The world ended at a very unfortunate time for Akemi. Not unfortunate in the way that she was about to get married, or have a child, or get a long-awaited promotion at work. No. Not unfortunate by the standards of the general, mentally-healthy population. It was inopportune in the way that the Earth as she knew it exploded on August 7th, 2026, when the videogame she’d been waiting over a decade for finally – and, she couldn’t press this enough, finally – graced the digital shelves of her Steam client. She drooled in front of her monitor like a dog as it downloaded, her shitty internet speed bobbing up and down like a drunk fruit fly.

The progress meter creeped along so slowly that Akemi, in a rare moment of lucidity, nearly considered a walk outside. She didn’t do it, but she did consider it, drawing back her black-out curtains to reveal the soggy summer grass in the yard outside her apartment. It was ten o’clock, and the sun was unusually high in the sky, even for Sweden. Every stream of light had this odd, gauzy quality to it as if it was being projected by some kind of dying machine.

And that’s exactly what it turned out to be – a dying machine. The sun, offering its last, limping shower of light, closed the door on humanity like a pissed off employee leaving the boss’s office.

Akemi knew it was the end, and yet the only thing she could think to say was:

“I’m really never going to play the next fucking Elder Scrolls game.”

—

The next thing Akemi knew, she was staring at a space cow.

There wasn’t really a better way to put it. She was surrounded by stars, floating mindlessly through what looked like oblivion, and the only thing she could see was a spotted cow. Its jaw was opening and closing absently, lips smacking, its eyes dead as seashells.

“Moo,” it greeted her.

“Nope. Absolutely not,” Akemi said. “This is not what death is going to be. I refuse.”

“Moo,” it said again, galaxies bursting somewhere eons behind it.

“Yeah, no. Fuck you. No way I’m talking to a cow for eternity,” she said. “I’m getting out of here.”

She tried swimming away, but found that she couldn’t. She was stuck fast, like a goldfish running on a treadmill. Her arms and legs slapped uselessly at the great beyond.

“You’re not going to get anywhere with that attitude,” the cow said, jolting Akemi. She froze, craning her head to look at the animal with wide, disbelieving eyes.

“Did you just speak?”

“‘Course I did,” the cow bellowed. “Now, onto less stupid matters. I am the Avatar, you are a withering soul at the break of oblivion. Only one of us is really in a position to be asking questions.”

Before Akemi could ask another undeniably stupid question, the cow stomped forward. As its hoofs moved, so did the entirety of the universe, rushing forward like a sped-up timeline. Meteors flashed across the horizon, planets eroded and exploded, stars flourished and died. This repeated several times, flurries of color passing by Akemi’s eyes until finally things stilled.

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“What are you doing?” Akemi asked, breathless. The whole experience had left her dizzy.

“Browsing the infinite timelines, what else?” the Avatar responded dryly. “Unfortunately for you, most of the universes in my domain are full up on heroes, chosen ones, et cetera. If we are to find you a spot, it’s going to be somewhere quite desolate. Uninhabited. Not a first choice planet in the least. A pity.”

“I’m sorry – heroes?” Akemi said, balking. “Do I look like a hero to you?”

She gestured downward at the unwashed onesie she had been wearing for the past week.

The cow paused. Its hoof stilled.

“You, of all the myriad souls on your dying little planet, drifted to the top. You are like the drop of oil in the dishwashing liquid of humanity,” the cow explained. “You must be a hero. There is no question about it. Destined to save people and places, vanquish villains, the usual.”

“You’ve got the wrong girl,” she said, laughing. “I don’t even let elderly people cut in front of me at the supermarket. The last time I was helpful was probably ten years ago, when I dropped out of high school and stopped tormenting my teachers. If something about my soul is pinging hero, then something about your hero detector is pinging broken as shit.”

The cow hummed. It seemed to contemplate something.

“Fine, then. I will do something I do not usually do. I will present you with choices,” the Avatar said. “The first choice is this – you will be sent to a desolate, dying planet, but with powers unimaginable. You will unquestionably be able to save it, and you will become a hero to the people who live there. You will be loved and adored —”

“Cut to the next option, please,” Akemi muttered. For every roleplaying game she had ever played, she had never once gone the Good route. It was morally gray or nothing. She had endured being placid and nice and agreeable in her everyday life for so long, the idea of living like that eternally in her after-life seemed disgustingly exhausting.

“Do not interrupt me,” the Avatar said. “The second option is thus. I can send you to a thriving system, one of plentiful people and cultures, conflict and wondrous disarray—”

“Please get on with it.”

The cow all but growled at her. “Fine. Fine. The second option is: I can send you there as a villain. There are hundreds of spots open for villains, because no one in your position ever wants to be one. This choice, like choosing to be a hero, is not a finality. It is simply a beginning. But you will be reviled by the populace, seen as an outcast by the church—”

“Both of these options sound terrible,” Akemi said. “What do I get for being a villain?”

“What you get is… look, I don’t do this script often,” the cow muttered. “No one ever wants to be a villain. Villains are typically organically grown. They sort of just pop up in their respective systems. Traumatized, wayward youths that sort of stumble into the profession. All of them are usually snuffed out by heroes the moment they reach even middling success. Which means…”

The cow planted its hooves together, and an orb of red, diabolical light shone before it.

“You’d be in uncharted territory. A villain with the promise of a Great Hero’s potential. You see, due to their shortage... villains get special perks. Slight advantages to the System. None of the gods of the system would be prepared for something like that,” he said slowly. “You would have the power to upset the delicate, karmic balance between good and evil. And, perhaps, with enough effort, destroy it completely.”

The cow cleared its throat.

"So, it's a bargain deal, really. If you're alright with killing people, that is. Murder's not to everyone's taste."

She considered it. It wasn't exactly a proposition a high school education had prepared her to face.

"If I do, they'll just end up back,"—she gestured vaguely to the endless darkness surrounding them—"here, won't they? With you?"

The cow hummed. "Something to that end."

She shrugged, the cosmic weight of everything falling off her shoulders.

"Then I say." She cracked her knuckles, and her eyebrows rose. "No harm in a little fun."