"The shot that didn't end it."

Tokyo, Japan – Summer 2023

The August sun beat down mercilessly on the bustling streets of Shinjuku, transforming the sprawling metropolis into a sweltering hive of activity. Office workers in sweat-dampened shirts, tourists wielding selfie sticks, and students in uniform flowed through the congested sidewalks like ants in an endless colony—each absorbed in their own world, unaware they were participating in the daily miracle of Tokyo's synchronized chaos.

Among them strode Masayuki Kurogane, a man who, at twenty-six, had already achieved what most could only dream of by his age. As the youngest branch manager at La Main de Velours—a prestigious Franco-Japanese luxury conglomerate specializing in high-end leather goods—he commanded respect in boardrooms and envy at alumni reunions. His tailored navy suit, though perfectly pressed, clung uncomfortably to his skin in the oppressive humidity.

Just another Thursday, he mused, adjusting his wristwatch as he navigated the human current. The morning had been ordinary: a too-strong coffee from the station vending machine, the familiar jostle of the Yamanote Line commute, the polite but distant nods from subordinates who still weren't quite comfortable with a boss younger than themselves.

He never suspected this would be the day he died.

A sound like fireworks—sharp, percussive—ripped through the urban drone. Then the screaming started.

Masayuki froze as the crowd around him erupted into panic. Briefcases tumbled to the pavement as salarymen abandoned decorum. A woman's stiletto snapped as she scrambled over a toppled bicycle.

"Why are you running?!" he shouted at the fleeing masses, his voice swallowed by the cacophony. "What's happening?"

No one answered.

Against every survival instinct screaming in his skull, Masayuki found himself stepping forward—toward the billowing black smoke now curling above the buildings ahead. His rational mind berated him even as his feet moved: This is how idiots die in horror movies. Turn around. Run.

Then the scent hit him—acrid and metallic, a combination of burning plastic and something coppery that made his stomach lurch. Around the corner, the aftermath unfolded like a nightmare:

A delivery van's smoldering husk lay flipped on its side, its cargo of shredded packaging strewn across the intersection. Shards of glass from blown-out storefronts glittered like malignant confetti. And the blood—so much blood—smeared across the pavement in grotesque arcs.

Terrorism. The word clicked into place just as his body finally overrode his curiosity. He whirled to flee—

CRACK.

White-hot agony erupted at the base of his skull. His limbs turned to liquid. As his knees struck concrete, his dying brain managed one final, absurd thought: Of course. I walked toward a bombing like some clueless NPC. What did I expect?

Then—silence.

And in that silence, an impossibility: consciousness.

I shouldn't be... thinking.

The pain was gone. The sounds of chaos had vanished. He floated in a void neither warm nor cold, aware but unmoored.

Until gravity returned with a vengeance.

His stomach lurched as the sensation of freefall seized him—no wind, no reference points, just the primal terror of the plunge. He tried to scream, but his lips refused to part. Tried to open his eyes, but his eyelids might as well have been welded shut.

Is this hell? Purgatory? Some glitch in the afterlife's loading screen?

An eternity later, the falling stopped.

With a gasp that burned lungs he wasn't certain he still possessed, Masayuki's eyes flew open.

Stone walls, slick with moisture. Iron bars, thick with rust. The reek of mildew and human waste so potent it coated his tongue.

And the realization, cold and inescapable:

He lay on filthy straw in a medieval dungeon cell.

"No..." His voice emerged as a stranger's croak. He raised trembling hands—his hands, yet not. Paler. Longer fingers. A scar across the knuckles he'd never earned. "This isn't—I was shot. I died. What....is this?"

Somewhere in the darkness beyond the bars, a chain rattled.

A voice, guttural and amused, answered in a language Masayuki had never heard...

...and somehow understood.

"Welcome to your new life, Rat. The gallows await."

What?...questioned Masayuki, still having a hard time processing the incident that had just occurred.

Unanswered, Masayuki's attention instead diverted to his extremely comfortable room.

It was a jail cell.

Dark like a lamp which had just been put out of it's flames, however the lamp could see the lighter that could ignite it, only yet it was too far away. 

Floor cold like a primeval rock in a rainforest on a moonlit night, a rock that went through innumerable nights and yet each night, was special. 

The most notable feature of that gritty room was of course, the rustic iron bars. For a normal onlooker, that might have been a "run of the mill" thing since obviously, what else would be there instead of iron bars? But for Masayuki, it was an enigma.

Why am I behind the bars? A question that he asked himself but wanted an answer from someone else.