s Finest Apostle, when a stray thought entered his mind.
“Did I forget anything?”, he thought for a moment and shrugged, “Probably not”.
And he left.
—----------------------------------------
Ava awoke, feeling the worst headache of her life. As if someone set her head ablaze and put it under a hydraulic press.
She clutched her head in her hands, tears welling up in her eyes, as the pain only seemed to worsen with time. Then to her distress, it started to spread.
Slowly, the feeling travelled down her face, like poison flowing through her veins.
As the pain reached her neck, Ava collapsed.
Hours later, Ava regained consciousness, head pounding with phantom pain.. Raising her hand up, she went to cradle her head to try and calm the discomfort. She stopped when she noticed her hand.
It was white. Not the healthy white with the slight tan she was used to; she was porcelain white.
Observing this with an unexpected calm, Ava looked on with curiosity, not shock. Apart from the colour, her hand was also completely featureless; no wrinkles or marks, only a polished white that seemed to reflect the dim light around her, giving her an eerie, almost ethereal, glow.l
The closest thing she could think of was a mannequin made entirely of shiny porcelain.
Her nails, in contrast to the white, were pitch black and a couple inches long. Her instincts alone told her they were wickedly sharp.
As she continued to look herself up and down with surprising composure, she found that she was the same featureless white everywhere.
It was weird, especially around the joints. Whenever she moved an elbow or knee, the surrounding skin didn't stretch, there was just ‘more’ skin.
‘No features, only framework’. She mused. It reminded her of a basic 3d render her cousin had shown her a while back.
Then, there were the proportions. Her arms were freakishly long, scraping her knees if she were to stand at attention and despite the lack of telling muscle, she sensed unusual strength within both limbs.
Before, Ava’s human self was 5 foot 10 inches. Now she was a freakish almost 7 feet tall.
That, along with little shown muscle, made her new form impossibly lanky.
The last thing that Ava noticed was that she was remarkably calm throughout this whole ordeal.
Ava would expect herself to scream and run, maybe collapse again for the third, no second time.
Dying didn’t count.
As if to make the reason known, there was a faint tug on her mind, as one word made itself clear.
‘Fourth’
“So my fourth gift is not being able to panic?”, she said aloud, slightly disappointed. Technically speaking, it strengthened her mental clarity, allowing her to think clearly in many circumstances where panic would spell death.
“Kinda lame…”She complained, before realising its actual use.
“No wait. That’s actually pretty good, considering that fighting is guaranteed in literally any magic story and the main character is inexplicably calm”. She mused for a second, before joking to herself “Alright, now I've got my plot armour…”
Ava looked around the place she found herself in.
“Where the fuck am I?”