Chapter 1: The Edge of Ordinary
Aiden Raikos always assumed he would die quietly—someday, somewhere, without anyone noticing.
Maybe in his sleep, alone in his tiny apartment.
Maybe at his desk, hunched over a spreadsheet nobody wanted.
He did not expect it to happen on a Tuesday morning, on a subway platform, with a cup of lukewarm coffee in his hand and stale cinnamon clinging to his tongue.
The station hummed with the exhausted rhythm of the city. Screens flickered with delays. A street musician outside the turnstiles strummed a guitar missing a string. Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like trapped insects. People pressed near the yellow line on instinct, as if proximity meant speed.
Aiden stood a little farther back.
There was always room around him—the natural distance that formed when people's eyes slid over someone and never bothered to return. He didn't mind. Being overlooked meant not being pulled into conversations he didn't want.
He sipped his coffee, grimaced, and checked the time on his cracked phone.
7:41 a.m.
If the train was on time—and it never was—he'd slide into work with four minutes to spare. Enough to pretend he hadn't stayed up gaming until two in the morning again.
He rubbed the heel of his palm against his tired eyes.
"Shouldn't have started a new save," he muttered.
It had been a survival RPG—crafting, monster hunting, cooking buffs, the usual. He liked the quiet repetition. Chop wood. Hunt beasts. Cook meat. Enhance gear. Numbers ticking up in clean menus. A world where effort always meant progress.
Unlike real life.
Here, nothing changed.
Same job.
Same cramped apartment.
Same monthly stress.
Same blinking red message light on his answering machine that he never checked.
Still, he had a roof.
He had Wi-Fi.
He had his games.
That was enough.
A shrill laugh cut through his thoughts.
A little boy stood too close to the edge of the platform. He bounced a battered soccer ball between his hands, humming an off-key tune. His jacket was thin, his cheeks flushed red from the cold. No parent stood beside him.
Aiden frowned.
"Where are your parents, kid?" he murmured.
Train lights glowed in the tunnel, a white smear in the dark that swelled brighter and brighter. The worn-out announcement chime crackled, then croaked out the usual warning to stand behind the line.
The boy stepped closer anyway.
Aiden's chest tightened.
He set his coffee down by his foot, his eyes never leaving the kid. No one else noticed. Everyone was too absorbed in their phones, their arguments, their deadlines.
Then the ball slipped.
It happened absurdly fast.
One moment the boy was smiling at his reflection in the metal rail.
The next his shoe slid on a dark patch of spilled drink. His arms pinwheeled wildly as the ball bounced off the platform edge and clattered onto the tracks.
His body followed.
Someone screamed.
A woman dropped her coffee, the cup exploding across the floor.
The screech of the approaching train sharpened into a metallic howl.
Aiden moved.
His body reacted before thought could intervene. Years of squeezing through crowds, of instinctive decision-making in games when one wrong move meant losing everything—all condensed into a single instant.
He lunged past two commuters, knocking their shoulders aside. His foot clipped his abandoned cup, sending it spinning, but he no longer cared.
The boy's small fingers clawed at the edge of the platform. His eyes shone with terror.
Aiden dove and grabbed the boy's wrist with both hands.
"Got you," he breathed.
Momentum yanked them both toward the tracks. His knees slammed into the concrete lip. Pain shot up his legs, but he gritted his teeth and pulled.
The child flew upward.
A stranger behind Aiden gasped and grabbed the boy, hauling him the rest of the way to safety. The kid collapsed into the stranger's arms, sobbing.
For a single heartbeat, Aiden felt weightless.
Then gravity returned.
His balance tipped. The edge of the platform slid against his thighs. Nothing lay beneath him but air and screeching rails.
He didn't have time to think or curse or feel fear.
He saw the boy's tear-streaked face, staring at him.
Aiden gave him the smallest, softest smile.
The train hit.
There was a scream—several, maybe—but they were distant, muted, as if someone had turned the world down to half volume. There was no pain, no crunch of bone, no cinematic slow-motion. Just a flash of metal and light and then—
Silence.
Darkness devoured everything.
The station.
The screams.
The smell of coffee and oil.
Gone.
Aiden floated.
He couldn't feel limbs.
Couldn't feel breath.
Couldn't feel a heartbeat.
Maybe I'm in shock, he thought.
Maybe this is what dying feels like.
Then he realized there was no body to feel anything with. No arms, no chest, no weight. Only consciousness drifting in infinite black.
A sound broke through.
A low, resonant hum pulsed through the void, like a storm rumbling underground. It vibrated through his awareness—ancient, heavy, unbothered by the emptiness surrounding him.
Thin lines of pale blue light carved themselves into the darkness.
[SUBJECT TERMINATED]
Aiden stared.
The letters looked like system text—menus from a game. Except this wasn't a screen. There was no monitor. No interface. Just the void and the cold truth hanging in it.
"Subject," he whispered. His voice sounded small, swallowed by the endless dark. "Terminated…"
Another line wrote itself beneath the first.
[ANALYZING SOUL...]
The hum deepened.
Something pressed against him—not physical, not emotional, but perceptive. Clinical. It felt like being examined by invisible hands, as if the void itself inspected him from every angle.
His memories spilled open under the weight of that unseen gaze.
Late-night gaming sessions.
Silent mornings.
Forgotten birthdays.
Moments of loneliness.
Moments of repetition.
Moments of wishing life felt like something more.
Then the boy.
The fall.
The grip on that tiny wrist.
The moment he let go of fear.
The hum shifted.
Another line appeared, slower, deliberate.
[SOUL TYPE: UNREMARKABLE HUMAN]
Aiden would've laughed if he still had a throat.
"Story of my life," he muttered.
More lines formed in cold blue light.
[PRIMARY VALUES: LOW AMBITION, HIGH EMPATHY]
Something in the darkness paused, tasting that last word.
Then—
"You died for a life that was not your own."
The voice was not human. Not mechanical. It sounded like wind passing through ancient ruins, like thunder whispering through wire. Layered. Deep. Ageless.
"Most souls," it continued, "cling to their final breath. They regret. They bargain. They curse."
Aiden felt the gaze tighten.
"You did not."
"I…" His thoughts stumbled. "I just didn't want him to die."
Silence.
Heavy, evaluating silence.
Then:
"Most souls are ordinary."
A spark traced through the darkness.
Light flared around him.
"Are you?"
Aiden had spent his whole life feeling like a background character. Someone passed over. Someone unremarkable.
"If I was," he said quietly, "that boy would be dead."
The presence paused.
The lines of text burned away, replaced by new ones.
[ORDINARY RATING: REVISED]
[COMPATIBILITY CHECK: INITIATING]
Symbols flickered—too fast to comprehend. Beast shapes. Worlds. Patterns. Glowing eyes. Claws. Runes. Threads of lightning.
Everything collapsed into a single result:
[COMPATIBILITY: 97%]
Aiden felt his nonexistent heart tighten.
"Compatible with what?" he asked.
The answer cut through the void.
[BEASTBINDER SYSTEM]
The name struck him like an echo of every RPG he'd ever played—menus, stats, leveling, crafting, fighting.
"You understand systems," the voice said.
"I play games," he whispered. "That's not—"
"It is enough."
The darkness vibrated.
[SEARCHING FOR SUCCESSOR...]
[REVIEWING PRIOR CANDIDATES...]
[RESULT: ALL FAILED]
A chill rippled through him. He imagined this void filled with others—souls weighed and discarded.
"How many?" he asked. "How many failed?"
Silence.
The voice did not answer.
Instead:
[NEW CANDIDATE FOUND]
Aiden felt smaller than a grain of dust.
"Why me?"
"You died for someone who would never remember your name," the voice murmured. "You did not ask for reward. You did not hesitate. You did not cling."
The hum softened.
"You may be the one I seek."
"Seek for what?" he whispered.
"For what comes next."
The darkness folded.
A single point of blue light flared.
[REBINDING SOUL CORE...]
Energy shot through the void like chains of lightning. Aiden felt something clamp around his existence—pulling him, reshaping him, rewriting him.
"Wait—wait! What does that mean? Where are you sending me?"
The hum faded.
The voice returned, softer and certain.
"One question remains."
All light collapsed into that single point.
"Do you wish to continue?"
The void held its breath.
Continue meant something.
Not this emptiness.
Not oblivion.
Something else.
Something alive.
He thought of the boy's brown eyes.
The fear.
The hope.
The relief.
Aiden didn't know what waited on the other side.
But he knew he wasn't ready to disappear.
"I don't—" he began.
The light detonated.
[RESPONSE RECEIVED]
Wind howled.
Light tore him apart.
Memories scattered like ash.
The universe folded.
[ACCEPTED]
The final line branded itself into his being.
[INITIALIZING BEASTBINDER SYSTEM]
The sound rose into a single deafening note.
Light swallowed him whole.
Everything exploded into white.