The last thing I remember from my old life… was a notification.

  Not a truck.

  Not a stabbing.

  Not even a dramatic sacrifice.

  Just a notification.

  “Storage Almost Full.”

  I stared at my phone in mild annoyance while standing at the train platform. Morning commuters pushed around me like a living river, everyone late, everyone important, everyone pretending they mattered more than the clock.

  And me?

  Twenty-three years old. Unemployed. Degree half-finished. Future half-existent.

  I tapped “clear cache.”

  The phone froze.

  Then vibrated again.

  A new notification appeared.

  SYSTEM MESSAGE: TERMINATION CONFIRMED

  I frowned.

  “…What?”

  I didn’t have time to question it.

  Because the world stopped.

  Not slowed.

  Stopped.

  The wind froze mid-movement. A woman’s hair remained suspended in the air. A falling coffee cup hung beside a businessman’s hand like gravity had resigned.

  Even sound disappeared.

  Silence so absolute it hurt my ears.

  Then…

  CRACK

  The sky split.

  Not metaphorically.

  Not spiritually.

  It fractured like glass.

  White cracks spread across the blue horizon, leaking darkness through them — not night, but absence. A void that felt older than existence.

  My chest tightened.

  I tried to breathe but my lungs forgot how.

  Then I heard it.

  A voice.

  Not loud.

  Not quiet.

  It existed directly inside the concept of me.

  “Processing anomaly.”

  “Soul integrity: 17%.”

  “Memory density: abnormal.”

  “Conclusion: unsuitable for deletion.”

  “…Deletion?” I whispered.

  No sound came out.

  I realized I didn’t have a body anymore.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  The station was gone.

  The world was gone.

  I was floating inside a black ocean filled with drifting lights — countless lights. Some bright, some dim.

  Souls.

  I somehow knew.

  Millions of them flowed downward toward a distant abyss… and disappeared.

  A recycling bin for existence.

  And I was being dragged there too.

  Panic exploded inside me.

  “WAIT.”

  This time, the voice worked.

  Because I wasn’t speaking with air.

  I was speaking with will.

  “I don’t want to die yet.”

  A pause.

  Not silence — evaluation.

  “Clarification: You have already died.”

  “…Then I don’t want to end.”

  For a moment nothing happened.

  Then the lights around me flickered.

  I felt something look at me.

  Not like a person.

  Like reality checking a corrupted file.

  “You display fear inconsistent with life satisfaction.”

  “Yeah no kidding!”

  “Yet your regret exceeds average human threshold by 492%.”

  “…That sounds unhealthy.”

  “Correction: unusual.”

  The abyss below pulsed.

  I was getting closer.

  I didn’t know why but terror rose beyond instinct — deeper than fear of death.

  It felt like if I fell there, I wouldn’t just disappear.

  I would be erased.

  No memory.

  No trace.

  No ‘once existed.’

  Just… never.

  “Please,” I said. “I didn’t do anything great… but I didn’t get to try either.”

  For the first time, the voice changed.

  Not emotional.

  Curious.

  “You request continuation despite lacking achievements.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Reason?”

  I thought.

  About the unfinished games on my PC.

  The stories I never wrote.

  The girl I almost confessed to.

  The person I could’ve been if I stopped procrastinating tomorrow.

  “…Because I was just about to start living.”

  Everything stopped moving.

  Even the river of souls froze.

  The abyss halted.

  And then…

  The darkness cracked open into blinding white.

  “Decision: Preserve.”

  “Reassignment required.”

  “Warning: Proper destination unavailable.”

  “Selecting nearest compatible existence.”

  “…Wait—”

  “Reconstruction begins now.”

  I felt my memories tear apart.

  Not painfully.

  Systematically.

  Every memory became numbers.

  Every emotion a parameter.

  Every regret a weight.

  Something enormous was rebuilding me… but not perfectly.

  “Error detected.”

  That was the last thing I heard before everything shattered.

  But no sound came out.

  Because I didn’t have lungs.

  Or a mouth.

  Or… a body.

  I was small.

  Tiny.

  Weightless.

  Floating.

  Warm liquid surrounded me.

  And something was beating nearby.

  A heartbeat.

  Slow.

  Massive.

  Not mine.

  Panic surged — except my emotions felt… muted. Filtered.

  Like my brain had a governor.

  A translucent blue screen appeared in front of me.

  Species: Undefined

  State: Incomplete Vessel

  Soul Compression: 12%

  Memory Stability: Critical

  Skill Acquired: Awareness Lv.1

  Skill Acquired: Language Comprehension (Passive)

  Skill Acquired: Adaptive Ego

  “…What?”

  My thoughts echoed inside myself.

  No sound.

  But I understood them perfectly.

  Then another voice spoke.

  Not the cosmic one.

  This one… gentle.

  Close.

  Feminine.

  And crying.

  “I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…”

  I didn’t know the language.

  Yet I understood every word.

  The heartbeat thundered around me again.

  And suddenly it clicked.

  Warm liquid.

  Heartbeat.

  Small body.

  Darkness.

  No limbs I could move.

  No air to breathe.

  No choice to escape.

  I felt cold realization spread across my consciousness.

  “…You have got to be kidding me.”

  The screen flickered.

  I stared into the void of my non-eyes.

  “I got… reincarnated… as a fetus.”

  Silence.

  Then another notification appeared.

  You retain perception beyond physical development.

  Side Effect: You will remember everything.

  “…That’s horrifying.”

  Outside, the woman sobbed harder.

  “I don’t care what the priest said… I’ll protect you… even if you’re cursed.”

  Cursed?

  A chill crawled through my existence.

  Before I could think further—

  The world shook violently.

  A deafening roar echoed through flesh and bone.

  Something crashed.

  People screamed.

  And a new voice rang out.

  Cold.

  Inhuman.

  Laughing.

  “Ahh… I finally found you, vessel.”

  My instincts — ones I never had in my past life — screamed.

  Danger.

  Absolute danger.

  The blue screen pulsed violently.

  “…Excuse me?” I whispered inside my own mind.

  The heartbeat around me accelerated in terror.

  The woman ran.

  Footsteps.

  Chaos.

  And then—

  A pressure descended.

  Heavy.

  Ancient.

  Hungry.

  I understood something instinctively:

  Whatever reincarnated me…

  Didn’t intend for me to be found this soon.

  And whatever found me…

  Was not part of the plan.

  My consciousness began fading.

  Before darkness took me, I heard the entity speak again — right beside us.

  Soft.

  Amused.

  “You don’t belong to this world, little soul.”

  Then everything went black.

  And I realized…

  My new life had started long before I was even born.