Smoke filled Gene’s lungs as the acrid taste of burnt plastic coated his mouth. His eyes shot open in abject horror, blasting any sense of sleepiness out of his body. He panicked as his eyes struggled to peer through the black clouds bobbing in the air before him. Light flooded beneath the doorframe and he stumbled out of bed, crashing into the junk that littered his floor.

  “What the fuck!” he coughed out a curse at the sharp pain that hit him in the rib from the edge of a book before the heat from the carpet below consumed his attention. Synthetic fibers melted and compacted from his weight balanced atop his collector’s volume of Heroes in Peril, saving him from the pain that would have resulted from the skin contact. No flames had reached his room yet but the heat was so intense that he knew it was only seconds away.

  His eyes darted around the room, from comic to comic that comprised his latest haul but they were the only part of him that moved. Whether it was smoke inhalation or fear, something in him fractured in that moment and he froze. Flight or fight warred in his body and countless thoughts rattled around in his brain.

  “What is this? Fire? No, duh it’s fire. My place is on fire? My books are on fire?! No, not important. I need to move, move to where though? Home? I am home. We were home sleeping…We?”

  “Gene!!” A shout snapped his thoughts into focus and the world came rushing back.

  Samantha, his roommate-friend-sister was in trouble. His body moved before conscious control returned and he was off the ground, damning the melting carpet that pressed hot sock fibers into his feet. He barreled shoulder first into the door, avoiding the knob which by then the heat had made into a brand.

  With a sudden crash, he burst through the top of the hollow cored door.

  “Thank god the landlord is such a cheapskate,” he thought as wood splinters prickled his skin all over. Adrenaline kicked in, suppressing any pain as he crashed into the hallway wall and tumbled to the floor.

  He scrambled to his feet, coughing furiously, as his lungs burned from the lack of oxygen and over-exertion.

  Gene was never athletic as a child, definitely wasn’t as an adult, but in the time that passed during the global quarantine, he became downright sedentary. Sam always tried her best to get him out of the house once restrictions began to lift but something had begun to happen to him during that time.

  He retreated into himself, built walls within his mind, and became…weird for lack of a better word. So quickly had his world become just the four walls of his room that he hadn’t had time to notice. He’d only leave those confines to exercise his base human instincts and pick up the occasional package from the door. Now those doors were burning down.

  His eyes stung, tears evaporating as those thoughts raced through his mind. Sam had always tried to save him from his worst instincts, now he needed to be the one to save her for real.

  He staggered down to her room, guided by Sam’s shouting to see the cause of the desperation in her voice. A portion of the ceiling collapsed in front of her door, wedged in the perfect spot to make his blood run cold in spite of the rising heat. He cursed to himself, “Cheap ass landlord!”

  “Sam!!” he choked out between struggling breaths. “I’m here! It’s going to be okay!”

  He moved to lift the fallen debris, cursing when his skin grazed red hot rebar. It was heavy, but more so, the oppressive heat sapped any strength he could muster. He looked around in his panic but all around, the growing smoke clouded his vision.

  He couldn’t tell where the fire was coming from, could barely tell where he was if not for his familiarity with his home. Time slowed to a halt once more when his dry cracked lips curled into a grimace. He was out of options. He stared at the red glowing rebar before him and swallowed dryly.

  “Sam…” His voice was ragged as he drew in a painful breath to shout, “Get ready…to run!”

  He reached out to grab hold of the rebar and pulled. Untold pain shot through him and he nearly lost consciousness. He gritted his teeth and held tight. The skin of his palms sizzled as he pulled and pulled with all that he had left in him. Desperation flooded out of him in waves as he willed his hands to hold on, his muscles to be strong, and the metal to move.

  With one final yank, the metal moved, sending debris clattering to the ground. Gene fell back as Sam’s door opened and crashed to the ground before he blacked out.

  When his consciousness stirred, there was no telling how long he’d been out. The heat was gone. There was no fire, no sound around him.

  He tried to open his eyes only to realize they were already open. An endless void engulfed him and he blinked in shock – thought of blinking only to realize he couldn’t. He tried to wave a hand in front of his face but the sensations, the neural responses of his brain controlling his body were gone. It was then that he realized he was dead.

  “I didn’t make it…” he thought. A nervous laugh rang out in his mind and he deflated. Mentally, he felt empty. Physically? He couldn’t even begin to comprehend it.

  He was thankful to not have felt the pain of his final moments but that thought sent a sudden spike of panic into him.

  “Sam!” His thoughts were frantic. Had she made it? Did he save her? His mind raced as he tried to wrack his brain, or what remained of it, for memories in those final moments. He only stopped when a voice rang out of the darkness. Or rather, he could only conceive of it as a voice despite not having ears to hear.

  “Oh, Gene, I don’t think you want to do that.”

  A spray of stars erupted around him, snapping him out of his panic. The words of the voice rippled through his consciousness, speaking in a disarmingly casual tone.

  “As a courtesy, we try our hardest to obfuscate those final moments when they’re as painful as what you went through,” said the voice, its words rippling through what remained of his being, “But to ease your distress, I can say, it was a job well done. Sam was able to get to safety. You’re a real hero!”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  The world around him shuddered and he saw the stars shifting. An outline of a humanoid being moved. So massive was this creature that a preternatural fear shuddered through Gene despite him knowing he was already dead.

  The figure moved, far faster than anything that size should be able to. As it did, it shrank, reducing in size so quickly and oddly that Gene expected a vacuum in space to consume whatever it was he had become. The living starlight crossed its arms and legs and Gene felt warm emotions in his thoughts.

  “I have to apologize about that. I forget that humans in your universe aren’t used to cosmic beings. This size should be more appropriate and this should help with the existential dread. Welcome to the World Beyond Worlds. I am Architect Designate 110 but you can just call me Architect since I will be the last one you’ll ever meet.”

  It snapped and Gene’s mind shifted. Feeling rushed back into him, flooding him with the sensations of his extremities in an instant. He moved his hand, felt the push and pull of the limb and gasped. His arm was made of starlight–no, not stars, galaxies. Every inch of his being swirled with untold cosmos. He looked over himself in wonder, mouth agape as he searched for words but the figure spoke first.

  “Think of this as a sort of transitory state, Eugene Grey of Earth 23679 repeating. You perished in a truly selfless, possibly self-destructive, act.” Despite not having a distinguishable face, he could tell the Architect looked away awkwardly briefly before focusing on him again. “For your actions, you’ve been granted entry into a System World of your choice. Now, let’s start by going through some of your favorite media, hobbies, or even movies that you enjoy and–”

  The Architect stopped speaking when it noticed Gene wasn’t moving. His brain had broken, in a metaphorical sense as he currently lacked one. He stared at the figure, his mouth opening and closing as he tried to take in everything it had said without pausing to take a breath. Did it need to breathe? He pondered the question before the Architect hummed to itself and spoke again.

  “Hmm…maybe this will help.” The Architect snapped again and suddenly the world around them changed. Gone was the vast open expanse of space, only to be replaced by a kitschy modern office space.

  Gene sat across from the Architect at an office table and looked down in shock. He grabbed at his chest, confused but relaxed at the sight of his black tie and white collared shirt. Gone was the cosmos that was his skin, replaced by its normal dark brown hue. The Architect was dressed similarly but still, its pitch black skin was dotted with swirling solar systems, almost driving Gene back to the edge of the precipice of madness he had just drawn back from. The Architect turned to riffle through a filing cabinet behind the desk, humming to itself, and Gene chanced a glance at the glass partition that separated the office space.

  His deep brown eyes stared back at him in his reflection, his eyes tracing over his features in the moment. He had always been told his eyes were large and sad, like a cartoon character who’d been plucked out of a Disney movie and sentenced to generate powerpoint presentations for the rest of his life.

  His hair was cut short the way he liked, not the uneven density it had grown to since he hadn’t been to the barber in months. In the center of his forehead was a birthmark that crept into his scalp and gave him a streak of white hair. He’d loved it as a kid. It made him feel like he was a hero from one of his comics whose powers just hadn’t unlocked yet but as he got older, the attention it brought made him uncomfortable. He was wary of eye contact, fearful of any chat that his natural born conversation starter would bring.

  He was suddenly snapped back to focus when the Architect cleared its throat, embarrassed by his moment of vanity.

  “What?” asked Gene as he turned back to the sparkling figure before him.

  “Welllll,” began the Architect as it leaned back in its chair and put its hands behind its head, “As I, a cosmic being of unfathomable power, was saying, for your heroic sacrifice, you’re being granted access to a System World of your choice.”

  “System…..?”asked Gene, his attention drifting to a star studded figure outside of the room pushing what had to be a mailcart full of what he could only describe as tangible energy.

  “World,” snapped the Architect, pulling back his attention. “Think Isekai or one of your RPGs. Normally, souls are converted back into quintessence and returned to the grand skein that makes up the multiverse but in special cases like yours, an exception is made.”

  Gene arched a brow, “My case? You mean me saving Sam?”

  The Architect grimaced and Gene felt an awkward energy building between them before the Architect asked, “Are you really going to make me say it? Tell me, Gene, was your life….fulfilling? I mean really fulfilling personally. Not what you did for others. And don’t lie to me like you lied to yourself. I’ve seen the blueprints for your life.”

  Gene was caught aback. He didn’t know if the Architect meant literal blueprints but as he thought about everything he’d done, or rather didn’t do in his life, he knew what it meant.

  His memories spiraled backwards through moments of unnecessary self sacrifice. Overtime shifts to cover for lazy coworkers, missed birthdays unspoken to not make things awkward, even down to childhood memories of missed family trips to help his ailing grandmother. All his life, Gene jumped to be helpful, seeking praise from others, but never once did he speak his true feelings. Never once did he show them who he really was.

  He blinked wide and realized he was staring at the Architect and felt a small smile on its face.

  “You know, it's okay to be selfish once in a while. I believe I heard that’s what makes you humans human. You never gave yourself a chance at that. So, here’s your chance!”

  The Architect sat up too fast and slapped the files it had gathered on the table. Suddenly they all slid in front of Gene, pages flying open for each to show prototype books for his new story.

  The first book was for a fantasy novel, depicting Gene in resplendent robes of gold and silver, magical orbs projected from his palms. Gene winced reading the overwrought title, “The Wizard’s Words of Wisdom on World Domination.”

  He felt his face flush as he looked at the second. Its cover was in a distinctly anime artstyle. It depicted Gene in pseudo Japanese historical fantasy styled armor standing in front of a cadre of men plucked out of a dating sim. It was titled, “Summoned from another world to make his mark on a land lost to time, from burning alive to burning hot love!”

  Gene’s eyes drifted from the manga to the Architect who could only shrug.

  “Hey don’t look at me. These things are assembled from your subconscious mind. Don’t let the title distract you from a good time. Keep going!”

  Finally, Gene rolled his eyes over to the last cover and stopped in consideration. Familiarity flashed in his eyes and the Architect grinned, knowing it had him. On the comic book cover Gene floated majestically in an action pose, clad in black and silver spandex. His eyes and birthmark glowed silver as he reached out to grab hold of a palmsized earth. The cover read: “All New All Different Heroes: GreyMatter Lives!” It almost felt like copyright infringement to Gene. He chuckled at the thought and took the cover in hand.

  “So it’s the Hero System after all. You really can’t help yourself–well, no, I think this time you can,” said the Architect, reaching out to Gene to take the comic book from him. “Go be a hero with a capital H this time, but remember, don’t sacrifice yourself needlessly. Live.”

  The Architect flipped the pages of the comic book open and the space around Gene warped, drawing him into the newly opened vortex. Sucked back into the space called the World Between Worlds, Gene floated for what felt like an eternity and a millisecond at the same time until a sudden pulse hit him and a new disembodied voice spoke.

  Welcome to the Hero System. Name: Eugene Grey. Codename: GreyMatter. Archetype:....Scanning Desires….Personal need to connect and to speak mind….Archetype Selection: Psychic. Assigning starting Power Level…..Power Level 8 assigned….Routing to Earth 61–

  Boom! A sudden explosion rippled through space. Fractures riddled the black skies and a screeching robotic voice nearly split Gene’s head in two.

  ERROR! Destination destroyed. Rerouting….