In the dream, he saw the sun rise in the east.
With it, the sky began to shed its darkness, replacing it with a sapient hue. There were no stars now—perhaps a few lingered alongside the fading moon.
Then, his surroundings emerged. Unfamiliar terrain: mountains on the horizon, wide plains, rocky hills, a river flowing without care for the world, and birds chirping in the distance.
From his vantage atop the highest ground, overseeing the land below, it all seemed... meaningless.
And then—something happened.
A turbulence stirred on the horizon. The ground trembled beneath his feet, as though the very earth threatened to split open.
He stood firm, eyes narrowing, breath caught in his chest. Something vast began to enter his view.
A great plume of dust erupted into the sky.
From the right flank, formation upon formation emerged—ranked soldiers in perfect alignment, shoulder to shoulder, a tide of men advancing in unison.
Banners soared above them, bold and crimson, each emblazoned with intricate emblems and sacred icons.
At the center, a massive platform was being wheeled forward. Upon it stood a radiant religious symbol—its gleam catching the light, casting a holy aura across the battlefield.
To the left, a similar scene unfolded—but unlike the disciplined formations on the right, these armies were a patchwork of factions.
Each battalion bore its own banner, adorned with unique insignias. Their armor, their standards, their colors—none matched. Yet they stretched endlessly across the plains.
Even from this distance, he could tell—the left army outnumbered the right twofold, perhaps three.
And yet, the disparity stirred no fear in him. If anything, his pulse quickened, his heartbeat thundering like a war drum.
Excitement.
"And so begins the greatest battle of the age. The fate of all present shall be sealed here and now."
The voice was raspy, aged—coming from behind him.
An elderly man, hunched and cloaked in white, approached slowly. His face was a map of deep wrinkles, his frame frail, more bone than flesh. The cane he leaned on barely supported him, but it served its purpose.
"The fate of the Empire… what shall it be?"
Another voice followed—deep, gravelly.
A tall man stepped forward, his body marked with old scars, his presence imposing.
"The final battle of the millennium," he said solemnly.
"Who will emerge victorious from this centuries-long struggle?"
A third figure spoke—his features darker, his bearing regal, more refined than the others.
Seeing them beside him, the man on the hill smiled faintly. But his voice carried quiet sorrow as his gaze returned to the battlefield below.
"I wish Father could have seen this…"
He paused.
"What would he think of it?"
The breath below abated. The heavens above stood still. And between them—pure anticipation.
Was it the end of the beginning?
Or the beginning of the end?
Finally, the blaring of horns from both side shook the entire battlefield.
---
[2023 AD — West Side Manhattan, New York]
"Peace, No War! Peace, No War!"
It wasn't the alarm that woke John from his slumber, but the shouting down in the street.
"Here we go again…"
He grumbled.
Sunlight stabbed through the window. Eyes half-open, John squinted into the blinding streaks of morning. Though nestled several stories above ground, the noise still found its way in.
Such was the state of the city—no goddamn peace at all.
Protests were routine by now. But recently, they had become relentless.
Chaos spiraled out of control. The cops didn't even bother anymore. Hell, some joined in—waving signs and chanting like it was just another day off.
Maybe they didn't get their overtime pay. John didn't care. The world was burning anyway.
Wars flared across the globe. Governments collapsed like cheap scaffolding. And America—the so-called "guardian of the free world"?
Just another ruin, like the rest.
Then there was John—your everyday guy, trying to survive in a world that no longer made sense.
The protests, the chaos, the collapse—none of it was his fight.
But in a world falling apart, there's no such thing as neutrality.
His crumbling apartment had become both his shelter and his prison—a self-imposed exile from a world he was too tired to care about.
For all its cracks and stains, the place had been enough. Or so he thought.
"Goddamn protesters,"
He muttered, rubbing his temples as the pounding in his skull rivaled the noise outside.
Even the air felt heavier now, like the atmosphere itself was tired of holding this mess together.
Another fucking day.
His usual grumblings. Each and every morning.
Months had crawled by since his layoff—another casualty of a dying economy.
The city was broke. The nation was broke. And John? He was absolutely broke.
Losing your job here wasn't a setback—it was a death sentence. And he'd already received his.
He watched his life tumble down the stairs of fate, step by step, until he arrived exactly where he began.
"Let the whole thing burn."
No anger in his voice—just derision. Hollow and resigned.
Inside this place he called home, nothing spoke of his present or future. Only the past remained.
Dust-coated bookshelves untouched for years. Cobwebs curled in corners. A framed college degree, its glass cracked, but still standing.
He couldn't throw it out. It was proof—proof that once, he believed hard work meant something.
What a goddamn joke.
Lingering no longer, he rose from the creaking mattress, walked into the tiny bathroom, turned on the tap, and splashed water on his face.
Above the sink, a mirror marred with cracks. He avoided looking into it.
But his reflection found him anyway.
Hollow eyes. Deep shadows. Hair like a bird's nest long abandoned.
What a beggar looked back at him—a divine comedy made flesh.
And he wasn't laughing.
"Peace, No War!"
Let that phrase sink in.
Irony at its finest.
Peace? Hell, forget piss—even freedom was a swear word now.
In this world, noble words were as common as toilet paper—used to wipe off filth, thrown away, and never replaced.
After a rinse that did nothing to lift the exhaustion, John wandered into the kitchen—or what passed for one.
Grease-stained utensils, crusty dishes, and crumbs from forgotten meals cluttered the space.
He opened the fridge without hope.
One stale piece of bread.
He choked it down with a glass of rusty-tasting water. His stomach growled, but he ignored it.
Hunger was the only constant companion left in the end times.
He slumped into his chair, booting up his computer.
When the home screen flickered to life, muscle memory took over. John immediately went on to seek the news from the outside world.
"GLOBAL RESOURCE CRISIS DEEPENS: UNREST IN EUROPE CONTINUES."
"GOVERNMENTS COLLAPSE AS ENERGY SHORTAGE SPREADS."
"PEACE TALKS FAIL; MILITARY CONFLICT ESCALATES IN ASIA."
Well.
Nothing appears to be out of "ordinary". There has been no tangible improvement, rather, it worsen by a lot than yesterdays.
On the bright side:
"SpaceY SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHES ROCKET TO MARS—WHAT'S NEXT FOR HUMANITY?"
John leaned back, heaved out a long and heavy sigh, wryly smirking at the somewhat 'good' headline.
"What's the point?"
It didn't take long for boredom overtook apathy, and his clicks grew more erratic—random. There are no longer any available entertainment that could've kept his attentions.
Eventually, he stumbled upon a game from a somewhat sketchy site.
It was tucked away in the corner of some obscure, half-abandoned forum.
The title was simple: "Imperium."
The tagline caught his eye: "Be the Emperor that changes the fate of a dying empire."
"That's it?" he muttered, frowning.
The description was practically nonexistent—lazy, even. But something about it tugged at his curiosity. He scrolled down further, skimming the reviews.
They were… shall we say, interesting?
"Impossible difficulty. What kind of masochist made this?"
"Glitches everywhere. Dev must've quit halfway through."
"Playing this feels like watching the world end… again."
"Fuck your mum, fuck your sister, fuck your grandmama's asshole!"
John snorted—actual laughter, bitter and sharp.
There was something oddly comforting about knowing someone else was this pissed off about something.
"A broken game for a broken world. Perfect."
Without thinking, he clicked download.
The site screamed "virus farm," but John didn't care. No job, no money—piracy was the closest thing he had to entertainment.
The download bar crawled slowly forward. He stared at the screen, his chin propped between clasped hands.
Ninety-five percent.
Ninety-eight.
Ninety-nine.
And then—
CRASH.
A shattering noise split the fragile silence, sending him bolt upright. His heart pounded as he spun around, searching the room for the source.
"What the—?!"
Before he could even process it—
BOOM.
An explosion shattered the room.
Not sound, not fire—something deeper. A rupture in the very skin of the world, reality torn open like rotten cloth. He was flung backward, helpless, a ragdoll hurled into the unknown.
Then—nothing.
No breath, no scream. Just absence.
And into that absence, the world unraveled.
The apartment—the walls, the furniture, the miserable nest of his existence—dissolved into splinters and smoke, swallowed by a void that defied sense or geometry. The laws of physics bent, twisted, then ceased altogether.
A tear in the fabric of being.
And then—silence.
Not the silence of peace, but something older. Deeper. The kind of silence that waits.
When he opened his eyes—if these things could be called eyes—he was adrift.
There was no horizon, no gravity. Just black. An endless canvas stretched in all directions, weightless and cold. No up. No down. No stars.
He floated.
"What the hell happened?"
His lips moved. No sound came. His voice was gone—or perhaps irrelevant. Here, identity itself felt optional. His thoughts flickered like dying embers. Fragmented. Dissolving.
Confusion rose, not in panic, but like a forgotten echo. The kind of confusion that doesn't ask questions—it simply exists.
The sounds of life—sirens, shouting, the grim machinery of civilization—were gone. That old, ugly chorus of entropy and decline had been extinguished in an instant.
Now, only void.
He drifted, directionless. Thought was the only thing left, and even that came in broken shapes. His memories were ash. The explosion had not just destroyed the room—it had erased the pretense of living.
The universe had taken out the trash.
And for the first time, John felt it—his own insignificance, pure and undiluted. Not poetic. Not tragic. Just truth.
Was this death?
Purgatory? Hell? Oblivion?
He waited for pain, for torment—some divine reprimand. But there was none. No judgment. No fire. No devils with ledgers.
Just... calm.
"Rest in peace." That's what people said. He'd always scoffed at it. But now?
Maybe this was it.
He tried to laugh. Nothing. Only thought remained, spiraling inward like smoke drawn into a drain.
Strangely... he didn't mind. There was relief in it. The absence of everything was better than the weight of failure. Of being John.
He was dead. That much was clear. Whether by accident or fate didn't matter. The cause of death meant little when you'd already crossed the threshold.
If there's a God... He considered praying—not from faith, but inertia. Ritual instinct.
If you're there... just send me to hell and get it over with.
No answer.
The void didn't care. Not even enough to mock him.
So this is it.
He closed his eyes—useless, but symbolic—and drifted.
Time unraveled. Minutes, hours, centuries—irrelevant. In this place, time was a forgotten language.
Then—
A pull.
Subtle at first. Not on the body—he had none. But something deeper. A hook set in the soul, reeling him inward.
It hurt. Not pain in the flesh, but a wrenching in the core of what made him him. As if the void itself gripped his essence and squeezed.
Then—release.
But the silence had changed.
This was not emptiness. This was presence.
Ahead: a flicker. Distant, like a single star bleeding through a corpse-colored sky.
It grew brighter. Closer.
And with it—consciousness. Not his own. Something older. Watching. Waiting.
It saw him.
"Alas... a poor drifter in the dark."
The voice arrived like music in a dream—half-remembered, half-invented. It sang more than spoke, melodic and cold.
"Who... who are you?"
His words felt small. The question came not from the mouth, but the soul—raw, aching, naked.
The presence pulsed with amusement, or pity. It didn't explain itself.
"In sorrow you arrived. In confusion you drift. Death without understanding. Life without purpose. A pitiful thing."
John's rage flared—not hot, but tired.
"If you're God—or whatever the hell you are—then just do it. Smite me. Erase me. I don't care."
For once, his defiance felt pure. Honest. He wasn't bargaining. He had nothing left to bargain with.
The voice did not tremble.
"That sorrow has passed."
Its words came like wind over still water.
"A new path awaits."
John stiffened.
No. Not this. Not the setup. Not the old game of prophecy and purpose. He'd seen this story before.
"I don't trust you," he said. "Or this. Or any of it."
"You do not need to trust. Only to choose."
The void pressed in. No heat. No cold. Just that unbearable sense of being seen.
It continued.
"I offer no chains. Only the door."
John wanted to reject it, to laugh, to spit. But the words struck something. Not belief. Not hope. Just... a tremor.
"You expect me to believe this? That I'm some chosen piece in a grand design?"
"You are nothing," the voice agreed. "But you could be more."
It struck him like truth—ugly and undeniable.
"You refused to see beyond your despair," it said, quieter now. "And so, it consumed you."
He flinched.
The next words came soft as mist:
"A chance."
"To begin again. To shape a path not yet walked."
John hesitated.
"…Why?"
No answer. Just the final whisper:
"Use it well. And find... hope."
The light flared.
"Wait—!"
But the presence was gone.
Warmth wrapped around him. Not comfort. Not threat. Just inevitability.
And John?
He didn't fight it.
Fine, he thought, as the void cracked and folded.
Let's see what this 'new life' is, you cryptic bastard.
And the darkness... collapsed.
And then—
--------------
John did not know when it began—only that it had. At first, it was distant: the vague echo of a self returning.
Then, piece by piece, the fragments came—sensation, awareness, thought.
Consciousness, reassembling itself as though guided by hands older than time.
But there was something wrong.
This body—if it could be called that—moved without grace, like a marionette half-possessed. Each motion twitched with awkward delay, the kind of clumsiness born not of fear, but newness.
Am I paralyzed? The question flashed—not from fear, but analytical panic.
No. Worse. Am I an infant?
It struck him not as absurd, but terrifyingly possible. He felt his body now—soft, uncoordinated, alien.
His eyes refused to open, yet sound came. Muffled voices. Measured, reverent. The hush of people holding breath not from fear, but awe.
Then smell—an ancient sweetness, almost ceremonial.
Touch followed: the warmth of hands lifting him, delicate and sacred.
"Waaa… waaa…"
The sound startled him. It came from within, yet it wasn't speech. Not even effort—just a newborn's cry. An emperor reduced to breath and blubber.
What is this? Some joke? Some divine prank?
But beneath the absurdity was something else—significance. The air pulsed with it, heavy like incense in a closed cathedral. This moment meant something.
The voices grew clearer, rising into chorus. Language, foreign yet musical, spilled like sacred oil:
"Εὐλογητὸς ὁ Θεὸς ἡμῶν… πορφυρογέννητον… τῆς ὑπερτάτης… βασιλείας τῶν Ῥωμαίων…"
John couldn't understand it—not consciously—but the weight of it pressed into his soul. This wasn't a birth. It was a summoning.
Then came the flood of both unfamiliar and familiar entering his mind – no, tsunami would be the best description.
Names. Places. Histories not remembered but inherited. Knowledge that bypassed learning and carved itself directly into awareness.
Ioannes Dragases Palaiologos.
The name echoed like iron striking marble.
He knew—not by logic, but by law written on the fabric of his reborn being.
Born December 17, 1392. Constantinople.
Son of Manuel II, heir to the throne of Rome's last flickering flame.
A crumbling empire. A dying world.
And now, he was at its center.
The cheers faded, doors closed. He was carried from light into shadow, where only his thoughts remained. He tried to open his eyes—to see those who celebrated his birth—but nature denied him even that.
Typical. Infants see only in haze. He tried to laugh. All that emerged was a coo—soft, pathetic.
So this is how it begins.
He had read stories like this in his past life.
Reincarnations into fantasy, second chances into greatness. But here there were no dragons, no glowing swords. Just rot disguised in gold, and titles burdened with inevitability.
And yet… the voice returned to him:
"A chance to begin anew. To shape a different path."
He scoffed inwardly. Some chance. Some path.
Born again, yes—but into ruin.
The Roman Empire, bled dry, was a parchment crumbling in fire.
The Turks were rising. The West was indifferent. And within the walls, rot—political, spiritual, cultural—festered.
This wasn't opportunity. It was trial.
He clenched his newborn fists—instinctively, defiantly.
You've got to be kidding me.
The world he left behind had burned. This one smoldered. The forms were different, but the failure was familiar.
Yet even in that grim reflection, something stirred.
A whisper. Faint. Stubborn. Older than fear.
Hope.
Not hope as comfort, but hope as rebellion.
The kind that refuses extinction. The kind that builds even in ash.
He didn't know the rules of this new life. He didn't know what powers waited behind palace doors or enemy banners. But he knew one thing:
He would not repeat the same mistake.
Not in this life.
Thus began the second life of Ioannes Palaiologos—not yet emperor, not yet savior, not yet damned.
A man reborn into twilight, staring down the dusk of an empire with eyes not yet open, but spirit already awake.