After my death, as the rules of the genre dictate, I was reborn into a new world.

To my great disappointment, that was the first and last cliché I encountered.

Not even a busty goddess greeted me, as usually happens in stories like this. A shame, of course, but there’s a silver lining to everything, right? Instead of that, I found myself face-to-face with Death again. Though, to be honest, the novelty of the experience wore off almost immediately since I met it again… and again… and again, an endless cycle.

Our dates continue to this day. Try as I might, I can’t even estimate the number of reincarnations. There were just too many.

Sounds like a fairy tale, doesn’t it? If not for one small “but”. Whenever I gain a new life, I lose it almost immediately. It is simply impossible for me to save myself, no matter what I do to try. For instance, yesterday, I reincarnated as an old man who accidentally swallowed a pill wrong and choked to death. I gained his body just as he was sprawled out on the floor, taking his final breath. And the day before that, my would-be mother decided to have an abortion, and my body was torn apart by metal hooks. This list goes on endlessly.

What exactly I did to deserve this treatment isn’t entirely clear. In my first life, I was a nobody. Yep, not the most impressive résumé for a protagonist, I get it. But, apparently, Death had other opinions on the matter. It set its sights on me and dragged me into this endless loop of rebirths.

I have only one theory, and it’s a ridiculous one at that. Death didn’t like the fact that I tricked it during our first meeting. How, you ask? Well… A massive, fiery mushroom cloud was blooming before my eyes. I was destined to die in a nuclear blast, but my heart gave out first.

Even if that’s the reason, I’ve more than repaid my debt. In the adventure it sent me on, I’ve burned alive at least 700 times, if not more.

The most frustrating part of this whole ordeal is that I can’t even go insane to stop feeling the pain. I’m essentially nothing more than a disembodied consciousness. Every new life is a unique experience. Pain always feels as sharp as the first time. No matter how much I wish I could develop a tolerance for it, it’s just not possible.

The situation becomes even worse when I end up in the body of something particularly sensitive. So, upon waking, the first thing I check is pain tolerance. If it’s bad, I try to kill myself immediately to avoid prolonged suffering. But pulling that off isn’t always possible. If I ranked my reincarnations based on frequency, humanoid forms would be at the bottom. How do you quickly and painlessly kill yourself as a cockroach? Or worse - a living tree? That’s right; there are worlds where even that’s possible.

Anyway, enough about the past, because right now, I’m heading into a new adventure. An invisible force rips my consciousness from nirvana and plunges it into a new body.

I wonder how I’ll die this time?

******

Darkness quickly gave way to light, hitting my eyelids. A warm breeze lazily brushed against my face, rustling the surrounding grass. Above me stretched a boundless blue sky, painted with sparse, careless strokes of white clouds.

Unfortunately, this time I couldn’t test the body’s sensitivity on my own. Thankfully, I had helpers.

“AAAAA!” I screamed, clutching loose earth in trembling hands and shredding my throat.

At that very moment, a group of people was devouring me alive.

Damn it! Damn it!

I’ve been in similar situations before, often ending up as the lowest link in the food chain. But I've never seen people devour their own kind. Though, to be fair, they didn’t exactly look human.

These were filthy, emaciated figures resembling medieval peasants, draped in tattered linen shirts and coarse, timeworn trousers. Their skin was sickly gray-green, uneven, and riddled with festering sores as if consumed by mold. Their bodies were stained with dirt that would never wash off. Worms wriggled in their decaying flesh; flies buzzed about. Their milky, dried-out eyes lay sunken under grim lids. Faces taut and pale, webbed with deep cracks and wrinkles, some sporting gaping wounds that exposed tendons and bone. Broken, blackened teeth jutted out from their mouths, and dark, nearly black saliva dribbled from cracked lips.

To the tune of their maddening chewing and my agonized screams, I died.

******

And once again, I wandered through the void. Admittedly, it was faster than usual…

But then…

Light hit my eyelids once more. Only now, the breeze carried the scent of rotting flesh, and the blue sky was tinged red by the blood dripping into my eyes.

Looking down, I saw the same scene as before - only this time, there were even more zombies. One was slurping up my intestines like giant spaghetti bolognese. Another, gnawed at my right leg, with fetishistic propensity, crunching on the toes. Wait a second… I didn’t even have legs last time.

A creepy zombie woman leaned in, aiming to leave a love bite, but accidentally tore out my throat instead. I choked on my blood before I could even scream.

Why was I reborn twice into the same body?! That had never happened before…

And once again, light.

The same sky.

The same dinner menu.

“AAAAA!” I screamed in panic.

No! Don’t touch me! Enough! But all that came out of my mouth were incoherent sounds. Not that I expected my pleas to change their undead minds.

I tried to fend them off, but all that was left of my arms were gnawed bones. My legs met the same fate. My flesh spilled from their torn cheeks, but it didn’t deter them. More zombies piled onto my body with every passing second…

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Stop! I beg you!

Death. Rebirth. Pain.

Death.

I’m used to this cycle, but not in the same body. What’s happening now is too much, even for me. Why are my limbs regrowing? No, why do I keep waking up? It’s not just regeneration.

Could it be that this new body is immortal?

******

Their teeth sink into my flesh, tearing deep. The pain is sharp, piercing, ripping me apart. Without eyes, I can’t even see whose hand is clawing at my side, but I feel the skin being ripped away, exposing ribs. I scream, but from my parched throat comes only a rasp.

When I take on a body, my entire nervous system becomes part of me, bound to my consciousness. This means my mind is no longer impartial. I scream, writhe, sob, and wail like any ordinary person.

The unbearable pain couldn’t break my psyche before, as death itself seemed to prevent that. But if this body is truly immortal, everything changes. Sooner or later, my mind will snap. If the psyche dies, then consciousness will vanish. The cycle of suffering will finally end!

I just have to endure.

Just endure…

“AAAAA!” But this body - or what’s left of it - doesn’t share my plan, instinctively continuing to struggle.

Of course, it’s all useless against a dozen undead corpses…

******

It’s been three days since I first woke up in this body. I still haven’t lost my mind, and it seems I never will. All this time, I’ve been teetering on the edge, but something keeps pulling me back. It’s not just about the fact that I keep dying, even if temporarily. It seems to be tied to how this body’s regeneration works.

I’ve come to a conclusion: it doesn’t merely rebuild missing parts; it turns back time, returning the body to its original state. The same goes for the brain and emotions. After all, emotions are just a biochemical deviation from a baseline state. Each new “deviation” accelerates the restoration process. In the future, I might reach a point where I don’t die at all. But in the meantime, all emotions will likely become foreign to me.

Since I have no clue about the nature of this immortality, I can only speculate, but to me, this explanation seems the most logical.

If I can’t die, I’ll have to find another way out of this mess. I need to kill these creatures at any cost.

Why didn’t I think of this sooner? Why did I surrender at the first real opportunity to change something?

Probably because I had given up hope… I even forgot the word existed.

Nevertheless, fate has thrown me a chance.

And I’m going to grab it with both hands - or teeth, if necessary. It’s the only way to change anything!

With the last of my strength, I managed to lift my body and headbutted one particularly bold zombie right in the chest, breaking it. The impact nearly knocked me out, but I pressed on. Opening my mouth wide, I bit into its heart, though even that didn’t stop it.

Damn it, I need to aim for the brain!

I died. They devoured me again. Their stomachs had long since burst, spilling their contents across the area. More specifically, my flesh painted the entire village crimson. It’s strange, though. I can’t quite understand where the energy for my regeneration comes from. Then again, I don’t know this world’s laws or how immortality itself works.

******

Every time I wake up, I try to inflict as much damage on them as possible. Most of the time, lacking limbs, I resort to biting. So you could say I’m eating them back. If my observations are correct, though, these bastards will meet their end without my help. Their bodies continue to decay; their movements grow sluggish. Some have lost all their tendons and ligaments. That bastard who loved munching on my toes lost his lower jaw yesterday.

Serves you right, you prick!

******

With every new awakening, I find more intact pieces of my body. By the seventh day of torment, only 30 out of 95 zombies were left, and even they couldn’t do much to me. These pathetic creatures could barely crawl over the rotting pile of flesh that kept falling out of their bloated stomachs. A disgusting sight.

For the first time, I stood on my feet and started kicking their heads like I was playing soccer. Though, the “ball” burst quickly, spilling brain matter everywhere. Thinking about all the pain I endured these past few days, I let myself get consumed by hatred for these abominations. With no regard for my own body, I kicked them with all my might. By the time I got to the last one, I had broken my leg 17 times.

Breathing a sigh of relief after the final one had died, I had taken my first breath free of any shackles… and had promptly vomited. All the zombie scraps lingering in my stomach had finally come out. Flies had immediately swarmed the mess. Judging by their appearance, the flies might also have been zombies, ridiculous as it had sounded. I remembered that on the fourth day, a mangy zombie dog, covered in boils and protruding bones, had joined the horde.

Some dark magic must have cursed this place, killing absolutely everything. All the crops and plants had rotted away. The materials of the villagers’ homes had decayed and cracked. You could argue the houses were already in bad shape, but I doubt anyone would’ve tolerated roofs made of moldy straw.

Entering one of the huts, I tried to find clothes, since I wasn’t keen on wandering around naked. No luck, though. One touch was enough to reduce the fabric to dust. Stumbling upon a blacksmith’s workshop, I hoped to find chain mail, but it, too, had rusted beyond use.

It looks like I’ll be parading around with nothing to hide. Not that I’m embarrassed, but it’s better to stick to social norms to avoid awkward situations.

“Time to hit the road.”

Where am I headed? How should I know? But that’s the beauty of it, isn’t it? My existence is no longer predictable.

By the way, I should try to stop talking to myself. Pretending to be the main character got me through tough times, but there’s no point in it now.

******

A few hours of walking along “dead” hills and meadows brought me to a beach.

To my amazement, grass was growing near the shoreline.

Not rotting, growing. Finally!

Tears welled in my eyes as I dashed toward it, eager to bask in its warm embrace. The bumblebees perched on the flowers weren’t as thrilled and immediately took flight. Among them was one particularly aggressive bee that decided to stick around. It was slightly larger than usual, with a bright purple fuzz. As I failed at it, the insect managed to sting me twice - once in the hand and once on the cheek. Compared to what I’d been through, this was nothing.

“Buzz off, you furry bastard,” I muttered, finally swatting it away and collapsing into the grass.

Spreading my arms wide, I let myself relax under the sun, staring up at the clouds. It had rained for the past few days, but today was perfect. Gentle ocean waves lapped at the shore, leaving behind thin trails of foam.

Oh, how I’d missed moments like these…

Suddenly, a tiny aquamarine butterfly landed on my sweat-damp nose. Its delicate wings fluttered lightly in the breeze. I closed one eye to better examine it, but my thoughts drifted far beyond the beach, straight to the clouds. From those clouds emerged a floating fortress, crafted entirely of gold. Its massive walls sparkled in the sunlight, blinding if you stared too long.

Around the fortress, giant manta-ray-like creatures danced in the air.

The sight took my breath away.

My hand instinctively reached toward the sky, as if trying to touch them.

That’s when I noticed the skin on my fingers was missing, with liquid flesh sliding off the bones and dripping onto my face.

Next, my breath disappeared. Struggling, I propped myself up on my elbows. Blood and a viscous mixture of gums, teeth, and tongue spilled from my mouth. Vomiting, I died again.

All that… from a single bumblebee.

What the hell awaits me next?