Some people say fate is merciful, it gives you second chances.

  They never mention the part where it throws you back into hell just to see if you can crawl out twice.

  He didn't have a name worth using. Not because nobody gave him one, he just stopped hearing it after a while. Small room, four walls, a mattress, manga stacked to the ceiling. That was it. His whole world.

  Life wasn't miserable, people tend to get that wrong. He'd just done the calculation early — outside was complicated, people were complicated, everything

  Nobody had ever understood him and he was never sure if that was their fault or his. Probably both. Or maybe neither. That was the worst part— not the loneliness itself but the fact that he could never figure out who to blame for it.

  Then his body started failing. Quietly at first, then all at once. Terminal. He went home, sat on his mattress, looked at his favourite manga.

  He had so much he hadn't done, so much he hadn't said, so much he had told himself he'd get to eventually, when he was ready, when things were different, when he finally figured out how to be a person in the world without it feeling like a performance

  It eventually never

  He died with all of it still inside him. Lonely. Unheard.

  He woke up somewhere else.

  First thing he thought about was the manga, automatic, like a reflex

  The fight was insane! I need to finish that arc as soon as possible...

  Then reality hit. Different ground, different air, different sky. His body felt wrong in the right way — stronger, lighter, like something had been fixed without asking. First breath didn't hurt and that alone was enough to know something was different.

  He stood up, looking around with curiosity. The ground cracked, buildings leaning wrong in the distance, the air smelled like rust and something else he decided not to think about. Nothing made sense yet.

  Oh... So this is what hope feels like

  Embarrassing. Too old for it, but there it was anyway — stupid and warm and impossible to argue with. That feeling burning in his chest.

  The axe was right next to him when he woke up. Half-buried in the dirt like it had always been there. He picked it up without thinking — light as paper, perfect grip.

  Nobody else could lift it. They tried later, laughed about it and decided to move on.

  An enchanted weapon that only the chosen one can wield. Classic.

  Smiled for the first time in a long time, though it wasn't that weird — always read about moments like this, and now one was actually happening to him.

  He tried. That part matters. He actually tried.

  Three weeks in he found a squad — ragged group of survivors running extermination routes through what was left of the city because the cure had been found, but it was already too late for the ones fully turned — no cure reaches something that isn't really alive anymore. Someone had to clean up. He volunteered before he fully understood what that meant because he wanted to be part of that community.

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  They looked at him. Skinny, quiet, big axe. Still didn't seem like much.

  He didn't say anything. Just held the weapon like his life depended on it.

  The squad found the nest by accident. Collapsed pharmacy three blocks off the main route, boarded windows that moved. Someone said to ignore it and someone else said that they had a job to do. He watched the argument and felt his palms sweating. Heart racing.

  They went in, six of them, flashlights cutting through the dark, boots crunching on broken glass, and the smell hit before the door even did — disgusting, thick, the kind that sticks to the back of the throat.

  First zombie came fast, had been a woman once but now it was just teeth and momentum heading straight at him.

  Okay. Okay okay okay this is fine this is literally fine—

  He swung instinctively.

  Connected badly. Too high, too desperate. But it connected. The zombie dropped.

  He stood there breathing hard, staring at it.

  I just— I actually just—

  "Nice." Cole — thirty something, scar under his chin — knocked his shoulder with a fist, like it was nothing.

  It wasn't nothing.

  Seven more came from the back. The squad moved and he moved with them, axe swinging, feet finding ground, lungs burning in a way that felt completely different from being sick. This burning was his. It felt alive

  When it was over the blood on his hands was still warm and the grin was shy but proud.

  Cole looked at him sideways. "You good?"

  "Yeah." Embarrassingly.

  So this is what it feels like to be in the story instead of reading it

  Careful, patient, smarter than he looked — he'd spent his whole life studying fictional worlds and things weren't that different. Not a hero yet, but the shape of it was there. He just needed something to click it into place. He didn't know yet that the story had already noticed him back.

  That was before the night shifts started getting long.

  The encampment was quiet in the way that only nights get — not peaceful, just empty. A few torches at the perimeter throwing a faded light that didn't reach far enough, letting the shadows sit heavy between the tents and the forest. Somewhere behind him someone was snoring. A fire had burned down to embers and nobody had bothered to feed it. The air was cold and smelled like ash and damp earth.

  Just him, the chair, the dark. His shift — guard the campment, watch for zombies, watch for anything worse. The focus wasn't there though.

  Am I really the one? The thought arrived uninvited, the way they always did at night. Or am I just... here. By accident. A random guy with an axe that nobody else could lift.

  Hands still had someone else's blood under the fingernails from earlier. Hadn't noticed until now. Probably should've washed them or should've done a lot of things.

  Cole said "nice". That's it. Nice. Like I'd done something small. Maybe it was really that simple.

  The doubt didn't arrive loudly. It never did. It just settled in slowly, the way cold does — you don't notice it until you're already shivering. Years in a small room, years of watching from the outside. One good fight didn't erase that, not even a bit. One squad that tolerated him didn't erase that.

  Who am I kidding... I am worthless...

  "You're being too hard on yourself."

  He turned.

  A man stood at the edge of the light. Calm. Relaxed. The kind of person who takes up space without trying — broad shoulders, easy posture, the specific confidence of someone who has never once doubted whether they belonged somewhere. Blue eyes, deep and still, like water

  Something was off about his skin. Scaly, maybe... but it was hard to tell in the dark.

  "Who are you?"

  The man didn't answer that. Just looked at him the way nobody had ever looked at him — like he was worth looking at.

  "I hear you" he said. "You're not alone. You were always meant for this." A pause, deliberate, the kind that knows exactly how long to last.

  "Don't doubt yourself."

  Should have questioned it. The skin, the timing, the fact that this stranger knew exactly what he'd been thinking three seconds ago.

  But he just didn't.

  Too tired of the small room, even when the room had no walls.

  Fate doesn't break people loudly. That's the part nobody warns you about. It comes dressed as purpose. Gives you just enough of what you always wanted to make you stop asking questions.

  By the time he understood what was happening, the person who smiled that first morning was already gone. Not killed. Not broken. Just... emptied, the way you empty something not to destroy it but to make it produce a different sound. Everything that had made him hesitate, everything soft and uncertain and embarrassingly hopeful, scraped out carefully without him ever noticing the scraping.

  Leviathan was patient. It always is. It had broken many people before.

  What was left didn't feel pain, didn't hesitate, didn't remember manga or Tuesday mornings or what it felt like to hold an axe for the first time and grin like an idiot because the burning in your lungs was finally yours.

  It just moved. Clean. Deliberate.

  Not human, not really.

  In the dead zone, a figure stood at the perimeter, axe at its side, watching a boy crouch behind a wall with careful green eyes.

  Rats, it thought. Flat. Empty.

  It raised the axe.