The Worst Kind of Luck

  The stone walls felt like the end of the world.

  Cold, damp, and sealed shut. In this prison, daylight never reached. During the day, water dripped from cracks in the walls. At night, the chill crept deep into the bones. The ceiling was high, but no wind passed through. Time itself seemed to stop. Only silence breathed here.

  On one of the back walls, faded red marks spread like veins—old paint, dried blood, or something else entirely. No one knew where they came from. They pulsed faintly in the moonlight, as if remembering something long buried.

  Rat had spent four months in that silence.

  “...Four months, huh.”

  Moonlight slipped through a crack in the wall beyond the iron bars, gently illuminating his cheek. The pale light reminded him of something—perhaps his hometown, now lost to memory.

  It had all begun the moment he reincarnated into this world.

  He’d taken only a few steps before he was surrounded by men. Rough hands grabbed his shoulders, slammed him to the ground, and tied a rope around his neck. No chance to plead, no time to scream. He was dragged behind a heavy iron door and thrown inside.

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  As time passed, fragments of this body’s original memories returned to him.

  The name had been Sol. He had lived with his father, mother, and younger sister. But they had been murdered, and Sol branded a criminal—locked away as a felon in this prison.

  But… he was no longer Sol.

  The moment he arrived in this world, the gods had given him a new name.

  Rat—a name that didn’t just overwrite his identity, it erased it.

  “The worst kind of luck, huh.”

  He chuckled quietly, gazing at the moon.

  But he wasn’t just a prisoner. Whatever past he had inherited, the will to survive was now his alone. And he had no intention of kneeling to fate.

  There was a crack in the prison’s armor. The guards were negligent, drowning themselves in drink. The night guard, in particular, was the worst—sleeping at his desk, clutching a bottle like a child with a teddy bear.

  When the snores began, Rat’s “work” would start.

  He slipped past the guard’s gaze, crept into the storage room, and stole whatever might be useful. A dull knife, a bent spoon, a rusted nail, wooden scraps, and even a torn fragment of an old map. Risking everything, he made countless trips through the shadows.

  His escape wasn’t an impulse—it was the result of careful planning and countless calculations.

  The prison floor was all solid stone, but one section—blackened and brittle—stood out. A relic of an old fire that had once ravaged the place. Rumors spoke of a hidden tunnel dug in the chaos to help inmates flee.

  It was sealed, forgotten, buried in the earth beneath their feet.

  If the rumors were true, then that tunnel was his way out.

  By day, he observed. By night, he scraped away at the stone.

  Beating with a metal rod, chiseling with the knife—his hands blistered, bled, and tore, but he never stopped.

  He’d long since stopped counting the days. Hunger, cold, and pain had faded into the background. Digging that hole toward freedom was the only thing that reminded him he was still alive.

  And tonight, his fingers touched something new.

  A hollow space behind the stone. A breath of still air brushed his cheek. After so long sealed away, even that faint emptiness felt like a miracle.

  Rat stood slowly. The moonlight painted his tattered clothes silver. His body was thin, his face stained with dirt, his hands red with blood—but his eyes gleamed sharper than the darkness around him.

  “...Later.”

  Was that farewell meant for the cell?

  Or for this cruel, absurd world itself?

  He stepped into the void without hesitation.

  A world he had yet to see awaited him on the other side.

  Even if everything turned against him—even if he was captured again—he would keep moving forward.

  Led by the worst kind of luck.

  From this terrible beginning, his story would begin.

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