It was a normal day till that incident. That peculiar brief moment the moon smiled down on us humans.

Laughter from it fell like rain on top of us, pressuring our bodies till we protested on the cold ground.

Creepily it sneered at us, watching over our world like it meant nothing.

We must’ve looked like worms being smashed by its majestic demeanour. 

Year 2300, with the world reaching its natural conclusion through the lack of resources and increased pollution and climatic issues. The scientists figured we had a few more years to live till most of the population would perish.

What no one expected was for planet Earth to suffer a complete transformation out of the box.

Thus, each and every single one of us received a message from the entity above.

‘What do you wish to become?’

Endless possibilities crossed the minds of people. Some were better than others, but most simply wanted to keep living.

That to add, a certain group wished for nothing but death, their ending, and a bunch for divine salvation.

Surely, everyone would be rewarded properly based on their choices.

I, a normal girl, often bullied by my classmates for being poor, made a simple but rather unique choice.

“I wish to become...”

And my consciousness faded along with everyone else. I didn’t know then what all this truly meant. The fear within me only pushed me forward to go through this hurdle.

It had felt no different from the trials my classmates made me undergo.

Perhaps I’d come to regret this decision.

Yet I knew it was unlikely for there to be a proper answer.

This entity was likely testing our will and wits. 

Perhaps it was bored and decided to play a little game with us.

Or even wanted to give humanity a second chance at living; for us to make better choices.

Each and every single one of us became something more than what we once were. 

Blue lights soared in the universe in a circular motion. 

Earth was enveloped by a rainbow beam turning everything anew.

And then, like falling stars, we fell on its surface, gaining a trace of yellow and red like falling stars melting through the atmosphere.

But we remained intact, and we withstood the fall.

Our lightful selves soon became a portion of what we desired: inferior beings and things.

Therefore, the memories of our lives persisted along with our names.

Perhaps so that we didn’t forget the bad things we did and the good ones too.

With a gigantic flash of silvery light, we felt reborn, made anew to live once more.

A few of my classmates would have called this phenomenon of isekai.

“Where am I?” The typical question shared by many left my mouth upon my senses returning: most of them, anyway.

It was pitch black, like the most nocturnal sky ever. It was as if the world had forgotten its colors or if I had become blind.

Without sight, I attempted to move, failing to do so. I didn’t feel any legs or any other parts on that note. 

There was clearly something completely wrong with all of this.

‘I must be dreaming,’ I attempted to smile in despair, yet without success. 

I could tell from my emotions that my humanity persisted, if only in that area.

‘What happened to me?’ The question many of us would ask at some point in time.

Certainly not with the same circumstances as mine.

But life had its beautiful moments, charming ones too. Just this was not one of them.

I chuckled in my mind, disbelieving whatever was going on.

‘Can someone help me?’ With the passage of time being so brief, asking for assistance came next. When in trouble, that’s the one thing powerless human beings could attempt to do.

Every time I got bullied, screaming had been one of my talents. It had saved me plenty of times.

‘Help me!’ A loud shout rebounded from my mind. Sadly, it didn’t seem like anyone heard it, or if they did, they had chosen to ignore my pleas.

I imagined myself shaking my head to the sides in a planned attempt to regain some hope.

But as time passed, despair only grew larger within me, occupying my heart, making it its territory.

Despite being used to suffering, this was something new.

A unique experience that I didn’t wish for anyone to go through.

Figured a second chance should have been better than this.

Thus, I begged the entity that had made me go through this to do something about what was happening to me.

When all hope seemed to be lost, an interference seeped into my mind.

‘Welcome everyone to planet Earth.’

I imagined myself raising my eyebrow with confusion splattered across my face.

‘If I’m back, then why...’ my logical thought ceased, interrupted by more information that captivated my curiosity with each formed word.

‘Everyone has received a gift for accepting to move into this new domain.’

I believed myself to have smiled at those words. Hypocrisy perhaps, since it forced us to accept its demands without giving us an alternative. If it had, I didn’t know of it.

But at this point, there were few expectations within me other than gaining the ability to see.

Darkness was not quite a friend I was fond of.

‘Every living being may now choose a single item to take with them for their journey.’

Suspicion struck me like a sharp arrow right in my forehead. As if the center of it was a red dot worth max value points of about fifty I believed.

Something was amiss. Could it be a bug? My smartphone and computer sometimes had these annoying errors. Was the loss of sight one of those?

But to my surprise, I felt myself getting held. Picked up, to be precise.

‘These objects, items, are very special. They will grow with whoever makes a pact with them.’

Now the voice was clearly out of its mind. What was this? Some sort of second-rated cult? Did it really expect me to make some sort of pact with whoever? To sell myself to some devil or the like?

‘Some of you decided to reincarnate into non-living beings.’

In those words, my rage passed away. Instead, shock and defiance took over my heart.

‘That makes no sense!’ With all my might, I protested, refusing to acknowledge what it had stated.

‘Certainly, I had not chosen to become a mere object, right?’

There had to be a justification for this error. I recollected everything that had happened just before this mistake.

‘It asked what I wanted to become...’ and as I was thinking about the answer I had given, something happened.

Golden letters with what looked to be an angel portrait on each side of the long scroll appeared in my mind.

It allowed me to perceive it and realise what it entailed: a contract. The information about the individual who proposed it to me appeared. Despite being unwilling to sign anything, I took a glance at it.

 

Name: Alice | 8 years old 

Race: Vampire | Grade: Inferior Species

Level: 0 | Exp: 0

Curses: Bloodthirsty.

Weaknesses: Water, sunlight, holy element, silver.

Innate Traits: Sharp fangs.

 

‘I refuse!’ No way in hell would I affiliate myself with some demonic creature of sorts. Especially not someone who’d want to suck my insides. Even if they had once been human.

‘Please don’t refuse me. I don’t want to be alone,’ the childish voice of a pitiful girl reached me, making my heart ache. 

People who needed help were my weakness. I too had suffered and begged for some assistance. I knew first handed how rough it was to be forgotten by others.

This girl, Alice, reminded me of myself, and that made things quite tough.

‘What am I?’ 

‘A box,’ her feeble voice directed its valiant sorrow at me, attempting to please me by being useful and giving me the answers I sought.

‘If I’m a box, then I won’t be able to move...’ the truth hurt more than what I could account for. If no one picked me, then I’d be left behind, perhaps staying away in some dark corner for eternity. Maybe turning into one of those ancient books filled with dust and spiderwebs.

‘Everyone else already left, please!’ She kept begging for my acceptance.

I had no way of knowing if she was telling the truth. But if she was, then there would be no future for me, and that scared me.

Plus, now that I knew what I was, there were no more worries about being sucked to death.

In fact, I was now more concerned about how my wish turned me into a box.

My curiosity led me astray, quickly returning with the sound of Alice sobbing.

‘Damn, I made a little kid cry,’ if I still had a hand, it would’ve been used to facepalm myself.

‘I accept Alice. Take good care of me, if you will.’

On the contract, the information changed, causing it to gain an extra line. This time it was about me: Contracted to the box.

How I wished I could hit my head on a wall just enough times to wake up from this messed-up situation.

‘Thank you, Pandora,’ her sweet, soft tone made me wary. She had called me by my name even though I hadn’t told her about it.

This could only mean she had a similar contract scroll on her side.

And from her age, people must’ve picked the items that looked better. 

In their shoes, I, too, wouldn’t have picked some random box.

But Alice had.

Even a little frail kid should have been nimble enough to grab a dagger or something more interesting. This made me curious enough to ask the reason behind her decision.

‘Why did you pick me?’

‘You look cute and tiny, like me.’

Her tone reeked of honesty. She had seen herself in me and picked me based on such a silly choice.

I felt bested by this girl: a crazy one who dared grab something so ordinary, like a box.

‘Fool,’ I thought to myself, smirking and gaining some respect for this child.

I felt myself moving, similar to those times I slept in a hammock, swinging to the sides.

It seemed like our adventure was about to start.