As I ran I nearly bumped into every person on the street. From behind I could still hear them, the ones that had been following me for some time.

I made a sharp turn into an alleyway that I knew led to an abandoned industrial building that barely anyone knew about, my only chance at surviving this night. The moon shone down on me, its light reflecting in the small puddles that had formed in the alleyway in yesterdays rain. From Behind, I could hear footsteps quickly approaching.

"Stop right their you little rat!" one of them yelled.

I felt the sweat dripping down my face, it was cold. I knew I was scared. I knew that there was little chance I could shake them off and manage to flee into the abandoned building I had been aiming for since they started following me.

"I said stop you little shit!" the same person yelled again.

Following his words was a loud bang. A throbbing pain made its way up from my hip to the rest of my body. I didn't dare look down, but I knew, I knew that a trail of blood was behind me, a trail of my own blood. I felt weak, weaker than ever before. Weaker than the many times they had kicked me, hit me . . . burned me and . . . No, I can't think about those things now! I just continued running, paying less and less attention to anything but what was in front of me.

"Fucking cockroach," one of them said just loud enough for me to hear.

Yeah, a cockroach, that's all I am . . . all I have ever been, ever since that fucking day. A loud scream tore out from my throat, making it hurt as I began running even faster, ignoring the numbing pain that spread from where I had been shot.

What I didn't account for in my overly stupid moment of bravery was the fallen over trash bin that was in my way. I attempted to jump over it . . . but the moment my feet left the ground I already knew I had fucked up. Just moments later I found myself on the dirty asphalt. My head spun as I tried to look around, everything was kind of blurry.

I must have hit my head . . .

Before I could even begin to get up from the hard ground, the small pebbles digging into the skin of the hand I was trying to use to push myself up they had caught up to me, laughing.

"What a fucking idiot!" one said through his laughter.

It felt humiliating . . . All my life I had tried to stay out of trouble, and all my life I had failed to do so. I was indirectly responsible for all of these situations, at least that's what they had always told me.

My vision began clearing up and I could see one of them crouching down beside me, a cigarette in his mouth. The man's blond hair was tied back into a ponytail and his two green eyes pierced through me for a second.

"You know-" he took the cigarette out of his mouth and blew the smoke straight at my face, making me cough, "-that was a really stupid move you little fuck. Did you think it was smart to betray us? I thought we talked about this . . . you know that I feel even more pain than you when we have to torture you, you're important to us." The man's words felt like a kick to my face, just a way to rub more dirt into the wound.

"Yeah, important as a fucking tool, now we have to do more dirty work," the one with the gun said. I could see him from the corner of my eye. The smug look on his face, his brown hair his face. Just everything about him made me angry.

Everyone but me and the one that had crouched down beside me began laughing.

"Well, I guess there's nothing I can do for you now. You've made your choice. Martin, finish him off," the man said, putting out his cigarette on my forehead. It burnt, but the most painful thing was the knowledge that I would die at any moment now. I felt warm tears run down my cheek as I watched the man getting up and another leaning down to me, the one with the gun. He pressed the still warm barrel against my head and pressed it against my skull. It felt like it was about to crack.

The man about to shoot me began laughing all of a sudden. "Look, the little cockroach- no, baby, is crying!" he said, his voice a pitch higher than before.

"Any last words?" he asked when leaning back down to me.

"Fuck you!" That was all I could think of, all I knew how to say at this moment.

Again everyone there burst out into laughter.

"Really, fuck you, those are your last words? I'm really disappointed in you, you could've done so much better," the man with the gun said before pressing it against my head even harder. Without saying anything else I saw him squeezing the trigger in the corner of my eye.

And then everything went dark. I found myself surrounded by darkness. So this is what death is like? Seems kind of anticlimactic . . .

"That's a bit rude, isn't it? I put a lot of work into all of this . . . okay maybe just a few minutes but still, I made this for you."

I jumped at suddenly hearing a voice. Wait, why can I even jump? What is this?

"It's simple this is the . . . Chamber of Death, yes that's what this is . . ."

"C-Chamber of Death?" I asked. This whole situation was confusing. I was certain that I just died, that someone had just blown out my brains with a gun.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Well yes, you are dead. That's why this is the Chamber of Death . . . or maybe I should call it the Chamber of the Dead? What do you think?"

I looked around frantically, trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Trying to figure out where this voice was coming from and who it belonged to.

There was a sudden light blue flash from behind me. I immediately turned my head and saw something that looked like a human made of light blue light. I couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman, the figure of whatever was in front of me seemed like both and neither at the same time. The same could also be said for their voice.

"Who are you?" I asked, trying to see if there was anything beneath that light blue light. But there was nothing. There were a few spots where I could see through the light that made up the person's body but all I could see through those spots was the black of this chamber of death or chamber of the dead or whatever that person chose to call it.

"Don't avoid my question like that!" the figure said, sounding slightly angry now.

...

Should I just answer?

"Yes you should!" the figure said, putting their hands on their hips like some angry mother about to scold their child.

"I-I guess Chamber of the Dead doesn't sound bad?" I asked more than said, scared the figure might do something to me if I gave the wrong answer. But what could this person even do, I'm already dead! Thinking about that made my heart sink. Which was weird since I was dead.

"Just because you're dead doesn't mean you can't live," the person said.

"W-What?"

That doesn't even make sense. What is this, some kind of last ditch illusion my brain has conjured up to make my death less painful or something?

"No, as I said. This is the Chamber of the Dead," the person said. "Now to answer your question. I am Nexus, the creator of all. I also need to admit that I lied, I didn't make this for you . . . I'm sorry. How the fuck does he lie so much? Does he even have a conscience? Oh and I usually go around as a male."

"W-What? Who did you make this for then?" I asked, getting no response. Just as one of my questions had been answered, be it with something that I didn't quite believe, about a hundred or so new question immediately popped in my head. But I decided to ask the most important one first.

"What happens now?" I asked, feeling my body shaking. I hadn't noticed it before but now it hit me like a truck. Being in the presence of the one calling himself nexus was . . . difficult. I felt pressure on my shoulders, pressure I had never felt before.

"Well, as I said: Just because you're dead doesn't mean you can't live," Nexus said.

"What does that even mean!" I yelled, feeling myself getting frustrated and annoyed.

"Now now, don't get angry at me. It means that you'll get to live simple as that," Nexus said, now also slightly annoyed.

I get to live?

"What? How?" I asked.

"It'll revive you, dummy. You then get to live your life in some other world and enjoy it, simple as that, Ethan."

"I get to live in another world? How?" I asked.

"I just told you, now stop annoying me with stupid questions and let's get this over with. I'm afraid death might do something stupid like starting a war with life or something stupid like that," Nexus mumbled before lifting his arms made of light.

I was even more confused now than I was before. Some being made of light calling himself Nexus, the supposed creator of all was about to revive me. Thinking about it made it seem like one of the Japanese shows I had watched in my free time . . .

"He said the same thing, now look here or else things might not go as smoothly as you might want them to go," Nexus said.

Not knowing what else to do I turned to the person made of light just to see Nexus' entire body burst into particles of blue light that wrapped itself around me until all I could see was light blue. And that light blue slowly but surely turned completely white.

So am I dead now? Is this the light at the end of the tunnel? Is this it? Was all of that just some joke?

As I got closer to the light I prepared myself for heaven or hell or whatever I would see at the other side of the tunnel, but instead, I saw a woman looking down at me. But that wasn't the strangest thing. The strangest thing was the two dark antlers growing straight out of her forehead, curving after a few centimetres to go from a slight angle pointing upwards to an almost full ninety-degree angle pointing upwards. Many spikes . . . or rather the many tines branched off the main beam of the two dark antlers. They reminded him of a deer but the antlers had too many branching off tines for a deer.

I took a closer look at the woman. She had scarlet eyes, light brown skin, a sort of pale yellow-brown mixture. White hair fell down from her head, covering most of her ears. Normally all of her ears would have been hidden by her long white hair but since they were longer than an adult man's finger and sharper than some knives they stuck out from the hair. On her face, the woman had a bright smile and tears were streaming down her cheeks. The longer I looked up the more I noticed how gorgeous she looked.

Oh no, I know what's happening. I was reborn. So that weird Nexus guy wasn't lying . . . and this . . . this must be that other world he was talking about. Does that mean I was reborn as an elf?

I looked around the room, trying to find something like a mirror. I saw the woman, or rather my mother, look at me with a confused expression. It wasn't every day that someone would see their baby move around their way too heavy head right after birth but right now I had no interest in thinking about playing the part of a baby.

I had been reborn. I was in a fantasy world. And if there are elves that means there might be magic!

I felt excitement fill my little body that almost seemed to burst from it. After a short, the door to the room I and my new mother were in flew open and a man, dressed in armour made of furs and leathers stepped inside, strapped to his back was a bow and a quiver filled with arrows.

Like my mother, he had antlers growing out of his forehead, although his' were much larger and bulkier than those of my mother. Where hers were elegant his were wild. Some tines had been broken off and I could see cracks in them. He had the same skin colour as my mother but his eyes were brown and his hair was a deep black and growing on his chin, and his chin only, was a beard. His face was plenty handsome.

So I guess my father is a hunter. And a damn handsome one at that, does that mean I'm going to look good? Will I finally live a life where I can succeed as well?

More excitement rushed through me, making my little body tremble. My new father looked at me and then my new mother, then back to me and then back to her before he slowly approached us, taking off his dirty leather gloves and putting them down on a table next to the bed we were in.

"Is this him? Is this our son?" he asked, tears forming in his eyes.

"Yes, this is our little Altair," the woman said. I could clearly hear that she was still crying.

The man now began crying as well as he hugged the woman, careful not to disturb me. But I was still thinking about my new name.

Hmm . . . I guess Altair doesn't sound bad. No, it doesn't sound bad at all.

I tried to smile but not much happened. Instead, I just looked up at the faces of my new parents, both of them shining with happiness.

"Hello there little Altair, I'm your father, Raver. And this is your mother Aurelia," my father said.

If I could I would have begun laughing at him introducing himself and my mother to me as if I were some kind of colleague. When I tried to say anything only a high pitched noise came out of my mouth, making my parents almost melt right in front of me.

I guess this isn't so bad, maybe I can really live a life that I can be proud of.