There was no pain.
Only silence.
A vast, immutable silence that swallowed even thought. Len didn't breathe. He didn't ache. He didn't feel the slow creep of death anymore. He had passed it—slipped beyond its jaws—and now floated somewhere else, somewhere that existed beyond what life could define.
He had no body, no form. He was presence. Awareness without flesh. A breath without lungs.
Then came sensation. Or something like it.
There was an impression of falling, though he wasn't moving. Of rising, though there was no direction. He floated in a sea of impossible hues, shades that didn't exist in the visible spectrum. Colors without names. Some too bright, some too dark. A void—and yet it wasn't empty. There was a pressure in the space, like something unseen had noticed him.
Something enormous.
And then it appeared.
It didn't approach. It didn't descend. It simply became. As though it had always been present, waiting for him to notice. It had no shape in the conventional sense, but its presence dominated the void. A being of shifting edges—its form flickered between flowing robes, monstrous limbs, a thousand eyes, fractured masks, and faces Len couldn't hold in memory. Chains slithered across its body, rattling softly with a weightless echo. Its presence wasn't light or dark. It was both. It was neither. It was truth.
Len stared, his mind a trembling thread. He didn't speak. He didn't dare. He wasn't even sure he could.
The being did not move its mouth, yet Len heard it.
"You are not finished," it said, the voice blooming inside his consciousness. Not heard—remembered, as though the words had always lived in him, waiting.
He blinked, though he wasn't sure he had eyes. "What… are you?"
"A witness. A reflection. A piece of what you might become, if you unshackle your will."
It paused, as if letting the weight of its words sink deep.
"You will return."
Return?
The word hit Len like a distant echo from a life already burned to ash.
"Return?" he repeated, unsure if he whispered or thought it.
"To the beginning. To your first step into the world you died in."
Questions burst inside him like sparks in dry grass. Why him? Why now? What did this entity want? Why offer a second chance to someone who had proven himself weak?
The being answered before the questions took form.
"You should walk your true path. Not the one written by fear. Not the one shaped by dependence. Not the one suffocating under the guilt of others' expectations."
Its form shifted again. The chains around it pulsed and thickened—heavy, rusted, ancient. They weren't holding it down. They clung to it, like scars that refused to fade. Shackles bound its limbs, yet it drifted freely in the void.
"These are the chains of false virtue," it said. "Chains you wore. Chains you praised. The lies that told you weakness deserved protection. That morality should bind strength in place. That others owed you their power."
A cold realization settled into Len's being. These chains were not just metaphors. They were the ideology he had clung to in life. Chains he had forged with every plea for help. Every appeal to someone stronger. Every time he had spoken of what was 'right' to avoid facing what was true.
"You lived shackled," the being continued, "by illusions given to you by the fearful and upheld by the comfortable. You wore them proudly. And they led you to death."
Something moved within Len. Something ancient. A low ember of heat that had waited, dormant, buried beneath layers of doubt.
Possibility.
A single, quiet thought flickered across his mind, trembling at first:
"I have a chance."
The words did not echo. They settled, like stone in water.
"A chance to redo it all," he said, stronger now. "A chance other people would never be given. A chance I didn't deserve… but one I won't waste."
Warmth bloomed in his chest. Not the warmth of comfort, but the kind that came from ignition. The kind that burned away weakness.
"In this next life," he said aloud, voice steady, "I will do my best. I will always do my best."
Even if the world despises me.
Even if everything conspires to break me.
Even if the stars themselves curse me.
"I will do my best. Because that is all I can do. That is all I have. And this time, I will not live for the mercy of others."
The being said nothing more.
It didn't need to.
Light broke across the void like a blade through fabric. A flood of pure force swallowed him whole. Not pain. Not peace. Just clarity.
The past dissolved.
Time unraveled.
And Len fell.
When Len opened his eyes again, the sky was blue.
Not gray with smoke. Not cracked by lightning. Not painted with flame. Real blue. So bright it made his eyes ache.
He was lying on a road—cracked asphalt beneath him. The smell of dust and wind. The chatter of confusion filled the air. Around him, hundreds of people stirred. Some sobbed. Some shouted. Others sat frozen in disbelief.
He knew this place.
This was the start.
Where it had all begun.
The first day in the survival world.
The moment where he had once chosen to wait.
Len sat up slowly. He touched his chest—whole. No wound. No blood.
Heartbeat steady.
Mind clear.
He looked around at the others. Their expressions were the same as his had once been—lost, afraid, searching for a protector.
But this time, he felt nothing like them.
This time, he wouldn't wait.
This time, he wouldn't beg for help.
This time, he would walk.
And if the path led through fire, through hate, through the jaws of monsters and the hands of tyrants—
So be it.
Because he had been given a chance.
And this time, he was going to use it.