A pain—sharp and sudden—splinters through my head. The conversation I just had feels like a dream. Or... a memory.
"Hey, you gonna buy something, or just stand there?"
The voice is rough but calm. A tall, dark-skinned man with braids stands behind the counter. His features are soft, aged by time, not anger.
"Uh, no—sorry. I'll be leaving."
Wait. What? That's not what happened.
Flashes strike through my mind—me screaming at him, cussing him out like a maniac. I was ripping into him just a second ago.
Then the smell, like burnt wood thats been smoldering for an hour. I look to my feet.
A fog , thick and unnatural, swallowing everything. Creeping up my legs and around my body.
"What the fuck? What's going on?"
"Hey look over here." A feminine voice yells to me
I turn—and freeze.
A figure stands before me. Towering. Golden. Blinding. Not just tall—inhumanly tall, like a statue pulled from the heavens and given breath.
"Dante," the being says, "you've been blessed. Not that you deserve it. But alas, you have."
"Oh, really? About time I get some recognition. I wake up in some fantasy-ass land, nobody gives me any help, and when I get mad about it, suddenly I'm the ba—"
"I'm going to cut you off there."
His voice slices cleanly through mine.
"You've been given an ability. It's called Do-Over. Under certain circumstances—ones I won't explain—you'll get a second chance. A rewind. A do-over."
I blink. "That's it?"
"Do with it what you will." He turns, already fading. "Bye bye."
And just like that, the fog begins to dissolve.