Clyde Manson led a life many would have coveted for its comforting simplicity. A neat suburban home, a lawn meticulously mowed every Saturday morning, a quiet job as an accountant at a medium-sized firm.

  His life was a unifying thread, punctuated by the laughter of his children and evening meals shared with his wife, Sarah. A cozy routine, a peaceful family haven that he had patiently built over the years.

  However, a subtle shadow was beginning to mar this idyllic tapestry, a barely perceptible discord in the melody of her daily life. Sarah had taken up a new habit.

  Every day around noon, she left the house under some vague pretext—an urgent errand, a friend in distress—and invariably returned two hours later, her cheeks slightly pinker than usual, a faint, unfamiliar scent lingering in her wake.

  At first, Clyde paid no attention. Sarah was sometimes unpredictable, with her sudden bursts of generosity and her fluctuating friendships.

  It was Mark, a fast-talking, unfailingly honest colleague, who sowed the initial seed of doubt.

  One afternoon, near the office coffee machine, Mark blurted out, between two hot sips: "Tell me, Clyde, your wife, she doesn't have a lover on the side, does she?"

  Clyde laughed, a forced laugh that sounded false even to his own ears. "Sarah? Nonsense, Mark. We've been married for fifteen years, we have two kids."

  Mark shrugged, his eyes narrowing with unpleasant insight. "Yeah, so what? Appearances, my friend... There's a rumor going around. A small, discreet apartment downtown... a slightly overly made-up blonde who regularly goes in and out at the same time. Sound familiar?"

  Clyde’s blood freezes.

  The image of Sarah leaving the house at noon, her return two hours later... the pieces of the puzzle began to come together, forming a picture he refused to contemplate.

  "You're wrong, Mark. Completely." He turned on his heel, his heart pounding, leaving his coffee half full.

  The following days were a silent torture. Clyde watched Sarah with newfound acuity, watching for the slightest sign, the faintest confirmation of Mark's words. His midday absences now seemed like eternities fraught with suspicion.

  Was her smile more tense? Were her kisses more distant? He wanted to ask her, to confront her, but a visceral fear held him back. The fear of shattering the fragile illusion of his happiness, the fear of hearing the words he dreaded most.

  Friday evening, the atmosphere at the table was strangely tense. The children, Tom and Léa, aged ten and eight respectively, were fighting over a mouthful of mashed potatoes, oblivious to the palpable tension crackling between their parents.

  Clyde tried to keep the conversation normal, talking about his day at the office and asking Sarah how her "urgent errand" went . She answered in a monotone, avoiding his gaze.

  As they finished their meal, Sarah's phone, lying on the sideboard, lit up, signaling the arrival of a message. A discreet notification appeared at the top of the screen. By cruel coincidence, Clyde's viewing angle allowed him to read the first words: "My love... I can't wait to see you tomorrow..."

  An intense cold gripped Clyde, numbing his limbs. The clinking of cutlery, the muffled laughter of children, everything seemed to be happening in slow motion, like a bad dream. He stared at the phone screen, the words burning into his retina. "Who is it?" His voice was hoarse, strangled.

  Sarah jumped, her eyes wide, and quickly grabbed her phone. "No one… just a friend." Her tone was too fast, too defensive.

  "Let's see." Clyde stood up, his chair scraping against the tiles. His outward calm belied a volcano about to erupt.

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  Sarah stepped back, clutching the phone to her chest. "No, Clyde, please… It's private."

  "Private?" A bitter laugh escaped him. "You have secrets from me now? After fifteen years?"

  The argument erupted like a summer storm, sudden and violent. The children, at first distraught, began to cry, panicked by a fury they had never seen in their father. Words clashed, accusations and denials mingling with the children's sobs. Clyde demanded the truth, his heart pounding. Sarah withdrew into silence, tears in her eyes.

  Finally, cornered, her eyes red and filled with belated remorse, Sarah snapped. Her words shattered Clyde's world into a thousand pieces, reducing to dust the fifteen years of happiness he thought he had built.

  “Yes… I’m cheating on you, Clyde. It’s been months…” His voice was a broken whisper.

  The silence that followed was more deafening than the screams. Clyde stared at her in disbelief, unable to understand. "Who? Who is it?"

  Sarah looked away, unable to meet his gaze. "It doesn't matter..."

  "Yes, it's important!" Clyde yelled, his face contorted with pain and rage. "And the children? Do they know?"

  Sarah's next words were the final blow, the final blade that destroyed everything Clyde had believed in. "The children... they're not yours, Clyde."

  The world around Clyde collapsed. Betrayal, humiliation, lies… everything crashed down on him with brutal force. The faces of Tom and Leah, whom he had loved and raised as his own, suddenly appeared foreign to him, laden with blood that wasn't his own.

  Anger, cold and devastating, replaced the pain. He felt drained, betrayed to the core, his entire life reduced to a bitter charade.

  In a daze, his gaze fell on his father's old revolver, a relic of a bygone era, tucked away in the sideboard drawer. A flash of madness crossed his foggy mind. A radical solution, a brutal end to this unbearable suffering.

  Without a word, he opened the drawer and grabbed the heavy, cold weapon. Sarah looked at him in horror, realizing too late the depths of his despair. The children were still crying, unaware of the cataclysm engulfing them.

  The sound of gunfire ripped through the stillness of the night, ending a life built on lies and the innocence of two young souls. Then, one last shot, muffled, more definitive, sealed Clyde Manson's fate in a pool of blood and despair.

  A blinding light. Then nothingness.

  Then a strange sensation ran through him, as if he were being pulled into an invisible tunnel. Fragments of color swirled around him, indistinct whispers vibrated in his ears. Slowly, his consciousness returned, fragmented and confused.

  He opened his eyes. The sky above him wasn't the familiar blue of his world. It was a deep amethyst hue, dotted with stars of unusual brilliance. The air was fresh, scented with an unfamiliar grass and a sweet floral aroma. He was lying on soft ground, covered in lush vegetation he'd never seen before.

  The stabbing pain that had preceded the emptiness had faded, replaced by a strange lightness. He straightened, discovering a body different from his own. Younger, more agile, with calloused hands that weren't those of an accountant. His clothes were simple, made of a coarse fabric, reminiscent of a peasant's attire.

  As he tried to figure out where he was, a bright notification appeared before his eyes, floating in the air like an iridescent soap bubble.

  The bubble burst and a series of translucent windows appeared, displaying incomprehensible information:

  Stats, skills, experience points. A new world opened up to him, governed by strange and unfamiliar rules. Clyde Manson was no more. He was Ragnar, a peasant in a world governed by a game system he knew nothing about.

  The tragedy of his past life was now nothing more than a painful memory, the obscure cause of his new existence. What fate awaited him in this new world? And would this "System" offer him redemption or a new form of life?

  Damnation? The future, like the amethyst sky above him, was a complete enigma.