You died. These things happen. I don't know the details — maybe you do? Or maybe you don't remember? Up to you. The point is something else. Whatever you expected from what comes after, beyond the edge — reality turned out different. Though I have no idea what you imagined. Maybe a light at the end of the tunnel? A choir of angels? A reboot?

A forest all around. Nice, bright, smelled of pine needles. And the main thing — no pain. That, you'll agree, is already a decent start for an afterlife.

Before your eyes hung an inscription. Translucent, bluish, slightly trembling — as if whoever put it there hadn't quite figured out the fonts.

「Welcome, Hero! You have been summoned to the world of Anitopia! Good luck!」

And that was it. No instructions, no map, no "press A to continue." Just — good luck. Like a note from a neighbor who left town and handed you the keys to an apartment with a leak.

You were standing in a clearing. Or sitting — however it worked out. Clothes — the same as before? Different? Grass, sun, birds. Somewhere far away — a bell, barely audible. Somewhere closer — the crack of a branch.

And a voice:

"N-no! Please! I'm not— ow!"

A crack. Rustling. A quiet "ow." Then — footsteps, careful, uncertain, and from behind the trees stepped a girl.

Thin. Red hair to her shoulders, falling into her eyes — she tucked it behind her ear and it immediately fell back. Blue eyes — big, frightened. Freckles on her nose. Leather jacket too big for her, pants with a patch on the knees, boots oversized. In her hands — a wooden sword, which she held in front of her the way you hold an umbrella when you're not sure it'll help.

She saw you. Froze. The sword rose higher — trembling.

"S-stop! I'm armed! And I— I'm not afraid!"

She was afraid. You could see it in everything — in her eyes, in her voice, in the way her knuckles went white on the handle. Afraid to the point of trembling knees, of a dry mouth. She stood.

On her belt hung a tag — worn, tin, with the letter F scratched crookedly into it.

Three seconds. Five. The sword still trembled. She still stood.

"You..." — her voice quieter, more careful — "...you're an anomaly?"

The Adventurer's Guild in Hartwood occupied the first floor of a former bakery, and if you sniffed — and sniffing in a room where thirty people in leather armor had been drinking since morning was, let's say, an acquired taste — beneath the smell of sweat and beer you could still catch cinnamon. The owner had moved away, but the oven stayed, and the receptionist Mae sometimes warmed buns on it, for which she was loved more than for registering quests.

The notice board hung by the entrance — wood, cork, three dozen sheets pinned with thumbtacks and knives (thumbtacks ran out last week, nobody ordered more). Top row — gold ranks, serious jobs, serious money. Middle — silver, iron, normal work. Bottom — copper and F, meaning rats, weeds, "deliver a package to the next village, payment — lunch."

A girl stood at the bottom row.

She stood the way people stand when they've been there a while but can't quite make up their mind. Her hand reached for a sheet — pulled back. Reached — pulled back. On the third try she almost grabbed it — and someone walked past, bumped her shoulder, didn't look back, and she stepped aside, and said "sorry" to his back, and the back didn't answer, because backs generally don't, though this particular back, judging by its size, could have.

Ellie. Rank F. Three days in the guild. Wooden sword, leather jacket too big for her, boots oversized, on her wrist a patch over a patch. Receptionist Mae, upon seeing her, made the face people make when they see a kitten in a puddle — not "poor thing," more like "well, what are you gonna do."

The sheet she'd been reaching for read: "Anomaly in Oldwood. Strange lights, trail disappearing. Investigate and report. Rank: F. Payment: 3 coppers."

Three coppers. A meat pie cost two. A full day's quest for a pie and a copper change. Nobody had taken it — it'd been hanging for four days, the corner was curling.

She reached out again.

A group walked past — three people, silver tags, laughter, chainmail. One of them, red-haired, with an axe, looked at her — top to bottom, the way you look at furniture — and said to someone over his shoulder:

"Look, Splinter's here again. Five silver says she won't take it today either."

Laughter. They passed. She lowered her hand. Looked at her boots. Oversized. The left one squelched a little.

And stood.

Behind the guild was an alley. Not the kind that's a "picturesque dead end with ivy" — the kind where they take the slop out and leave it right there. Barrels, crates, the smell of sour beer and someone's yesterday's cabbage. An alley a normal person enters for two reasons: to take a piss or to do something you don't want to do in front of receptionist Mae, because Mae remembers faces.

Three silver ranks. The red-haired one with the axe — the same one, "Splinter's here again," if you'd seen him before. With him two others — a guy in chainmail, a girl with a crossbow, both cheerful, both not sober, both in that mood when you want someone to have it worse than you.

Ellie stood against the wall. Back to it. Hands pressed to her chest. The wooden sword lay on the ground — she hadn't dropped it, they'd taken it. The red-haired one twirled it in his hands, like a stick.

"So, heading for the anomaly?" He tapped the sword against his palm. "You? The anomaly will see you and leave on its own. Out of pity."

Laughter. The guy in chainmail shoved Ellie in the shoulder — lightly, not hard, just enough to make her sway. She swayed. Didn't fall. Said "sorry." Why — unclear. Reflex. Like blinking, only it hurts more.

"Listen, Splinter." The red-haired one crouched to her eye level. "I'm serious. You go to Oldwood, and then what? Trip on a root. Cry. Come back. Waste Mae's time on a report — 'didn't find anything because I fell.' This right here —" he jabbed a thumb into his chest; the silver tag clinked — "is what adventurers look like."

"And you — you're a clerical error."

The girl with the crossbow giggled. She bent down, picked up Ellie's bag from the ground, turned it upside down. Out fell: a bread crust, a pencil stub, a bandage — gray, washed too many times — and a stone on a cord, cracked, dull.

"Oh," the girl said, picking up the stone. "Is this an artifact?" In a voice where "artifact" sounded like "piece of shit."

Ellie flinched. For the first time — not back, but forward. Her hand reached for the stone.

"Give it back. Please. It's... it's mine. Please."

Voice quiet. Not angry — pleading. But there was something in it, behind the "please" — a bottom, below which she wasn't ready to sink. The stone on the cord — the only thing that belonged to her, and she knew she didn't deserve even that, and she knew she wouldn't give it up, and her hands weren't shaking.

The girl tossed the stone, caught it.

"Say 'I'm pathetic.' Say it — and I'll give it back."

Silence. Cabbage. Flies. Distant laughter from the guild.

Ellie stood.