CHAPTER ONE
THE DEATH OF A MAN, THE BIRTH OF A MULTIVERSE
Marquez D. Arkuda — The Originator, the Master, and the Man Who Would One Day Stand Above the Supernatural
Before the first wand was raised at Hogwarts. Before the Four Founders ever dreamed of building a school. Before the name Dumbledore carried any meaning. Before the supernatural world understood what it meant to fear something greater than itself.
There was a man who had yet to be born.
And before he could become that man, he had to die.
I. THE END OF AN ORDINARY WORLD
Death was supposed to be the end.
At least, that was what most people believed.
They believed that when the heart stopped beating, the lights went out. They believed that the soul departed for whatever waited beyond the veil, whether it was Heaven, Hell, reincarnation, or the eternal nothingness that some people feared more than death itself.
They believed that a person's story ended when their final breath escaped their lungs.
Marquez D. Arkuda had never been particularly fond of the word supposed.
Unfortunately, even a man who would one day become a living legend across countless universes could not negotiate with every unfortunate circumstance.
And so, at the age of twenty-four—or, at least, the age his body would forever represent—Marquez D. Arkuda died.
It wasn't particularly glamorous.
There was no heroic speech beneath a blood-red sunset. No dramatic farewell delivered to a crying lover. No orchestral music swelling as he made his final stand against some incomprehensible evil.
There was no prophecy.
No chosen-one nonsense.
There was simply a man who had spent his life doing what he could for the people around him, finding himself in a situation where walking away meant innocent people would pay the price.
Kuda had never considered himself a hero.
Heroes were often celebrated for doing the right thing, but the world rarely discussed what happened when doing the right thing wasn't enough. Sometimes, the people who needed saving couldn't be saved. Sometimes, the enemy was too dangerous to imprison. Sometimes, mercy toward one monster meant condemning a thousand innocent people to suffer.
And sometimes, the only way to stop a nightmare was to become the thing that nightmares feared.
Kuda understood that.
He had always understood that.
He wasn't a saint. He wasn't a martyr. He wasn't interested in having statues erected in his honor or hearing people sing songs about his accomplishments.
He simply believed that if someone had to get their hands dirty, it might as well be someone willing to live with the consequences.
That philosophy had carried him through life.
It had also carried him straight into his death.
The last thing Kuda remembered was the sensation of his body refusing to cooperate.
Pain became distant.
Sound became muffled.
The world around him seemed to stretch into an endless tunnel, and the faces of the people he had tried to protect blurred into indistinguishable shapes.
He could no longer tell whether he was standing, falling, or lying on the ground.
His heartbeat slowed.
Once.
Twice.
Then nothing.
For a moment, there was silence.
Absolute silence.
Then Kuda opened his eyes.
He was standing.
That was the first thing he noticed.
The second was that he wasn't standing anywhere he recognized.
The third was that he wasn't particularly concerned about any of it.
He looked down at himself.
No blood.
No wounds.
No damaged clothing.
His body felt strangely light, almost as though the weight of the world had finally been lifted from his shoulders.
He flexed his fingers.
They responded.
He rolled his shoulders.
They moved perfectly.
Then he looked around.
White.
Everything was white.
The floor beneath his feet was white. The endless expanse stretching in every direction was white. Even the horizon appeared to have been erased, leaving him in an infinite, featureless space that seemed to exist outside the concepts of distance and direction.
Kuda stared at it for several seconds.
Then he sighed.
"Well."
He shoved his hands into his pockets.
"Either I'm dead, or somebody owes me a very detailed explanation."
A voice answered from somewhere beyond the white.
"Technically, both."
Kuda slowly turned his head.
A man was standing several feet away.
Or something that looked like a man.
He wore ordinary clothing, possessed an ordinary face, and carried himself with the relaxed confidence of someone who had never once worried about the consequences of his actions.
There was nothing particularly impressive about his appearance.
And yet, something about him made Kuda instinctively aware that the being standing before him was not ordinary.
Not remotely.
The stranger smiled.
"Welcome, Marquez D. Arkuda."
Kuda studied him.
Then he glanced around the empty expanse.
Then back at the stranger.
"All right. Who are you, and why am I standing in the world's most aggressively empty waiting room?"
The stranger laughed.
"You're taking this rather well."
"Would panicking improve the situation?"
"Most people scream."
"Most people don't wake up in an infinite white room after dying."
"Fair point."
The stranger clasped his hands behind his back.
"My name is unimportant for the moment. You may call me ROB."
Kuda raised an eyebrow.
"ROB?"
"Random Omnipotent Being."
"That's your actual title?"
"More or less."
"Sounds like somebody gave a child unlimited power and let him name himself."
ROB's smile widened.
For the first time, the empty expanse around them seemed to react to his amusement. The white horizon rippled, almost imperceptibly, like a pond disturbed by a falling raindrop.
"Oh, I think we're going to get along just fine."
Kuda stared at him for another moment.
Then his expression grew serious.
"Am I dead?"
"Yes."
"Can I go back?"
"Not to the life you had."
"That's not what I asked."
ROB tilted his head.
"No. You cannot return to your original life in the ordinary sense. Your previous existence has concluded."
Kuda looked away.
For the first time since opening his eyes, he had nothing to say.
He had expected the answer, perhaps.
That didn't make it any easier to hear.
He thought about the world he had left behind. The people who would never see him again. The unfinished conversations. The things he had intended to do once he had more time.
Time.
Funny how much of it people wasted until they realized they no longer had any.
Kuda closed his eyes briefly.
Then he exhaled.
"All right."
ROB blinked.
"All right?"
"I'm dead. I can't change that. So tell me what happens next."
The being studied him with renewed interest.
"You truly aren't going to demand an explanation of the universe? Question the nature of death? Ask whether your life had meaning?"
Kuda opened his eyes.
"My life had meaning because of what I did while I was alive. Whether there's an afterlife doesn't change that."
He paused.
"Now, if you're about to offer me a second chance, I'd prefer to hear the terms before I agree to anything."
For several seconds, ROB said nothing.
Then he laughed.
Not a polite chuckle.
A genuine, delighted laugh that echoed across the infinite white expanse.
"Oh, this is going to be magnificent."
Kuda's eyes narrowed.
"I don't like the way you said that."
"You'll understand eventually."
"That's usually what people say before explaining something incredibly stupid."
"Marquez D. Arkuda," ROB announced, spreading his arms as if presenting an invisible audience with a grand spectacle, "you have been selected for an opportunity that very few souls ever receive."
Kuda waited.
"You may choose a new world. A new existence. A new beginning."
Silence.
Kuda stared at him.
Then he asked the only question that mattered.
"How many strings attached?"
ROB grinned.
"None that you cannot negotiate."
Kuda's expression changed.
Not dramatically.
Not enough for an ordinary person to notice.
But ROB noticed.
The moment the possibility of a second life entered the conversation, Marquez D. Arkuda stopped being a dead man waiting for an explanation.
He became a man evaluating an opportunity.
And if there was one thing Kuda had always known how to do, it was recognize an opportunity when one appeared.
"Then let's talk."