Lyra floated in a place that was neither dark nor light.
It shimmered softly, like glass stretched thin, glowing without a source. There was no ground beneath her feet, yet she stood. No sky above her head.There was no pain here. No weight. No sound except her own thoughts.
It felt wrong.
Not peaceful. Not comforting.
Just… endless.
"So this is death," she murmured.
Her voice didn't echo. It dissolved, swallowed by the strange stillness memories crept back in fragments.
Being a child with thick glasses and a book always tucked under her arm.
Being called nerd, weirdo, boring before she even knew what cruelty meant.
Learning early that silence was safer than speaking.
Lyra was in her first year in college
College hadn't saved her as she thought it would It had only refined the cruelty.Instead,she met upgraded bullies
She saw them clearly now those girls who laughed too loudly, smiled too sweetly, and tore people apart when no one was watching.
Especially Serena Vale.
Serena had always been a bully. Beautiful, popular, untouchable. Their paths had never crossed not really until the day Lyra was paired with Serena's boyfriend for a science project.
She hadn't asked for it.
He insisted they work at his place instead of hers. Lyra remembered the way he looked at her polite smiles layered over faint disdain. She stayed quiet. Focused on the project.
Then Serena walked in.
She remembered the timing perfectly. The way she and him bumped into each other in the narrow hallway. Hands brushing. An awkward apology.
Nothing more.
But Serena's eyes had gone cold she concluded lyra was stealing what didn't belong to her.
The whispers started first. Then the cornering. Then the threats disguised as jokes. One evening she had been reading at the library late into the evening and when she decided to leave it had already started drizzling she knew the rain was going to be heavy from the colour of the clouds and the strong wind.Walking down her usual short cut that was when she saw them she didn't know how they were able to note her routine and where she followed she couldn't turn back now what's the worst they could do taunt her but it wasn't so this time around they had planned something different.They Cornered her. "Do you enjoy pretending to be innocent?"
Lyra tried to explain and was given a slap by another girl they wanted to pin her down so serene could throw the final slap when she tried to fight back I was shoved.She fell backwards down the small slope unknown to them she wasn't pretending to have fainted she had died they left her there entered their car and zoomed off
She never fought back.
That night, rain poured like the sky was splitting open before she was discovered and rushed to the hospital.
"They left me to die," Lyra whispered. "Those bitches…"
She stopped drifting.
"…So why am I still here?" Her voice cracked. "Is this heaven? Am I supposed to roam here for eternity? I suffer in life and also the afterlife?"
Something cut through the stillness.
Beep.
Lyra flinched.
A translucent page unfolded before her eyes, as if reality itself had opened.
A voice says:"Welcome"
Lyra: "Where am I…? Who are you? I only remember dying."
Beep.
System: "I am system. You have been saved by the cosmic management for a great cause granting you another chance. Take missions to help the society, gain points, level up."
Lyra: "And what happens to me...what if I refuse?"
System: "Accomplished, better than your previous self…you live."
Beep.
A Timer appears on an open tab on the page with the count down from 5
Accept or decline.
5...
4...
Her life replayed itself not the happy parts, but the quiet humiliations. The way she always endured. The way she shrank so others could feel bigger.
3...
She thought of the moment before everything went black. The rain soaking her clothes. The fear not of dying, but of leaving without ever once standing up for herself.
2...
"I don't want to be that girl anymore," she whispered.
1...
"I accept."
The world collapsed inward.
Lyra woke up gasping.
Her chest burned as oxygen tore into her lungs, sharp and overwhelming. Machines beeped frantically around her. White lights blinded her
"She's breathing"
"Call the doctor!"
Her head throbbed, but she was alive.
She turned her eyes weakly and saw her parents at the foot of the bed, hands clasped together. Her mother was crying openly. Her father looked hollow, exhausted.
"She's been in a coma," a nurse whispered in shock. "Three days…"
A doctor rushed in, stunned. "This is a miracle. We had lost all hope."
Miracle they called it
Lyra listened quietly as they spoke, her heart steadying with every word.
I died, she thought. And I came back.
Lyra stared at the ceiling.
I won't be weak anymore, she promised herself my past self is gone.
Then she blinked.
The ceiling sharpened.
"Wait....Why can I see clearly?"
Her glasses were still on the bedside table now cracked from her fall.
Beep.
The now familiar page flickered into view.
Eye sight upgraded to level 3.
Below it,a butt smaller text appeared.
For more upgrades, complete missions.
Earn rewards.
Lyra stared, heart pounding.
So this was real.
The system hadn't lied.