He slowly opened his eyes. He furrowed his brows as an unfamiliar ceiling greeted him. His head throbbed and every muscle in his body felt like it was being stabbed over and over again by pins and needles. He painstakingly forced himself to sit up from the cot he was lying on. Looking around, he saw hundreds of injured people laying on cots just like his, with a few clearly overworked medical personnel dressed in white treating the most injured. Beside his cot, a small hand mirror lay on a stool.

He reached over and painfully picked up the mirror. When he looked into it, he was completely shocked. The face that stared back at him was handsome, with a chiseled jaw, almond-shaped silver eyes, and grey hair that framed the face well. This was not his face. Before, he had liked to think of his appearance as just around average. In reality, he knew he looked like Deadpool's slightly less fucked up brother. Heavy emphasis on slightly.

‘And people spend so much money on plastic surgery. Just blow yourself up with a thermonuclear bomb.’ He thought. ‘Maybe I’m in heav- OWWWWW’

A massive headache spontaneously erupted.

‘Nope, definitely not heaven…’ He thought as he passed out, letting the darkness envelope him once again. ‘I really got to stop blacking out...”

—

A tiny boy, with black hair and mundane brown eyes, sat at a dinner table. On his right and left sat two older boys, his brothers it seemed, and on the other side of the table a gaunt lady stared blankly at the table. He instinctively knew that the woman was the children’s mother, but for some reason, the father was nowhere to be found.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The image shifted to another. Now, the tiny boy was playing with a group of kids. The tiny boy smiled widely, exposing the numerous gaps where his baby teeth were falling out.

The image faded and was replaced by a scene. The tiny boy, now a few years younger, was on his way back home from the market. His mother had sent him with the family’s grocery money to go get food for the week. Instead of the plain bread and usual food he was supposed to get, the boy held a bright yellow pineapple in one hand and had a too big top hat sitting on his head.

The scene changed yet again. This time the boy was now a young man, edging the boundary between adult and child. He stood with a pretty girl, both listening to a passionate speech at some sort of protest. In the middle of the speech, guards dressed in white and gold uniforms began arresting protesters. Some tried to flee, but were promptly struck down by what seemed like magic, with vines sprouting out of the ground to grab protesters and guards, shooting blasts of condensed air out of their palms. One such blast of condensed air shot at the pretty girl. She never saw it coming.

Explosions rocked the ground as a new scene appeared, and the young man was running through a battlefield, his hands glowing red as he unleashed blasts of fire at the opposing army. The young man’s army was winning, and sensing their impending victory, the soldiers began breaking formation and charging at their foes. Desperate for glory, the soldiers did not notice the slight shift in ambient mana before it was too late. Ghostlike wraiths enshrouded in a robe-like covering of black mist had encircled the charging soldiers. Each wielded a wickedly curved scythe and had the aura of death.

The young man watched as all the soldiers around him started being slaughtered by the creatures. One by one, the men he had trained, fought, and bled with fell. Blind, uncontrollable rage overtook the man, bright red flames bursting out around him as he charged towards the wraiths. Like a deity of fire, the man single handedly began pushing back the wraiths, thus creating an exit for the soldiers to retreat. It was obvious, however, that the power he used was not a lasting one. After one minute, he stumbled slightly, letting a wraith gash him across the arm. After two, he fell onto one knee. His brothers begged to stop, but their pleas fell on deaf ears. The young man did not make it to the third minute. The man collapsed and everything went dark.

—

His eyes opened again, once more noting the ceiling from before.

‘If everything “goes dark” again I will find whatever god is responsible for this shit and personally atomic wedgie them.’