TW: story contains sa, abuse and dark tropes such as suicide, depression, Stockholm syndrome and other assorted adult themes 

Read at your own discretion.

—-

The air in this apartment is warm and toasty, but cloaked in a cold, depraved loneliness. In the rocking chair sat Anais, deep brown eyes looking between the cracks of the dingy, old blinds. Her eyes seemed to shake, as if her thoughts were about to burst. 

"It's the same shit as always.. wake up, work, sleep, work. Maybe I'll eat if I remember.. it's so quiet in this house, I should hear running. Why don't I hear running? Because the kids are gone.. it's my fault. I should die. It's deserved. I deserved it. I'm not a good mother. Why can't I do anything right? Why does nobody help me? Maybe I am really that bad.. maybe I don't deserve to live. Maybe, my families burden will lessen. No more eyes staring at me.. no more.. please no more"   

Staring at the endless medicine bottles, Anais suddenly had a thought.. 

'I usually saved medications I didn't need anymore to give to those who don't have insurance or to save for emergencies..' 

With a loud and dry laugh, ransacking through the drawers, she found the pain medication from her past surgery. 

Anais sat in her room, a white paper blazing between her lips.

'One last celebratory smoke, huh. Guess I'm celebrating finally making a choice. I didn't have a choice to be born, might as well make the choice to leave.'

'Most people think that those who want to die struggle.. but for me this is the easiest choice ever.'

Anais smiled, eyes crinkling, with her tear mark appearing from under her heavy lids. All she could think of as her breathing stilled, was how her normally toffee colored skin turned translucent, and she stared in a daze at her veins until everything went black. 

—-

I'm falling.. it's so dark. But I'm not scared. Its so warm, as if I'm floating on top of heated clouds. This is the afterlife? This is fine.. totally fine. 

*beep*

System 0915 reporting. Human, you are not in the afterlife. I've come with a proposition for you..

The chatter of a monotonous but lazy voice reached into her very being..

"Fuck, no. Whatever it is you can take it and shove it up your fucking ass, do you hear me? All the suffering I went though and here you come, rudely interrupting my warm nothingness.. go back to your matrix or whatever!!" 

Anais screamed at the top of her lungs, cheeks becoming splotchy with red at the sudden burst of anger.

*beep* no need to scream. You can think in your head and it will reach me.

'I deny your proposition.. goodbye'

*beep* Really? Even if you could start all over, going back to before, starting your world over. Game reset.

Ears perked up, Anais sniffed with her arms crossed. 'I'm listening..'

*beep* As a system part of the worlds management branch, we are looking for talented individuals to take the challenge of the lifetime..

"Yeah yeah, shut up with your door to door sales pitch.. get to the point" Anais screamed, once again, only to be met with silence.

*beep* ...

*beep* System 0915 reporting. We need you to travel to other worlds and set the timeline straight.. there seems to be some problems and distortions in space, the worlds will end and collapse forever. Your job is to enter each world and play the role given to you, changing the ill fate of the worlds and people, earning Karma. Once you accumulate a certain amount of Karma, you can return to your world with a new start. 

The sound of the system's notification reverberated in the silence, becoming a whirlpool, shaking my mind to the core..

'If I do this, I can go back? And hold them? Kiss them?'

*beep* you can.

45 minutes passed in silence.. Anais wiped her tears, finally straightening her shoulders and walking forward.

'I accept..'

Before the sentence even ended, everything faded to white...

*beep* welcome to the first world