The thing about dying is that nobody really believes it's going to happen to them on a Tuesday.
Not on a Tuesday.
Tuesdays are for missed alarms and cold coffee and sitting in the back of a lecture hall pretending to take notes while actually calculating how many more times you can skip before the professor notices. Tuesdays are aggressively, stubbornly ordinary. They resist the idea of anything important happening at all. They certainly don't feel like the kind of day that gets remembered.
They don't have the weight for something like death.
Mine apparently didn't get that memo.
My name is Elric.
Elric Ashveil, nineteen years old, second-year university student, owner of exactly one houseplant that I was almost certainly already failing to keep alive. No girlfriend. No remarkable talents. No hidden potential waiting to awaken at the right moment. No destiny written in the stars or carved into some ancient bloodline.
Just a guy.
A completely, thoroughly, almost offensively ordinary guy.
The kind of person you forget five minutes after meeting.
I was walking home from the convenience store at 9:47 PM on a Tuesday — I remember the time because I'd just checked my phone, hoping for a reply that wasn't there. My professor still hadn't answered my three-day-old email about the assignment extension I desperately needed.
At that point, I wasn't even anxious anymore.
I was just… accepting it.
The convenience store bag in my hand was light. A single container of instant ramen. A canned coffee that had already lost whatever heat it once had. And a chocolate bar I had convinced myself was a reward for surviving the week.
It was Tuesday.
The week had barely started.
I bought it anyway.
The night had that strange hollow quiet that only exists in the gap between the last train and the first delivery truck. A pause in the city's breathing. Streetlights hummed overhead, casting pools of dull yellow light that didn't quite reach the edges of the road.
My sneakers scuffed against the pavement in a rhythm I'd walked so many times my body handled it without me.
I wasn't thinking about anything important.
That's the part that stays with me.
No big thoughts. No regrets. No sudden understanding of life or meaning or anything dramatic enough to justify the moment.
I wasn't thinking about my future.
I wasn't thinking about my past.
I was thinking about ramen.
Specifically, whether the ramen place near campus had changed their broth recipe, because the last time I went something had tasted slightly different and it had been bothering me all week.
That was it.
That was the last complete thought I had.
Almost.
The sound came first.
Tires locking.
Rubber screaming against asphalt.
That sharp, tearing sound that instantly tells you something is wrong before your brain catches up enough to explain it.
My head turned automatically.
The truck had already jumped the curb.
And in its path—
A girl.
Small. Maybe seven or eight. Backpack still hanging from her shoulders, one strap slipping loose. A creased library book clutched tightly in one hand like she hadn't even realized she was holding it.
Her eyes were wide.
Too wide.
But she wasn't moving.
Not even out of fear.
Just… stuck.
Like her body had reached a limit and stopped responding.
There wasn't time to think.
There wasn't even time to panic.
I was already moving.
The bag slipped from my hand before I consciously let go of it. My feet hit the ground hard, faster than I thought they could move, closing the distance in a blur that felt both too slow and too fast at the same time.
I didn't think about consequences.
I didn't think about whether I would make it.
I didn't think about anything at all.
I just moved.
My shoulder hit her.
I pushed.
Not gently. Not carefully. Just enough force to knock her completely out of the path.
She stumbled.
Fell.
Rolled.
Away.
Safe.
And just like that, there was nothing left for me.
No space.
No time.
No direction to move that would change anything.
The last thing I saw was light.
White.
Absolute.
Filling everything.
And in that final moment, when everything narrowed down to a single point—
I wasn't afraid.
I didn't feel heroic.
I didn't feel anything grand or meaningful or worth remembering.
I was just…
Annoyed.
I hadn't finished my ramen.
And then—
Nothing.
Not darkness.
Darkness has texture. It has edges. It suggests that something exists beyond it, even if you can't see it.
This wasn't that.
This was absence.
No sound.
No weight.
No sense of a body to hold that weight.
Just… awareness.
Just me.
Whatever "me" meant without anything else attached to it.
Time didn't pass.
Or maybe it did.
It didn't feel like it mattered either way.
There was a strange calm to it. Not comforting, exactly. Just… empty in a way that didn't demand anything from me.
Like the first few seconds after an alarm goes off, before your brain remembers what day it is and what that day expects from you.
I thought about the plant.
Yeah.
Definitely dead.
Then the voice came.
It didn't come from anywhere specific.
It didn't echo.
It didn't feel distant or close.
It simply existed.
Flat. Clinical. Empty of anything resembling emotion.
"Scanning complete."
I didn't respond.
Mostly because I wasn't sure I could.
"Soul designation: Ashveil, Elric. Age: nineteen. Status: deceased."
Well.
At least that cleared things up.
"Class detected: Void Sovereign."
A pause.
A small one.
But long enough to feel… wrong.
"Cross-referencing… no records found. Classification: Unknown. Rank: Undefined."
Another pause.
Longer this time.
"Anomaly logged. Redirecting soul to compatible world thread."
"…That doesn't sound standard," I said.
No response.
"Hello?"
"Processing."
"What does redirecting mean exactly? Because I feel like I should get a say in this. I just died on a Tuesday, that has to count for something—"
"Transfer sequence initiated."
"Wait—"
"Estimated arrival: immediate."
"Immediate where—"
The absence moved.
That's the only way I can describe it.
It shifted.
Folded inward like reality had been a page and something had decided to turn it.
And then—
Weight.
Cold stone pressed against my back.
Air filled my lungs in a sharp, unfamiliar rush.
There was a smell—faint, dry, like something had burned a long time ago and never fully left.
A ceiling above me.
Stone.
Cracked.
Old.
I stared at it.
For longer than I probably should have.
Somewhere nearby, something moved.
Soft.
Controlled.
Not surprised.
I turned my head.
A girl sat against the opposite wall, cross-legged, eating from a small tin container.
Dark hair.
Sharp eyes.
She glanced at me once.
Just once.
No shock.
No confusion.
No reaction that matched what had just happened.
Then she went back to eating.
Like I wasn't important enough to hold her attention for more than a second.
I stared at her.
She let me.
There was something off about her.
Not obvious.
Nothing dramatic.
Just enough to feel wrong.
Like she knew something I didn't.
Like she had seen this before.
"How long," I said slowly, "have I been here?"
She didn't look up.
She took another bite.
Considered the question like it wasn't particularly urgent.
"Which time?"
I looked back at the ceiling.
Yeah.
The ramen was definitely gone.