Julius opened his eyes to a starless sky.
His brow furrowed. His skin itched, and when he lifted his second hand to scratch it, he froze.
"Huh?"
His skin was pale—unnaturally so—and his limbs were dry and withered, as if all flesh had been sucked from the bone. Slowly, shakily, he pushed himself off the ground.
A partly-covered grave lay beside him, surrounded by weathered tombstones, some with names barely legible, others with faded flowers left in front.
"A cemetery..." The realization came slowly, coldly.
Julius staggered upright and turned toward a small building deeper within the compound. His footsteps were weak, unsteady.
"How am I even walking?" That was the first question that truly struck him.
Each breath came in short, hazy puffs. His head throbbed, and a sharp pain pulsed in his chest. But he ignored it, pushing forward on instinct alone.
He had just graduated from Limbert University. He was finally about to be employed as a professional scriptwriter. Life was starting to look up.
Then the fucking truck hit him, as if to mock his efforts of trying to make a life for himself.
Now… this.
He reached the building and peered into a long, cracked window. His breath caught in his throat.
A person who looked like a skeleton wearing skin stared back at him.
His face was gaunt, almost hollow, with pale flesh stretched over high cheekbones. His ribs protruded beneath an unbuttoned white shirt. Short white hair clung lifelessly to his scalp, and his deep violet eyes shimmered with something too knowing.
But what horrified him most was the gaping hole in his chest—right where his heart should have been.
A sudden migraine struck him like lightning and he grilled his head as he felt pain. Memories—foreign and disjointed—poured into his mind. Voices he didn't recognize. Experiences he never lived. Pain that wasn't his.
"These… these aren't my memories." He clutched his skull, long bony fingers digging into his scalp, and dropped to his knees.
The pain subsided a minute later and his breathing became steady. However, his situation was now clear to him.
His eyes snapped open. A frown formed across his cracked lips.
"I… I reincarnated." He stared at his trembling palms, then looked up at the empty heavens above.
"And into a twisted version of my own goddamn failed novel, no less." A bitter smile curved on his face.
He was never extraordinary. Just a crippled author in a wheelchair since the age of fourteen after an accident. His breakout novel was just starting to gain attraction when death found him.
And now? Now he was alive again—in the body of a corpse.
How the hell was he still breathing with a hole in his chest?
Then something clicked. A memory.
He reached into the back pocket of his shirt and pulled out a small, folded note.
[Run away from Midgard, please.]
A bird had delivered the message to him at work. He'd thought it was a prank. Then he died.
But who—or what—had sent it?
And why?
He exhaled slowly, returning to the grave he'd risen beside.
"There's not even blood..." His gaze scanned the earth.
"No one would even believe I was alive."
The world of his novel wasn't kind. It was a brutal, magical place, steeped in ancient bloodlines and secrets older than memory. What killed him clearly wasn't human.
Another sigh escaped his lips as he stared at the starless sky. This couldn't be possible—not scientifically, not logically.
"Screw logic. I'm walking with a hole in my chest."
He needed answers. Fast.
Julius climbed into the grave and pried open the coffin.
Inside lay another corpse. Younger-looking. Healthier than Julius by far. A man in his early thirties. Dead, but whole.
"Sorry," Julius murmured, lifting the man's coat. His eyes caught a strange black ring on the corpse's finger and a black book with gold-trimmed edges resting on his chest.
His breath hitched.
His frown deepened as he glanced at the book twice. Taking the coat, the ring, and the book, Julius stepped back into the cold night.
He walked in silence, passing through muddy puddles until he reached the edge of a slum. Malnourished figures shuffled through the streets, draped in rags and hollow stares. It was a place forgotten by time.
Then he spotted it—a small, overturned vehicle.
No… not a regular car. This was something else entirely.
Its brass-plated frame gleamed faintly beneath grime, its shattered windows revealing exposed gears and delicate inner clockwork. One wheel was missing; the rest clicked faintly, as if trying to turn. A tarp had been thrown over it in a makeshift attempt to shelter from the rain.
Julius climbed through the broken front window.
Inside was a miniature home: a worn blanket, an empty bottle, a small torch, a quill… and an envelope.
A pristine white envelope.
He blinked. "How did this get here?"
A wax seal kept it shut—marked with a single star.
He broke the seal and unfolded the paper inside.
[Surrender by dawn or face immediate execution.
~Warden's Sanctuary]
Julius's eyes narrowed. A chill passed down his spine.
"So they already found me." He let out a bitter chuckle.
In this world, the sorcerers are shrouded in secrecy. People awaken this magic randomly and it seemed as if he had been one of them.
He hadn't even returned home after work. Whatever this "awakening" was, the Wardens had noticed. And now they were hunting him.
The Warden Sanctuary—mysterious and merciless. They enforced their laws through threats and abominations. Anyone who defied them… vanished.
And yet... someone had tried to warn him. Told him to leave Midgard before it was too late.
Who? Why?
Too many questions.
But for now, only one mattered:
Would they send another abomination to finish the job… or something worse?
He sat back, arms folded, purple eyes burning in the dark. He had no idea what was happening to him. But he was going to find out.
He didn't get another chance at life just to have it snatched away from him.
Julius turned the black book over in his hands.
It was warm.
Unlike the cold rain outside, the leather cover radiated faint heat—like something alive was sleeping beneath the surface. Golden edges shimmered faintly, forming a series of unfamiliar symbols around a single title:
[Accord]
He sat on the broken vehicle's floor and took a steadying breath.
In the world he wrote, Verse Books were rare. Created only by those chosen by fate—Scribes. People who could bind their thoughts, memories, and concepts into written spells. The stronger the imagination, the stronger the verse.
But the catch?
The book never opened for someone other than its owner.
"If this is what I think it is..." Julius whispered, brushing his fingers along the seam. "Then the man in that coffin... was a Scribe."
And if the Verse Book had followed him—into death—it meant something bound them together.
His hand hovered over the cover.
Then he pressed it open.
Nothing.
The book wouldn't budge.
He gritted his teeth and tried again—both hands this time, applying pressure. The cover creaked slightly… then snapped shut again, like it was laughing at him.
"Locked?" he muttered.
Of course it didn't hurt to try opening it, he was just curious.
At least he knew who he was supposed to be - Julius, a graveyard caretaker in these parts.
Suddenly, a chill ran down his spine. The hair on his arms stood up. As he heard footsteps outside the small house.
He dropped the book, eyes scanning the window.
Outside the tarp-covered vehicle, the slum street was deserted.
Except…
A white envelope sat propped against the metal frame. Crisp. Clean. Not wet from the rain.
"That wasn't there a second ago..."
Julius opened the vehicle door slowly, eyes darting across rooftops and alleyways. Nothing. Only silence and distant coughing.
He bent down and picked up the envelope.
Another wax seal. This one bore two stars instead of one.
He tore it open.
The message inside was short.
[We know you're still breathing.
No more hiding.
Come to the Northern Square by dusk or face public execution.]
No signature. No mercy. No room for misunderstanding.
He was just transported into this world and now this. What kind of situation did he find himself in?
The sky rumbled overhead, clouds thick with storm.
Julius stared at the letter, his grip tightening.
"Public execution…?"
He looked at the Verse Book on the floor.
Still sealed.
Still silent.
He was a dead man in a dead man's skin.
But something inside him whispered:
'You didn't crawl out of a grave just to die again.'
Not today.
Not without answers.
Is this world really real? Did he really transmigrate? Is it even logically possible? And why was the world resembling the book he was writing?