huff... huff...
A figure dragged itself across the sand.
The sun was setting, bathing the world in shades of amber and gold. It was beautiful. Perfect, even. The kind of sunset that made people stop and stare, that made them write poetry or take pictures or call their loved ones.
huff... huff...
The figure's name was Adom. Adom Sylla.
Today, Adom had decided he was going to die. By drowning, specifically.
It was supposed to be peaceful, poetic even - just him, the waves and that perfect sunset. Instead, he'd somehow managed to get attacked by a troll.
A troll, of all things, on his carefully chosen quiet beach.
The irony that he'd fought so hard to stay alive against something that could have done his job for him wasn't lost on him. But getting his head repeatedly smashed against rocks hadn't been part of the plan. He had standards, after all.
Except now his body had failed him. Again. Just as he'd finally dealt with the troll and worked up the courage to finish things properly, the chair's systems had crashed. And now here he was, crawling through blood-stained sand, unable even to die right.
The final reading of the connected wheelchair flashed through his mind:
CRITICAL SYSTEM FAILURE
Mana Stability: 12% [DANGEROUS]
Neural Sync: ERROR
Life Support: OFFLINE
Connection Lost...
At least he'd made it to the beach.
He couldn't breathe right. Each gasp tore through his lungs like broken glass, leaving the taste of blood in his mouth. The sand felt wrong under his hands - coarse and wet with something that wasn't just seawater.
His legs wouldn't work. Hadn't worked since the fall, or maybe it was the explosion. Everything after the screaming started was a blur. He forced another handful of sand behind him, dragging his body forward.
The sea breeze carried salt and rot and the beach stretched out ahead, empty except for the bodies. So many bodies. The tide was trying to take them, pulling at uniforms and civilian clothes alike. A knight's armor, somehow still pristine except for the dark stains, bobbed in the surf.
War didn't care about perfect sunsets or final moments. War just left things broken.
Another push. Another few inches gained.
His chest hurt. The diagnostic warnings had gone quiet minutes ago. Or hours. Time wasn't working right anymore.
"Just... a little... more..."
His voice also didn't sound right anymore. Too weak. Too old. Each word cost him more breath than he could spare, but the silence was worse. The silence meant hearing the waves lap against dead things.
Something massive lay half-submerged near the pier. Probably a leviathan. Best not to look at it. Best not to remember what it did before the artillery finally brought it down. Best not to think about the sounds it made.
Blood dripped onto sand. His blood, this time. A cough wracked his body, and for a moment the world went dark around the edges.
It hurt. It hurt so much.
But he kept crawling. One hand in front of the other. Away from the bodies. Away from the thing in the water. Away.
Just a little more.
He could almost hear the echoes of laughter, see the ghostly outlines of those long-gone structures. The phantom sensation of sand between his toes, the warmth of the sun on his skin, the salty air that engulfed his lungs - all these memories washed over him, as relentless and bittersweet as the tide itself.
Seventy-nine years of life. A lifetime for most, an eternity for some.
Few were those who could boast of such longevity, and fewer still who'd want to, given the circumstances. Adom Sylla's case was, to put it mildly, a surprise to everyone - himself included.
At 79 years old, Adom had been sick for 67 of those years. A record, perhaps, though not one anyone would be eager to claim. It had started when he was 12, a persistent cough that refused to go away. By 13, he was spending more time in hospital beds than his own. The disease - a rare magical malady that fed on his very life force and mana pool- had been his constant companion ever since.
Despite the odds, Adom had carved out a brilliant career as a mage. Was it talent? Determination? Or just sheer, pig-headed stubbornness? Whatever the reason, the man had refused to give up, even as his body slowly crumbled around him.
He outlived so many people. Family, friends, acquaintances. Had accomplished so many things as a mage.
Yet, Adom felt he had nothing but disappointments to show for it. Disappointments in himself, in others, and something else. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on. Oh well, it would come back to him later. If there was a later.
There wouldn't be.
Unfulfilled dreams, too. So many of those.
This was Sam's dream, actually. To die by the beach.
His vision blurred, then sharpened suddenly, mind crystallizing with a clarity he hadn't felt in years. Ah. Sam. There was a name he hadn't heard or pronounced in... how long? Like Mother. Like Father. All long gone now, so long he couldn't even remember their faces anymore. Just impressions, feelings, the ghost of memories that refused to fade.
A bird picked at something that might have been a decapitated head nearby. Right there, that exact spot - that's where he'd had his first ice cream. Every Sunday, mother and father would bring him here. And there, where that massive thing lay dead in the water, that's where his mana had manifested for the first time.
"This is so cool!" The echo of a voice, young and excited. Sam. His best friend back then.
What had happened between them? They'd been so close. He could still hear Sam's voice, the way he'd tease him constantly, how they'd practice dueling behind the school. How they'd get beaten up by the stronger kids just because. Just like that.
He should have stood up to them.
"Should've... stood up..." The words came out as a wheeze, followed by another cough.
Ah. There it was. The something else he couldn't remember earlier.
Regrets.
Yes. That's what his life could be resumed to.
They piled up like the bodies on this beach, didn't they?
His hearing started to fade, replaced by the thundering of his own heart. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Each beat slower than the last. A countdown he knew too well.
Sweat mixed with blood on his face, despite the cool breeze. Above, a shadow circled - patient, waiting.
Thump-thump.
Fifty-six heart attacks throughout his life. Fifty six near-death experiences. Not many people could put that on their resume. Each one had taken something from him - a bit of liver here, kidney function there, pieces of himself left behind in hospital rooms that became more familiar than his own bedroom.
His arms shook as he tried to pull himself forward again. Failed.
You never really appreciate your legs until you wake up one morning in your third-favorite hospital room and can't feel them anymore. Puts things into perspective, watching nurses wheel you past the playground you used to run in. Watching life continue while yours just... stopped.
...Thump... thump...
His heart beat defiantly, a stubborn percussion against the approaching silence. Adom forced himself forward, his movements even more desperate than before.
...Thump... thump...
The bird's shadow grew larger.
The sea was right there. He could smell the salt, feel the spray on his face. He just needed to make it a little further, to feel the water fill his lungs, to let the waves carry him into the abyss.
Thump... ...thump...
The heartbeat slowed, each pulse feeling like it might be the last. Adom's fingers finally touched the water's edge, but it was a hollow victory. His hearing dulled, the sound of the waves fading to a distant roar.
Thump...
Everything was going black. Adom felt himself slipping away, consciousness flickering like a candle in the wind.
Thump-
And then... nothing.
A peculiar lightness spread through his limbs. His fingers wouldn't move anymore, no matter how much he willed them to. His chest felt like concrete had been poured into it, heavy and still. The world tilted sideways, or maybe his head had. Sand pressed against his cheek, each grain suddenly fascinating in its clarity.
Just... a little... more...
His hands trembled one final time, then stilled. Through dimming vision, he watched the bird land near his face. Its talons left tiny imprints in the bloodstained sand. So this was it - he'd become another feast, another corpse among the others. The bird cocked its head, studying him with one bright eye.
Number fifty-seven did the trick it seemed.
Go ahead, he thought, unable to form the words anymore. At least... something good... can come from this...
The bird hopped closer, beak aimed at his eye. Then, inexplicably, it spread its wings and took flight, abandoning him there in the sand.
What... not good enough for you either?
Something shifted beside him. Not a shadow - there was no shadow to be seen - but a presence, as real as the sand beneath his cheek. The smell of incense cut through the salt and rot. Filling Adom's nose.
And there were red flowers suddenly growing all around him. Chrysanthemum, by the look of it. Was that magic? Hallucination? He could not feel any mana though, but then again, he could not feel anything.
Hallucination it is then.
"Good evening," said a calm, almost cheerful feminine voice. "Beautiful sunset today, isn't it? The clouds are particularly lovely - all those shades of purple and gold. You don't often see them mix quite like that."
Huh?
"Though I must say," she continued, "the monster birds are being rather picky today. Usually they're not so discriminating about their dinner choices."
A strange calm washed over Adom, despite the situation. Despite his stillness. Despite everything.
The voice intrigued him - melodious, warm like honey in summer. She must be beautiful, he thought. An elf, perhaps? No, that sweet tone, and here by the sea... a mermaid? Were those still around these days? He hadn't heard of one being spotted since the wars began.
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To his surprise, when he tried to speak, words actually formed. His voice was weak, barely above a whisper, but it was there - though he couldn't feel his lips moving anymore. How strange.
"Who... are you?"
He still couldn't see her, couldn't turn his head. Just the sand, the darkening sky, and that lingering scent of incense mixing with the salt air.
Adom heard her sigh - not an exasperated sound, but something almost fond.
"Oh, Adom. I'm a bit disappointed you don't recognize me," she said, "but I understand. It's always different, face to face."
"Do I... know you?"
A soft chuckle, like wind chimes in a gentle breeze. "Well, I know you. We've met many times before." A pause. "56 times, to be exact. This would be our 57th encounter."
Silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant waves. Understanding dawned slowly, like the last rays of the setting sun.
Ah.
"You seem shocked." She said, amusement coloring her voice. "Why? You quite literally invited this encounter."
"It's not every day we get to talk to you."
He felt more than heard her settling beside him in the sand, a movement without substance.
After a moment of comfortable silence, she spoke again. "Rise, Adom Sylla."
Suddenly, he was light - impossibly, wonderfully light. Like a dandelion seed caught in a summer breeze. And there, just below, lay... himself. Blue eyes stared unseeing at the darkening sky, mouth slightly parted, skin already taking on that peculiar waxy quality that belonged exclusively to the dead.
One hand still reached toward the sea, fingers half-curled as if trying to grasp something just out of reach.
What a strange thing, to see your own corpse. Like stumbling across a wax figure of yourself in an abandoned museum - familiar yet fundamentally wrong.
He'd always wondered how others saw him. Mirrors showed you what you expected to see, photographs captured moments rather than truth. But this... this was different. This was real.
The old man on the sand looked smaller than he'd imagined. Thinner. Years of illness had carved deep lines around his eyes and mouth, but there was something else there too - a stubborn set to his jaw that even death couldn't quite erase.
His white hair, still thick despite everything, was matted with sand and blood and troll drool. The mechanical chair lay broken several yards back, its pieces scattered like fallen autumn leaves.
His first reaction was shock - surely that couldn't be him? But then... a sigh escaped him, followed by something that might have been a smile. The tension he'd carried for sixty-seven years finally began to ease from his shoulders.
He turned to look at her properly for the first time, and... oh.
She looked human, and yet clearly wasn't. Like a painting of a person that somehow stepped out of its frame, too perfect to be real. Her skin was Sun-kissed bronze hue, seeming to absorb the dying sunlight rather than reflect it.
Hair white as the whitest of moons flowed around her face as if underwater, defying gravity in gentle waves. A midnight blue robe draped her form like liquid shadow, moving with impossible grace even in the stillness.
Her features were regal, elegant - high cheekbones, full lips curved in a gentle smile, a straight nose that would have made ancient sculptors weep.
"I... didn't expect you to look like this."
Who would have?
She turned to him then, and Adom found himself staring into eyes that contained entire universes - deep green pools filled with spinning galaxies and dying stars. Her smile widened slightly.
"Everyone sees me differently," she said. "Some see an old man with a beard. Others, a young boy or young girl. A grim reaper with a scythe. A wolf. A bright light." She chuckled, the sound like distant wind chimes. "Some people even saw me as a truck."
Even her laugh was elegant, Adom noticed.
"I'm not unhappy with this form, I must say," she added, running a hand through her cosmic hair. "It suits the evening, don't you think?"
"It does," he agreed, watching the sun sink lower.
It was strange - he had no lungs to breathe with, yet he could feel the air. No skin to feel with, yet the breeze touched him. No nose to smell with, yet the incense scent lingered. But apparently, even as a soul, his legs still didn't work.
Seriously?
As the sun dipped closer to the horizon, he asked, "When do we go?"
"What do you mean?"
"You came here to take me, didn't you?"
"Hmm." She traced patterns in the sand with a finger that left no marks. "Did I?"
"What do you mean?"
Adom then drew in what felt like a breath - funny how those habits lingered even without a body. He wanted to say something.
'Im ready.'
The words were difficult to push out, weighted with all his regrets and unfinished business. He wasn't ready. Not really. But at least... well, at least this confirmed something, didn't it? An afterlife. The possibility of seeing them all again, make amends - Mother, Father, Sam, everyone...
Wait.
The realization hit him like a bucket of ice water. Adom had never believed in any of the old gods or the new ones. Had actively rejected them all, in fact. If there was an afterlife, then there was probably... everything else too. Paradise. And its rather uncomfortable alternative.
Oh.
Oh no.
He looked at the woman beside him, suddenly very aware that he might have seriously miscalculated his entire philosophical stance on existence.
Adom gulped audibly, the daunting question lodged somewhere in his non-existent throat.
She smiled at him then. "Do you really want to go?"
Confusion washed over Adom. He turned back to look at his body lying in the sand, then at her, then back at the body again. There was no ambiguity there - no rise and fall of the chest, no flutter of pulse at the throat, not even the smallest twitch of muscle. That was, without question, a corpse. His corpse. Dead as dead could be.
"Do I... have a choice?" he asked slowly, the words coming out uncertain and slightly baffled.
The lady's smile curved into something more enigmatic. "Well," she said, "I have a deal for you."
Hmm. A deal. Not suspicious at all. No matter what the fairytales said about absolutely never striking deals with mysterious cosmic beings. Very normal.
"...What kind of deal?" he asked anyway, his spectral voice cautious.
"A second chance," she said simply. "To go back. Live your life again. Make different choices. Be happier."
The words felt unreal at first. Adom's non-existent heart seemed to stop all over again. The sunset, the beach, even his own corpse - everything blurred around him as her words echoed in his mind.
Go back?
The images flashed through his consciousness in a torrent - the day the bombs fell, the screams of people as magic tore reality apart, his father's last breath in his arms as the healing spells failed one by one, the burning cities, the mass graves, th dead marches, the endless refugee camps, the final devastating war that had turned the world into a wasteland, as mages unleashed powers that should have remained forbidden.
He'd watched it all crumble. Watched as humanity tore itself apart, watched as the fairy realms collapsed, as corruption poisoned everything good, as hope itself died a slow, agonizing death. He'd lived long enough to see the last tree wither, the last clean river turn toxic.
Lived to see the World Dungeon rise.
And now... now this being was offering him a chance to...
His mind couldn't even process it. The sheer magnitude of what she was suggesting - the possibility of maybe, just maybe...
His ghostly form trembled. All his carefully constructed acceptance, his hard-won peace with death, his resignation to the end - it all shattered like glass.
A second chance.
Those three words contained everything he'd ever wanted and everything he'd forced himself to stop hoping for.
"...What?" was all Adom managed to whisper.
Another thought cut through his shock - everything had a price. What was Death's?
As if reading his thoughts (and perhaps she was), she spoke. "You're wondering about the cost." She drew patterns in the air with her finger, leaving trails of stardust that formed and reformed into spiraling galaxies. "But there isn't one. This moment, right here, was always meant to be."
She gestured at the darkening horizon. "Everything that happened - every tear, every loss, every moment of despair - it shaped you."
Her voice grew gentle. "You're not here to correct a mistake, Adom. You're here because this is exactly where you're supposed to be. Think of it less as a second chance, and more as... the next step in your journey."
"Why me?" Adom asked, his voice small against the vastness of what she offered. "I was just a mage. But not..." he gestured helplessly at nothing and everything, "not nearly enough to change whatever's coming. Not powerful enough to stop all... that."
"Why not?" she replied. "Others have walked this path before you. A simple farmer once changed the course of history, and all he wanted was to grow wheat."
She turned to face the sea again. "If you could go back, with all your memories intact, what kind of man would you be, Adom Sylla?"
Adom considered her question, really considered it.
He wanted everything he did not have the pleasure to experience in his life. He wanted to travel the world. Go on adventures. Eat the most succulent meals. To drink the most bizarre drinks. Talk and befriend people of all intelligent races, visit their lands, experience their culture.
Adom wanted to live. Simply live.
But then a flicker of fear crossed his spectral features.
In order for him to do that, there would need to be a world to begin with. So, did he would be burdened with the mission of stopping that?
He felt the fear of failure, fear of watching it all crumble again, fear of being too weak, too late, too little. But then... something else kindled in his eyes. A spark of defiance, bright and sharp as the first star appearing in the darkening sky.
The same defiance that had kept him studying when others said magic was beyond him after the illness. The same fire that had made him push forward when his body wouldn't work. The same stubborn light that had kept him fighting long after hope had died.
The spark that, even after everything, had never quite gone out.
"Yes," she said, satisfaction in her voice. "That is exactly what you need to feel."
Adom confirmed then that she was indeed reading his thoughts. Though... he had no actual head anymore, so she was reading his... what exactly?
The metaphysical implications were starting to give him a metaphysical headache.
She rose to her feet, and Adom found himself looking up, and up, and up. She seemed to stretch into infinity, her robes merging with the darkening sky, stars dancing in their folds. She extended her hand down to him - a hand that somehow remained elegant and human-sized despite her cosmic proportions.
"Accept the deal," she said, her voice now echoing all over the space. "Fight for the world you would like to live in."
Her voice grew softer, gentler. "And when it's all over, when all is said and done, and you have completed an hopefully long, satisfying life..." She paused, her star-filled eyes warm. "Then I will take you."
Being promised collection by this entity, even one who looked like a beautiful lady, should not have felt reassuring. Yet somehow, it only made Adom more determined to make that meeting as distant as possible.
He smiled and reached for her hand. It felt like touching starlight and shadow at once, warm and cool, solid and ethereal, impossibly ancient and perfectly present.
"Deal."
The moment their hands clasped, everything - the beach, the sunset, his corpse, even Death herself - simply... ceased. No fade to white, no dramatic flash. Just sudden, complete nothingness. No up or down, no light or dark, no sound or silence. Not even the concept of empty space. Just...
Nothing.
Through the nothingness, her voice came one last time:
"Make it count, Adom Sylla."
*****
Adom floated in the nothingness, formless and senseless.
Time lost all meaning. He couldn't tell if seconds or eons had passed. The emptiness was absolute, oppressive.
Then, a flicker. A pinprick of awareness in the endless. It grew, expanding like a bubble in the void. Suddenly, glowing blue text materialized before him:
[System Initializing...]
The words hung there, impossibly bright in what was now darkness. More text appeared, each line bringing a surge of sensation back to Adom's formless consciousness:
[Name: Adom Sylla]
[Race: Human]
[Life Force: 100/100]
[Class: Mage]
[Date: 5th of Sapin, 847 AR]
As the last line faded, reality crashed back into existence around him.
The first thing that came back was sensation - a dull throb that seemed to exist everywhere and nowhere at once. Then pressure, the weight of his own body, real and solid and impossibly heavy. His lungs burned as they remembered how to breathe, each heartbeat thundering in his ears like a drum.
Consciousness trickled in like water through a cracked dam.
"...dead?"
"...poke him with a stick..."
"...your wand away before..."
The voices faded in and out, mixing with the ringing in his ears.
"Mr. Sylla?"
Everything felt too much - the cold wetness on his face, the taste of blood in his mouth, the hard ground beneath him, the scratch of rough fabric against his skin. His nerve endings fired all at once, relearning what it meant to be alive.
"...dom? Adom?"
"Leave him..."
"...should we get the..."
"...breathing, look..."
His eyelids flickered, impossibly heavy. Light stabbed at his retinas, making the world swim in blurry patches of color. Something shifted nearby - shadows moving against brightness.
"Mr. Sylla? Can you hear me?"
The world slowly began to arrange itself into recognizable shapes, like a painting coming into focus. The ringing in his ears faded to a distant hum, replaced by the clear voices of...
The world swam in and out of focus, faces hovering above him. Faces he'd forgotten he once knew. Faces that had haunted his dreams for decades. This was like watching a memory play out, except...
[Attribute Unlocked: Regressor's Memory]
The memories crashed into Adom like a tidal wave. The beach. Death. Her star-filled eyes. The deal. The deal!
"AH!" He jolted upright, earning a chorus of startled gasps from the crowd around him.
"I think you broke him, Damus."
Damus? His head whipped left, then right, taking in the sea of young faces staring at him like he'd grown a second head. They all looked so... small. So unbearably young.
Strong hands gripped his shoulders, steadying him. "Easy there, Mr. Sylla. You need to breathe. That was quite the hit you took during the duel." The adult voice paused, hardening slightly. "For which you will come and see me in my office, Mr. Lightbringer."
Adom heard a tsk somewhere in the crowd.
It worked. It really worked! He was-
Wait. He squinted at the man holding his shoulders. Who was... ah, The stern face, the scarred face that could only come from battle, the silver-streaked beard...
...Crowley? Professor Crowley!
His heart hammered against his ribs. There was Damus Lightbringer, standing awkwardly to the side, looking so young it hurt. No scar carved into his face, no hollow darkness in his eyes. Just a boy who'd cast a spell too powerful for a practice duel.
The fifth of Sapin. The day he'd spent a day in the infirmary because little Damus couldn't control his temper. Look at him, that little-
"Adom?"
Adom's eyes widened. That voice. That impossible voice.
He turned slowly, looking past Crowley, and there...
There was Sam.
Alive. Whole. Young. Stupid, wonderful Sam, with his crooked grin and worried eyes, his ginger hair catching the sunlight like copper wire.
Adom's trembling fingers found his own face - smooth, impossibly elastic skin, the sharp sting where Damus's spell had hit him, cool water droplets still clinging to his cheeks. He felt the roundness there, the absence of decades of worry lines. Young. He was young.
A laugh bubbled up from somewhere deep inside him, wild and uncontrolled, bordering on hysterical.
"Did he hit his head?"
"Should we get the healer?"
"He's gone mental..."
"Adom?" Sam's voice cut through the whispers, concerned. "Are you alright?"
Adom threw his head back and shouted to the sky, not caring how crazy he looked, not caring about anything except the air in his young lungs and the beating of his restored heart:
"I'M BACK!"
"Yeah. You definitely broke him, Damus."