The young man stared into the void. It stared back. His memories were a vague mass of sounds and colours, and when he tried to think of something, he found it covered by an abnormal haze. Where was he - who was he? He couldn’t be sure, at least not now. Was there a problem with his implants?

Wait… implant? What am I on about? He thought, his mind hurting as he tried to find the answer. But before he could think any further, he spotted it. A pale horse, with a rider, cloaked in a shroud of darkness - a jagged scythe held in its bony grip.

Bleached bone hands reached towards him, their ethereal quality phasing through his armour and body to grab hold of something deep inside.

The rider tugged, gently, and he could feel himself being pulled up towards something - what it was, he couldn’t tell.

The more he was pulled, the more it felt he was being pulled to the surface of a body of water - like his body was slowly floating up from a great depth.

Finally, he surfaced - but the moment he did so, he found his eyes beginning to droop. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t fight back. So, with one final effort, he let loose a roar of defiance, albeit silent, before succumbing to the darkness.

-------

As his eyes opened, a tidal wave of memories assaulted his mind - his enhanced brain barely able to comprehend the millions of images and sounds pouring into his brain. The veil over his past finally coming undone.

Mentally sorting through the information, he came across something very important. A name - his name, Alexander Winters...or ‘Alex’ as most called him. Soon after, the memories of his life began to line themselves up - day by day, week by week, year by year.

Everything that he had done in his entire life came back to him. He remembered dying, the pain he had so vividly felt as those abominations ripped him limb from limb. But that couldn’t be right, could it? Thinking back on his latest memories, he realized how obvious it all was; the cloaked rider was obviously Death. Or at least, that was how his mind was able to comprehend it - it was riding on a pale horse and everything, who else could it have been?

He had died, and now...he was alive again.

A dry chuckle escaped his throat, only for him to begin coughing up water. As the last of the salty substance left his mouth, he decided it was finally time to get up and start moving.

Slowly rising to his feet, he felt his once destroyed limbs moving with their former strength and grace, which was...odd to say the least. He could also feel his form-fitting black armour, that perfectly fit his athletic frame.

Alex looked around, but saw nothing but endless crystal water ahead of him, and a dark, ominous jungle behind him.

The sun's glare began to agitate Alex's blue eyes, adapted to his homeworld's near-endless darkness from grey clouds - and he winced, shading his face with his hands.

Looking around in his general vicinity, he spotted his visored helmet - its surface undamaged, unlike the last time he had seen it. Quickly picking it up from the golden sand, he put it on - fully completing his armour.

Activating his HUD, he was unsurprised to see that his armour was unable to triangulate his location, instead sending out steady pings to map out fifteen meters in all directions.

Agitated by his lack of information, Alex caught himself subconsciously trying to draw his DER, only to find his trusty laser rifle missing. Activating its inbuilt tracking system, he then spotted it ten meters away, lying in the sand next to the sidearm variant, DES.

Picking them up, he checked over them to make sure they were still in working order - a smile gracing his pale lips when he saw there were no internal or external issues.

“Right…well, let’s see where we are,” he said to himself out loud.

Since he couldn’t exactly go into the ocean, Alex decided to walk into the jungle.

At first, the jungle seemed just like every other jungle he had seen, both in person and online - lush, and full of vibrant flora. That was, of course, until he spotted trees easily five times his width, and taller than any tree had a right to be.

“Where the hell am I?” Alex demanded. Of course, he didn’t get an answer.

Alex paused for a moment. Had he been...reincarnated?

The reason for that idea was, of course, his death - or at the very least, his memories of death. There was no other reasonable way of explaining it - he was...living a new life, or in the afterlife, or some simulation.

He wasn’t going to complain - why would he? He wasn’t dead - that was all that mattered.

True, he had left behind his family, but he knew how strong-willed his parents and younger brother Thomas were. There wasn’t anything he could do anyway. He had accepted his death the moment he signed up for the military.

Pushing those thoughts aside, Alex began thinking of a plan. Water, shelter, food - and maybe other sapient beings? Civilization? Was that a thing in this new world he was in?

Considering he was stuck here for the foreseeable future, searching for others didn’t seem like a bad idea. With a little extra spring in his step, Alex moved further into the forest, his DER held in his hands, ready to be fired.

--------

A light rumble came from her core, her mandibles clattering together rhythmically as she waited, never loud enough to be heard, but just enough to fend off the boredom. The Inferno Spider had sat here for three moons now, waiting for prey to walk into its killing zone.

The enormous arachnid had set up webs all across the surrounding trees, allowing no prey a path of escape. Over her wait time, she had been building up her mana reserves in preparation to spit her fire venom at whatever unfortunate being wandered into her territory.

Suddenly, she felt small vibrations, - and a low chuckle escaped her chelicerae. Food.

She soon spotted the lone figure walking into her trap, its outer shell oddly black. She had never seen anything like it before - some sort of shell, or chitin? Natural protection or not, she didn’t care - no prey could survive her fire attack.

Once it walked into range, she launched an immense stream of liquid fire, hot enough to melt stone. Her fire coated the weird being, hiding it from her view.

But the Inferno Spider’s attack ended as fast as it began, as a bolt of pure energy burned a fist-sized hole through her face - ending the beast.

------

Alex stood there, confused.

His sensor had suddenly picked up on what looked to be a car-sized spider hiding in a tree near his location, but before he decided what to do, it began to fire a stream of fire at him - a substance he was easily protected from thanks to his armour.

Lifting his rifle, he blasted a hole in its head, killing the disgusting creature instantly. He watched as the massive spider went limp, toppling to the ground below - landing with a heavy thud with its eight limbs sprawled out.

“Well - that was… something,” Alex remarked.