The Goddess Contract.

If you had the chance to change the fate of yourself and others in exchange for your memories, would you take it?

The question floated in the void, uttered by a figure that resembled a human mirage. It had static gray hair and yellow eyes that emitted their own light. But its form flickered, surrounded by an aura of gray pixels that made it seem like a faulty projection.

"Asimil Nagatomo, right?" A brief pause. 'An interesting name. Fitting for the journey you might undertake,' said that goddess as she watched Asimil, who seemed confused about the situation. He didn't know where he was or why he was there.

"Where... am I?" Asimil wondered, looking around, ignoring for a moment the entity before his eyes. He was in a dark, dense room, a place that seemed to have no beginning or end.

"You are dead, Asimil." Those words tensed Asimil's body, making him pay attention to the entity in front of him.

"I'm... dead?" Asimil touched a part of his torso. His fingers searched, without him knowing why, for a line of pain that didn't exist.

However, Asimil realized something instantly: he couldn't remember anything about his death, nor his past life. He couldn't remember anything.

"At this moment, you have forgotten who you are, Asimil. All because your soul couldn't bear it," said the goddess, staring intently at Asimil.

"Then... will I go to heaven?"

"Not necessarily," said the entity with a calmness that seemed terrifying. "To be honest, this place is a bit boring, even though hundreds of humans arrive daily. And they almost always arrive without their memories. So, I want to offer you a deal, just because I took a liking to you."

Asimil felt confused. What kind of deity would propose a deal to some random human?

"I can send you back to your world. However, you would return as an empty shell—without emotions, without memories. You would be completely alone in that world. A sad thing, don't you think?" She paused, and her eyes shone with intensity. "Or I can send you to a... different... environment. A world where the rules are more flexible. There, memories could return. Fragment by fragment."

"...Another world?" The phrase sounded like a fairy tale to him, but something inside, a memoryless intuition, shuddered.

"Yes," said the goddess. "But you must choose, Asimil. You can wake up again in your world and, hopefully, survive, but you will suffer unbearable agony and, worse, you won't remember anything. But, Asimil... Who would want to be saved if the price is forgetting that there was ever anything worth saving?"

The silence became unbearable. The mist seemed to whisper doubts and regrets.

And yet, something inside urged him to move forward. A distant memory, a warmth whose origin he didn't know, made him clench his fists.

"I want to go. I wish to know who I am." The goddess nodded, almost sadly. A halo of blue light emerged from her hand, brushing Asimil's chest. For a thousandth of a second, the goddess's image distorted into a pattern of pixelated blocks, and a sharp, flat beep pierced his ears. The mist swirled, sounds distorted, and a sensation of infinite falling enveloped him.

The world collapsed around him.

When Asimil opened his eyes again, he was no longer in limbo. A strange horizon stretched before him: skies dyed with impossible colors, floating mountains, and ruins that seemed to whisper ancient secrets. The mirror of the world they had prepared awaited him.

And there, with no time to fully understand it, his journey began.