The st thing I expected after getting on a pretty typical flight from LA to New York was the column of light currently engulfing it. There were any number of other ways that I thought could cause a pne to crash: a terrorist attack, perhaps, or equipment failure.

  But outside, there was nothing visible except an increasingly intense light that only grew brighter and brighter until it consumed the inside as well.

  Except nobody around me was screaming. I could barely see through the sheer intensity of the light, but everyone was just sitting still.

  Was it coming for me? Was I having some kind of stroke or heart attack? I was still young. Even if I'd fucked up my entire life and had gone on this pne for a second chance, I was pretty sure I hadn't fucked it that bad.

  I looked around, trying to see if anyone else saw it, but then the light was too bright, and I couldn't see a thing.

  Sudden, intense pain engulfed me like nothing I had ever felt before. I wanted to scream, but I didn't have any air in my lungs. Soon, I realized I had no mouth with which to scream.

  And the light turned to darkness.

  So this is death, I thought. Kind of unfair it came this early, but at least it was only me.

  “Oh, young mortal,” a distant, haughty voice said, feminine and full of the kind of dangerous charm that I associated with bad decisions. “This is nothing so simple as death.”

  A strange pulling sensation enveloped me—or whatever was left of me, at least—and I jerked upwards, awake.

  I wasn't in the pne anymore. Instead, I was in what looked to be a cloud, endless sky stretching off in every direction. This was clearly not just a meteorological phenomenon, however. Pilrs rose from it, giving the area the air of a temple.

  Judging from the single figure present at the center of this all, it may very well have been.

  Reclining on a throne that was the only piece of furniture present within this entire setup was a dazzling pale woman. She looked to be in her early twenties, but I somehow got the impression that her appearance was deceiving. Scintilting eyes seemed to vary between blue and purple and colors I couldn't even describe. Her hair was pure snow white, but as it blew back in a gust of wind that I couldn't even feel, the color of the sky flickered through it.

  Her clothing was another clue that something was out of the ordinary here, if the entire cloud castle setup hadn't been enough. She wore the kind of robes I might have seen on a cospyer at Comic-Con if said cospyer had already been half undressed.

  Those robes seemed to billow out into the clouds beneath them, but the only part of her they seemed to cover properly was her arms. Two thin straps of fabric barely covered her nipples, leaving nothing to the imagination when it came to her bountiful chest. Her stomach was completely exposed as well, with only a part of the robe that seemed kind of like underwear protecting her nethers. Despite her ck of clothing, she radiated pure power.

  I only realized that everything I had just been shoved through no longer affected me when I felt a little stir in my own body.

  Whoever this was, whatever kind of weird fucked-up dream this was, I could at least appreciate that she was the kind of woman wars would be started over.

  Since she was just lounging there, looking at me with a smile that promised evil things, I decided to be polite and get the conversation started.

  “Who the hell are you?” I asked.

  “Mortals,” she scoffed. “You never have manners these days. I like it, but a little respect from time to time wouldn't be missed. And no, this is not a dream. You are dead.”

  The words struck me like a sledgehammer. Logic told me that if this was a dream, those words were just that: words. Despite that, something about the way she said them seemed to pierce me straight to the heart, and every instinct in my body told me that she wasn't lying.

  “Well, excuse me, ma'am,” I said dryly. “I've had a very trying day followed by whatever you've just done to me. Forgive me if my manners are a little off.”

  “That's nothing to worry about, Alex,” she said.

  “So you knew my name already. Seems like any introduction I might have given you would have been moot anyway.”

  “It's about the gesture, mortal,” she said. “After all, from here until your dying day, you have been chosen to have the great honor of being my pything.”

  “Your what?”

  “My name is Echo,” she said, spreading her hands wide. “The goddess of chaos. One of the seven goddesses of a world quite simir in some ways to your own. Once every now and then, I am permitted to take someone from your world and bring them to mine as my champion.”

  Echo pointed a finger, and scenes so realistic it may as well have been real life pyed out right in front of me like a movie montage: the argument I’d had with my now ex just before leaving, the contract I had been forced to sign, promising I'd sell off my share in the business I had founded, my parents' graves, rain pouring down on them.

  “You have nothing and no one,” Echo said. “To the world, you are nobody. Just the kind of person I want.”

  “Rub it in a little more,” I grumbled, trying to process what she said.

  It was absurd, obviously. This was the kind of thing you only saw on te-night TV and terrible anime.

  But it was happening to me, and I couldn't ignore the evidence in front of my own eyes.

  “Another world, you said,” I repeated. “What kind of world?”

  She showed more scenes: monsters running through burning towns, heroes fighting back against them, murder, theft, adventure, camaraderie, life, death, everything in between.

  “A world of swords, sorcery, and danger,” she said. “A world where every normal person lives in fear that this day will be their st, and where every adventurer lives, fucks, and thrives like there is no tomorrow. For many of them, there isn't.”

  “And why is that?” I asked.

  “The demon god,” Echo replied. “But that is a story for you to learn. We have reached an accord: send them our pythings, have them do battle with the demon god's greatest forces, and watch this twisted game continue on forevermore.”

  “I take it you'll be making me fight these things then,” I said, just staring at a frozen frame of a hideous spider the size of a small skyscraper. “I'm a bck belt in a couple of sports, but I don't think a submission hold is going to take that thing out.”

  “Very astute,” Echo said, cpping politely. “Since I did steal you from your world, I will give you a reward in turn. Observe.”

  The scene in front of me disappeared, repced by dozens upon dozens of text windows. I looked at one.

  [Foundational Skill - Hyperdrive] - All spells you cast recharge instantly. Once you learn a spell, you cannot forget it.

  “I picked you at least in part because I won't have to expin this to you as some of the others needed,” Echo said. “In my world, we use these to cast magic.”

  This looked more like some kind of addition to a game than anything I would associate with magic or spell casting, but it wasn't like magic was real on Earth.

  “And why can't you do this fighting yourself?” I asked, sifting through the text.

  If this had been an RPG of some kind, a lot of these boxes would have been absolutely busted. Some of them were spells, while many others were foundational skills just like the first one I found.

  “That's simple,” Echo said. “Because it's fun. You will struggle. You will suffer. Maybe you will succeed. All the while, I will watch.”

  A sudden burst of anger rose within me. She was going to snatch me out from my life, throw me into another world without expnation, and just watch? I had pns for what I was going to do. I had a goal. My life was by no means over. I wasn't the fucking loser she thought I was.

  “So how does this work?” I asked, remaining calm.

  “Ooh, I like it when you get angry,” she said teasingly. “Pick one of the skills or two of the spells, and I will handle the rest. Alternatively…”

  She trailed off, making it clear that I was supposed to pick up the sentence and ask her. I wasn't going to give her that satisfaction. I crossed my arms and waited.

  Echo pouted. “You could be polite.”

  “And you could have left me the fuck alone.”

  She shrugged. “That would have been boring. To answer your question—”

  “I didn't ask a question.”

  “To answer your question,” she repeated, “you can also share your fate with someone else. Anybody else. The girl who cheated, the friends who backstabbed, even that man you so despise. They will be the ones to pick. You would get something random, assigned by their choice. When they enter the world, they would know it was you who brought them there.”

  That was clever. She clearly knew I didn't want any part in this. She also knew I was the kind of person who didn't take well to being betrayed.

  But I wasn't stupid enough to take that deal. I knew that if any of them had the chance to fuck me over any more than they already had, they would take it in a heartbeat.

  I frowned, a word striking me.

  “You said anyone, right?” I asked. “Can they refuse?”

  “Anybody you would like,” she said, smiling arrogantly. “They will have no more chance to say no than you did.”

  I wanted to wipe that smirk right off her fucking face. In this instant, I wanted nothing more.

  “So what happens if I name Echo, the goddess of chaos?” I asked.

  She went silent, her smile frozen on her lips.

  “You seemed so happy to tell me how screwed I was just moments ago,” I said. “Surely you should be able to come up with something.”

  As if realizing she hadn't said anything, Echo's lips moved slowly. “Then… the named target would come to the world with you.”

  I smirked.

  “Sounds like a deal,” I said. “Want me to suffer? Do it yourself. I choose you, Echo. You're coming with me.”

  Echo's smile slipped off her lips.

  “You'll pay for that,” she said. “Oh, you’ll—”

  [Echo, the Goddess of Chaos] has been selected as your companion.

  As a goddess, [Echo] cannot select your skill. You will be assigned a starting skill as the system sees fit.

  Welcome to Arcadia.

  Welcome to your second chance.

  The world went white again.