When I opened my eyes, there was no pain.
I lay there for a moment, waiting for the crushing weight of the Strider, the searing heat of radiation, or the ache in my broken ribs. But there was nothing. Just a lightness I hadn't felt since I was a child.
I sat up. I wasn't in the ruins of the department store. I wasn't on the dirty concrete floor. I was standing on... nothing.
The ground was solid but invisible. The sky—if you could call it that—was a blinding, infinite white.
"This isn't right," I muttered, checking my hands. They were clean. No ash. No scars. My fingernails were whole, not cracked and bleeding from digging through rubble.
This didn't look like what Grandma used to whisper about when she tucked me in, back before the radiation took her voice. She had promised me a Golden City. She had promised pearly gates, choirs of angels, and a reunion with everyone we'd lost.
There were no angels here. Just silence.
"You're taking this well," a voice echoed.
I spun around.
Standing ten feet away was a figure. He didn't look like a god. He looked like a middle-aged man in a gray suit, holding a clipboard, looking incredibly bored.
"I died," I said. It wasn't a question. I remembered the teeth.
"You did," the man said, tapping his pen against the clipboard. "Messy business, that timeline. Truly unfortunate."
"Unfortunate?" I felt a surge of anger. "The world burned. Billions died. I was eaten by a lizard the size of a minivan. And you call it 'unfortunate'?"
The man sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Look, I'll be honest with you, Marcus. You weren't supposed to die like that. In fact, your whole planet wasn't supposed to go that way."
He waved his hand, and a holographic image of Earth appeared between us. It looked sick, brown and gray.
"You see," the man continued, "I was in a bit of a... let's call it a 'disagreement' with another Entity. A higher-dimensional scuffle. A wave of Chaos Energy rippled out from our battle. It hit your sector of the galaxy."
He pointed at the hologram. "That 'mad man' who launched the nukes? General Thorne? He wasn't just grieving. The Chaos Energy drove him insane. It mutated the animals. It poisoned the soil. It was collateral damage."
I stared at him. "My life... the apocalypse... it was an accident? Because you guys were fighting?"
"Essentially, yes," the entity said, shrugging. "My bad."
I wanted to scream. I wanted to punch him. But what was the point?
"However," the Entity continued, his voice shifting to a practiced, bureaucratic tone. "We have rules for this sort of thing. The Reincarnation Protocol. All the humans who passed through the 'oopsie' zone are being given a second chance."
He stepped closer.
"You get to be reborn, Marcus. A parallel universe. A world unaffected by my battle. You get to live the life you were supposed to live. A full life."
My heart skipped a beat. "A second chance?"
"Correct. But there are stipulations," he said, reading from the clipboard. "Rule One: You don't get to pick the world. To prevent... overpopulation in the 'paradise' dimensions, we assign you based on your personality and interests."
He looked at me. "I've seen your file. You were a scavenger, but you spent every spare second reading, didn't you? Dreaming of heroes."
"It was the only way to escape," I said quietly.
"Well, good news," the Entity smiled. "I'm sending you to a world teeming with them. Capes, cowls, super-powers, the works. It's a universe called... The Boys."
My eyes widened. The Boys? It sounded like a generic superhero team name, like The Avengers or The Justice League.
"You mean... like a comic book world?" I asked, hope blooming in my chest. "Actual superheroes?"
"Oh, absolutely," the Entity nodded, hiding a smirk. "Hundreds of them. Flying men, speedsters, underwater kings. You'll love it."
I grinned. For the first time in twenty years, I felt genuine joy. A world where the good guys won. A world with blue skies.
"Okay," I said. "I'm in. Send me."
"Hold on," the Entity raised a hand. "Rule Two: Because of the trauma you suffered, and as part of the apology package, you get to choose your starting conditions. You can't pick the world, but you can pick your power set."
He looked at me expectantly. "So? What do you want? Magic? Technology? Super-speed?"
I didn't even have to think. I had read the comics. I knew who the strongest was.
"Superman," I said instantly. "I want to be a Kryptonian. Solar battery. Heat vision. Indestructible."
The Entity winced. "Ooh. Yeah. No."
"What? Why?"
"World Balance," the Entity said. "The universe I'm sending you to... the power levels are grounded. If I drop a Silver Age Kryptonian in there, you break the physics engine. You'd be able to push the planet into the sun. It's too much variance. Request denied."
My shoulders slumped. "Okay. No Superman."
I thought about my backpack. I thought about the tattered trade paperback I had died trying to save. The blue and yellow suit. The boy who got beaten, bruised, and bloody, but always got back up.
"What about Invincible?" I asked. "Mark Grayson."
The Entity tilted his head, calculating.
"Viltrumite DNA..." the Entity muttered to himself. "Smart Atoms. High durability, flight, strength... but early on, they have weaknesses. Inner ear vulnerability. Extreme heat can damage them initially. They need to break muscle to build muscle."
He looked back at me. "That... actually works. It fits the power ceiling of this world perfectly. You'll be a top-tier heavy hitter, but not a god. Not immediately."
"So I get the powers?" I asked.
"You get the physiology," the Entity corrected. "I'm giving you the body of a generic Viltrumite. You'll have the potential of Mark Grayson when he first got his powers. You can lift a tank, fly to the moon, and take a missile to the face. But you won't be Omni-Man level yet. You have to train for that."
"I lived in a radioactive wasteland for twenty years eating rats," I said, clenching my fist. "I know how to work for things."
"Fair enough," the Entity said. He tapped the clipboard one last time. "Enjoy the blue skies, Marcus. Try not to get disappointed when you meet your heroes."
"Why would I be disappointed?" I asked.
The Entity didn't answer. He just snapped his fingers.
The white void shattered.