Curiosity always drives me—what comes next, what happens after death? Now, I’m about to find out. As my body relaxes and my thoughts drift, a bright golden light suddenly fills my vision.

Where am I? Is this what everyone sees, a light at the end of a tunnel?

Never religious, I always imagine the end to be just that—the end, nothing after. I try to close my eyes again, only to realize I can’t…

No eyelids… no body?!

Without control, I’m pulled upward toward the golden light. It’s like being on a slightly uncomfortable elevator to…somewhere. As it happens, my memories start to fade, as if they’re being absorbed, consumed. More and more memories, experiences, and emotions disappear. My consciousness is being taken away!

As they do, the shape of my body begins to form around me, and my vision clears. I’m getting my body back! It feels a lot younger too!

Landing on a surface, a familiar warmth envelops my body. The smell of my parents' cooking fills my nostrils. It smells like home. A familiar space and familiar faces slowly take shape around me. The soft, pleasant sound of laughter enters my ears.

My home, my family, and friends—all here. It’s a family reunion, but without the awkward small talk with unwelcome distant relatives.

Before embracing the warmth of my family’s hugs again, a dark void tears everything apart. Everything fades, and the temperature drops below freezing.

Strands of iridescent strings pierce my newly formed body, yanking my consciousness away! They drag me downward into the darkness.

Slowly, my senses return. I lie flat on a smooth surface, unable to feel any temperature around me. Gradually, I open my eyes, little by little.

Is this hell?

My vision has no color, everything in shades of black and white, but I can see clearly.

I lie on a table elevated from the ground. It looks like a bomb dropped here. Everything is scattered, laid to waste. Destroyed machinery is everywhere, some still smoking.

Is this a lab? At least… at least it’s not hell.

My tightly clenched fist slowly relaxes. Lying in an unfamiliar room, every sensation feels odd. My heart isn’t racing, my stomach isn’t twisting. No heartbeat, no sensation of a stomach.

I’m feeling surprisingly…empty.

My mouth is dry as a desert, but I don’t feel thirsty. I consciously take a deep breath, the pungent, acrid smell of burnt machinery and metal filling my nose. I quickly exhale. To my surprise, I don’t even need to breathe.

I try moving my arms, legs, hands, and feet. My limbs move differently than before, but there’s no pain. Slowly, I push myself into a sitting position and look around.

“Anyone… anyone… here?” I call out softly, the pitch of my voice unfamiliar. I sound so pleasant. A rapid, quiet grasping sound reaches my ears, and something shifts in the corner of my eye.

Someone’s here.

An awfully injured old man lies in the corner of the room.

Cautiously, I crawl down from the table and move one step at a time toward him.

The old man reaches his hands toward me. When I get close, his wrinkled hand grabs my arms. Instinctively, I pull back. “Val… Sa..v…e me.”

His hands drop, and his entire body turns to dust before my eyes. I pull back quickly. That’s not normal when someone dies.

Suddenly, the hair on my head lights up in a white, iridescent color, as if alive. It charges toward the dust. With a bright flash, my vision is again filled with golden light.

I’m back?!

But instead of being with my family and friends, all I see are thin iridescent strings pulling a speck of orange light toward me. It seems to be entangled with golden strings as well. It’s an epic tug-of-war.

After a moment of tug-of-war, the speck of light shatters into pieces. A tiny piece is pulled toward me. As it does, memories and visions fill my mind.

******

With a pair of old, wrinkled hands, symbols and words are furiously written in my notebook.

“I am so close, so close, the secret of this universe, a new dimension of existence, I will have everything I ever wanted! Immortality! So close. So close.”

I walk to a massive machine filled with a blue liquid encasing a body. The liquid drains from the machine, and the doors open.

I carry and lay the body on the table in the centre of the lab.

This hairless body is the perfect height, with a slim and fit build. All aspects of the body are in a perfect golden ratio, with no visible reproductive organs or prominent sex traits. The eyes are closed, and the facial features are also in a perfect ratio.

That body does look remarkably attractive.

"This perfect body, the perfect vessel!" I run my hand along the fair, soft, silky-smooth skin of the body. "Val, you are my finest creation," I whisper into its ears.

Drenched in sweat, I cautiously pressed the button in front of me.

The machines surrounding the body light up, creating many rings, surrounding the body, rippling into it. Watching, my body starts shaking uncontrollably, my fists held tight.

The empty space above the body tears open.

“Ahaha! I did it, I did it! I broke the dimension wall! That plane was hidden above us! I, DR. KEYSER, WILL GO DOWN IN HISTORY!!!” Laughter and screams of ecstasy fill the air as I jump and cheer.

Suddenly, many iridescent strings reach from the torn void.

They attach and envelop the body on the table, and a speck of light from the void comes through the strings and into the body.

Was that? Is that how I get here? He was the culprit?!

“Wait, that wasn’t supposed to happen!” I scream, pulling the contraption out of the machine.

Running as fast as possible toward the body.

The strings fade into the body, and the torn void shuts closed. The rings of light from before push out from the body, followed by a bright explosion.

“NO! Ahhhh…” A moment of intense pain follows.

Lying lifeless on the ground, a voice is heard. “Anyone… anyone… here?”

Gasping for air, my head is forced around to look at where the voice comes from. In the darkness, the body moves off the table toward me.

Is that me?

“Where did I go wrong… Not yet, I can’t die, I can’t die, I can’t die, I can’t die…” This thought repeats in my head as arms grab me. “Val… Sa..v…e me.”

******

Everything goes dark. When my eyes open again, the lab comes into view. Nothing remains of Dr. Keyser—only dust, scattered across the floor. Not even bones.

What was that?!

As I slowly stand up, I notice the contraption the old man pulled out of the machine in my vision, sitting beside the dust pile. Picking it up, I try pressing the button, but it does nothing.

Turning slowly, I examine the room again with all my senses. There’s nothing alive in the lab, nothing burning, and everything is quiet.

Dropping to the ground in relief, a realization hits: That memory was from Dr. Keyser, the old man. It’s what happened here.

Why did I see it? It’s like watching a first person movie, but way more disturbing.

Sitting in place, staring blankly, I try to calm down… “Ahhhh…” I hold on to my head and shake.

Don’t panic, this is not the time to panic. Why am I panicking?!

This was totally normal, right? Waking up in a destroyed lab in a body with no organs after dying. Totally normal! The current situation can’t be worse. Right?

I’m running through all the things I remember and everything that’s happened until now. It’s like trying to assemble a puzzle with half the pieces missing.

One thing was clear: this was not the afterlife I wanted! I didn’t need or want a second chance. My life has been good. I was satisfied. No unforgivable regrets. I had almost gotten a warm reunion with my family and friends!

If this was an isekai, WHY did it have to be a dying old man that pulled me here? Shouldn’t it have been a beautiful, clumsy goddess who tripped and accidentally reincarnated me with overpowered abilities? Or at the very least, a handsome, apologetic god who offered a sincere apology and maybe a cheat sheet? Where was the tutorial?! Did I miss the memo?

It seems some memories of my life on Earth are still intact, but the majority of later memories are missing. Only images and fragments remain. Most memories before my thirties are preserved.

I'm a thirty-year-old consciousness, seeing fragments of my future. However, that "future" is already in the past.

At least I’m not old anymore…Silver linings, I suppose.

My knowledge, experience, and everything is currently stuck around the time I was thirty. Somehow, my consciousness was transferred—or reincarnated—into this stupid body, in this stupid place, after passing away on Earth.

Val, the name given to this body by the Doctor. Not bad for a name, that’ll be my name in this world, in this crazy isekai!

I guess I have a name now. Progress!

The visions of my family and friends were probably the afterlife planned for me. I was in the “plane hidden above us,” but most of my family and friends were well and healthy when I died.

Why were they in the afterlife with me?

Dr. Keyser’s crazy experiment took me away from my family and friends.

It also caused the explosion that destroyed this place and killed him.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Why me? Why did it have to be me?! I was resting in peace! I was perfectly happy being dead.

Furiously, I stare at the pile of dust again.

Humph! He got what he deserved!

Trapped in this body, not even knowing what I am.

I take a deep breath and slowly exhale. Looking down, I feel my new body.

For some reason I don’t look exactly the same as the body in the vision. With my hands, I feel around my face, touching my hair. It’s soft, thin, smooth, but incredibly strong. I try pulling, but not a strand breaks off.

Hooray! I am not bald!

Aside from not having a heartbeat and not needing to breathe, there’s no digestive tract, no sensation of hunger or thirst. There’s nowhere to excrete waste.

No bathroom breaks! That's... actually kind of nice.

Smooth scales cover my body from the neck down, regulating my body temperature. I don’t feel hot or cold, and I don’t sweat.

This wasn’t in the vision either, where did the scale come from.

This new body is definitely not human. I don’t know what I am, and I can’t even tell if I’m alive!

Fury surges through me as my fist punches into the ground, creating a crater beneath me and shaking the floor. Whoops. Shocked, I jumped.

Well, that's new. Superpowers? Hmm…

I check out my fist, and not even a smudge on the scales.

This body definitely needs some road testing.

Flopping back down, I'm suddenly swamped with memories of my family and friends. Hawaii vacations, those perfect cool waves on a blazing summer day, crazy parties, sunset dinners on the beach with lobster that practically melts in your mouth, the heart-melting smiles of my love and child…

We said our goodbyes, but I really want to see them again.

I did see them again, in the afterlife, bathed in golden light. I could go back to that warmth. All I need to do is, you know, pop back over to the afterlife. I must return to the afterlife!

A wave of calm washes over me. If death is nothing to be scared of, then what’s the big deal?

“Ahahahaha…” I could just end it myself!

I jump up, and promptly bash my head into, well, everything.

Bang! Clank! Clash!

Nothing. No pain, no blood, not even a tiny scratch.

This ridiculous body is way tougher than a human’s.

I drop back to the floor, rubbing my head and suddenly remembering all those anime and movies I’ve binged.

Trapped in this body, I gotta get out of here. If I’m stuck here and can’t even starve to death, this is going to be one hell of an eternity.

I drag myself up and spot that contraption I found earlier.

Is this thing even good for anything?

Walking toward the machine where the contraption had been placed in the visions I saw earlier, everything was completely destroyed by the explosion.

A deformed gate appeared at the other end of the lab. I sprint over and yank it open. It leads to a staircase.

I bolt up the stairs and reach a wall with a handle. I pull it, the wall pops open, and I shove it the rest of the way.

I’m in a living room. A small, dome-shaped apartment living room, and nobody’s home.

A table and chair sit on one side, a couch in the middle.

Four more doors line the room. I check them out one by one.

First, a bedroom, complete with a bed and a closet. Next, a kitchen-looking place. The next door reveals a bathroom.

The last door has some locks. I unlock them all and push the door open. It leads to an enclosed cave with a big lake.

Maybe there’s a way out.

I walk around the lake, and little creatures swim and crawl in the water and around the cave. They scatter and hide when I walk by.

I’ve never seen anything similar. They don’t seem aggressive, though.

At the edge of the lake, a small, half-submerged vessel catches my eye. I rush over and see it’s a mini-submarine. But the latch’s locked. I don’t want to break in—it might be my only ticket out—so I leave it alone.

Nothing else interesting around the lake, so I head back to the room and close the door.

Sinking into the couch, it seems there’s nothing else large or intelligent around here. I look around the room again and notice a hole in the wall, shaped exactly like the contraption I found in the dust.

I go over and pop the contraption into the hole—perfect fit!

Getting a little excited, I press the button. The room lights up with a bright, cool white light!

And… And… nothing else.

I press the button again, and the lights go off. “Ha… ha…” I facepalm.

It’s just a freaking light switch…

When the light pops on, my vision does a quick change from black and white to full color. Checking myself out again, my hair’s gone silver, and the scales on my skin are white and iridescent, similar to opals.

Same color as the strings from my visions.

The scales on my skin are kite-shaped and overlap. I try to pick one off, it won’t budge.

The door I came from is now covered by a large painting.

It depicts a massive golden sphere floating in the dark, made of tangled strings. Millions of tiny golden lights are within the mesh that makes up the sphere, and more strings float in from below, becoming tangled in it. The sphere looks warm and cozy, but there’s a creepy vibe.

Something is definitely not right here…

Going back through the rooms, I wander into the bedroom and check out the closet.

There are a couple of clothes in there, which I quickly throw on to cover myself, even though they’re way too small. It just feels weird to be naked, even when nobody’s around.

There’s a gun-like thingy and a small dagger.

I immediately put the gun to my head and pulled the trigger. A flash of light shoots out, but my head’s fine. I try slicing my neck with the dagger—again, not even a scratch.

I need to find a better weapon. There’s gotta be something in this world that can wreck this body.

There’s a mirror on the inside of the closet door.

I get a closer look at my face. It’s the same one I saw in the vision. My eyes are open now shiny golden eyes. And thankfully it's still a pretty human face. Actually it's very attractive by Earth standards.

“Not bad, not bad at all” I mutter to myself in the mirror.

I run my hands over my face again. So this is Val. If I had this face back on Earth, I could totally be a pop star. I look so young again.

I rummage through the bed and find a box underneath, with a key, a metal card, and some gold-colored bars inside. I wonder if it’s real gold—it sure feels real. The weight, the way it catches the light.

Next, I head into the kitchen. A storage area has what looks like food and cooking stuff, but I don’t recognize anything. The food especially looks super weird. This food isn’t anything from Earth.

So, I’m probably not on Earth anymore, at least not the one I know.

The old guy seemed totally human, and in that memory, he spoke and wrote in English.

There’s some cooked food and half-eaten stuff on the counter.

Is this even edible?

Wondering if I can even eat, I pop a tiny piece of food into my mouth. As I chew, I realize I can still taste, even though the food doesn’t taste or smell great. I’m so glad I can still taste it. I loved cooking and eating back when I was alive on earth. I swallow the food, hoping it hasn’t gone bad, but it definitely wasn’t fresh. Right after I swallow, I feel a little surge of energy in my stomach. I can also feel the food just… disappear.

I let out a long breath, and my abdomen feels totally empty.

How does this body even work? Does it need water and food?

This body doesn’t seem to have any way to get rid of waste. Do I just turn everything into energy? Would I even get fat?

Eating and not getting fat is a dream come true!

This body, which totally ignores biology and physics, gives me so many questions. If I wasn’t trying to get back to the afterlife, this body would be amazing. It seems to work without using up water or energy.

Could I be stuck in this thing forever?

The thought of being stuck in this body forever freaks me out. I have to find a way to destroy this body or at least get my consciousness out of it.

I look back at the food and take a deep breath.

At least I’m still me, with free will, able to move around and check out this world.

With a little spark of optimism, I try another weird-looking food.

“Blegh!” I immediately spit it out, totally disappointed.

This world would be miserable if all the food tasted like that!

Next stop: the bathroom. It’s surprisingly clean, and there’s a shower! I turn on the water and stick my hand in it. Still can’t feel any temperature difference on my skin.

Guess my body’s a perfect temperature suit.

There goes freezing and burning to death as options…

Finding nothing useful in the bathroom, I head back to the lab behind the painting.

This time, all the lights are on, and everything’s way clearer than the black-and-white version I saw before.

The table I’m on is in the middle of the room, surrounded by machines that got wrecked in the explosion.

There’s a pile of dust in the corner, where the old guy used to be. I poke through it again, but there’s nothing else. He’s totally turned to dust.

I’ve never seen anyone die like that. It’s straight out of an anime.

After some careful searching, a notebook pops out from under the rubble. The one with all the writing from Dr. Keyser that I saw in my visions.

Luckily, it’s not damaged. The scribbles inside are really hard, if not impossible, to read, but it’s definitely in English.

Talk about messy handwriting…

I spend a long time trying to figure out what it says. It’s full of experimental data and results.

The experiment’s about this idea that there’s a hidden higher dimension. We can’t see it because it’s folded up in a way we can’t physically see or interact with. He tried a bunch of ways to unfold that dimension.

That’s where I was after I died—the afterlife, the dimension above us.

Dr. Keyser found a way to unfold that dimension.

Dr. Keyser found a way to unfold it. With a ton of energy and some seriously complicated machines. This body’s a big part of it too.

Did he know what was in that dimension?

Did he know what was in that dimension? This body, called Vitruvian Artificial Life, or Val for short, is a homunculus he made. But there aren’t any details on how he made it. He just wrote that this was the only body he made that could handle the energy needed for the process.

My consciousness transferring into this body from the dimension above wasn’t part of the plan.

That little mistake cost him his life.

I spend more time digging, but I don’t find anything else useful. Most of the lab books are burnt to a crisp. The few that are left are in some language I don’t understand.

I spend the next few days, or what feels like days, testing and getting used to this body.

I can easily lift way bigger and heavier things than I should be able to. My movements and reaction time are crazy fast. I can run super fast and jump crazy distances.

So, super strength and agility. Nice.

I also try out some punches and kicks. I have to hold back, or I might accidentally wreck the whole place and bury myself alive.

Wow, this totally makes me an isekai main character after all!

Jumping into the lake, I test out some more of my body’s perks. Swimming’s a breeze, since I don’t need to breathe. My vision underwater is still crystal clear.

The lake water tastes super salty—I’m guessing it’s seawater. My tongue can feel the coolness of the water, but my body can’t feel the water’s temperature or pressure. There’s an opening at the bottom of the lake.

That’s gotta be my way out.

Besides not needing to eat, drink, or breathe, I also don’t need sleep. But I do rest sometimes to get my thoughts organized.

I try making some better food, but the ingredients taste awful.

They must have mostly gone bad. There has to be better food in this world…

The more I get used to this body, the more trapped I feel. It’s like a shell, a shackle for my consciousness. Extremely powerful, yet cursed armor I can’t take off.

The key I found in the bedroom fits the submarine.

After checking it out, I practiced driving it a bit. The gas tank seems full, which is great. I could’ve just swum out, but I want to take some stuff with me, and the sub makes it way easier.

I pack up everything useful—metal card, gold bars, gun, some cloth, and a little food just in case. I also make a small waterproof metal box from machine scraps for the notebook. After testing it for leaks, I put everything inside.

The gun stays next to me in the sub, and the dagger’s tied to my leg.

Standing at the edge of the lake I glance back at the place that caused my imprisonment.

It’s time to leave. Finding a way to break this body apart is now the goal.

Thoughts buzz through my head as I hop into the sub and sink to the bottom. I spot the cave opening and follow it, driving for ages.

There are even more weird sea creatures, but I don’t recognize any of them.

Finally, I came out of the cave, probably in the middle of a huge ocean. Slowly, I float to the surface.

"Finally!" I yell as the submarine breaks the surface.

Looking up at the sky I’m stunned by what I see. One thing is certain I’m definitely not on Earth anymore.