AYTWKT

The world in this one was really fucked up—post-post-apocalyptic, like after some Judgment Day-type event. As a result, humanity had become way less secular, and worship of all sorts of deities (mostly chthonic) was widespread.

In this mess of a world, I was making my way as the leader of a death cult. We were infamous for human sacrifice to our dark lord, making the skin of our enemies into ritualistic clothing, and maybe even cannibalism, but I’m not sure about that one. Safe to say, people were really after us. They wanted to capture me like I was Hitler in 1945. And they did.

In some kind of law enforcement operation, I was tricked into coming out into the open, and that’s how they got me. I don’t remember a trial, but my sentence being death was pretty much a given. Death by sacrifice to some deity. I don’t remember which one exactly, but I think it was some kind of goddess of healing or something.

I was assigned an executioner to guide me through my last days. The guy was a dapper-looking English gentleman, dressed in a brown and green three-piece suit, carrying a walking cane, and topped off with a fancy hat. Really well-mannered for a stereotypical executioner. His office - yes, office - was packed with books and high-end furniture. The man had taste, an appreciator of fine arts and world history.

Eventually, my time came. I approached him, asking if there was another way to go about my sentence. By then, I had already accepted my fate, but being sacrificed to a god while conscious was a really scary thing in this world. My well-mannered handler offered me an alternative: a way to go out on my own terms.

From his personal collection, he presented me with a collector’s item—a 1911 pistol once owned by Howard Hughes, complete with engravings and everything. The Englishman explained that the goddess only needed my body, not my soul, so it was perfectly fine if I was already dead when the sacrifice happened. Pressing the business end of the .45 against my temple, I pulled the trigger. The gun misfired - all according to general dream laws regarding firearm use - but after another attempt, I was done. I felt my body hit the floor.

But that wasn’t the end.

I was immediately reincarnated. From white boy to asian. I manifested as a full-grown adult, like I had taken over someone’s body, or maybe my new form just materialized out of thin air. Not having learned a damn thing from my past life, I returned to my ways of death cult-ing while keeping my identity extra hidden, because i wasn't just this world's Hitler, i was this world's second incarnation of Hitler.

I remember going on a solo rampage on a highway, wearing a traditional skin outfit and a headpiece made from the top half of a human skull, modified with demonic-like horns.

Then I snapped out of it, almsot like my dark lord’s grip on me was slipping. I reformed. Details get blurry, but I remember enlisting to help at an archaeology dig site, uncovering an ancient cache of lost technology from before Judgment Day.