The screech of metal tearing through rain.
Albert awoke in the instant headlights burst through the darkness and smashed into him like a blade cutting reality apart. Screams. Glass shattering. Then—nothing.
The first thing he felt after the blackness was cold. Bone-deep, soul-freezing cold. The damp scent of old stone. Smoke. And... was that blood?
Albert opened his eyes.
A rotting wooden ceiling. Flickering candles breathing their last. No electric lights. No car horns. No phones. No glass-walled office.
Only the soft tapping of rain against a foggy window.
He sat up—tried to. His limbs were heavy, unresponsive. Then he saw his hands.
Those... were not his hands.
Long, pale fingers. Dried blood crusted at the knuckles. Not the tanned, familiar skin of a graphic designer in 2019. More like... a corpse?
"Welcome to the other side," a voice said — hoarse, smooth, and distant as if echoing from a crypt.
From the shadows at the far end of the room, a woman stepped forth. Candlelight danced on her long black dress. Her hair was snow-white, her smoke-colored eyes gazing through him, not at him.
"I am Morrigan, Goddess of Death."
Albert couldn't speak.
"You're not dead," she said, "But you are no longer alive as you once were."
She approached, holding out a silver ring engraved with a spiral — a symbol of those who walk the boundary between life and death.
"You have been chosen, Albert. From now on, you are part of The Wanderers' Guild — those who guide lost souls across the veil."
Thunder rolled outside. Lightning cleaved the sky over 1900s London — a city he had only seen in old paintings.
Albert understood one thing: he was no longer in his world.
And his journey had just begun.