Jordan opened his eyes.
White stretched everywhere. He floated in the middle of it.
No floor. No sky. Just white.
He looked down. His body was transparent. Purple bled through him. Gold. Colors he couldn't name.
He'd expected something. Pearly gates, maybe. Fire if the universe had a sense of humor.
Not this.
The white stretched on endlessly. Time passed. Or didn't. Nothing moved.
His mind went back to the pavement. The gunshot. His body stopping all at once.
Twenty-two years.
He thought about the store. About crawling toward the door while everyone else froze. The cashier taped to the wall. Waiting hadn't protected him either.
If he got another shot and this void suggested something was coming he wasn't repeating that.
No more managing. No more waiting for someone else to decide.
He needed strength. Real strength. The kind that meant freedom.
But how?
Wishing for infinite power was how you got cursed. The specifics mattered. The rules mattered.
And he had no idea what rules came next.
A system? Twenty-two years of people in his head telling him what to do. He wasn't trading one prison for another.
Copying powers? Maybe. But what if the next world didn't work that way? What if he wished for technique mimicry and walked into somewhere that ran on bloodlines or tech or something he couldn't imagine?
He needed something that worked anywhere. Something that couldn't be taken.
Jordan thought about the sprint. The last thing his body did before it stopped. Pure movement. Just legs and air and ground.
He'd felt more alive in those ten seconds than in years.
He wanted that. To fight and get stronger from the fight itself. Every time he won, every time he lost, every time he pushed he'd get better.
No shortcuts. Just him and whatever stood in front of him.
And if he was building from the ground up, it had to grow together. Whatever he became needed to move as one piece. Not parts he had to juggle.
That was it.
The void pulsed like a heartbeat. Jordan felt it in his chest or where his chest should've been.
He blinked. The white shifted, color bleeding through. The pulse came again, softer this time, like an answer.
It responds when I choose to look.
Jordan blinked fast.
The void rippled. Purple. Gold. Red. Shades he'd never seen. The space breathed. Heat built against him like standing too close to a fire.
He blinked faster.
The colors condensed, pulling inward. Pressure built around him or inside him. He couldn't tell the difference anymore.
The blast threw him backward.
His edges came apart. Not body. Soul. Every piece of him scattering into the light.
He screamed. No sound. Just his consciousness fraying at the edges.
Colors kept spreading. Stars igniting in the distance. Space folding. Galaxies spinning into being. Light pressed against him like heat from an open furnace.
Jordan couldn't close his eyes. The universe blooming around him and he was dissolving into it.
Then darkness.
~
When he woke, he was still flying.
The white was gone. Eight universes hung around him. Different sizes. Different colors bleeding from their edges. One pulsed with heat that made his awareness contract. Another felt cold enough to freeze thought.
His soul slowed, the momentum fading.
The smallest universe tugged at him. Like recognition.
He let it pull him in.
Stars streaked by. Wind that wasn't wind rushed through him, pulling at the edges of whatever held him together. His soul fell toward a planet massive, mountains scraping sky, oceans beyond sight.
Dragons. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Flying. Sleeping. Hunting.
Jordan's soul dove toward a castle at the planet's peak. Through stone that passed through him like water. Through hallways. Into a room where a dragon slept.
His soul slammed into the dragon's body.
The impact knocked the breath from him he didn't have.
~
Jordan woke.
His eyes opened and energy spread from his chest like a shockwave.
It rolled across the room. Through the walls. Across the planet. Into space. The distance stretched him thin. His hands tingled. His chest ached.
Then it was gone and he couldn't think the body too small for what had just passed through it.
He layed still.
He looked down.
Black scales on arms that weren't his arms. A tail curled against the bed. Claws for fingers. The weight of it pressed down on him like wearing someone else's skin.
His body started changing.
The tail retracted. Smooth. Like a muscle moving backward. Scales smoothed into skin. Limbs shortened, bones grinding as they reshaped.
When it stopped, Jordan had hands. A human body.
Maybe five years old.
He stared at his palms. The skin smooth. No calluses. No scars. Like they'd never done anything.
The door burst open.
A woman with a tray of towels. Her eyes went wide. The tray hit the floor with a crash that made him flinch.
She covered her mouth, turned, and ran.
"THE PRINCE IS AWAKE!" Her voice echoed down the hall. "THE PRINCE IS AWAKE!"
Jordan sat frozen.
That's one way to greet a person
He heard heavy footsteps. Two figures in the doorway.
The woman was tall. Dark hair. Golden eyes that caught the light like metal. One hand pressed to her mouth, tears streaming.
The man beside her was broader. Horns curved back from his temples. Tears in his eyes, but his face stayed steady.
Jordan stared.
The man stepped forward.
"Welcome to the world of the living, Kaos."