The darkness didn't stay heavy forever.
Slowly, very slowly, the thick black space around him began to thin out. He didn't feel like he was floating in an empty void anymore. Instead, he felt a strange physical sensation returning to his body.
His eyes felt heavy, stuck together as if he had just slept for three days straight. His head felt light, completely clear of the horrible throbbing pain that usually pounded behind his forehead after a long overtime shift. And most noticeably, he felt something pressing against his right cheek.
It was hard, smooth, and cool.
'Did I pass out on my desk again?' he thought hazily, his brain still half-asleep. 'Wait... if I fell on my keyboard, shouldn't my face be resting on plastic keys? Why does this feel like polished wood?'
He let out a low sigh and tried to force his heavy eyelids open.
His vision was blurry at first, taking several seconds to focus. But as the room came into view, the familiar image of his cramped, messy office screen, the towering piles of paper, and the red numbers of his computer clock were completely gone.
There was no monitor. There was no keyboard. There was no cheap, buzzing ceiling fan humming in the background.
Instead, his cheek was resting on a smooth wooden table. Right next to his nose sat a small, embarrassing puddle of drool.
He sat up quickly, rubbing his eyes. "What the...?"
The sound that came out of his mouth made him freeze instantly.
It wasn't his deep, dry, tired male voice. It was a high-pitched, soft, and clear voice—the voice of a young girl.
He clamped both hands over his mouth in shock. "Check, one, two... testing?"
The voice remained the same. It sounded small, smooth, and delicate. Every word he spoke came out in that exact same childish tone.
"Is this a joke?" he whispered, his heart starting to race. "Did the guys from the team pull a prank on me while I was passed out? No... a joke is impossible when we barely care about each other"
He looked down at his hands, which were still resting against his cheeks, and stopped breathing entirely.
The hands were tiny. The skin was impossibly pale, almost like fresh milk, and the fingers were slender and small. There were no calluses from typing for hours on end, no dry skin around the nails, and no sign of his old adult hands at all.
Then, he noticed something heavy hanging over his shoulders.
It was hair. Mountains of it. Strands of bright, snow-white hair spilled over his chest, falling past the wooden table and trailing all the way down to the floor. It was so long it reached past his feet. He was wearing a simple, loose pale white dress made of light fabric, with a pair of short black pants underneath.
He scrambled to get out of the wooden chair. But the moment his feet hit the floor, his foot got caught in a bunch of his own long hair.
"Whoa-!"
He stumbled forward, barely catching himself on the edge of the table before his face hit the floor again.
"Okay, stay calm. Just... stay calm," he muttered, his small voice trembling slightly. He carefully gathered the massive pile of white hair in his arms like a heavy bundle of rope, looking around the room to figure out where he was.
The room looked like a small, rustic break room inside a wooden cabin.
On one side of the room stood a worn-out brown couch with an unrolled blanket and a soft pillow resting on one end. Next to it was a tall wooden shelf stocked with neat rows of canned food, bottled water, and a few basic cooking supplies. On the opposite wall, there was a plastic door with a small blue sign that read 'Bathroom'. The table he had just woken up at sat right in front of a wide window half-covered by thin, faded curtains. Next to the window was a heavy metal door that clearly led outside.
He dragged his feet toward the bathroom, carrying his long hair to make sure he didn't trip over himself again.
The bathroom was small and simple, containing just a toilet, a shower, and a ceramic sink with a rectangular mirror hanging above it. The sink was a bit too high for his new short height, so he had to drag a small wooden step-chair over to stand on it.
He stepped onto the chair and looked straight into the mirror.
Staring back at him was the face of a young girl, no older than fourteen or fifteen years old. She had a small, delicate face with extremely pale skin that looked almost translucent under the warm light. Her hair was a pure, shimmering white, framing her small forehead. But the most striking thing was her eyes.
They were completely pitch-black. There was no visible white around the edges, no distinct pupil—just two vast, dark voids that seemed to swallow all the light around them. She had a naturally tired, slightly emotionless look on her face, like someone who hadn't slept a full night in five years.
He stared at the reflection for a long, silent minute. He pinched his pale cheek hard.
"Ouch!"
It hurt. It definitely hurt. This wasn't a dream.
"So..." he muttered, staring at the white-haired girl in the mirror. "I died of a heart attack at my desk, and now I've been isekaid into a girl's body?"
He wasn't a massive fan of webnovels, but he had read a few during his college days when he had free time. He knew the basic idea, die from overwork, get transported into another world, get a second chance at life. He just never expected it to actually happen to him. And he certainly didn't expect to turn into a fifteen-year-old girl with foot-length white hair and creepy black eyes.
Suddenly, a dull throb echoed inside his head.
It wasn't a painful headache, but more like a sudden rush of information being dropped into his brain. Images and faint memories began to surface in his mind.
He saw a blurry figure, a tall person whose face he couldn't quite see clearly, handing over a set of rusty iron keys.
Through these lingering memories, he quickly understood the situation.
This body didn't have a long, complicated backstory. His name... no... her name is no longer... the one from back then which he had forgotten, Her name was just 'B', a simple, lazy name that was easy to write and effortless to remember. And more importantly, she had a job.
She was the new night warden and grave keeper for the cemetery outside.
Her mysterious boss had given her this cozy wooden cabin to live in completely free of rent. Every week, a sealed envelope containing her pay would be delivered directly to the small mail slot on the front door.
B stood on the wooden chair in the bathroom, processing the information with a blank look on her small face.
"Wait a minute..." B murmured, tilting her head. "I'm around fifteen years old now, right? Isn't hiring a kid to live alone in a graveyard a massive breach of child labor laws?"
She paused, remembering her previous life. In her old corporate job, the bosses had completely ignored labor laws anyway, working her until her heart literally stopped beating for garbage pay and zero respect.
Then, B recalled the details of her new duties as a grave keeper.
The work was ridiculously simple. She didn't have to chase impossible deadlines. She didn't have managers breathing down her neck every ten minutes demanding reports. She didn't have toxic coworkers dumping their unfinished work onto her desk.
All she had to do was sweep up dead leaves from the pathways, clean off moss from the old tombstones whenever they looked too dirty, and walk around the grounds for a short night patrol every once in a while. The rest of the time was completely hers to do whatever she wanted.
And the pay in the envelope? It was more than enough to buy plenty of good food, soft clothes, and whatever basic supplies she needed.
A small, genuine smile finally crept onto B's pale face.
"Never mind," B said, stepping down from the chair. "Child labor laws don't matter. This job is amazing."
Compared to working 140 hours a week in a dark, noisy office under flickering lights, living in a quiet cabin and sweeping leaves sounded like a luxury five-star vacation.
Curious about her new workplace, B walked over to the heavy metal front door of the cabin, unlocked the latch, and pushed it open.
A crisp, cool breeze instantly rushed inside, blowing her long white hair around her face.
B stepped outside onto a small wooden porch and looked around.
The cabin was sitting right in the very center of a massive, ancient cemetery. Sprawling out in every direction were rows upon rows of grey stone graves, towering marble monuments, and weathered wooden crosses. Old, twisted ironwood trees grew between the stone paths, their thick branches casting long shadows across the green grass. Moss and lichen covered many of the older tombstones, giving the entire place an eerie, forgotten look.
The sky above was a soft, quiet twilight, filled with pale grey clouds.
It was definitely a bit creepy. The air felt heavy and cold, and the absolute silence of the graveyard could easily make an ordinary person feel uneasy.
But to B?
It was pure paradise.
"It's so quiet..." B whispered, taking a deep breath of the fresh, clean outdoor air. There was no sound of honking car horns, no noisy printers spitting out endless paper, no loud bosses yelling into their phones, and no fake plastic smiles from fake friends. Just quiet, peaceful silence.
She looked past the tall stone walls surrounding the cemetery grounds. A short distance away, she could see the faint tops of chimney roofs and warm lights flickered from a small, cozy-looking village. It wasn't too far of a walk. That meant whenever she ran out of canned food from the shelf, she could easily walk over there to buy fresh meals, sweet snacks, and whatever else she needed.
She had a roof over her head for free. She had an unbelievably easy job with zero stress. She had money coming in every week. And best of all, nobody was here to bother her.
B walked back inside the cabin, shutting the heavy metal door behind her and locking it tight.
She turned around and stared intently at the brown couch sitting in the corner of the room. She walked over, reached out her small hand, and pressed down on the cushion.
It sank down softly. It was surprisingly plush, worn-in, and incredibly comfortable.
B felt a deep, overwhelming wave of relief wash over her entire soul. In her past life, she had sacrificed her sleep, her health, and eventually her life just to pay off debts and survive in a system that didn't care about her. She had been deprived of rest for so long that her body had literally broken down.
But now? Now everything was different.
"I'm done with predatory company!" B said to the empty room, her small voice full of absolute conviction. "I'm done with overtime. I'm done with thankless work."
She grabbed the edge of the unrolled blanket, climbed onto the plush sofa, and pulled the soft cover all the way up to her chin. Her long white hair spread out across the pillow like a blanket of fresh snow.
She had been placed in this new world, so her first action?
Obviously sleep!
She closed her pitch-black eyes, feeling the gentle cool breeze drift through the small gap in the cabin window.
This was her new life. And in this new life, she was going to achieve her ultimate, greatest dream: to sleep as much as she humanly wanted, and never be woken up by an alarm ever again.
Within seconds, B let out a soft, peaceful sigh, and drifted off into a deep, heavy slumber.
Author's Note
EliteToeCollector
Thanks for reading!
:3