Mark stretched in bed as his eyes squinted from the sliver of bright sunlight making its way through the curtains.

‘Ah… the bane of sleep… yet superman’s strength… nuclear fusion.’

After lampooning about superman’s method of gaining strength, Mark pulled his lethargic body out of bed and into the bathroom. While brushing half asleep, he recalled that the air conditioner was still on, so with a brush in his mouth and no t-shirt, he walked over to his table, only to not find the remote.

‘Alright, I’ll do this after I’ve washed my face and found my spectacles.’

A while of brushing, washing his face, and putting on his blue spectacles, Mark walked back out of the bathroom, still shirtless and noticed his room looked rather different.

His ductless smart-AC had been replaced by an old and warn-out window-AC. The large flat-screen O-LED TV was replaced with a much smaller, and much thicker box-TV. On his table, instead of his laptop with all his finished but ultimately failed movie scripts, his incomplete web novels, comic book attempts, and animation drawings, there were a stack of notebooks and text books, all talking about various academic subjects, and below the table were multiple board-games.

In a panic, Mark reached over to the pocket of his pants, only to realise he was wearing boxers and the only pocket it had was on the back, which was empty.

He turned around to the side-tables of his bed and found nothing, so he hurriedly flipped over his blanket and the sheets, and still found nothing except a pack of gum.

‘My phone…’

Depressed at the loss of his phone, Mark trudged out of his room, only to realise where he was staying was also different. It was no longer the apartment he had bought for himself, but it was still an apartment near the outskirts of Las Angeles, only it was much smaller.

With one bedroom, one bathroom inside the bedroom, a small kitchen that was part of the living room that was smaller than the bedroom itself. The only window of the apartment was in the bedroom, and everything else had to be lit using electric lights.

*Knock*

*Knock*

“Mark, getchyo a*s out here! We gotta go!”

Suddenly, Mark heard what sounded like an African-American man speaking in a rather odd way, sounding closer to Eddie-Murphy from Dr. Dolittle.

Then, with a loud thud inside his mind, Mark felt a profound understanding of his current situation.

He was Mark Whitehall, a 21-year-old who just passed out of Community College here in Las Angeles, having studied mainly screenplay and directing. An outgoing and charismatic individual; someone completely different to who Mark had been before coming to this new body. And yet, he still somehow ended up having only a single close friend; Edward. Coincidentally, the two became friends despite being in different specialisations.

Last night, after having finally passed, Mark and his buddy Edward went out to party, and only barely returned home at 2 in the morning, completely drunk. Thankfully they both lived right next to each other which was part of the reason they had become such close friends, so they had gone to bed the moment they returned.

‘Wasn’t Eddie’s real name Edward…’

Mark’s thoughts wandered for a moment before returning back to normal. Today, the two had to go for a job interview.

Mark was trying to join a rather new film company as a paid intern for the junior scriptwriter position. Meanwhile, Edward was going to audition for a small role in an indie film, which would make his chances to be selected a lot higher.

Most importantly, this world was a lot different to where Mark original came from. Not only did he go back in time, but he apparently also travelled to an alternate universe of some kind. And why did he think so, it was actually kind of simple.

In this world, so many of the original novels and movies he had heard of, which should have already been published or released had not been yet. For example, masterpieces like The Great Gatsby which should have been released in the first half of the 1900 had not been published yet.

“Coming Eddie. Just need to change into my work clothes!”

However, Eddie did not wait and instead walked over the flower pot next to the door, and lifted up his freshly pressed office shirt, and dug his hand into the mud. Moments later he pulled out a key and unlocked the door, to the view of a half naked Mark putting on his shirt, with no pants.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Man, we are already 10 minutes late!”

“Eddie the plan was for each of us to reach 2 hours early.”

“I know! It ain’t enough time Mark! I’m tellin’ ya! We gotta go! Your Writer’s Guild and my Actors Association only gave each of us 2 free job-notices. Everythin’ after than will be paid, and we can’t pay for nothin’ we broke b*tch.”

“Alright, I’m almost ready. Do you have the tickets?”

“Right here. Mine is going up north, yours goes south, but it should take each of us only 12 minutes to reach. All the f*cking best bud!”

Edward offered the ticket and a handshake much like the one in Predator between two men fighting for their lives.

“All the very f*cking best my man!”

Mark accepted the handshake and pulled Eddie slightly closer while sporting a sh*t-eating grin. The memories of having passed college together already having settled in his mind.

“My Man!”

Eddie grinned all before slapping Mark’s head with his other hand.

“Get ready! I ain’ gonna be late cause of ya!”

2 minutes later, with an unbuttered bread in his mouth, Mark and Edward left their room and headed to the bus station.

...

After saying goodbye, the two boarded different busses and headed off after another goodbye. On the bus, Mark looked down at his hands while pondering his current condition and future while recalling his past, which was set in the future.

...

Mark was the older brother to a younger sister, who turned out to be better than him in every way. Since they were only born a year apart, his sister had quickly caught up to him physically and even surpassed him. Meanwhile, her natural talent in studies and sports made her the clear favourite in the house, and Mark gradually felt inferior in every way to her.

Despite the unconditional support from his parents, Mark did not pursue his dream of writing novels and scripts, and instead took up a normal 9-5 job while writing screenplays and novels only as a mere hobby in his free time.

On the other hand, his sister took up the profession of a doctor, and ended up becoming a qualified surgeon.

The siblings ended up on complete opposites, one pursuing her dreams to save people, while the other giving up on his dreams due to his own insecurities.

As time progressed and their lives diverged, contact reduced considerably until one day when he got the news of both his parents passing away in a break-in, and his sister who had been with them at the time being heavily injured an in a coma.

Life for Mark returned to the melancholic routine with performing his desk-job at the local bank till evening, going to meet his comatose sister while mourning that he should have been the one with his parents at the time, not just to be with his parents but also for the fact that a useless bum like him should have been the one to be in a coma and not a doctor like his sister with a promising future ahead of her, then returning to his apartment to drown himself in the fantasies of movies, and web novels, and games.

And then, one of those very days, he simply ended up waking in this new body of an athletically fit blond college graduate, with with an unassuming face with nothing that made him stand out at all other than his rather well-maintained hair and spectacles.

‘Does than mean that I died back there? Huh… is this the after life or is this reincarnation? Is it something everyone gets or is it only for me? God? Why did you do this to my family? This has to be something you have done, which means you can interact with people. In some way.’

‘Why did you take my parents away? And why her? Did you think I hated her in any way? No, I loved her with all my heart.’

‘I just felt inferior. But that was not a negative emotion towards her, but rather myself. It was like the inferiority you would feel when you see someone incredibly rich on the news. A kind of… self-satisfying pity that I tried to use to make myself feel better about myself by feeling bad about myself.’

*Sigh*

Taking in a deep breath and exhaling through his nostrils, Mark focussed his mind and distracted himself from those depressing memories.

‘I have access to all the best novels and movies from my previous life. Many of which do not exist here at all, while others might exist in the future. I could use this to make all the novels and movies I want. Heh, how would mom and dad feel if they saw me trying to complete my dream by making use of other people's hard work and futures.

Shaking his head to get rid of the negative thoughts, he inadvertently thought about his sister.

‘If she was here… she’d say something like live your life Mark. I’ve already lived mine, going into a coma at the age of 58, I’ve already lived most of the life I wanted; by saving the lives of others. Now go and live yours…’

‘Sigh... she didn’t even marry or make a family for herself. How could she have lived her life to her heart’s content?’

Suddenly, a strange thought crossed Mark’s mind, ‘If I commit suicide right now… would the reincarnation chance go to my sister?’

However, before he could delve into those thoughts any further, the bus came to a stop and it was where he was supposed to get off.

Standing up in a hurry, Mark made a note to himself, ‘There is no guarantee of that. It’s better to just live my dream in this alternate reality… even if it is all fake.’

Thanking the buss driver before getting off, Mark walked down the street, making a few turns and asking for a few directions before reaching a rather sketchy-looking building.

Thankfully, he was not in the wrong place as he found the waiting room in no time, which was surprisingly half empty, meaning there were not as many people applying for the job as the company had expected.

This meant that he had a higher chance of joining it. If this truly was the same Lucas-Films that had created Star-Wars, he could add his name to an incredibly successful movie. And if it was not, the job still gave a decent pay, enough for Mark to put food on his plate, pay for rent, just barely.