It was a day like any other; shining sun, chirping birds, and busy streets. Kuro was on his way to the park to propose to his one true love, Hime. She was a reporter and idol, assigned to cover the opening of a new dog park built in honor of a deceased philanthropist. Kuro had already talked it over with her co-workers and arranged a special surprise during her broadcast for the whole world to see.

  As he approached from the North entrance, he spotted her surrounded by the crew. She was smiling and waving to the camera as she petted a group of pedigree dogs and interviewed their socialite owners. To Kuro, she looked like a goddess.

  ‘My beautiful princess!’ he thought.

  Spurred on by a surge of emotion, he ran up with eyes fixed on her.

  “Hime-chan!” he called out.

  Their eyes met and she looked surprised to see him. In reality, she had long figured out his plan.

  “Oh!” she gasped, feigning ignorance with a slight glance at the camera.

  As she smiled warmly, Kuro was so taken up in his excitement that he did not see the huge turd in his path.

  He mashed it and slipped, sending him feet first into the air and landing head first onto the shit-stained grass. He stumbled to his feet in a daze, but somehow managed to pull out the ring box. Dropping to one knee, he revealed the engagement piece and asked the big, burning question. But halfway down, an ear-splitting rip rang out as his pants and underwear tore from ear to ear. His girlfriend’s eyes flew open wide in horror as his privates were exposed.

  Before he could react, she turned and walked off, leaving him struggling to pull his pants together. The entire park was gaping at him, setting his skin on fire with goosebumps. That wasn’t the worst part. There were hundreds of thousands of eyes watching the disaster on live TV, and there would soon be millions more on the internet. The whole world would scrutinize him — a shit stain running the length of his body, a split pants, and a broken heart.

  ‘This day couldn't possibly get any worse,’ he thought.

  Unbeknownst to him, all the conditions had been met.

  As he turned to slink away, a ring of light encircled him and cryptic runes surrounded him. In a flash, a huge beam of light fell from the heavens, ripped a hole in reality, and pushed him out.

  Kuro’s consciousness floated in a void. He couldn’t really tell how he was aware of it since he couldn’t see, hear, or feel. All his senses had gone blank, as if he was reset. It was unsettling to say the least. He waited aimlessly in the darkness for what seemed like ages before a voice came, feminine but monotone.

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  “Wow! A 386, huh? Haven’t seen one of those in… maybe ever… How bad do you think his shame was?”

  Kuro wanted to call out. Somehow, although he couldn’t speak, his thoughts reached the person in the dark.

  “Is someone there!? Where am I? …Am I dead!?”

  With a hint of surprise, the voice responded.

  “Calm down. I’m just your case worker, so my name’s not important. For your purposes, you can consider me an administrator. You were chosen for the Anti-hero Summoning Ritual. Congrats.”

  Still confused, Kuro asked, “What? I don’t know what that means… What ritual?”

  The voice sighed.

  “Put simply, you were ejected from your reality due to extreme embarrassment. I’m assigned to find you a new reality where you can start over.”

  “Ejected!?”

  “I told you to calm down, didn’t I? I’ll explain, so listen carefully. This is a failsafe God built into each reality. When someone suffers a humiliation too great to bear, they get one redo of life in a new world, where nobody knows them or about their humiliating incident. So, tell me, what happened to you?”

  “You don’t already know?”

  There was a pause before the voice answered.

  “Unfortunately those matters are confidential. Your origin, name, and incident are all concealed. Case workers are only informed of the time period you lived in and mundane attributes — like the fact that you're a human male. Only you and God know the rest. Well… and the people in your previous reality. Considering there are infinite realities, it would be impossible to pinpoint which is yours.”

  Kuro could have sworn he felt an inkling of smug satisfaction, and maybe a hint of relief. There was no need to compound his shame by telling another person. Or whatever disembodied being he was currently talking to.

  “Hey if God made it private, who am I to tell?” he said. “Why do you want to know anyway?”

  “I’ve never seen a case like this before. Call it intellectual curiosity if you will. You sure you can’t just give me a rough summary?”

  “No way.”

  “Aw, come on. At least tell me your name.”

  Kuro was getting mildly annoyed. If he was dead and headed for a new reality, he just wanted to get it over with. His old life was in shambles and by this point, he was dying to put the past where it belonged.

  “You’re wasting your time!” he snapped. “You’re clearly going to try searching me up. By now there must be hundreds of vids circulating online.”

  The voice went quiet again.

  Too quiet.

  “Hey. Hello?” Kuro said, getting nervous. “You still there?”

  “Oh! Yes, I won’t leave you here. Don’t worry.” the voice said, sounding a lot perkier. “I will commend you on figuring out what I was trying to do, but sadly you used the words search, vids, and online. There are a few bands of humanoid realities within your time period that refer to their communication network in such a manner. One hundred and eighty-six quintillion to be precise. Now I just have to scan all their content.”

  Kuro scoffed.

  “There’s no way y-”

  “Found it!”

  A shocked whimper escaped him.

  “There’s no w—” he started again.

  “This has to be it. So your name is Kuro, huh? Let’s see… Oh my god… Dog shit?”

  The voice burst out laughing.

  “I’m sorry, I'm sorry. Wow, this is definitely worth it. You had the absolute worst fortune.”

  Kuro wanted to bury his nonexistent head in shame.

  “Are you serious? You’re the worst case worker ever.”

  The voice was still practically wiping tears away.

  “Could you not?” Kuro grumbled. “I should report you.”

  The voice finally gave a satisfied sigh and apologized once more.

  “I just couldn’t help myself. I haven’t laughed like that in millennia, so as thanks, let me do something special for you, Kuro. I won’t just shoot you off to just any new reality — I’ll send you to one I think you’ll really like.”

  Before Kuro could register what was happening, he felt himself disappearing.

  The voice came again, a little more distant now.

  “Good-bye, Kuro. And try to watch where you’re walking from now on.”

  He was about to say a begrudging thanks when he heard, “...Hey, you guys have to see this!”

  “Wait, no. Don’t show it to anyone! Aaaaaahhhh~”