Jordan's awareness returned in fragments, slipping into place like broken pieces of a shattered mirror. He wasn't sure how much time had passed… if time even existed here. However, as his mind returned, he knew that he had been gone.
The void stretched around him, an infinite abyss of black so deep it swallowed the concept of distance or even time itself. Yet, in that endless dark, tiny pinpricks of light slowly flickered into his perception. Impossibly distant and unfathomably ancient, like the last dying embers of long-dead stars billions of lightyears away. They grew just a bit brighter, to allow him to realize they were real, but so… so far away. The sight should have been terrifying, should have made him feel small, but he didn't feel anything, not at first.
Then he noticed. He wasn't breathing. His chest neither rose nor fell. His heart didn't beat. His lungs weren't pulling in air. His eyelids hadn't even blinked since he had awakened in this abyss. Yet he was… aware.
A jagged panic cut through his thoughts, the instinctive expectation of adrenaline slamming through his veins. But it never came. The pulse of fear that should have seized his chest, the biological chain reaction that should have set his nerves alight, it was absent, as if his body had forgotten how to respond.
Wait… my body… Jordan actively thought.
His gaze dropped downward, expecting to see himself, to see skin, blood, muscle, something. But what he found made his metaphorical stomach drop. He wasn't solid. There was an outline, a vague, shifting form of what should have been his body, but it was hazy, insubstantial like smoke caught in the rough shape of a man. No clear lines, no weight, no true presence. He was more of an… awareness.
He lifted his hand, or what should have been his hand, and stared at the indistinct edges. His fingers weren't fingers, not really. Just the idea of them, blurred and formless. The more he focused, the more he realized he wasn't whole. He wasn't right.
Something inside him recoiled at the realization, a deep, gnawing wrongness clawing at the edges of his mind. Where am I? What am I? What happened to me?
Then, memory surged back. The knife. Jordan's breath…no, he wasn't breathing, his thoughts stilled as the image flashed through his mind, vivid and sharp. The cold steel buried deep in his chest like an executioner's final act. The agony seared through him as the blade punched through his sternum and chest cavity.
And then the face of him… Chase. He could still see his face at the moment of the strike. Twisted with rage, with blind determination, with something so ugly and intentional it made Jordan's insides curdle. Rage started to swell in his formless mind. He wanted revenge, he wanted retribution against the one who wronged him. He was dead, and the murderer walked free.
He had been seconds away from breaking Chase's wrist, from wrenching the knife away, from beating him bloody… but then…
The distraction… the blue screen.
Jordan's metaphorical jaw clenched as the memory snapped into clarity. That blindingly bright, translucent blue rectangle had appeared out of nowhere, right in his face. It blocked his vision at the worst possible moment.
He could still feel the split-second of disorientation, the way his focus had shattered the instant that unnatural light had burst into existence. And in that fleeting moment of distraction, Chase had driven the knife home.
If his fingers curled into a ghostly fist, it wasn't visible to anything in existence, only in his own mind.
"What the fuck was that?" he muttered, his voice a hollow echo in the empty void. Though his voice didn't sound audible in the way he thought it should. He heard his active thoughts, but he didn't speak them. He thought them, heard them, willed them into existence.
No answer came.
His thoughts raced, grasping at the fragments of his final moments. The screen. The words. The system…?
"What's the system?" he whispered to the nothingness.
The void again did not reply.
But something deep within him, something beyond his fractured form, beyond the ghostly haze of his body stirred. And in the endless dark, unbeknownst to Jordan… something watched. It connected to Jordan in a way he couldn't understand. Something else was there in the void, observing him.
Jordan shifted his mind, his thoughts stretching outward in search of the screen he remembered. That impossible glowing interface that had blinked into existence just before everything had gone dark. He remembered the way it had flared blue, an unnatural, piercing hue, before suddenly shifting to a deep, bloody red. And then… nothing.
Now, no matter how hard he searched, there was no sign of it. No flickering display, no translucent text, no ominous presence. Only the abyss.
The void around him remained unchanged; an ocean of endless black, speckled with distant, cold pinpricks of light. The stars, impossibly far away, blinked faintly, indifferent to his presence. The sheer scale of the darkness was suffocating. If he had lungs, the realization alone would have stolen his breath.
Yet, amidst that oppressive emptiness, something shifted. A glow, faint at first like the whisper of a fire's sudden growth. It came from behind him. He felt it before he saw it, an eerie warmth crawling up the edges of his amebous presence, an undeniable force. He tried to turn, instinct urging him to pivot, but he had no body. No muscles to flex, no joints to pivot, or mass to shift.
How did he move?
He felt a sickening moment of helplessness, the sensation of trying to grip something solid with hands that no longer existed. His old methods of motion; bones, ligaments, and the unconscious rhythm of movement were useless to him. He knew he had to turn, but there was nothing to push off from. Nothing to use. A cold feeling of emptiness washed through his mind as the truth hit him harder. His body was gone. He was… dead.
Yet… something within him reached.
A force beyond flesh, beyond muscle memory; something deeper, instinct, willpower, sheer defiance. He latched onto the idea of movement, focusing his mind with razor-sharp intent. It was all fueled by the rage that sat in his core. The anguish and fury of what had been done to him. He felt it… then he used it.
He began to move inside the void. It was alien, an entirely new sensation, like floating in a current without water, like shifting space itself rather than shifting through space. It wasn't physical, but mental and extremely taxing.
As he turned, the glow sharpened into a blazing inferno. A massive, writhing sphere of fire churned before him, its molten form twisting and folding in on itself in a violent, endless dance. It pulsed with an internal rage, surging and spiraling like a living thing. Waves of molten fury fully encompassed the surface of this celestial body. A world-shaking vibration and ominous noise emanated out from the world of fire. The power inside of it was palpable all the way out where Jordan's presence lingered.
Jordan stared, the sheer scale of it overwhelming his senses.
"The sun?" He stared in awe. "No." He knew that wasn't right.
The Sun was still there, hanging in the far distance to his left, a familiar celestial beacon burning far, far away.
"Then what the hell is this?"
His mind reeled as he took in the full, impossible sight. This was no normal star, no mere celestial body drifting in the void. It was here… and so was the sun. Jordan's mind began connecting the dots. And then, to the right of the molten planet, he saw something else.
A white sphere, smooth, cratered, familiar.
"The Moon." It was hanging there in the vast nothingness, silent and unbothered, exactly as he had always seen it from Earth, only larger and closer.
A terrible, sinking feeling clawed its way up through his mind, curling icy fingers around what was left of his fading sense of reality.
He wasn't on Earth anymore. He was outside of it. Beyond the atmosphere, beyond the sky, beyond the safety of everything he had ever known. He was floating in the abyss.
If he had a body, his eyes would have gone wide, his breath would have hitched, and his heartbeat would have thundered in his chest like a war drum. He would have gasped, would have reached for something, anything solid to ground himself at the realization. That ball of fire… it was the earth.
A sharp, unbearable terror gripped him, a fear deeper than instinct, deeper than reason—an ancient, primal horror. The fear of not only being cast out of the world but having no world to go back to; of being lost in the void, untethered, unseen… forgotten.
"This can't be real." It had to be a dream.
He wanted to pinch himself, slap himself so hard his ears would ring, anything to wake up… but he had no hands. No self.
His thoughts spiraled, panic and dread lacing through them like wildfire.
"Is this what happens when you die?"
Then, his mind latched onto another question, clawing at the edge of his sanity.
"What the fuck is that?"
His gaze snapped back to the molten sphere.
"Why does the world look like that?" Jordan floated there confused.
From Jordan's perspective, something was very wrong. Horribly, impossibly wrong. And Jordan was right in the middle of it.
Then, images of the glowing blue screen flickered through Jordan's mind. A memory… faint, distant, but undeniable. He had seen it just before it happened. Just before Chase drove the knife straight into his heart.
"What did it say? Something about a system? A welcome message? A tutorial sequence?"
The details eluded him, slipping through his grasp like mist, but before he could dig deeper…
Without warning, a red rectangle blinked into existence directly in front of him.
Its harsh crimson glow burned against the endless darkness, its presence oppressive and inescapable. The moment his eyes, if he even had eyes anymore, locked onto it, words began to materialize in slow, deliberate strokes, scrolling like the credits of some bleak, inescapable movie. The lettering was obsidian black against the blood-red backlight.
YOU HAVE DIED.
Jordan Robberts
Race: Human
Level: 0
Class: Not Applicable
Total Experience Earned Towards Next Level: 0 XP
The scrolling halted as soon as the last line reached the center of the screen. Jordan waited, pulse hammering in his mind—or it would have been if he still had a pulse.
Nothing else appeared. The letters faded, leaving behind an empty, glaring red rectangle.
An unsettling silence filled the void for a moment, the powerful quaking from the inferno even disappeared as the void almost seemed to darken.
Then… new words surfaced, materializing with eerie precision.
SYSTEM ERROR DETECTED.
An anomalous event killed a newly integrated member of Earth before the initializing stage of the quantum flux event was complete.
Adjusting to compensate…
The red screen pulsed, then blanked out again.
For a fleeting second, there was nothing.
Then, in a single overwhelming surge, a flood of information exploded across the screen.
Lines upon lines of black text raced downward at blinding speed, too fast to read—but Jordan didn't need to. He knew the words. The moment they flashed across his vision, the knowledge embedded itself directly into his brain, as if the system was forcing it into his very being.
It was inside him. He understood now. The screen wasn't just a display, but a manifestation of something deeper. It was a visual representation of data being force-fed into his consciousness. A connection for the universe to feed him knowledge… and power.
Most people in the multiverse discovered this gradually. The screens were just a way to interpret the system, a tool for navigating the branching paths of their new reality. It was their individual connection to the multiverse-spanning system that gave everyone their path.
But for Jordan… it was all being dumped into him at once. This was not usual for enlightened races, but for beasts and…
RACE: HUMAN – NO LONGER APPLICABLE.
HEALTH POINTS (HP): 0 – Plummeted to zero during quantum flux event.
WARNING: Only (Race: Human) is allowed in the tutorial sequence.
NEW RACE DETECTED.
Jordan's pulse, or the memory of a pulse, spiked. "New race?"
He wasn't human anymore. The words continued, unwavering, indifferent.
RACE: MONSTER
CLASS SELECTION AVAILABLE:
Select from the list of available classes below:
Classes? He thought to himself.
He remembered the list he had briefly seen on his old blue screen before everything faded to black.
The system had shown countless possibilities for others; mages, warriors, rogues, healers, knights, artificers, assassins. The list on the planet went on and on for others. However, these classes were innate to the human condition and could be extended up and grown in exotic or mundane branches as each individual made their own way.
Jordan's screen, however? Jordan's screen only had one option.
CLASS: WRAITH
Jordan's mind seized. "What the fuck?"
The glowing red rectangle burned in his vision, the lone, singular word staring back at him like an accusation. WRAITH.
He wasn't just dead. He was something else entirely. His mind drifted, latching onto a desperate, grasping hope…
"Maybe this isn't real. Maybe Chase just got a lucky shot in. Maybe I just got knocked out in the parking lot, and any second now, I'll wake up." He tried to convince himself. "Yeah."
That had to be it. Because none of this, the screens, the text, the system, the bullshit about races and classes, none of it made sense.
But no matter how many times he turned it over in his head, no matter how many desperate rationalizations he tried to construct, the emptiness around him remained unchanged.
The void stretched in every direction. There was no ground, no sky, no air to breathe. Just an endless expanse of nothing. And he was part of it; floating, disembodied and alone.
The truth gnawed at him, slow and insidious. But before panic could take hold, the crimson glow of the screen pulsed again to regain his attention.
A single word flashed. Then another. Then more. Letters unfurled into words, solidifying into a structured display; something eerily reminiscent of a stat page.
Jordan stared, his entire being coiling with unease as the screen unveiled itself.
STATUS PAGE
Jordan Robberts
RACE: Monster
CLASS: Wraith (pending)
LEVEL: 0
Beneath the words, the screen displayed a final question, stark and unavoidable:
Do you accept?
And below that…
YES / YES
Both options were highlighted, encased in small, flickering rectangles, pulsing steadily like a heartbeat. Like it was waiting for an answer. Demanding a choice be made.
Jordan froze. His mind scrambled for some kind of understanding, but all he felt was an overwhelming sense of loss.
This wasn't a choice. This wasn't even some cruel game giving him the illusion of free will. He wasn't human anymore. Not according to this. Not according to the screen that had latched onto him and pulled him into whatever this was.
And worst of all… there was no option to deny it. No rejection. No going back.
Just YES… or YES.
And how the hell was he even supposed to pick?
He had no arms nor a body. He was nothing but a drifting presence in the void. If this was real, if this was actually happening, then how was he supposed to… his fingers twitched on instinct… except there were no fingers. It was a mental version of an extremity. It was willpower.
Somehow, despite the formlessness of his existence, the screen pulsed as he accepted the choice.
Class Accepted.
A surge of something, not quite pain, not quite sensation rippled through Jordan's awareness. It wasn't like anything he had ever felt before. There was no heartbeat pounding in his chest, no lungs gasping for air, no limbs bracing against the unknown. Just a sudden, all-consuming attention, like the void itself, had suddenly acknowledged him. Like something locked its eyes on Jordan from deep within the black chasm of space beyond his world.
Then, a new screen materialized before him, blood-red and cold, its text assembling with eerie precision.
STATUS PAGE
Jordan Robberts
RACE: Monster
CLASS: Wraith
LEVEL: 1
A cacophony of whispers, like the last dying words exhaled from countless beings, too soft to understand but loud enough to make the hair on the back of your neck stand on end, echoed in the space around him. Another section of text unfurled beneath his stats, lines of data appearing one after another in a way that felt less read and more injected directly into his mind.
New Skill Acquired: Poltergeist
Poltergeists are said to possess a variety of supernatural abilities, including telekinesis, levitation, and the ability to create disruptive noises. They are often associated with spectral movement, invisibility, and manipulation of the physical world.
Note:
Skill 1 of the Wraith Skill Tree.No physical damage can be done directly to living entities, as Level 1 Wraiths lack a corporeal form.Regaining a physical form will alter the function of Skill: Poltergeist.
Jordan's awareness latched onto one single, undeniable truth buried within the flood of information: He could get his body back.
The thought pulsed through him, louder than the roiling world of fire in the void, louder than the unreadable weight of his situation.
He wasn't stuck like this. He wasn't doomed to be some formless, bodiless thing forever.
A spark of something dangerous ignited inside him. It wasn't hope… not exactly. It was determination… and behind that determination… was a rage that burned brightly. A fuel that swarmed his mind like an inferno for something he couldn't quite understand… not yet. But he would soon find out.
Then, the red screen winked out of existence, and he felt the void of space open up around the swirling cloud of his presence. He was consumed by space and he was transported somewhere else.
Unseen and undiscovered in the void, the ancient presence that watched Jordan, smiled to himself. Without hesitation, he turned and, with a wave of his hand, ripped open a rift in space that took him home. There, he would continue to watch this intriguing turn of events.