I couldn't believe it. I died, like in a web novel or corny TV show. I was overtaking a truck on the highway on my way home from work when the straps holding the steel loaded on his trailer snapped as they started to fall. Right on top of me.
The next thing I knew there were steel bars bouncing around my car. Then the ground and sky blurred together as I felt a sense of weightlessness, with everything from inside the centre console floating around me. The last thing I saw was an upside-down tree before everything went black.
I raged over my death, screaming and ranting about anything and everything I felt was responsible, myself included. Then I drowned in sorrow and regrets. I had more than a few of those, and all were of things I could have done better. After all that was acceptance.
So what if I could have tried harder? So what if I could have gone to university? Or get a better job? It didn't matter now, nothing did. I lived, I did nothing. I died, it changed nothing. Everyone in the world would carry-on fine. Probably only a few hundred people would hear about it and less than half would care.
As I began to relax and let myself drift off in this endless dark I felt something. Like a small tug at my attention. Then like someone or something was dragging me along. I imagined it was like being sucked into a vacuum cleaner. As I was being pulled along to god knows where I finally saw something other than darkness.
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Installation of System and related Memories will commence momentarily
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After reading the words written in the void before me I felt pain. It was as if someone had hit me over the head with a brick hard enough to stun but not knock me out. Then came a rush of memories that I was sure weren't mine. Memories of plants and creatures I had never seen before. Languages I had never heard were repeated endlessly in my mind to the point I could understand them and probably hold a short conversation. Sensations washed over me in a flood till they felt as natural as breathing. Then information about a range of topics so vast it was like I was forced to read every book in a library till I could recite each book word for word. When it was finally over I could see more words in front of me. I was tired but managed to read them just before I fell unconscious.
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Running System Check...
Conscious Thought Detected
Applying required System changes