Jake Wolfe's existence at 27 was comfortably unremarkable. His day at "The Iron Grille," a sandwich shop at the edge of a tired-looking strip mall, was wrapping up just as it always did. At his age, he found himself drifting in the small space between the dull satisfaction of routine and a gnawing, unshakable desire for something more—something he couldn’t quite name.

As the clock hit ten, Jake tossed his apron aside, clocked out, and headed to the employee bathroom. The fluorescent light buzzed overhead as he splashed cold water on his face, staring at his reflection in the mirror. His features were unremarkable—brown hair that was neither too short nor too long, a straight nose, and a jawline that could almost be described as decent in the right light. There was nothing striking about him, but there was something about the darkness in his brown eyes that gave him a touch of something almost good-looking, though even he wasn’t sure about that.

He dried his face, feeling the heaviness that always seemed to settle over him after each long day. The loneliness he carried wasn’t new, just sharper at night. As he stepped outside, the neon lights of the shop's flickering sign were reflected in the puddles from an earlier rain, matching the way his mood flickered between indifference and longing. The night was unusually quiet, save for the distant hum of highway traffic, and Jake started his walk home, feeling the weight of the world that no one else seemed to notice.

Halfway through his route, Jake felt a strange tingling sensation crawling up his spine, an unexplainable unease that made him glance over his shoulder more than once. The night, though quiet, seemed unnaturally still, as if the world was holding its breath. He shook his head and kept walking, trying to brush off the feeling. But as he crossed the street, distracted, his foot caught the edge of the curb wrong.

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Jake stumbled, his arms flailing in a futile attempt to catch his balance, but it was too late. His body lurched forward, and with a sickening crack, his head slammed into the metal corner of a nearby dumpster. The pain was blinding, sharp and immediate, and before he could even process what had happened, his vision blurred.

The world spun around him as he crumpled to the ground, the damp pavement cold beneath him. Blood trickled from the gash on his head, mixing with the rainwater pooling around him. His breaths came shallow and labored.

As darkness enveloped him, a cold, mechanical voice echoed somewhere in the void.

“Initiating Reincarnation Protocol R-611... Standby for transfer."

Suddenly, the voice glitched, stuttering with a digital crackle.

"Error 404: Destination not found. Retrying... Error 501: Protocol mismatch. Retrying...”

Jake's consciousness floated in limbo, feeling like a spectacle. The voice continued in its emotionlessness.

"System override failed. Attempting... Error 503: Service unavailable. Commencing ejection process."

With a jolt that resonated through him and in the next moment, pain so sharp he saw stars, Jake felt a surge of movement, as if he was hurtling through layers of reality. The next thing he knew, the mechanical voice faded into a whisper.

"Locating available coordinates to eject. Target locked at ‘RO43, FP24’, Lost Elven Forest, Kingdom of Thop, dying planet Terra-68. Ejecting Jake Wolfe, 27, Downtown, Texas, Earth-0003."