My name is Sophia. In the human world, I was the kind of nurse you didn’t call unless someone was actively trying to die.

Trauma/ICU.

The one they yanked off break because, “Valac, you’re fast—get in here.”

The one who could look at a patient’s skin color and know they were about to crash before the monitor decided to admit it.

People called that talent “gifted.”

I called it having no social life.

New York didn’t care if you were tired.

It didn’t care if your hands shook from too much caffeine and not enough sleep. The city just kept spitting emergencies at you like a machine with a grudge.

Tonight, though?

Tonight was light work.

No code blue. No chest cracked open on a gurney. No blood on my shoes that I wouldn’t notice until I got home and realized I’d been walking around with someone else’s life on my laces.

I clocked out and stepped into Inwood’s cold, damp night feeling almost… normal.

Almost.

My phone buzzed as I walked.

Not hospital buzz.

A manga update.

Calamity Princess: Black-Star Bride — Chapter 118.

My chest did that stupid little warm thing it only ever did for fictional characters and ramen.

“Finally,” I muttered, scrolling as I walked. “Okay—okay—this is the one. This is where she fights him.”

Because tonight, the story was at the part I’d been waiting for.

The Calamity Princess—the demon royal everyone called a disaster wearing a crown—was supposed to clash with the manga’s golden boy:

Scorin, the Holy Dragonite.

And I was mad.

Like, genuinely mad.

“Why did they make you go to the Holy Kingdom?” I hissed under my breath, like Scorin could hear me through the screen. “Why did your dad have to die? Grr—whatever. The fight’s gonna be crazy.”

I was one block from my building.

One block.

I shoved my phone into my pocket and started digging for my keys, already thinking:

Shower. Bed. Chapter 118. Eight hours of peace.

Then someone stepped in front of me.

Black hoodie.

Head low.

Face mostly hidden.

Only his mouth showed.

And then I heard it.

CLICK.

My body locked before my brain caught up.

“Don’t make me ask,” he said.

Not loud.

Not yelling.

That made it worse.

I raised my hands slowly.

“Alright,” I said, forcing calm into my voice. “Relax. I got you.”

My brain flipped into ICU mode.

Calm voice.

Slow movement.

No sudden reach.

Survive first.

I reached into my bag carefully.

Wallet.

Keys.

Phone charger.

Then my fingers brushed my phone.

Black case.

The robber flinched.

“Wait—what you doing?”

My stomach dropped.

“No—it's not—I'm just—”

“Don’t do that,” he snapped, gun twitching.

“I’m not,” I said quickly. “I’m just getting my wallet—”

“Nah.”

His voice cracked.

“Nah—nah—just give me everything—”

BANG.

The first shot stole my breath.

BANG.

The second folded my knees.

BANG.

The third turned the world sideways.

I didn’t even feel it right.

Just heat.

Then nothing where air used to be.

My keys slipped from my hand and hit the sidewalk with a tiny, pathetic jingle.

I hit the ground.

And suddenly, I was looking at my own blood like it belonged to someone else.

The robber didn’t even look at me again.

He grabbed my bag and ran.

The robber didn’t make it far.

Not because I stopped him.

Not because anyone saved me in time.

Because New York finally noticed after it was already too late.

Someone screamed.

A door slammed open.

Footsteps scattered across the sidewalk.

“Yo—he shot her!”

“Call 911!”

The robber ran with my bag clutched against his chest like it was worth more than the life he’d just dropped behind him.

Then blue and red light washed over the street.

Cops flooded the block like the city finally remembered it had teeth.

Someone tackled him near the corner.

My bag hit the pavement.

My phone skidded out.

The screen lit up one last time, bright and cruel:

Run Away With Me.

And I just… stood there.

Watching.

Not breathing.

Not blinking.

Because I didn’t have lungs anymore.

A fog rolled in.

Not real fog.

Something thicker. Something like smoke made of night. It swallowed the street. Swallowed the sirens. Swallowed the whole world.

Until there was nothing but endless dark mist under my feet and above my head.

A place with no horizon.

A place that felt like being inside someone else’s dream.

Then someone spoke behind me.

Soft.

Almost amused.

“It’s sad,” a woman said, “seeing you go like that.”

I turned.

And my brain didn’t have words. Beautiful wasn’t even the right category.

She looked like a painting that didn’t belong in reality—skin too perfect, eyes too old, and a calmness that made the mist around her behave like it was afraid to touch her.

“W-who are you?” I asked.

My voice sounded wrong here.

Thin.

Echoing.

Like it was being borrowed.

She smiled gently, like she’d been expecting that question.

“I was… observing,” she said. “Your modern world. Your human world.”

I swallowed out of habit.

Ghosts probably didn’t need to.

“I just died,” I whispered, the fact landing like a brick. “What… what happens now?”

The woman stepped closer.

Not threatening.

Just inevitable.

“I saw how hard you worked,” she said. “How you carried suffering like it was your duty.”

Her gaze flicked toward the mist, like she was looking through it.

“I will make you a deal.”

A deal. Of course, it was a deal. Even death had paperwork. She lifted one finger. A dark flare struck my chest.

Not pain.

A shock of cold, like winter sliding into my bones.

I stumbled back.

“What—what did you do?!”

She didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, she waved her hand, and a window formed in the air.

Smoke shaped into glass.

Inside it…

I saw my body.

In the hospital.

On a gurney under fluorescent light.

Doctors moving.

Nurses shouting.

A monitor screaming.

CPR.

Defib.

Hands on my chest, pressing like they could force life back into me.

Then someone stepped back, jaw tight.

And I saw it.

The moment the room accepted it.

No sign of life.

No return.

They covered my face.

I made a sound that wasn’t quite a sob.

All that work. All that skill. All those nights.

And I still went out like a mistake on the sidewalk.

Tears slid down my face before I could stop them.

I hated that.

I hated crying in front of anyone.

Especially in front of something that looked like a goddess.

The woman blinked—and suddenly, she was right in front of me.

Too close for comfort.

She reached up and wiped my tears with her thumb like I was a child.

“Don’t worry,” she said softly. “You will be reborn.”

I froze.

“Reborn?”

“Yes,” she said. “With your knowledge intact.”

My heart tried to leap like I still had one.

“In… another world?” I whispered.

Her smile deepened.

“You will become a miracle.”

My brain lit up like a nerd at a convention.

“A miracle like—like magic? Heroes? Dungeons? Like—”

“Magic,” she said, cutting me off cleanly.

Then her eyes sharpened.

“And as for heroes… heroes in that world are being used.”

“Used?”

“They are summoned,” she said, voice smooth and cold, “and fed lies to keep power where humans want it.”

She tilted her head, like she was studying my reaction.

“I love my demons,” she added casually.

I blinked.

“Your… demons?”

Something shifted behind her.

A shadow moved like it had a spine.

And then her horns showed.

Elegant and curved, rising from her hair like crowns grown out of bone.

A tail unfurled behind her with a slow, lazy whip.

I stared.

My mouth opened.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me,” I breathed.

She smiled like she’d been waiting for me to catch up.

“Figured it out already?” she asked.

“Y-you’re—” I choked. “You’re the evil one.”

Her eyes warmed, ember-bright.

“Evil,” she repeated, amused. “That is a human word.”

Then the mist behind her peeled open like a door.

Darkness folded back on itself.

A passage.

A throat.

A world waiting.

“Come,” she said.

My spirit trembled.

“Wait,” I whispered. “Am I… am I going to be a demon?”

Her tail flicked once.

“You’ll survive,” she said. “And you’ll be precious.”

Precious.