"Thank you for your patronage, have a nice day!"
"Hm."
Jake gave the store clerk a lazy nod and left the store with his goods.
Walking around, Jake can see tall skyscrapers, cars, a phone, and the sound of construction nearby.
If you were to tell Jake this is the same world as before, he might believe it.
Except...It wasn't.
This world has people with superpowers.
Animals that can change into humans.
Gates that appear out of nowhere that are inhabited by monsters or even people.
And it's not just humans who roam the world.
Different species of life as well. Such as elves, dwarfs, goblins, you name it, they are all here.
Fictional creatures that were once just fictional in his last life were real here.
Walking over to a park nearby, Jake sits down on a bench and takes out the bread and milk he bought. The sky is blue, and people are walking by. Nobody to ruin the mood.
Jake takes a bite of his bread and sips his milk, looking at the beautiful blue sky. A perfect afternoon, but his mind couldn't help but wander back to the last day of his previous life.
Twenty years.
It's been twenty years since he reincarnated into this world.
Yet he still remembered how he died.
It was pretty late into the night. Jake was walking home from work after a long and exhausting twelve-hour shift at a black company. His legs hurt. His back hurt. Everything hurt, even his soul, you might add.
He turned into a nearby alleyway, the fastest shortcut home. Though it smelled terrible, with trash everywhere on the floor. You can even see mice gnawing at a thrown-away banana and a half-opened ketchup package.
"I really need a car," he mumbled
And just then—
"Hey, you! Give me all your money!"
A man in a ski mask jumped out from behind a dumpster.
"This is all I have!" Jake muttered, pulling out his wallet and handing it over to the robber.
The mugger flipped the wallet open.
"Five Bucks? Are you kidding me! You're more broke than I am!"
The robber looked very offended at the fact that Jake only had five dollars in his wallet.
"Damn it, I wasted my time"
The mugger turned away after taking the five bucks and walks away, saying things like "Can't believe this bozo is broker than me." and "Goddamn companies can't pay their workers!" But then he paused.
He turned back and looked at Jake, staring at him up and down until he landed on his shoes.
"You know what? Give me your shoes."
"What?"
"You heard me, give me your shoes. It's at least more than five bucks."
''But these are the only shoes I have left, I can't afford another pair."
"Shut up!"
"Maybe if you weren't so broke, I would have left right now and you would have kept your shoes."
Before Jake could say anything back, the mugger lunged at Jake, waving his cheap folding knife in front of him like a newborn baby trying out his new toy. Jake stumbled back, hands raised.
"Whoa, man! Let's not—"
"HELP!!!!!"
WEEEOOOOHHH!
Red and blue lights flashed at the end of the alley. A police siren wailed throughout the alleyway. Following it, a police car came screeching to a halt.
"Freeze!"
The mugger panicked. "Crap! My luck today can't be this bad!"
In his rush to flee the scene, he spun around too fast, tripped over a banana peel, and stabbed himself in the throat with his knife, killing himself.
Silence.
Then, came the cop, sprinting over, hearing the scream of help from Jake. A flashlight was waved over Jake, who was standing there, paralyzed by what had just transpired and the dead body of the robber.
"Hands where I can see them!" the officer shouted out.
Jake blinked, awakened by the cop's shout.
"Wait—no, this is not what it looks like, officer!"
"Not what it looks like, my foot!"
"You're standing over a dead body, with blood all over your body, a weapon, and five dollars in your wallet!"
Jake looked down.
The knife had ended up in his hands, most likely due to the mugger's last-minute struggle on trying to remove the knife from his throat.
And the blood? That wasn't blood. It was ketchup...
From the half-opened packet, he stepped out after seeing the mugger lunging at him.
"And to top it all off, there has been news that a serial killer is on the loose!"
"Sir! There must be some sort of misunderstanding. This isn't blood, it's Ketchup, see."
Jake then wiped the ketchup with his hand and proceeded to lick it, proving to the officer it wasn't blood.
However, this did not lessen the intensity of the cop it only made it worse and solidified Jake as the serial killer even more.
"Zip it, Psycho! I don't want to hear any word from you!" The officer shouted angrily.
"Come on! This day can not get any worse." Jake mumbled egregiously.
"Now drop the weapon and walk over slowly." The officer instructed.
Jake blinked again, trying to process the insanity unfolding around him.
A dead mugger.
A knife in his hand.
Five sad dollars to his name.
And now… apparently, a serial killer on the loose?
"Wait, seriously? You think I am the guy?" Jake asked, slowly raising his hands. "I have the upper body strength of a used napkin!"
"Silence!" the cop barked, gun still aimed. "You're matching the profile!"
"What profile?! Broke, tired, and bad with women? That's half the city!"
"Don't test me!" the cop snapped. "You're looking real twitchy!"
"I'm nervous! You've got a gun!"
"Exactly what a killer would say!"
Jake took a cautious step forward, knife still pinched between two fingers.
"Okay, I'm putting it down—see? Slowly—"
But the moment he crouched to set the knife on the ground, his foot slipped on the half-opened ketchup packet from earlier. He wobbled. His arms flailed. The knife flipped into the air.
The cop gasped. "He's throwing it!!"
"WHAT?! NO I'M NOT—!"
BANG!
Darkness, that was it.
No time moving slowly like in the movies.
No memories come flashing by.
Just darkness and that was it.
Jake never figured out why he was reincarnated — no goddess, no truck, no shining light. But hey, a second chance is a second chance. Who's complaining?
But then again, there haven't been many changes from this life and the last.
Jake sighed and leaned back against the park bench.
Twenty years in this strange, fantasy-infused world… and he was still just Jake.
Not a hero. Not a noble. Not even a discount sidekick.
His looks? Handsome, sure — but not the kind of handsome that stopped traffic. More like the kind of face that might catch your eye at a coffee shop… and maybe make you glance back once, just out of curiosity.
Messy black hair, a surprisingly decent jawline, and a quiet air of someone who always looked like he was waiting for the bus, even when he wasn't.
Average height. Average build. A pleasant face with no backstory.
Raised in a government-run orphanage, now drifting through odd jobs and low expectations.
No powers. No training. No dreams of grandeur.
Just a guy with bread, milk, and absolutely zero plans to get involved in anything weird.