Chapter 1: Welcome to Hell

Transmigrating was supposed to be a cosmic upgrade. Instead, I woke up on death row. The air stank of mildew and old sweat, thick enough to taste. Others get swept into new lives with fanfare, but I landed here—just another pale, half-starved inmate in an orange jumpsuit, waiting for the axe to fall after the autumn verdict.

Dinner meant a sour bologna sandwich and stale powdered mashed potatoes, if I was lucky and the bread wasn’t green. Straw for a bed. For forty-nine days, I endured darkness and loneliness, rats and cockroaches scraping the plastic prison tray for crumbs, the buzz of fluorescent lights that flickered overhead. The isolation nearly drove me out of my mind.

On the fiftieth day, a couple of guards dragged in a man covered in blood.

I was so excited—like a kid finally getting a roommate at summer camp—I started circling him in giddy relief. I probably looked manic, but after weeks alone, I would've welcomed a talking cockroach.

"Hey man, where you from? Wanna talk for a bit?"

The metallic clang of the bars, the stale, recycled air of the place, and my own voice echoing off the concrete made it feel even more surreal. For a split second, it was almost as if I'd been handed a second chance—just in the form of someone else's misery. The cell felt less haunted, less like a tomb. If I closed my eyes, I could almost imagine we were just two misfits stuck in detention after school, waiting for the bell. For a second, I could almost forget the stink of fear and the sound of my own teeth grinding at night.