New York City, early summer.
Ethan Cole stared at the email on his cracked phone screen for a full ten seconds before his brain processed the words.
[We regret to inform you…]
He scrolled.
[…not a good fit for the company's long-term vision…]
He scrolled again.
[…please do not reply to this email.]
He stood there in the staff room of a small café in Queens, uniform still on, apron still stained with coffee, and felt a deep, complicated silence in his heart.
The manager, a man in his fifties with eternal frown, folded his arms at the door. "So. You got it?"
Ethan squeezed a bitter smile onto his face. "Yeah. Not a good fit."
"In other words, fired," the manager said helpfully. "Clock out. HR already took you off the schedule."
Ethan stared at him. "I've only been here three weeks."
"You broke the grinder, burned the milk, and somehow got a one-star review that mentioned your 'negative aura' ruining the customer's morning." The manager sighed. "I don't even know what that means, but it sounds bad."
"That wasn't my fault," Ethan protested. "The grinder already smelled weird, the milk jug was cracked, and that lady was a Karen who came in looking for trouble."
The manager checked his watch. "Still fired."
Ten minutes later, Ethan walked out of the café with a cardboard box in his hands. It contained one faded notebook, a cheap ballpoint pen, and his name tag.
Ethan Cole was twenty-two, a fresh graduate from a perfectly average college with an average GPA and an average internship.
He had no special certificates, no rich parents, no trust fund, no viral TikTok account, and no secret billionaire grandpa.
He only had the usual massive student debt.
If there was a ranking for "Most Average Graduate of the Year," he would probably win first place in the entire city.
The problem was that the world did not reward "average." The world rewarded "connections," "luck," and "someone's nephew."
Ethan checked his banking app.
Current balance: 37 dollars and 18 cents.
His eye twitched.
He opened his email. There were three unread messages from job applications.
[Unfortunately…]
[At this time, we have decided…]
[After careful consideration…]
He didn't even bother to open them.
He stuffed the phone into his pocket and stepped out into the busy New York street.
Cars honked and people pushed past him while a dog barked nearby and sirens wailed in the distance.
Life in one of the richest city in the world.
He walked toward his tiny rented room in a building that looked like it had given up on life sometime in the 80s.
On the way there, clouds thickened overhead, as if the sky also felt he was a disappointment.
By the time he climbed the stairs to the third floor, his shoes were damp and his mood had sunk to the basement.
He put the cardboard box down, dug out his keys, and pushed open the door.
The lock turned, but the door only moved two centimeters before stopping.
Ethan frowned and shoved harder.
The chain inside rattled.
There should not have been a chain.
He froze.
"Looking for this?"
A stubby hand appeared through the gap, unhooked the chain, and pulled the door fully open.
His landlord stood there, arms folded, belly pushing against a stained white shirt.
Behind him, Ethan's belongings were already packed into two black garbage bags and one busted suitcase.
Ethan stared. "Mr. Harris… what are you doing in my room?"
"Correction," Mr. Harris said. "My room. You're two weeks behind on rent."
He tossed a crumpled envelope at Ethan. "Eviction notice. Official and everything."
"Two weeks," Ethan repeated. "Who evicts someone over two weeks?"
"People who like money," Mr. Harris said calmly.
"Now, I've been nice, real nice. Kept lights on, didn't cut your hot water, ignored the noise when you cried into the pillow at 2 a.m., like a wounded raccoon."
"I do not cry like a raccoon," Ethan muttered. Then his brain caught up. "Wait, you were listening?!"
"Walls are thin," the landlord said. "Anyway. Out. You got until tonight to clear your stuff. I already changed the lock, so I'm doing you a favor by even letting you touch it."
"Tonight?" Ethan's voice rose. "Where am I supposed to sleep?"
"Subway has benches." The landlord shrugged. "City of opportunity, kid. Use your imagination."
Ethan took a deep breath.
He wanted to explode. He wanted to smash something. He wanted to scream at the ceiling about capitalism, fate, gods, and property tax.
Instead, he swallowed it down.
Because screaming did not produce money.
"Fine," he said through his teeth. "Can I at least take a shower?"
"Water's off already," Mr. Harris said.
With that, he waddled past Ethan, squeezed down the stairs, and disappeared.
Ethan stood at the doorway of his now-former room, staring at his life compressed into garbage bags and a suitcase.
Somehow, it looked even sadder than his bank account.
'This is fine,' he said to himself. 'People have it worse. At least I'm not, I don't know, stuck in a war zone or living in my car.'
Then he remembered he did not have a car.
That thought hurt.
He dragged the bags out, one by one, down the stairs.
By the time he got to the street, his arms were sore, his shirt was damp with sweat, and the clouds had turned a deep, bruised gray.
A cold wind blew between the buildings.
One of his garbage bags tore, spilling out socks and a faded Spider-Man T-shirt onto the sidewalk.
A cyclist swerved around him and yelled something creative about his ancestors.
Ethan squatted down and picked up his stuff in silence.
He found a small empty patch near a lamppost and stacked his belongings there.
For a moment he just stood there, surrounded by cars and strangers, like a lost NPC that the game developer had forgotten to give a quest.
He pulled out his phone again, out of pure habit. No new jobs. No missed calls. No miracle messages.
He tilted his head back and looked up at the sky.
"Okay," he said quietly. "Universe. I get it. I'm a loser. You win."
He raised his voice a little.
"But at the very least, there's no way it gets worse than this, right?"
This was the moment when every higher existence, every god, every karmic ledger, and whatever cosmic editor was looking at his script, all turned their heads at the same time.
Far above the city, cutting through the heavy clouds, something black streaked downward at frightening speed.
At first, it was just a dot.
Then it became a blur.
The air around it whistled. A few pigeons scattered.
A passing drone's camera caught one blurry frame of it, then lost it.
Only when it was about three stories above Ethan's head did it turn, and the sole was exposed to the world.
It was a sandal.
A cheap, plastic, black sandal with the faint imprint of toes on it.
Ethan's eyes widened.
His brain, trained by years of internet memes, immediately recognized the shape.
"A slipp—"
He did not finish the word.
There was a sharp, ugly smack.
Silence.
A few seconds later, every phone in the nearby block buzzed with a breaking news alert.
[ALERT: FIRST RECORDED CASE OF MAN KILLED BY FALLING SANDAL STUNS CITY, . INVESTIGATION UNDERWAY.]
A passing car's radio switched to the news.
"Strange incident in Queens today, where witnesses report a man was struck and killed by what appears to be a falling sandal from unknown height.
Authorities are baffled. One eyewitness claims the sandal 'came from the heavens like divine punishment.' Stay tuned for further updates."
Far above the clouds, in a place no satellite could see, something chuckled.
"Target locked," a calm voice said. "soul secured. Transfer initiating."
The sandal, still wet with blood, vanished without a trace.
Ethan's body lay on the ground, eyes still open, as if trying to understand how his life had ended like this.
If the gods had a sense of humor, it was a very cruel one.
"How could I be so unlucky? This isn't fair!"
***
Meanwhile, in a distant land that did not appear on any map on Earth, the continent of Lorian basked under a gentle morning sun.
Here, the air shimmered faintly with magic.
Tall city walls rose in the distance, banners fluttered above them, and carriages rolled through wide streets.
People in simple linen robes walked beside nobles wearing embroidered cloaks.
Knights in polished armor patrolled past robed mages holding staffs.
In a prosperous trading city under the rule of the Kingdom of Asteria, a certain merchant street was already lively.
Vendors shouted about fresh bread, enchanted trinkets, and minor healing potions.
In the middle of this busy scene, a fourteen-year-old boy darted through the crowd like a startled rabbit.
He had messy brown hair, quick gray eyes, and the lean build of someone used to carrying crates more than lifting swords.
His clothes were simple but clean, the kind a middle-class merchant family would provide. Right now, his face was twisted with panic.
"Oliver Reed!" A woman's voice roared from behind, powerful enough to make nearby pigeons flap away in fear. "You little rascal! Don't you dare run from me!"
The boy flinched. He was Oliver Reed, only son of the Reed Trading Company, age fourteen, professional trouble magnet.
"It's not my fault!" Oliver shouted without slowing down. "I swear, Mom! This time it really isn't!"
A middle-aged woman burst out of the crowd behind him.
She was tall, with her hair tied in a tight bun and arms strong from lifting crates of goods for years.
This was Laura Reed, known in the merchant district as "Iron-Fisted Aunt Laura."
She was famous for two things.
Her ability to haggle prices down until even nobles cried.
And her unbeatable skill at throwing slippers at her son's head.
Laura brandished a leather shoe in her hand like a sacred weapon.
"You called Fiona's spirit beast a meat bun!" she shouted. "In front of her! In front of her father! In front of half the noble district!"
"It looked like a meat bun!" Oliver howled back. "A round one! With legs! And fur! And it tried to bite me first!"
"That 'meat bun' is a Silver Moon Fox worth more than our entire warehouse!" Laura screamed. "Do you know how many zeroes that is?! Even if you don't, pretend you do!"
The nearby vendors chuckled and stepped aside. This was not the first time they had seen this show.
"Oliver's at it again," someone laughed. "What is it this time?"
"Last week he blew up the alchemy furnace, remember?" another replied.
"The week before that, he turned the neighbor's well water blue. The gods must have sent him here to test his mother's patience."
Oliver dodged around a fruit stall. "It's that girl's fault!" he shouted, voice full of indignation.
"Fiona started it! She told me peasants shouldn't walk on the same road as her! She told me my face lowers the city's value!"
"So you called her beast a meat bun and tried to poke its butt with a stick?!" Laura's voice rose even higher.
"It was scientific curiosity!" Oliver protested. "I wanted to see if its fur would bounce back!"
Laura's eyes twitched. She lifted her hand.
The leather shoe in her grip vanished.
Oliver's heart trembled.
Every child in the district knew Laura Reed's legendary technique: "Homing-Grade Flying Shoe Technique."
He heard a sharp sound behind him.
A shadow flew past, spinning through the air like a predator that had smelled blood.
In one smooth motion, the shoe curved around a pole, bounced off a signboard, and lined up precisely with the back of Oliver's head.
He felt the wind shift behind him.
"No way," he whispered. "She can't hit me from this angle, right?"
BAM!!!!
The shoe smacked into the back of Oliver's skull with a crisp, satisfying sound.
"Ow!"
He stumbled forward, hands flailing, and crashed into a wooden crate in front of a shop. The crate broke. A bunch of small, round, glowing stones rolled across the ground.
The shopkeeper's face turned green. "Those are Light Crystals! Do you know how expensive they are?!"
Oliver's soul almost left his body.
Before disaster could escalate any further, Laura grabbed her son by the collar and yanked him upright.
"Apologize," she said.
"To who?" Oliver asked weakly.
"To everyone," she snapped. "To Fiona. To her father, Viscount Harrow.
To this poor shopkeeper. To his crystals. To the street. To the gods. To anyone who might hear your voice and feel offended."
Oliver's mouth moved. "But it's not my fault…"
Laura's eyes narrowed. He shut his mouth.
He looked around and saw people staring. Some were amused, some were sympathetic, and some were taking notes, probably planning to tell a better version of this story at dinner.
Oliver sighed in his heart.
'It's not my fault. It really was just curiosity, and Fiona is the one who started it!' Oliver grumbled in his heart as he rubbed the red mark on his forehead.
"Don't you dare come home until Fiona forgives you!" his mother yelled again, already turning back toward the shop without looking at him.
Oliver watched her back vanish into the crowd. He picked up the leather shoe that had just smacked him and glared at it with grievance.
"It's always me," he muttered. "Every time something happens, somehow it turns into my fault…"
He really just wanted to vent a little.
Right at that moment, before he could throw the shoe back at the Reed Trading Company out of pure spite, something else smashed into the back of his head.
"Argh!"
A sharp pain exploded in his skull. Oliver staggered forward and almost kissed the street with his teeth.
'This familiar feeling!'
He turned around with tears in his eyes, fully expecting to see his mother standing there with another shoe.
But this time, there was no angry merchant mother.
On the ground behind him lay a single black sandal. It was cheap-looking, a style he had never seen in Asteria, and it was only one piece, the left side.
Oliver's eyes quickly scanned the street. He checked the roofs, the windows, even the passing carriages, but he could not find any suspicious perpetrator.
"Who is it?!" he shouted. "Which heartless villain is throwing footwear at people's heads?! Come out!"
The crowd just walked around him. A few people glanced his way, but most ignored him. No one claimed responsibility.
Oliver's anger, which had originally been aimed at Fiona and then at his mother, smoothly switched targets.
"Fine. You want to throw things at me?" he growled. "Then I'll throw it even farther!"
He bent down, grabbed the strange black sandal, and weighed it in his hand. It was light, but the sole felt oddly firm, like it had been forged for the specific purpose of smacking someone's face.
Oliver did not think too deeply about that.
He spun the sandal around a few times, feeling his frustration rise. He took a step back, raised his arm, and with all his pent-up resentment, prepared to hurl it as far as possible.
"WAIT! WAIT! STOP!"
A sudden shout exploded right next to his ear.
Oliver froze mid-throw. His body locked. The sandal was still in his hand.
He slowly turned his head left, No one.
He turned his head right. Only a confused auntie selling vegetables.
He looked behind him, Empty street.
"Where are you looking? I'm here!" The same voice shouted again, full of panic and indignation.
Oliver's expression turned serious. A chill crept up his back.
He lowered his arm and stared straight ahead.
Very slowly, he lowered his gaze.
His eyes met the black sandal in his hand.
The sandal vibrated once, as if shaking off dust. Then a sigh came from it, clear as day.
"Finally. You looked in the right place."
Oliver's jaw dropped. "You… you can talk?!"
The sandal's voice sounded tired, but also strangely used to this kind of reaction.
"Yeah. I can talk. Long story. Also, can you not throw me into a ditch five minutes after I arrive in this world?"
Oliver felt his brain stop working.
Passersby walked past the boy standing in the middle of the street, holding a sandal and talking to it, and silently decided not to get involved.
The sandal coughed once, as if trying to be formal.
"Since fate literally smacked us together, let's do a proper introduction." The voice came from the sandal again. "My name is Ethan."
Oliver stared at the sandal, completely stunned.