The universe, in its infinite and often cruel sense of humor, decided that my grand exit from the stage of life would be orchestrated by a rogue piece of prosciutto. It wasn't a noble death. There was no valiant last stand, no poignant final words whispered to a loved one. There was only me, Azrael, a man whose greatest physical achievement was successfully assembling an IKEA bookshelf, locked in a losing battle with a deli meat sandwich in the breakroom of a mid-level accounting firm.
My last thought wasn't of family, or regrets, or the vast, unknowable cosmos. It was a spike of pure, undiluted frustration. *Of all the ways to go,* I thought, as my vision tunneled and the fluorescent lights of the breakroom began to swim in a sea of black spots, *this is just… lazy writing.* It was an ignominious, absurd end to a life that had been, for the most part, equally ignominious and absurd. Then, the lights went out for good. Darkness. A silence so profound it felt like a physical weight.
And then… sensation.
It wasn't a gentle return. It was a violent, full-body assault. The first thing I registered was the cold. A deep, biting cold that seemed to seep not just into my skin, but into the very marrow of my bones. It was a damp, ancient cold, the kind you imagine in the crypts of forgotten kings. My body—and it took a moment to even process the concept of *having* a body again—ached with a weariness that felt centuries old.
The next sensation was smell. Incense, heavy and cloying, thick with the scent of myrrh and something else… something metallic and vaguely funereal. It was the smell of death, but not the sterile, antiseptic death of a hospital. This was the smell of death as a ritual, as a presence. It clung to the heavy velvet curtains, the cold stone walls, and the ridiculously opulent bed I found myself lying in. The sheets were silk, but they felt as cold and unforgiving as a tombstone.
*Okay, Azrael, don't panic.* My internal voice, the only familiar thing in this sensory hellscape, was already failing at its one job. *You're not dead. You're… somewhere else. Maybe a hospital? A very, very weird hospital with a Goth-themed interior decorator and a malfunctioning thermostat.*
I tried to open my eyes. The lids felt like they were sealed with lead. It took a monumental effort, a surge of will that left me feeling even more drained, but they finally cracked open. The room was vast and ornate, carved from some kind of polished black stone that seemed to drink the light. The only illumination came from a single candelabrum in the corner, its flames flickering and casting long, dancing shadows that made the room feel alive and menacing. The furniture was dark wood, intricately carved with motifs of skulls and skeletal trees. It was the kind of room a vampire would design if he'd just won the lottery.
This was definitely not St. Jude's General Hospital.
Panic, which had been politely waiting in the wings, now took center stage and began a frantic tap dance on my nervous system. My heart—or what I assumed was my heart—started hammering against my ribs with a slow, heavy rhythm that felt alien. My own heart had always been a frantic, hummingbird-like thing, prone to palpitations at the mere thought of public speaking. This was the slow, deliberate beat of a predator.
I tried to sit up, but my body refused to cooperate. It was like trying to pilot a machine I'd never seen before. The limbs were too long, the muscles coiled with a strange, wiry strength that was utterly foreign to my soft, sedentary frame. I was weak, yes, but it was the weakness of a racehorse after a grueling derby, not the doughy exhaustion of an office worker.
A soft sound, the scrape of a shoe on stone, drew my attention to the door. It swung open silently, and a figure entered. It was a servant, dressed in a simple, high-collared black uniform. He was old, his face a roadmap of wrinkles, but he moved with a quiet efficiency that spoke of decades of practice. He didn't look at me, instead moving to the candelabrum to trim the wicks.
*Okay, a servant. I can work with this. Just ask where I am. Simple.*
I took a breath—the air tasted of dust and cold stone, another alien sensation—and tried to speak. "Excuse me?"
The voice that emerged from my throat was not mine.
My voice was a fairly unremarkable baritone, the kind that gets lost in a crowd. This voice… this voice was a cello playing a funeral dirge. It was deep, cold, and carried an accent that was both aristocratic and chillingly detached. It resonated in a chest cavity that felt too large, too hollow. The sound of it shocked me into silence.
The servant, however, didn't seem to notice my existential crisis. He turned, his expression impassive, and gave a slight bow. "Second Son Mournblade. You are awake. Your brother, the Heir, wishes to see you. He asks after your health."
The words hit me like a physical blow. *Second Son Mournblade.*
No. No, no, no. It couldn't be. It was a coincidence. A very, very specific and terrifying coincidence. My mind, the mind of Azrael the fantasy nerd, the man who had spent more time reading web novels than interacting with actual humans, made a connection so horrifying, so utterly impossible, that I felt a wave of nausea roll through me.
*Aethelgard. The Pangea Remnant. House Mournblade of the Bone Gardens. Affinity: Death. Minor characters, doomed to be wiped out in the second arc of "The Epochal Conclave's Shadow."*
I was in the book. I was in the goddamn book. And not as the protagonist, not as some cool side character. I was in the body of Damon Mournblade, the forgotten second son, a character whose primary role in the story was to die in the first arc to show how serious the new threat was. He was a footnote. A piece of narrative scenery. His death was about as impactful as a single sentence: "Among the first to fall was the second son of House Mournblade, his unremarkable Death affinity failing to protect him."
The servant was still waiting, his posture one of perfect, patient deference. I needed to say something, anything, to not give away the fact that the person who was supposed to be inhabiting this body had been replaced by a panicking accountant from another dimension.
"I… am well," I managed, the cold, alien voice making the words sound like a lie. "Tell my brother… I will see him shortly."
The servant bowed again. "As you wish, Second Son." He turned and left as silently as he had entered, the heavy stone door closing with a soft click that echoed in the cavernous room like a cell door locking.
The moment he was gone, the fragile dam of my composure shattered. A silent scream built in my throat, but I couldn't make a sound. I was trapped. I was in a fictional world, in the body of a character destined to die a pointless death, and my only knowledge of this place came from a 3,000-chapter web novel I'd binge-read over a long holiday weekend.
With a surge of desperate energy, I forced my new body to move. I swung my legs over the side of the bed. They were long, pale, and corded with lean muscle. My feet touched the cold stone floor, and a shiver that had nothing to do with the temperature wracked my frame. I looked down at my hands.
They were not my hands.
My hands had been soft, slightly pudgy, with neatly trimmed nails—the hands of a man whose most strenuous activity was typing. These hands were pale, almost translucent, with long, elegant fingers that looked like they were carved from bone. The nails were perfect, naturally shaped, but there was a faint, almost invisible greyish tinge to the beds, like the first hint of frost. They were the hands of an aristocrat, a scholar, a killer. They were the hands of Damon Mournblade.
I stumbled across the room, my new limbs clumsy and uncoordinated, until I reached a tall, ornate mirror framed in polished silver that was shaped like intertwined skeletal arms. I braced myself and looked up.
The face that stared back was a stranger's. It was a face of sharp, cold beauty. High cheekbones that could cut glass, a straight nose, and a jawline that was all elegant angles. The skin was pale, so pale it seemed to have a faint luminescence in the dim light. The hair was black as polished obsidian, falling in straight, severe lines to frame the face, with shocking streaks of pure white at the temples that spoke of some great stress or ancient lineage. It was the face of a fallen angel, a tragic poet, a man born from shadows.
And the eyes… The eyes were the worst part. They were a pale, flat grey, the color of a winter sky just before a blizzard. They held a profound stillness, a deep, unsettling calm that I had never possessed in my life. But as I stared into them, I saw my own terror reflected back, a frantic, desperate light flickering in their depths.
This was real. This was happening. I, Azrael, was dead. And now, I was Damon Mournblade. A character whose death was not a spoiler, but a minor plot point in the table of contents. The prosciutto hadn't just killed me. It had damned me.