"It hurts."
The words scraped past my lips, raw and fragile, barely audible beneath the roaring inferno swallowing everything around me.
The world was burning. Not metaphorically—literally falling apart in fire and smoke. The heat was alive, vicious, tearing into me like it had a personal vendetta. My skin bubbled and split, the pain crawling in waves, sharp enough to steal my breath. And the smell—God. Smoke, ash, flesh—my flesh. It wrapped around me like a shroud I couldn't shake.
I was going to die.
And the messed-up part? I didn't feel fear. Not really. Just this strange, hollow sort of acceptance. Like deep down, I'd always known this was how it would end.
My life hadn't exactly been built to last.
Dad checked out before I even knew what the word father was supposed to mean. One day he was there, the next he wasn't, like a magician pulling the ultimate vanishing act—except he left the mess behind. A broken home. A quiet warzone.
Mom… she tried. Maybe. Or maybe she just gave up early and never told anyone. She wrapped herself in bitterness and played the victim like it was her only role left. Every conversation was a battle. Every silence, a minefield. I loved her, but sometimes I hated her more. And then hated myself for that.
And the rest of the family? They were never family. Just scavengers in nice clothes. Always watching, always taking. I was a means to an end long before I ever knew what that meant.
If they gave me anything, it was this face. Pretty enough to catch attention. Pretty enough to be useful.
So I used it. Modeled my way out of the wreckage, smiled my way onto magazine covers and billboards, sold a dream I didn't believe in just to feel like I mattered.
Fame looked good on the outside. But it was hollow. Beautiful, curated emptiness.
And now, none of it mattered.
The fire didn't care about cover shoots or brand deals. It didn't care that I had clawed my way up from nothing. It came for everything—skin, bone, memory, soul. And it would take it all.
Still, as the flames closed in, as the pain pushed me closer to the edge, something in me clung to the one thing I'd never had enough of.
Hope.
A stupid, fragile, stubborn little thing.
None of it mattered. Not the fame, not the struggle, not the carefully curated illusion of a perfect life.
Everything was ending. Everything was on fire.
And yet—somewhere, buried beneath the smoke and screams, beneath the agony clawing at my body—something else stirred. Something quieter. Something waiting.
I don't know why, but I felt it.
This was supposed to be just another day. Just another 5 AM wake-up call. Just another shoot under blinding lights and fake smiles. A schedule packed so tight it didn't leave space for me to exist.
Aria was supposed to wake up, drink her overpriced smoothie, pose, smile, nod, and move on.
She wasn't supposed to die screaming.
I ran.
Instinct, adrenaline—whatever you want to call it—took over. My arms pumped, legs shaking beneath me, lungs dragging in air thick with smoke. The fire roared behind me like some hungry beast from a nightmare, relentless and close. Heat licked at my back, wrapped around my legs, peeled the skin right off me like I was nothing but paper.
There were people. Blurred shapes in the haze—fire extinguishers, shouting voices, panic. For one stupid second, hope flickered in my chest.
Maybe someone sees me. Maybe this isn't it.
But my body had other plans. My knees buckled, and I hit the floor hard. The pain that followed wasn't sharp—it was total. Like my entire existence had become pain. A scream tore from my throat, mangled and raw, and even that felt like it hurt more than it should.
The floor was cold. Or maybe my nerves were just fried. I couldn't tell anymore. All I knew was that everything hurt. Every inch of me was blistered, broken, burning.
I couldn't move.
I couldn't breathe.
And I knew.
I knew this was it.
Funny how the brain works. Right at the end, it stops panicking and starts remembering. Not the good things, either—no golden moments, no slow-motion highlights with inspirational music playing in the background.
No, just flashes. Fractured images.
My dad, walking out the door with his suitcase. Me staring after him, too young to understand, but old enough to feel the emptiness.
My mom, sitting on the kitchen floor, bottle in one hand, grief in the other. Her voice cracked, accusing ghosts that were never there.
Cameras. Lights. Contracts. Men I never really loved. Deals I shouldn't have made. The weight of selling myself piece by piece just to feel like I won something.
Regret.
So much regret.
And somewhere in all that wreckage, the truth sat quiet and cold:
I didn't want to die.
I wanted—God, I wanted to live.
I didn't know what happened next. Maybe I was saved. Maybe I died. Or maybe I was in that weird limbo place where your soul takes a smoke break before checking in with the cosmic receptionist.
All I knew was that when I opened my eyes, the fire was gone.
No more screaming. No more blistering pain. No more crackling death chorus as my life turned to ash.
In its place? Stillness.
Not the creepy kind that makes your skin crawl. No. This was different. This was… calm. Gentle. Like the universe had taken a breath and, just this once, decided not to ruin me.
It was so quiet, it made silence feel like a lullaby.
I was awake. But not the half-zombie kind of awake after three hours of sleep and too much caffeine. No, this was clean. A strange kind of clarity, like my soul had been through a full-body detox.
And the second thing I noticed?
I wasn't on fire.
My skin was intact. Smooth. Pain-free. Not a single crispy patch in sight. I even did a quick pat-down just to be sure. Yep—arms, legs, face. All accounted for. All very… floaty.
Wait.
Floating.
Like, actual hovering-in-midair floating.
Okay. Sure. Why not. Fire? Trauma? Death? Let's throw in a casual suspension of gravity while we're at it. Was this a dream? A coma? The world's most dramatic ad for astral projection?
Either way, no reason to panic.
Yet.
I squinted ahead, drawn toward something glowing in the distance. As I drifted forward—graceful as a confused soap bubble—I saw it. A sign. Big, bold, and capitalized like it was welcoming me to a luxury hotel instead of... whatever this was.
WELCOME
Subtle.
The rest of the space? Empty. Vast. Blindingly white, like someone had rage-quit halfway through decorating a metaphysical Apple Store.
And then—him.
Oh.
Oh no.
There was a man standing in the middle of it all, like someone had cut him straight from the pages of a best-selling reverse harem and dropped him here just to mess with me.
Tall. Effortlessly fit, but not the kind of fit that screamed gym rat. More like I casually train with swords in moonlight. His blond hair was tousled in that artfully accidental way that probably took hours, and his white button-up was crisp enough to be illegal in six countries. He wore glasses, the thin, stylish kind that said professor by day, destroyer of hearts by night.
And those eyes—deep green, rimmed with the kind of dark circles only insomnia and existential dread could sculpt. He looked tired. Beautiful, but tired. Like a hot librarian who'd seen too much war.
He was writing in a notebook, completely ignoring me.
Or pretending to. Which, let's be real, same.
I hovered awkwardly, trying to look casual—which is hard when you're literally defying physics—and tried not to stare. I failed.
Suddenly, his head snapped up. Our eyes met, and I immediately forgot how breathing worked. His gaze was sharp, intense. Like he saw everything. All of me.
I froze. Awkward. Exposed. Floating.
Great. Just great.
I cleared my throat, tried to gather what was left of my dignity, and floated a little closer—politely, like someone who definitely wasn't just mentally undressing him two seconds ago.
"Um… excuse me, mister—?"
Up close, he was even worse. In the best way. There was a tiny scar on his chin—barely visible, but stupidly charming—and his lashes were so long it was almost rude.
"Stop looking at me like that," he said without even glancing up, pen still moving.
Busted.
My mouth opened, brain scrambling for a comeback that wasn't sorry for ogling you like a dessert menu, but nothing came out. Because yeah. I had been staring. Hard.
So much for dying with grace.
In a blink — no warning, no sound, no dramatic thunderclap — the endless void blinked out of existence.
Suddenly, I was seated in what could only be described as the office of an intergalactic CEO who moonlighted as a philosopher.
Sleek, modern lines met celestial grandeur. The floor gleamed like obsidian glass, and the walls — if you could call them that — were transparent, revealing an endless stretch of space beyond. Galaxies spun in slow motion, swirling like glitter in a snow globe. Stars winked at me like they were in on some cosmic joke I didn't get.
Across from me sat him.
Notebook in hand, glasses perched on his nose, pen moving with the calm precision of someone either too powerful or too tired to care about anything anymore.
He didn't look up.
"Speak," he said, like this was a performance review and I was the intern who'd microwaved fish in the break room.
I blinked. "I—what?"
"Your questions," he said, finally glancing up. "Get them out now. I don't enjoy repeating myself."
Well. Rude.
Still, I wasn't about to waste the opportunity.
"Okay—am I dead? Is this the afterlife? Are you, like, an angel or something? Also, is this real? Am I real? And… um."
I hesitated, then gave up pretending to have dignity.
"Are you single?"
The pen froze mid-stroke.
There was a beat of silence — not the awkward kind, more like the universe-holding-its-breath kind — and then…
He laughed.
Soft. Rich. A little surprised. A little amused. The kind of laugh that made his eyes crinkle at the corners and made me temporarily forget I had, in fact, just burned to death.
"You're quite something," he murmured, setting the pen down. "I've heard mortals cry, scream, beg, rage… but never flirt."
"Well," I said, trying not to sound like I was mentally doing cartwheels, "I've always believed in leaving a strong first impression. And possibly dying in style."
He raised an eyebrow. "Dying in style? You were on fire."
"Fashion is pain," I deadpanned.
That earned me a smirk. A real one.
"But," he continued, adjusting his glasses in that maddeningly graceful way people only do in anime, "we don't have time for… whatever this is. And perhaps…"
His gaze swept over me, and I swear the temperature in the room dropped half a degree.
"If you were a few thousand years older, I might've entertained those ideas you're having about me."
"Oh my god," I groaned, dropping my face into my hands. "You read minds, too?"
"You're practically broadcasting them. It's not subtle."
"Okay, rude. But also fair."
A pause.
Then I peeked at him between my fingers. "So you're, what? The Grim Reaper? Cosmic HR? Space Daddy?"
His lips quirked again. "I suppose you could call me… an administrator. A guide. A curator of sorts."
"Of what?"
"Possibilities," he said simply. "Lives. Choices. Fates."
"Ah," I nodded solemnly. "So, interdimensional customer service."
He didn't deny it.
"Look," I said, straightening in my seat, "I didn't mean to die. One second I was running from a fire, the next—boom. Floaty void. Sexy office man. Existential crisis."
"You didn't mean to die?" he echoed, amused.
"Well, obviously not. I didn't put 'spontaneous combustion' on my to-do list."
He gave a low hum, flipping a page in his notebook. "You're in a rare situation, Miss Aria."
"You say that like it's a good thing."
He ignored me.
"You died. Sort of. But not fully. Your soul hasn't been processed yet. There's… potential in you. Untapped, raw, strange. The kind of potential that interferes with normal systems. So you've been flagged."
"Flagged?" I asked slowly. "Like a bug?"
"Like a wildcard," he corrected. "One that might break the game."
Now that caught my attention.
"I've always wanted to be chaotic neutral," I whispered, awed.
"Mm. You're closer to chaotic dumbass, but we'll work with it."
I gave him a look.
He gave me a slow, lazy smile like he knew exactly how far he could push me before I'd explode into sarcastic confetti.
Then he stood. "Come."
"Where are we going?" I asked, rising too.
"To decide your next life," he said simply, walking toward a shimmering doorway that hadn't been there five seconds ago.
"…Wait, what?"
He paused just before stepping through. "Did you think death was the end?"
I stared at the galaxies outside the glass, then back at the strange, impossibly beautiful man who knew my thoughts and might actually be in charge of reincarnation.
"…Honestly?" I said, following after him.
"I didn't even think I'd get an after-party.
The door shimmered as I stepped through it, like passing through liquid starlight.
On the other side?
A room.
Not a grand throne room or some divine realm full of winged choirs, but a dimly lit chamber that looked suspiciously like a retro arcade—neon lights buzzing, glass screens flickering, and the faint sound of an 8-bit jingle looping in the background.
"...Okay," I muttered, spinning slowly. "Wasn't expecting cosmic Dave & Buster's, but sure. Let's roll with it."
The man—who I was now internally calling Mr. Intergalactic Hot Librarian—appeared beside me, arms folded, completely unbothered by the absurdity of it all.
"This," he said, gesturing toward the center of the room, "is the Wheel of Reincarnation."
Naturally, my eyes zeroed in on the massive roulette wheel in the center. It was big—unnecessarily big—and glowing softly. The panels were labeled with names that shifted too fast to read. A giant lever sat next to it, humming with energy.
I squinted. "Wait… so you're telling me the next world I get reincarnated into is decided by a spin-the-wheel-of-fate situation?"
"Yes."
"No tests? No skill assessments? No dramatic flashbacks revealing my hidden lineage?"
"You died in your pajamas," he said flatly. "You're not exactly auditioning for a prophecy."
I stared at the wheel again, then back at him. "Okay, but like… can I cheat?"
"No."
"Bribe you?"
"No."
"Flash a little ankle?"
That earned me a slow blink. "That hasn't worked since the 14th century."
Worth a shot.
"Alright," I said, exhaling slowly, staring at the lever. "So this is it. Spin the wheel, get a world. And then what? Live again? Try to not die horribly this time?"
"Essentially. Although… some worlds are more dangerous than others."
"Ah. So the 'surprise mechanics' kind of dangerous."
He nodded once. "Some panels lead to peaceful worlds. Others… to cursed timelines. Fragmented dimensions. War-torn realms. Places not even the gods monitor anymore."
"Cool cool cool," I said, my voice several octaves higher than normal. "So this is gambling. I am gambling with my entire existence."
"You always were a risk-taker, Aria."
I sighed and walked up to the wheel, my hand hovering over the lever. It vibrated faintly beneath my fingers like it was alive, impatient.
"I feel like I should say something cool," I muttered. "You know, like 'Let fate decide!' or 'Spin to win!'"
He gave me a look. "Please don't."
I yanked the lever.
The wheel spun with a mechanical clack-clack-clack, panels blurring together in a riot of colors and symbols. I held my breath, watching it rotate, faster and faster—then slower, slower…
Finally, it clicked to a stop.
I squinted.
The letters came into focus. Bold. Familiar.
NARUTO UNIVERSE – ERA: SECOND SHINOBI WORLD WAR
I blinked.
"What," I said blankly.
"Interesting," Mr. Intergalactic Hot Librarian said, peering at the result. "That world is… unpredictable. Violent. Full of hidden powers, cursed bloodlines, living weapons—"
"—and a high chance of dying horribly before puberty," I interrupted, staring at the panel like it had personally betrayed me. "This is a murder sandbox."
"But it's also a world of reincarnation. Growth. Redemption. Power."
I didn't respond. I couldn't.
Because just then, beneath the name of the world, something else appeared.
A single glowing word, blinking in crimson script:
REJECTED.
"What?" I whispered.
Then the lights in the room dimmed. The wheel began spinning again—on its own.
Faster this time.
Too fast.
The symbols blurred, lightning arcing across the panels, wind whipping through the room like a storm was brewing in the heart of the machine.
I turned to him. "What's happening?! I thought I only got one spin!"
His expression had darkened, the calm gone, replaced by something ancient. And cautious.
"You've been flagged again," he said quietly. "Something—someone—is interfering."
And then, the wheel stopped.
Dead silence.
One final panel glowed… and this time, the letters didn't shift or blur.
They carved themselves into the surface like a brand:
CLASSIFIED. ACCESS RESTRICTED.
Before I could speak, before I could run, the floor dropped out from under me.
And I fell.