What? Did I Just Reincarnate As A Flame?

[p_magno]

The click-hiss of a soda can punctuated the city's afternoon hum. Jessica raised the can in a small salute, her voice cutting through the pedestrian flow. "Hey! Over here!"

Two figures weaving through the crowd turned. Mark, his face lighting up with recognition, waved back, gently guiding the woman beside him—Elsa.

They reached her spot by the newsstand. "Hey, Marky," Jessica said, her smile easy as she looped an arm around his shoulders in their usual, half-headlock greeting. "Been a while."

Mark laughed, a genuine, hearty sound. "Hey ugh!, not too hard on the neck, I want it straight for the wedding photos." He patted her elbow with a winced expression, playing at struggling.

"Knucklehead," she mumbled, giving an extra, squeeze before releasing him, earning a soft laugh from Elsa.

Jessica turned her attention to the source of the laugh. Elsa was all gentle smiles and kind eyes. "You must be the famous fiancée," Jessica said, her tone warm. "This guy's been feeding me a steady diet of 'Elsa this' and 'Elsa that' for months. It was sweet enough to give me a cavity." She threw a wink at the younger woman.

It was true. Back when Elsa was just 'the girlfriend,' Mark had been a one-man broadcasting station of her virtues. 'She remembered I hate celery, Jess!' 'She laughs at my dumbest jokes.' 'She's just… heartwarming, you know?' Jessica knew the subtext, the cheerful, unintentional jab beneath his blabbering. 'See? This is what it's like. Why don't you have this?'

Elsa's cheeks tinged pink. "Thank you for your words, Mrs. Jessica."

"No, no, no," Jessica interjected, waving a dismissive hand. "Just Jessica. Seriously. We're all colleagues here." She took a final sip of her drink and tossed the can into a bin. "Alright, let's get moving. I'm starving. The usual spot, or are we feeling adventurous?"

As the trio fell into step, debating burger joints versus the new sushi place, Jessica let the familiar rhythm of Mark's chatter wash over her. At work, she was the relatable senior, the one who remembered everyone's coffee order and could talk about video games and weekend plans, carefully sanding down the twelve-year age difference between her and most of the team. It was a role, a comfortable costume.

Behind the costume was the old dream. The one that had taken root when she was a teenager clutching a cheap microphone: to be a streamer, to build a community, to talk about games and life for a living. She'd tried. Late nights after her average job, talking to a screen showing only a handful of viewers. The passion was a small, stubborn flame, but reality was a bucket of cold water. Bills needed paying. Stability was a cage, but it was a secure one.

And here she was. Thirty-four. Walking with her junior colleague and his beautiful, kind fiancée. A walking emblem of everything her life had somehow skirted around.

'Sigh... What a life,' she thought, the smile on her face feeling suddenly thin. 'No love experience. Not even a single, messy boyfriend. Never got dumped, never got adored. Never even got properly looked at. Am I a quenched flame or something?'

She tilted her head back, seeking distraction in the expanse above the skyscrapers. The sky was a startling, perfect blue. Puffy, picturesque clouds drifted lazily. One, directly in her line of sight, had coalesced into a near-perfect, fluffy heart.... 'Wait-! is the sky teasing me too?'

The thought was almost laughable. But the laugh died before it was born.

A scream ripped through the ambient noise.

Jessica's head snapped toward the sound. Halfway across the busy cross-street, a small girl in a bright yellow dress stood frozen, a stuffed rabbit dangling from her hand. A delivery truck was bearing down on her, its horn blaring a continuous, desperate roar.

She saw Mark's body tense, his muscles coiling, ready to spring forward.

Her own body moved faster. Her hand shot out, shoving him hard back onto the curb. "Stay here! I'll do it!"

The words were out, her legs already pumping. The world narrowed to a tunnel: the child, the truck, the gap between them. Time didn't slow; it became terrifyingly efficient. She reached the girl, the rough fabric of the yellow dress scraping against her palms. There was no time for gentleness. She wrapped her arms around the small body and heaved, throwing the child back toward the sidewalk with all her strength.

The little girl tumbled onto safe concrete.

Jessica had no momentum left to follow.

The horn swallowed all other sound. The grille of the truck filled her vision, a wall of painted steel.

The last things to register were not sights, but sounds: the hydraulic screech of brakes fighting momentum, the sickening, wet THUD-CRUNCH that was not loud, but deep, and two voices weaving into a single chord of horror, Mark's shout and Elsa's piercing cry.

Then, silence.

A chilling, absolute stillness. There was no pain. No symphony of broken bones. It was as if her entire existence had been muted. She was drifting, untethered, her consciousness dissolving like smoke from a snuffed candle.

'Is this what dying feels like? No fanfare. No pain. No emotions. Just… nothing.'

'Haaaa... this is unbelievable. Departing without ever achieving a single dream.'


And most especially…

'A virgin. No spouse. Not even once being loved… NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!'

Just in that moment, something flickered in front of her. A pale, blue light, forming lines, boxes, text.


<< LOADING… >>

Even without eyes, without a face, Jessica perceived it. A familiar, digital aesthetic. Confusion cut through the resignation. 'Isn't this a game UI?'. She murmured into the nothingness.

The screen glitched, pixels dancing. The message changed, a cheerful, incongruous emoticon winking at the end.

<< TRANSMIGRATION…COMPLETE ^_^ >>


"W-What?? The hell is this?"

It wasn't a voice. She had no mouth, no lungs. It was pure, furious thought, echoing in a void that was suddenly full of input Sounds, overlapping and muddled. The crunch of boots on loose stone. The rasp of heavy breathing. A low, grumbling voice.

'What's going on?'

She tried to open her eyes. There was no eyelid to lift, no muscular effort, but her perspective shifted, sharpened. She was… looking. Seeing from a fixed point, about five feet off the ground.

Two figures moved ahead of her on a narrow, dark path. One was a burly man with a ruffled beard and shoulders like a brick wall, clad in worn leather. The other was younger, taller, with messy black hair and a profile that was… was.... distractingly well-structured in the low light. A handsome face, all sharp angles and a firm jaw.

'Okay,' she thought, her mental voice tinged with bewildered appreciation. 'What a nice viewpoint.'

But the appreciation curdled into confusion. The handsome man and the burly one were ahead, but her viewpoint trailed behind them, bobbing gently. The scenery, mossy stone walls, a dirt path—drifted past.

'It seems I'm walking behind them.'

A chill, unrelated to any temperature, prickled her non-existent spine.

'Or… is someone carrying me?'

She tried to move. To turn her head, to lift a hand, to shift a foot. The command fired from her consciousness into a void where no body answered. There was 'no can't do' reply, or simply nothing to command. She was a passenger, a watching intelligence glued to a single, unmoving vantage point.

She realized she had an encounter with Truck-kun and had Isekied, but she didn't know what she transmigrated as, and worst of all she couldn't see or feel her body, it was as if only her consciousness is here presently,

But in what?


With no other choice, she decided to muster the courage to speak as if trying to talk to the two men ahead


She had to know. She focused on the handsome man's retreating back. If she could just communicate… Gathering every ounce of her will, she pushed her thoughts outward, aiming them like a signal.

"Hello? Handsome?"

Silence. Just the crunch of boots, the rustle of cloth.

"Helloooooo?"

Nothing. Not a twitch, not a glance back. They moved steadily onward, utterly unaware of the frantic consciousness trailing in their wake.

'They aren't hearing me.' The isolation was instantaneous and absolute, a glass wall slamming down between her and the world. 'Then how do I know who and what am I?'

Just then, the burly man ahead stopped and turned. He didn't look at her; he looked past her viewpoint, his eyes focusing on the space just behind where she perceived herself to be.

"Hey, Henry," his voice rumbled, surprisingly close. "It's best you discard the light. We don't need it from here on out."

'What light?' Jessica's confusion spiked. 'What is he referring to? Why is he staring… past me?'

"Yes, sir." Henry answered, his voice was a pleasant baritone.

And just then, Henry's arm swung, throwing away the flame torch he was holding, and as s the torch was landing, Jessica field of vision tilted, spinning in a descending arc. A silent scream tore through her mind.


'HELP!!!!'

The torch clattered against the hard ground, the impact a dull thud she felt as a jolt through her very being. It rolled once, then settled, the flame sputtering and dipping dangerously close to the damp earth.

The truth didn't dawn. It exploded like a hellish enlightenment.

The flame. The bobbing viewpoint. The inability to move. Henry discarding the light.

'I… I'm… I'm A FLAME.'

The realization was a sucker punch to her soul. She had transmigrated. But was in a princess. Neither a mage. Not even a lowly goblin.


She was nothing else but.. A pitiful,


Dying..

...Flame.


And a discarded one at that.


*****



A blue screen, stark and urgent, blazed in her mind's eye, cutting through the tidal wave of her despair.


<< Warning!!! [SNORT TO KEEP YOUR LIFE BURNING] >>

"Hey, you!" Her mental voice was a shriek of outrage and terror. "Where have you been? What the hell are you on about? And why the hell am I a flame, damnit!! And, uhh… Snort? Why?"

Her question was answered immediately. As her panicked shouting faded, a deep, creeping coldness began to seep into her awareness. Her vision, the sight of the gritty dirt started to dim, the edges blurring into grey. A profound weakness, a feeling of unraveling, gripped her.

'Oh, gosh. Not when I just got here!'

The system's message flashed again, insistent. [SNORT].

She didn't have a nose. She didn't have lungs. But the command was primal, a basic survival instinct etched into her new, flickering existence. She focused on the concept of a snort, a sharp, inward pull of vitality.


Snort!

Nothing happened. The dimness deepened.


SNORT! she screamed inwardly, throwing all her will into the action.

A tiny, almost imperceptible flare of warmth. The grey receded a little.


SNORT!!

This time, the flame on the torch did flare. It jumped an inch higher, the blue-orange light brightening, pushing back the darkness that was both around her and within her. The creeping cold retreated. The feeling of solidity, of existing returned.

She inwardly let out a breath she didn't have. 'I look like a pig snorting for truffles, though.'

'Alright. With that problem aside… time to panic!!'

'No, wait,' she reasoned, trying to grasp at threads of her old self. 'Let me act maturely. And elegant. In situations like these, I should be calm and… and… and… give me a moment here.'


'NOOOOOOOO!!! I can't move! I can't do anything but stay here, snorting until I eventually fail! No, no, no, I need to DO something. I need to think of a way to move. No time for foolishness!'

An idea, desperate and frail, sparked. 'Why don't I ask the System? Yes, that'll be great.'

She turned her attention inward, towards the presence that had delivered the warning. "Hey… System?"

Silence.

"System?" she tried again, pushing her thought at it.

Nothing.

"Yoo-hoo…?"

A flicker of annoyance cut through the fear. "Hey, bastard! Are you ignoring me? Now of all times?"

Still, only the quiet hum of her own frantic thoughts answered.

'It seems it doesn't have a consciousness. That's kind of sad. I wanted something to talk to.' The memory surfaced, bittersweet and absurd: a light novel she'd read as a teen about an office worker reincarnated as a slime, aided by a wise, conversational system called 'Great Sage' or something. 'Lucky bastard.'

Pushing the envy aside, she began to experiment. First, the obvious: she tried to will herself to move, to crawl like an inchworm of fire along the torch handle. The command dissolved into nothingness. She was as glued to this spot of charred cloth as a tattoo to skin. "Waaahhhh! Failure!"

Second idea: maybe she needed to be lighter. If she let her flame dim, reduced her 'mass,' perhaps a breeze could carry an ember? She focused, letting the snort-maintained energy wane. The flame shrank, guttering low. The cold and the dimness rushed back in with terrifying speed, a yawning void opening beneath her. She panicked, snorting frantically to bring the flame back from the brink of extinction. "Daaaa! Suicide!"

'Jessica, you idiot!' She cursed her past self. 'You always hated biology, physics, science! You studied art! And now? Now I wish I knew how combustion works! Just a little! Stupid! Why am I a total failure in everything?'

A deep, helpless sigh echoed in the cathedral of her mind. She wanted to facepalm, to scream into her hands, but she had neither face nor hands.

So, she did the only thing left. She sang. An old, mournful country tune from her youth, one that had become the soundtrack to her disappointments. Her mental voice, which she privately thought was rather soulful, began the dirge.


"The road is dust… the well is dry~
The sun don't shine in my blue sky~
Love's a train that passed me by~
Leavin' nothin' but a lonesome sigh…

...Yeah, life's a hard, hard row to hoe~
And Fate's a heartless, icy foe…"


She poured her frustration, her fear, her boundless embarrassment into the imaginary lyrics, all while maintaining the rhythmic, life-saving snort-snort-snort that kept her alive. It was a pathetic, surreal orchestra of survival.

Just then, a movement caught her eye, her flickering, fire-based eye. A locust with dull brown wings, landed on the stone path a cautious foot away from her torch. It twitched, antennae waving, utterly unaware of the operatic tragedy unfolding beside it.

Jessica stopped singing.

It wasn't the insect.

It was the blue screen that flashed into existence, overlaying the image of the locust with cold, beautiful text.


<< SKILL – POSSESS ACTIVE >>

<< 1 COMPATIBILITY FOUND >>

<< DO YOU WANT TO POSSESS? >>



<< YES / NO >>

The words hung there, glowing with impossible promise.

All despair, all self-pity, vanished. A slow, mischievous, utterly un-elegant giggle bubbled up from the core of her being.

Her third try.

It might just be a success.



"WAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! FINALLY!!!!"