Kasey left the building and remembered the card that he had been given. He gazed at it and saw a black card that had a skull with a flower growing from it. He flipped the card to check the next appointment time.

The card had a real time countdown that read, one hour and three minutes.

’May as well go have a coffee.’ Kasey thought.

He went to the road crossing and waited for the pedestrian crossing light to come on.

Using his phone he sent a message to the old man.

[ The test has a mandatory follow up so deal with the customer coming in an hour. ]

The crossing light started beeping indicating it was time for the pedestrians to cross.

Kasey began walking while holding his card and phone trying to see if he could find anything on the skull and flower.

Though there was nothing on the logo he discovered the flower to be a perennial flower. The flower is short lived and dies back to its roots naturally or should the plant be burnt in a wildfire. The plant however can regrow come spring and due to its robust root system it can out compete other seasonal plants in terms of growth.

As Kasey was pondering the insignia he forgot he was in the middle of the road and he heard a loud beep.

His thoughts began to feel fuzzy out of the blue and soon it was as though he lost all perception then his thoughts died off.

***

“Warning Warning escape pod integrity compromised“

“Warning Warning hazardous atmosphere detected”

”Warning Warning possible threats detected entering silent running mode”

Alarms were blearing inside of a damaged escape pod.

”Agh Fuck, what is going on?!”

A boy encased in a white medical capsule that was inside a smoldering escape pod began stirring awake.

Taking in the inside of the capsule his confusion grew.

A screen outside the medical capsule lit up and displayed English text.

< Status Report >

< The escape pod experienced a collision with orbiting debris upon planetary entry >

< Contingencies came into effect and allowed for a landing with the occupant intact >

< The set landing coordinates was unable to be reached >

As the report continued Kasey was still trying to piece together the situation.

‘I was crossing the street and then…’

He could not think of anything after.

So he looked at his body which was that of an eight year old.

’This is not my body’

He had only glanced at the screen displaying the report while taking in his surroundings yet he still captured the key points.

’Escape pod? Why am I in an escape pod’

’Planetary entry… I was in space?!’

‘Possible threats detected wait am I in danger’

’this is not my body is this earth where am i what happened did i get reincarnated wha…’

As the heavily augmented brain and body Kasey had inhabited kicked into gear it was as though an ordinary person was put into the seat of a jet.

They maybe can keep it level and turn a bit however they would be way out of their depth to suddenly have to bring it under control.

His thoughts sped up and his emotions became amplified. The flood of emotions and thoughts brought confusion. Soon multiple lines of thoughts opened up at once each line bringing forth its own amplified emotions.

The body’s entire enhanced nervous system and senses became extremely active feeding back an overwhelming amount of information.

His head and body began to get hot and he started twitching.

Once there seemed to be no recovery from the situation the medical capsule injected a suppressant.

Kasey began to relax, his breathing and heart rate normalized, thoughts slowed and his senses dulled to the point where they were at a manageable level.

‘WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!?’

Kasey was scared because he knew that had the situation not come under control he would have burnt out his nervous system.

’Wait, how do I know that?’

It was like he had received a reply from a computer after issuing a query. The only catch is the computer is himself, it felt way too odd.

Despite the suppressant Kasey’s thoughts still caused turmoil and confusion.

‘I need to calm down’

He needed a way to control his thoughts so he thought back to something used to do.

’I need to meditate’

He slowly cleared his thoughts, closed his eyes and let himself lay in the soft foam of the medical capsule. Focusing only on long breaths he lay there and soon his breathing was all that was on his mind.

Now that he was in a stable state he began to slowly feel out his thoughts. Carefully he tried various thought exercises. He tried recalling memories, imagining images, three dimensional objects and math.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

As he explored he began to feel something interesting, it was the most obvious when he tried math.

He figured that part of his mind should be digitized. As when he thinks of a problem like what is one plus one and the thought enters what should be the digitized portion of the mind then he experiences the process of solving the problem like a computer would. It is fast and throws him off with the foreign feeling it gives.

With the realization of the digitized portion he tried to isolate his thoughts from it.

It took a bit of trial and error but he eventually could think without having the digitized portion of his mind attempt to process everything.

Now he could think somewhat normally again.

***

Dark clouds covered the skies and occasionally flashed, sending down streaks of lightning upon a blanket of gray snow that covered the ruins of a city.

The shape of a damaged escape pod can be seen covered by the gray flakes slowly meandering from the stormy skies above. The pod lay in a snow covered street between the damaged remains of tall buildings and a hill of snow leading to a towering hull made from corroded alloys.

A small camera atop the escape pod panned observing the surroundings. Inside the escape pod sat a boy operating a tablet connected to the camera.

It has been two days since Kasey had found himself here and he had yet to leave the pod.

There are a few reasons why that is the case. For one he was familiarizing himself with the situation and what resources he has.

There was also the case of him getting used to his highly Augmented body while not under the effect of suppressants from the medical capsule which was hard in of itself.

Kasey sat in skin tight white clothes that covered his entire body. These were some sort of medical ware they had various ports for injections and running fluids through the body during stasis.

He had a mask on due to the pod not being air tight from damage and the air outside being harmful if breathed.

On the tablet that showed the camera's view of the surroundings large foot prints could be seen in the snow.

“Finally it has left.”

Kasey said in relief. For the past two days some four legged abomination has been trying to make a meal out of him. Lucky for Kasey the escape pod was capable of keeping it out.

Arranged around Kasey was everything he had that could be useful.

Kasey had figured out how to use the tablet to control the camera on the pod and access some information on items inside the escape pod.

The tablet used what Kasey is positive is the english language, despite some additional punctuation and words.

Kasey wasn’t going to complain about being able to read in this situation despite the unlikely chance of being reincarnated to a world that used the same language.

From what he found in the pods inventory information there were some items missing from the pod most likely sucked out of the hole that had been closed by some black foam that had hardened like metal.

He wasn’t sure what some of the missing inventory was as the tablet only had usage manuals for certain items such as the laser rifle which is missing from the pod.

If only he had it he may feel more secure however he was stuck with a pistol that he couldn’t figure out how to use.

The manual for the pistol uses a lot of technical words and concepts that make it impossible to decipher how any of that works without background knowledge of any of it.

On the bright side there were plenty of rations so he could wait out whatever was trying to eat him.

He did have a cool piece of gear though incomplete. It was like a butt pack except it had four thrusters that could provide thrust for upward, forward and a decent degree of sideways movement.

The only catch is it is supposed to function with a back mounted piece which holds more fuel and has some sort of anti gravity system along with strong downward, backward and some more sideward thrusters.

With both you can have total freedom of movement and can fly. Well that is what he derived from the manual that at least came with some demo videos.

‘Not that it would be useful now though’

Kasey thought, as even if he had the complete mobility gear he wouldn’t know how to use it without practice and a so-called neural tap.

So all he could do was wait out the creature which seemed to have worked.

He decided to leave and scout the surroundings for people as he could only live off what he is calling ration jelly for so long.

The door to the pod groaned as it opened and allowed the cold winds inside. Kasey shivered when the cold air hit him.

‘Let’s make this trip quick then.’

Kasey thought.

He stepped out from the door and his feet that were covered by the thin white material of the medical ware sunk into the snow.

There was no other clothing inside the pod so he had to make do with what he had.

He started walking toward the snow covered Ruble that held what looked like the hull of a corroded space ship. As he quickly trudged through the gray snow he glanced around looking for danger.

He had chosen to explore this way because it was the opposite direction to the one the creature had left in.

He was nearing his destination when he felt something deep inside him telling him something was off behind him.

His heart rate had sped up on its own as he turned to look back at the other side of the street.

There he saw distortions that slowly changed to solid white.

There he saw a towering white abomination. It stood on four legs and had a mix of hair and scales across its body. There were spikes that stood along its spine and it had long metallic fangs hanging from its long mouth.

Before he could turn to run it moved with an astonishing pounce that would bring it upon Kasey before he could do anything.

His body wanted to react and his senses wanted to perceive what was happening however the suppressants were still in effect.

He closed his eyes as that was all he could do however there was nothing but a whoosh of wind followed by a crackle of energy.

He had fallen on his but and opened eyes to look but the creature was not there.

All he could see was a streak of steaming blood in the gray snow. Terror started to bloom from within him. He scrambled through the snow and dove into the first opening he could find in the remains of the space ship.

Once inside he crawled and stumbled while moving through the dark twisted insides of the hull.

He eventually stopped because he found himself with no way to progress. He looked back and only saw darkness.

‘I shouldn’t have left the pod.’

‘I was happy just fixing stuff for a living.’

‘I want to go home.’

‘I want my family back.’

He was regretting everything now and though he was a rational person before he transmigrated and that side of him still tried to evaluate the situation. This modified body of an eight year old simply didn’t allow for him to be calm.

He began to sob. Although he knew he needed to stay quiet and tried to suppress the noise he couldn’t fight the strong emotions even with the suppressant acting on his body.

He rubbed his eyes on his sleeve and even bit his lip to keep it in. He leaned on the dead end and slowly curled up while his sobs came up like hiccups through his mask.

A blue light came on at this moment. Kasey looked up while his chest hurt from trying to regulate his hitching breaths. He was in a hallway and behind him was a door next to which a panel had lit up.

He stood and gazed at it. There was a dirty screen that had a hand shape on it however many sections were black. He felt hope and placed his hand on the display which then beeped and went green.

< Human detected >

< Repressurising …. >

After a minute and some hissing the door opened.

Kasey hurried inside and saw a panel glowing next to the door. This one was in good condition. He pressed the close button on the screen and the door hissed shut. He then saw an icon that looked like it represented light so he touched it.

Soon his surroundings lit up with dull red lights and the screen displayed.

< Low power energy saving mode engaged >

< estimated time to depletion is approximately 60 days >

He looked around his eyes still red but now having forgotten himself from moments ago due to his excitement.

He was now inside of what appears to be a hanger

The most telling part was sharp lines of an aircraft sitting inside.