Chapter 1: The WHEEL
Alexis Rodriguez was twenty-six years old, a failed artist, worked a data entry job she hated, and had exactly two hobbies: watching Marvel movies and arguing about them on Reddit.
But she did not read the Marvel comics. Not one. Not ever. She could name maybe five characters who hadn’t appeared on screen and two of those were probably wrong.
This ignorance would save her. It would also destroy her.
But that came later.
Alexis died on a Tuesday. Not heroically. Not tragically. She choked on a piece of steak at a chain restaurant while scrolling her phone. The last thing she saw was a tweet about Deadpool 3 casting rumors. Then nothing.
Then light.
She woke in a white space. Infinite. Silent. No floor, no ceiling, no walls...just whiteness that went on forever and a single object floating in front of her: a roulette wheel.
The wheel was old. Brass. Scratched. The kind you’d find in a backroom casino, the sort that had seen debts collected and knuckles broken. But instead of numbers, the slots held names. Hundreds of them. Thousands. Too many to read at once, but the letters shimmered as if alive.
COMIC BOOK CHARACTERS.
Alexis blinked. Patted her chest. Her throat. She’d just been chewing, wait, was there still steak in her teeth? No. There was nothing. No body, really. Just awareness. Just her, condensed into a point of consciousness staring at a very old, very ominous gambling device.
“Okay,” she whispered. Her voice echoed strangely. “Okay. I’m dreaming. I fell asleep at my desk again. Karen from accounting is going to find me drooling on my keyboard.”
A voice spoke. Not loud. Not quiet. Inside her head and outside it at the same time, like a song played through headphones and speakers simultaneously.
“You died. This is not heaven or hell. This is the space between stories.”
Alexis opened her mouth. No sound came out. She tried again. “What?”
“Every world needs a disruptor. Every disruptor needs a soul. The wheel chooses. You spin. You live again as whoever it lands on.”
“I don’t want...”
“You don’t get to want. You died. The wheel decides.”
“That’s insane,” Alexis said, finding her voice now. “That’s...no. No, thank you. I didn’t sign up for this. I want a manager. I want to speak to whoever’s in charge of...of cosmic redistribution or whatever this is.”
Silence.
Then, softer: “You choked on a seventeen-dollar sirloin while reading about Ryan Reynolds. There is no manager.”
Alexis felt heat rise to her cheeks assuming she had cheeks in this form. “That’s... I mean. Shit.”
She pause.
“Okay. That’s fair.”
The wheel spun on its own. She didn’t touch it. She couldn’t. Her hands, if she had hands, remained at her sides. The names blurred into a smear of ink and possibility. She caught fragments spinning past the stationary needle: Captain America. Black Widow. Moon Knight. Squirrel Girl. Doctor Doom. ULTRON.
“Hang on,” she said, watching the blur. “Squirrel Girl? That’s a real character? I thought that was a meme.”
The voice didn’t answer.
Then the wheel slowed.
Click. Click. Click.
The needle stopped.
JULIA CARPENTER.
Alexis stared at the name. Nothing. No recognition whatsoever. She ran through every movie she’d ever seen, every trailer, every post-credits scene. Julia Carpenter. Was she an Avenger? A villain? A sidekick? A love interest? A side character? Or just some NPC background filler?
She tried to remember if the name had ever appeared in any of the films. A cameo? A newspaper headline? An Easter egg?
Complete blank.
“That’s not a real person,” Alexis said slowly. “You made that up.”
“She is real. She matters. You will wake in her body at the moment her story begins. You will have no memories of her life. You will have only your own. Live as her. Fight as her. Die as her. The wheel does not spin twice.”
Panic spiked through her. “Wait...wait, wait, wait. What are her powers? What am I supposed to do? Who is she? Give me something. A hint. A Wikipedia summary. I didn’t read the comics, okay? I’m a movie fan. We exist. We’re valid.”
The voice paused, as if considering something. Then: “You will figure it out.”
“That’s not an answer! That’s what people say when they don’t know the answer!”
“That’s what people say when the answer would ruin the surprise.”
Alexis wanted to scream. Instead, she gestured wildly at the wheel. “What if I refuse? What if I just...stand here? Forever? In the white void?”
“Then you stand here forever. In the white void. No phone. No Reddit. No arguing about whether Captain Marvel could beat Superman.”
A beat.
“Spoiler: she can’t.”
“That’s not even the same universe...”
“...Wait. Why am I arguing about this? I’m dead. I’m dead and talking to a roulette wheel.”
Alexis stopped herself. Shook her head. “No. No, you’re trying to bait me. I see what you’re doing. You’re a cosmic entity with the debating style of a twelve-year-old on a fan forum.”
“And yet, you’re still here. Still talking to me. Still not spinning the wheel again.”
She opened her mouth. Closed it. The voice had a point. A deeply annoying point.
“Fine,” she said. “Fine. But I’m documenting this. If I wake up as some D-list character who dies in her first issue, I’m leaving a one-star review.”
“Noted.”
The white space cracked.
Then shattered.
Then Alexis was falling.
