The soft whirring sounds of running machines. Stale but sterile air. A body too heavy to move. Eyes too weary to fully open.

I guess this was it.

I'd been in and out of the hospital so many times these past couple of years but something told me this would be the last time. The voices of doctors and nurses travelled into the room from the outside hall, their foreign language reminding me how far away from home I was.

I shouldn't have come. Now even my death is going to be one big administrative/insurance mess for my mother. How do you transport a corpse across the world? Can she Fed-EX me? Weekend at Bernie's my body through airport security?

The TV in my room was playing the Olympics but I didn't understand the overlapping Japanese commentary. Still, I watched with rapt attention as Aimee wandered up to the balance beam, looking visibly shaken. I really should not have come. This was supposed to be the most important day of her life and I tarnished it by making her watch a team of paramedics rush me into an ambulance as my body shut down, yet again. I just hope I didn't throw her off of her game.

I wondered whimsically which body part would give up on me next. Hopefully something essential. I sighed, I didn't mean that. Thoughts like that just kept creeping in recently.

She mounted the beam, her worried expression quickly replaced with determination.

The small prickle in my chest that I felt every time I watched came back as I remembered that time, what felt like lifetimes ago, where everyone believed that was going to be me up there.

Her routine began. I watched her flip, twist and dance across the beam, her body executing each move with expert precision. Next was her dismount, this was the part she always struggled with. Beam was her weakest event and she had at best a fifty-fifty chance at sticking it.

She did.

She grinned widely, showing every single one of her teeth.

The crowd went wild.

Good for her.

"That was for you Meg!" She hollered, pointing at the camera.

Despite my circumstances, I felt my heart lift a little. Suddenly, I thought maybe I found the strength to live another day.

The sliding door to my room rolled open. It was likely my mom. I no longer had the function of my neck to turn and check.

"It's me," mom said. All of the optimism I briefly had must have escaped out the door. It was her tone of voice that did it. It had that timbre you only hear at a funeral: hushed and subdued with a forced hint of something like kindness. It was like it was taking all of her strength to hold in her grief and if she tried to speak at a regular volume, she'd just crumble.

The conversation with the doctors and the translator must not have gone well.

"How did she do?" She asked.

"She did it," I said with slurred speech. "How long do I have left?" I then asked bluntly, not patient enough to discuss anything else.

My mother tensed. "They're not always right."

"But what did they say?" I pressed.

"They told Hawkings he'd only have two years and he lived for fifty," she said weakly, in obvious denial.

"I can't live like that," I said.

She was quiet for a couple of beats. "I know."

From the way my neck had been positioned to watch the screen, I could see my entire deteriorated body laid out on the bed. The muscles I had carefully cultivated my entire life had wasted away, my calves were half their original size. My skin that was always tanned from outdoor activity was nearly transparent. Beyond sickly at this point, I looked like I was already dead.

I had to at least pretend to be feeling more positive. I owed it to my mother who had supported me all of my life, not make these last however many minutes/hours/days depressing. She was always so proud of how I never gave up; I didn't want her last memories of me to completely erase the image of that girl.

I tried to smile, "So when Aimee finished she-"

I paused in shock. It was happening again, already. My ribs weren't moving, there was no way for air to enter my lungs. I was suffocating, my mouth hanging open like a fish out of water.

My mom dashed out of the room and moments later doctors and nurses poured in.

I wished my death would have been more glamorous than it was. Even in medical shows they mute the chaos and play the scene in slow motion with beautiful music. Death is not that romantic though. It's ugly and it's painful. Tubes were being shoved uncomfortably down various orifices, people were shouting, my mom was sobbing, my body was jerking in hideous movements in its failed attempts to get air.

The pain was incredible, but amidst the chaos, there was something peaceful at the back of my mind as my vision began to spot from the lack of oxygen. This nightmare was finally coming to an end. I just had to get through these last moments and I'd be free.

The last thing I saw was Aimee on the screen jumping for joy at her results. She had done it. Her gold medal was pretty much a lock.

It was selfish, but just once more, I would have liked to run again, jump, tumble and push my body beyond human limits,

And with that thought,

I lost consciousness.

Directly below my hospital room, outside on the road, unbeknownst to me, a single, overworked Japanese office lady was hit by an oncoming truck.

I opened my eyes to find myself standing. That was all I needed to know that I was dead. My body wasn't capable of something like that anymore. I glanced down, its appearance was the same, the legs sticking out of the hospital nightgown looked like twigs about to snap. I hoped that if heaven was real, I wasn't going to look like this for eternity.

"Welcome!" A woman's voice rang out in the infinite white void.

The owner of the voice materialized in front of me. She was an impossible beauty with flowing white hair that reached the floor.

She looked at my withered form without the slightest hint of the horror I was so used to seeing.

"Again... welcome Sakura," she said with warmth, her eyes sparkled like polished gemstones.

It took me a second to register the unfamiliar name. Sakura?

She chuckled, "I'm sure I do not have to explain to you what is about to happen."

I looked at her in confusion.

She tilted her head almost cutely. "You don't recognize me?" She asked, "we've met so many times on opposite sides of the screen."

"W-what screen?" I asked.

She looked surprised. "Perhaps you are still in shock from your sudden death. I'm the Goddess that always greets you when you restart your favourite game, Doki Doki, with the power of your love I'll save the kingdom!"

I had no idea what she was saying and did not expect such a ridiculous string of words to escape her mouth.

"That shocked look tells me you remember now!" She said in wrongful conjecture. "You never would have guessed, but the world of Earthia is real and runs parallel to your own! I developed the game myself, modelled after your world's otome games. It was all to find a worthy heroine!"

The more she spoke, the more I felt like there must have been a horrible mistake. Yet it was getting harder and harder to speak up.

"You have proven yourself a worthy champion already. You were the first to complete every route, unlock every scene and item! No one in this world understands the world of Earthia better than you, Sakura!"

This was starting to sound kind of familiar. "Is this some sort of Good Place nonsense you're pulling here?" I asked dryly.

"I... do not know what you mean," she said in confusion. "Anyway, I am truly sorry that you had to be hit by my associate, I believe you know him in your world as 'Truck-kun'. We simply could not carry your Earthly body over the dimensions."

"I don't understand," I finally admitted.

"Really?" She asked in dismay. "Are you not obsessed with isekai manga? To be honest, I truly thought that you would be quicker on the uptake."

"I don't know what that means," I said with a creeping annoyance.

She paused. "When I look more closely... you are not Japanese." Then she sighed, "Or at least I don't believe you are. To be entirely honest, all humans just look like slightly different configurations of flesh and hair to me. Are you Takahashi Sakura, a 37 year old japanese office worker whose life's passion is otome video games?"

"No, on all fronts," I said.

"Then who exactly are you mortal?" She asked accusingly, as if this was my fault.

"Meg Thompson..." I said wearily. "I'm a personal trainer. I had a number of well-known clientele. I don't know if you've heard of me... I've been in the media a lot recently. People love to joke about irony, even if it's in bad taste." I glanced away awkwardly. "What's funnier than a kinesiologist with motor neuron disease?" I mumbled under my breath.

"Well shit," she said.

Was this seriously a Goddess?

Suddenly, a thought seemed to cross her mind as she jerked up in realization. "Oh," she said. "Oh no..." She began pacing the infinite expanse of a room that we were in. "The wrong soul wandered here, but then where's Sakura? I have to find her before she transcends too far!" She snapped her fingers and little rabbit-like creatures materialized. "Go find her soul immediately!" They hopped off, presumably to find the lady that was hit by the truck and the 'Goddess' turned on me.

She looked me up and down in devastation. "A jock? Of all things you had to be a jock! This is all wrong! You are supposed to be Sakura, a disgruntled woman who feels like she never reached her full potential in life! You were supposed to be hit by the truck and be transported here by your strong desire to start over and live a life different from the worthless one you lived before!"

"Sorry," I said, although I really wasn't.

She gnawed at her fingernails in worry.

I sighed. "Well, what does she have to do? I could probably try doing it."

She shook her head, "It is impossible for you."

"What makes you so sure?" I asked in slight offence. The way I react whenever anyone tells me what I can and can't achieve.

"You haven't been properly trained by the game!"

"Then what are you going to do with me? I asked, crossing my arms.

She sighed, "I don't know, you've already been plucked from your plain of existence and out of Earth's cycle of life and death, I can't so easily just throw you back in."

"Great," I said under my breath, in awe of how quickly she was losing all of the respect I had for her at the beginning.

"I'll tell you what," she said. "I'll send you over in place of an inconsequential character. Just try not to make a mess of everything. If you meet Sakura, who will be going as Viola, make sure that no matter what happens, she fulfills her role. Although, I doubt she will need the help. She was chosen by the game after all."

"Sounds Gucci," I said under my breath.

Just as she began to move, I quickly shouted, "wait!"

"What now?" She asked in annoyance.

"You said the title was 'I'll save the kingdom' or something like that? What's going to happen to the kingdom you're sending me too?" I asked as quickly as I could, stumbling over the words.

"Oh," she said. "Yes, right. The demon lord is going to wake up and the demon army will wage war."

"How the hell is this Sakura girl going to fix that?" I asked in alarm.

She let out a long and condescending sigh. "This is why we don't reincarnate normies. You just don't get isekai. The heroine has a very special magic that only propagates with the love of bishounen men. She'll power her love beam with the affection of the man she has the highest score with to defeat the demon lord."

I stared at her in disbelief. "What the everlasting fu-"

With that, I was waved off into my new life.

_______________________________________________________

Author's Note: thanks a lot for giving this story a shot! I have to keep rewriting this part since I seem to change the cover page for this story all of the time. I will likely do it again too XD

here's an archive of past cover pages that I had to discard because they were a) a bit too amateur or b) not really screaming isekai/manga inspired until you look closely but by then the target audience would have scrolled past

a) Characters made with doll divine maker games, a little sneak peek at characters to come ;)

b)