My name's Alex. Or, at least, it was Alex. Average guy, mid-twenties, mediocre job, and a long-standing rivalry with oat milk prices.
I lived a thrilling life—if your definition of thrilling includes updating Excel spreadsheets while questioning your life choices and crying into your noodles at 2 a.m. My job? Data entry for a company so boring, even its name was beige. I'm pretty sure our logo was just the word "Data" in lowercase Comic Sans. I had exactly zero romantic prospects, a gaming backlog that could crush a lesser man, and dreams of learning to code that ended the moment I saw a semicolon.
Weekends were spent ordering food from restaurants so often that one driver started calling me "brother." I once watched a seven-hour documentary on competitive sheep herding and thought, Yes. This is fine.
And somehow, despite living such a low-stakes life, I managed to die in the stupidest way possible.
It all began with oat milk. Again.
I was walking home from work, ranting to no one in particular about how a single carton now cost more than my dignity. I stepped onto my porch, raised my fist to the sky in dramatic protest—"How dare you, Oat Gods!"—and that's when the universe decided it was done with me.
BOOM. Lightning bolt number one.
Right in the chest. Felt like a microwave exploded inside me. I collapsed in a sizzling heap, smelling like burned toast and bad decisions.
And then, lightning bolt number two. Into my arm.
"ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" I shrieked, twitching on the ground like a cursed marionette.
Bolt three: my leg. Bolt four: my other arm. I flailed like a dying spider. Then came number five, which went full Mortal Kombat and obliterated my stomach. The result looked like someone tried to deep-fry a beanbag.
At that point, I wasn't even scared. I was just done.
"Cool," I gasped, wheezing smoke. "Death by oat milk rage and God's taser. Real poetic."
The paramedics, bless their hearts, scraped me off the pavement and hauled me to the hospital. I vaguely remember flipping off the ceiling of the ambulance and muttering something about suing the weather.
I woke up once. Long enough to hear some beeping and see a blurry nurse mouth the words "How is he alive?" I mentally composed my epitaph:
"Here lies Alex. Electrified, cremated, and mildly inconvenienced."
But the real betrayal came next.
A dog.
Not a metaphor. Not a hallucination. A literal dog. Medium-sized. Scruffy. The kind of mutt that looks like it stole your lunch and then emotionally gaslit you about it.
It wandered into my hospital room like it owned the place, tail wagging like a metronome of doom. I blinked at it.
"...hey, buddy."
It tilted its head, licked its nose, and then—casually, gleefully—trotted up to the wall and yanked the plug to my life support out with its teeth.
Flatline.
Beeeeeeeeep.
The dog gave me a look. The kind of smug look you'd expect from a creature that just ended a man's life and has no regrets.
Then it walked out. Just… walked out. Didn't even look back.
And that, kids, is how I died.
I woke up a second time, but this time in a place that smelled like ancient wood and aggressively expired soy sauce.
I sat up—too fast—and immediately noticed three things:
I was not in a hospital.
My arms were short. Too short.
I had the bladder control of a small, startled animal.
Panicking, I stumbled to the nearest reflective surface—a dusty, warped mirror nailed to a crooked wall—and nearly screamed.
A kid stared back at me. Scrawny. Maybe eight or nine. Hair like someone had styled it with static electricity and bad intentions. Big, confused eyes.
"Wh-who the hell is that?" I croaked, poking the mirror. The kid poked back. "No, nope, this is… this is some 'Freaky Friday' voodoo."
I spun in place, inspecting my tiny hands, my child-sized feet, the terrible old pajamas I'd apparently inherited. Somewhere, in the back of my mind, a single horrifying realization bloomed:
I had been body-snatched by a budget orphan.
My name was Alex. I was dead. Probably. Or not. Or I was in a coma-dream orchestrated by a sentient dog cult. Honestly, all options were on the table.
Then it got worse.
A metallic clang rang out from inside my skull, followed by a voice that sounded like R2-D2 gargling autotune.
"Welcome, New User. Connection established. Initiating: The Hodgepodge Hextech Helix™."
"What?! Who said that?! Where—who—WHAT?"
"Processing host data… Subject: Uzumaki Alex. (Error: Name Mismatch. Renaming to: Random Civilian A). Age: 8. Location: Konohagakure, Land of Fire. Purpose: Survival and… moderate inconvenience."
"Excuse me—Random Civilian A?! I had a name! It was Alex! I paid taxes!"
The ceiling didn't respond. Instead, a glowing interface exploded into my vision, full of spinning gears, glitchy sparks, and a dangerously unstable-looking slot machine labeled "THE HODGEPODGE HEXTECH HELIX – Because Why Not?"
At the bottom, one button blinked menacingly:
SYNAPSE SPARK READY! PRESS TO GENERATE CHAOS.
"...Nope. Nope. I'm out. Where's the return policy? Is there a settings menu? WHO DO I EVEN COMPLAIN TO?!"
I backed into the wall, breathing hard, blinking at the interface like it might eat me.
Somewhere in the distance, a rooster screamed. Or maybe it was a hawk. Or maybe I was losing my mind.
I looked down at my tiny hands, back up at the nightmare UI floating in the air, and whispered the only thing that made sense anymore:
"…what the hell is a Konoha?"
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This is purely going to comedy and also I don't know anything about Naruto me friend is helping me write this.