I woke up like someone had shaken me out of a grave.
No dramatic gasp. No scream
Just a hollow jolt through my chest, like my body remembered something my mind couldn't bear to hold.
For a moment I just blinked at the ceiling, waiting for the world to settle. It didn't.
Reality felt… misaligned. Like the room was tilted even though nothing had moved.
I dragged myself out of bed and shuffled to the mirror.
My reflection stared back — tired, puffy-eyed, hair sticking up like a wild nest, skin pale from too many night shifts. But for the first time since I could remember, I paused.
I wasn't… ugly.
I never had been, I guess.
Sharp jawline — ruined by uneven stubble.
Decent cheekbones — swallowed by messy hair.
Nice eyes — too bloodshot and ringed with exhaustion to matter.
"Wasted potential."
I'd heard that before. A few times actually. Customers at the gas station, classmates, and my aunt once. A throwaway comment. A joke. Not that I'd cared. That's what I'd told myself.
Years of low self-esteem, crap sleep schedules, and wearing whatever shirt smelled the least like sweat had blurred everything down to something muted and dull.
But now, staring at myself, something felt odd.
I leaned closer, frowning, as if the glass was lying to me.
The dream lingered in the edges of my mind.
No. Not a dream.
A nightmare that refused to fade the way nightmares are supposed to. The more I tried to dismiss it, the more it pressed in my mind.
I splashed water on my face, trying to wash away the image of my own ribs tearing open, of purple light burrowing under my skin, of bones snapping like cheap plastic. The pain was too real.
The memory of my own screaming clung to me, sharp and too close.
Every time my eyelids closed, I saw flashes. Pools of blood turning the streets into a red ocean, bodies broken in ways I didn't know possible.
Faces of people I knew snapped, torn, skewered through with something I couldn't understand.
And with a jerk my stomach twisted.
Not metaphorically. It clenched like someone had grabbed the entire organ with an ice-cold fist and squeezed.
A wave of nausea slammed into me—sharp, sudden, violent.
My hand shot out, slapping the edges of the sink, just as the next heave slammed into my chest.
I barely managed to lean over before I vomited.
A wet, explosive retch—
once,
twice—
my entire body convulsing as bile and acid burned up my throat.
My knees buckled, barely catching myself with a hand on the faucet.
My vision blurred.
Another wave of bile.
My ribs ached, like they still remembered being torn apart.
"Fuck—" I choked, "Stop—"
But my body wasn't listening.
Tears pricked my eyes from the force of it. My hand trembled, knuckles white as I pulled myself back to my feet.
The nightmare wasn't fading.
It was crashing through me all at once— through my nerves, my muscles, my stomach, refusing to let go.
But the memories didn't feel imaginary. They felt lived.
Which was insane.
So I clung to the only explanation that didn't require me to break apart.
It was just a nightmare.
A vivid, horrible nightmare.
And I needed normal.
Routine.
Classes.
People complaining about exams. Rushing to not be late for a lecture no one wanted to be at. The usual white noise of the campus.
I wasn't ready for any of it, not even a little but I got dressed anyway. Hoodie. Jeans. Sneakers. I put them on without thought. Muscle memory. Nothing more.
It wasn't an outfit worth noticing. That was the point.
"I'm...I'm fine." I whispered, my trembling hands reaching out to open my door.
***
Outside, Blackwell's courtyard was already alive in that weird half-dead way only a community college could manage.
People smoking near the benches. Friends clustered in circles, talking about absolutely nothing with deadly seriousness.
Loners hunched over their phones, faces lit by the glow.
Athletes laughing too loud, cutting through the murmur like their voices were wired into the speakers.
No one looked at me twice.
Blackwell was a bipolar school. Cheap tuition, easy entry, a basic degree waiting at the end if you didn't drop out. On paper, that was the whole deal.
But buried under the average were the shiny ones.
Scholarship kids. Honor students. People already linked to internships, research programs, international study.
The football team was surprisingly competitive for a college this small, and anyone who stood out there got treated like a minor celebrity.
99% of us were just... there. Average grades, "good enough" paths, directionless futures.
Blackwell gatekept their "opportunities" ruthlessly, which is why the 1% sat above that fog.
The people the world seemed to be waiting for.
They were called honor students, and everyone treated them like they were the ideal, the idols, the ones to follow.
Then I saw him.
Camden Hale.
The kind of guy people said was "born to be somebody."
Captain of the football team. Rumored to be scouted for bigger leagues. Always talked about how he was going to leave this shit hole for one of the colleges begging to give him a free ride.
Tall. Broad shoulders. Blond hair falling just right with zero effort. Girls swooned. Teachers praised him. Coaches worshipped him.
And he hated me.
Not the casual dislike you have for someone who annoys you. Not a small quiet resentment. No.
He hated me with intention.
Not for anything I'd done, but because he hated the way I existed.
Because I was everything he refused to be: Someone small. Overlooked. Unremarkable.
And like always, his blue eyes locked on to me, like a shark sensing blood.
"Look who crawled out of the trash early," he said, loud enough for people nearby to catch it. "Did your bargain-bin shampoo finally run out?"
A couple of students who'd been walking past slowed down, drifting just far enough to watch without committing. It was always like this. Half-curious witnesses. No heroes.
Behind his twisted smile, I could see it: this wasn't simple boredom. He liked the power. He liked the discomfort. Degrading weaker students was his morning coffee.
He stepped closer, eyes crawling over me like I was gum stuck to his shoe.
"You hear me?" he asked. "Or do you need me to spell it out, princeling?"
There it was. The stupid nickname.
"Princeling"
I'd heard Camden's reasoning before, when he'd been ranting in a hallway with his friends, and didn't realize I was in earshot.
How it pissed him off that someone "with a pretty face" walked around acting like a doormat.
How I "wasted good looks on being useless."
How I should "man up," "stand taller," and other bullshit like that.
It made no sense. But Camden never needed sense.
I made a fist, my fingernails digging painfully into my palms.
The Aiden from yesterday would have taken it.
Would've said sorry.
Would've walked away.
But today…
Something in me just didn't give a fuck anymore.
"You treat people like they're disposable," I said quietly. "It's annoying..."
The courtyard paused.
A few heads turned, shock, confusion, disbelief.
You didn't talk back to one of Blackwell's chosen.
Not unless you wanted to be buried under social concrete for the rest of the semester.
Camden froze for a second. His expression didn't crack, but something behind his eyes twitched.
"…What'd you just say?" he growled.
He stepped in, ready to shove me, maybe worse.
Except—
He didn't feel as tall.
For a second, I thought he was standing on uneven pavement. Or I was tilting forward.
But no…No, it felt like I was taller—by an inch, maybe less, but enough that my line of sight brushed over his forehead rather than his chin.
Wrong. Impossible.
Yet Camden didn't notice. Of course he didn't. He saw what he always saw. A target.
"I'm not doing this today," I said. "Not with you."
"You don't get to decide—"
Then suddenly—
"Enough."
The voice sliced through the air like a clean blade.
We both turned.
Sophia Lindt, third-year, student council rep, immaculate and perfectly composed. Her blazer neat, her hair tied back, her ID badge catching the light.
Her presence alone straightened the atmosphere around her. With snow white hair, and deep, thoughtful ocean blue eyes that demanded respect, even the courtyard noise dimmed, as if waiting for her sentence.
"Camden," she said, arms crossed, "if you want to get suspended on a Thursday morning, keep going. By all means."
Camden clenched his teeth.
One stare from Sophia and he backed down.
He always did.
Everyone did.
Sophia was one of the people he couldn't bulldoze.
After all she held the entire campus in her palm. With influence from her powerful family, her position as leading the council, even teachers would treat her words like law.
Someone like that was in a completely different world from me.
"You're lucky," Camden muttered at me, but the words lacked bite as he left.
And I was left in the middle of the courtyard with my pulse rattling in my veins.
Sophia turned toward me.
Her blue eyes, cold, discerning, swept over me.
"Are you alright?" she asked, her voice elegant, all words pronounced with perfect clarity.
"I… yeah. Thanks."
She didn't smile, that wasn't her style, but she did give me a subtle nod. Sophia didn't waste expressions.
"You handled yourself better than usual," Sophia remarked, her gaze lingering. "Unexpected. Interesting."
Sophia's eyes narrowed just a fraction.
"People like Camden mistake circumstance for merit," she said softly, though every word felt powerful.
"They think being born on higher ground means they climbed there."
Her gaze flicked at Camden's retreating figure, then back to me.
"No one chooses their starting point. Only their direction. And people who believe they stand above others," she titled her head slightly, "usually fall the hardest, once the ground evens out."
She stepped past me, her tone even quieter.
"Human potential isn't a hierarchy. It's dynamic and always changing. As you are."
I bit my lip, trying to wrap my head around her words. "Me?"
"Yes. You. Keep going in that direction," she added without turning back. "Or lose it. It's your choice."
Her heels clicked as she walked away, leaving me standing in the courtyard trying to process any of it.
***
Steam drifted past me as I stepped onto the mat.
I scrubbed the towel through my hair, water dripping down my neck as I walked toward the mirror.
Then I saw it.
For a second, I didn't recognize myself.
I looked back at myself in the mirror,
yet my appearance was wrong, in the smallest, quietest way.
My shoulders sat broader beneath my collarbones.
The slope of my traps had definition that hadn't existed this morning.
My arms weren't soft anymore—still lean, but no longer the shape of a guy who lived on vending machine dinners and graveyard shifts.
Small details. Barely even visible.
But impossible enough to make my stomach clench.
"…No way. No way that's real." My voice cracked, thin." I just need sleep. That's it."
Then—
PING.
I whipped my head around, searching for the sound.
PING.
This time I felt it, inside of my skull.
I stumbled back, my back slamming into the bathroom wall.
A translucent screen burst into existence in front of me, glitching, flickering, like a hologram held together by dying batteries.
My heart dropped, cold and sharp.
[END OF DAY SUMMARY]:
Physiological Changes Detected
Height: +1.7 inches
Muscle Density: Slight Increase
Neurological Response: Improved
MENU:
Aiden Valin — Level 3
STAT POINTS AVAILABLE (5):
Strength: 1
Intelligence: 1
Magic: 1
Stamina: 1
Resistance: 1
Mana 111/111
And then...
[DEATH COUNT: 1]
DOOMCYCLE Ability Available (1):
Resonance Shift -
The user is able to exchange significant stamina and mana to sense the intentions of nearby souls through resonance vision. If mana is depleted, the spell will drain the user's eyesight, resulting in temporary or permanent blindness.
My knees nearly collapsed.
"W—what…?"
The air thinned, like someone was squeezing the room, pressing the oxygen out of it.
"Death count? What does that even—?"
But I knew.
I knew exactly what it meant.
The nightmare. The screaming. The purple light carving into my flesh. My ribs cracking open. My heart—exploding—in my chest.
I slammed both palms on the sink, fingers trembling hard enough to rattle the mirror.
"That wasn't a dream…?"
If that nightmare was real—if I actually died—
Then what day was it? Had I gone back? How far?
My phone.
I rushed out of the bathroom, leaving a trail of water across the floor. I snatched the phone from my nightstand, fingers fumbling on the screen, slipping, fighting myself.
The date flashed back at me.
- May 23rd -
I froze.
My breath caught in my throat.
"No way. No… freaking… way."
It was impossible.
Insane.
But the numbers didn't lie.
Three months before the sky turned purple.
Three months before bodies filled the streets.
Three months before I died.
"Jesus Christ," I whispered. "I really… I actually…"
Returned.
My hands shook as I stared at the glowing screen, the words blurring in front of me. "No… no, no… this isn't real."
My heart hammered, and a cold sweat broke out on my skin.
But the screen didn't fade. It stayed, unrelenting, like a grim reminder of everything that was about to change.
I died.
And then I came back.
The system screen flickered again in front of me, as if reinforcing what I already knew.
Please allot your stat points.
Sleep Mode will not activate until distribution is complete.
I stared at the glowing prompt.
My chest rose and fell in ragged breaths.
This wasn't a dream.
It wasn't trauma.
It wasn't some freak hallucination.
I had died.
And now…
I was on the clock.