The rain was piercing cold, thousands of infinitesimal icicles, made just for me in that moment in time. To add insult to injury. Literal injury. It hurt, staring up at the light of the humming light post, where in the spotlight the bugs of the night were illuminated through shadow. It pained me, having my blood run from me like creeks from mountain storms, collecting only to drift away to nobody knows where. I couldn’t turn my head, and nor would my fingers answer to the commands of my mind. Feeling was lost somewhere around my waist, and I was thankful for that, but felt cheated. At least if I lost sensation further up I wouldn’t have searing pain like an open oven door. There was no strength left to scream, not when I would have to force blood out of my throat to do so. The best I could manage was a gurgle, bubbles of air escaping only to get drawn back in through desperate instinct.

This fucking man standing above me was getting in my light, blocking the rain as he panicked. Somehow its absence was worse. Hollow in its physical silence. But this man was loud in his literal noise, screaming and hollering, fretting over my broken limbs. Another onlooker called the police, while someone covered me partially in a cloth, as though my torn clothing was a problem in my current state. It didn’t help with warmth, the cold seeped through, the cloth becoming a blanket of chains against my unmoving form. Breathing was hard. I hated this. Just let me die. What life is there for me now? I coughed, sputtering blood into the man’s face. Oh, he was quiet now. Pale as the light, queasy. Was it too much for him now? This was all too much for me. My quiet was approaching, coming in waves and humming tones like a circle of oppressive heat. First, loud. Then, nothingness. My vision mirrored hearing and a ring of darkness consumed me. My breathing rasped, then ceased.

Flashes of memory drifted through my consciousness, leaving me to wonder why the mind did this. Was it an attempt to convince you to live? Some desperation manifested? My life was unimpressive, patently average for someone living middle class in the United States in the modern age. I was thirty-four, with divorce on my track record, and nothing to show for it. No two-and-a-half kids that was the average. Money was a concern, but not so scarce that I had to choose between food or the internet like so many less fortunate.

There was a flash of first grade, a memory of a fair goldfish that didn’t live more than a week thanks to my pair of cats. I cried for days until my noise frustrated my parents to the point my mother screamed at me to shut the hell up.

A moment from seventh-grade science class. Dissection of a rat. I recalled how ironic it felt to be cutting open one dead being when we held others up on a pedestal as pets in the classroom. How would the pet rats Kelsea and Orpheus feel if they understood what we did not twenty feet from their cage?

Family, school, bills, family, college, bills. My life was boring. I didn’t get to do anything of interest in my short time on earth. I supposed it didn’t matter anymore.

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Light pierced my eyes again, sudden and all at once, and I groaned trying to adjust to it, my hand naturally coming up to block my face. Oh. I could feel again. I guessed, looking around at the bright open field around me, that I finally died. There was a woman seated at a glass picnic table wearing a sky-blue silken dress that flowed around her ankles and bare feet. Her face was pristine and beautiful, her ears downward pointing and long like some anime elf. Otherworldly. Her eyes were the one thing that made me feel uneasy. They were black voids. Looking into them made me feel as though they would consume me whole, as though I were looking into the void of space.

“Come now, little girl,” she spoke up, baring a motherly smile as she motioned for me to sit in the chair across from her. My limbs moved without thought, placing my bare skin against the cold metal of the chair. I felt so vulnerable, but she was… impossible to deny. I don’t know how else to describe it. She nodded, “Good. Good. Just relax, dear. This will be over soon, I promise. You’re going to be a hero.”

“A hero?” I felt the words leave my mouth, numb… I felt like I was breathing in honey.

“That’s right. A time of great trouble will befall my favorite world, and so, an age of heroes is once again in order. Already there are some who are brilliantly strong. New prodigies are born who are cultivating strength. It’s so… wonderful. Lucky you to get to join them, my dear. You’ll have an advantage. You will remember your life on Earth… and you will get skills thanks to the Opal System accordingly,” she said. Her voice felt like purring, warm, calming. It was hard to think, hard to move, hard to even want to argue or question her. Before I knew it I was gone again.

I picked two things before I left that strange place and the grasp of that goddess: my hair and eye color. Jasper gem hair. Tiger’s Eye gem eyes. Shapeshifting and copy affinities. I just wanted to have a leg up. I didn’t know what fresh hell was awaiting me.

Since I did not yet have a new body, I didn’t understand exactly what was happening to me, but I could tell something wasn’t right. Shouting, sounds of fighting, maybe blood? It was like a hum outside a tightly closed door. The first thing I knew was pain, fresh and sharp.

The sun was glaringly bright and hot, the rocky sand beneath my back grating and rough, and I felt like my chest was going to burst. I gasped, coughing and sputtering, and flipped onto my hands and knees to heave.

My hands were so small. It was real. All of that was real. But… where the fuck was I?

I looked up and my eyes met nothing but sheer cliff faces and drop-offs. The heat was oppressive, and plants only grew in the shade between cliffs where the sun couldn’t burn them off. I stumbled to my feet… they were so small too. How old was I now?

The roar of a wyvern snapped me out of my stupor. I clasped my hands against my ears as I fell back onto my ass in fear. The creature was several times larger than me, with golden and black scales and these huge green eyes. A blur of memories filled my mind in panic. This thing had just killed this girl’s… my… parents. I was mute, cast out of the tribe for my weakness. This land accepted no weaknesses. The tribe couldn’t have anyone pulling it down in this harsh land. My parents… no… the whole tribe… was destroyed by this thing. Humans did not rule this place, the beasts did.

I was so fucked.