Chapter 1: A Beginning Marked by Death

In the middle of a clearing deep in a forest by the foot of a mountain, a cat licks the blood off of its paws as veteran soldiers in shining armour flee for their lives. On the ground lie two corpses – one with a massive hole punched through the left side of its torso, and the other missing everything from the waist up.

A man in a simple looking robe sighs, looking at hands that are slightly transparent to his own eyes and invisible to everyone else’s. “So… This is how I ended up dying. To some crazily strong monster on what was supposed to be a completely safe mission. What are the chances?”

“Higher than you’d think.” I reply, sidling over to him in my own ghostly garments – a t-shirt and shorts, comfortably me.

“You’re here, too?” He asks, turning around. “Sorry about this. This wasn’t supposed to happen. None of you were meant to be in any real danger.”

“You took the words right out of my mouth.” I smile wryly, before asking, “Hey, would you rather be alive right now?”

“What sort of question is that?” He asks sadly. “Of course. Wouldn’t you?”

“Well, given that this whole fiasco is a result of me trying to surreptitiously commit suicide, the answer to that is questionable.” I say. His expression twists in confusion, but I cut off the forthcoming question with a snap of my fingers. “Since your death is on me, I’ll do you a solid.”

The confused expression on his face lasts for just a moment longer. Then things start to go backwards. People start to filter through the trees back into the clearing, running in reverse. The cat stands up, and the two corpses rise to their feet as if infected with the Z virus. The cat vanishes, only to reappear at the edge of the clearing a moment later, the two corpses regaining their missing halves as they do so, along with the arm of another. The scene is almost as if time is flowing in reverse.

Because that is, in fact, what is happening.

Finally, the clearing returns to what it was before the cat attack – people calmly dismantling the spoils of a successful hunt, including the two former corpses: One of them a solider, the other, me.

I gently push with my mind at the soil beneath that particular soldier’s feet, as well as the soil beneath the feet of one of my co-workers, the one who lost his arm last time. Losing stable footing, they both trip, causing them to tumble to either side.

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Thus, leaving me the only one in the path of the cat when it pounced.

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In the middle of a clearing deep in a forest by the foot of a mountain, a cat licks the blood off of its paws as veteran soldiers in shining armour flee for their lives. On the ground lies a corpse, missing everything from the waist up.

That’s me.

This time around, I’m the only one that died.

The only one that retains the memories of the last time around too, of course.

But I digress. I think it’s about time this cat leaves. Just like before, I create an appetising smell deep in the forest and waft it towards here. Almost immediately, the cat perks up and vanishes into the forest.

…Truly incredible. The scent’s concentration here was only at 12 parts per quadrillion when it noticed it.

Shaking my head in wonder, I pick up my legs and start to regrow the body. Bones first, growing like skeletal trees from the pelvis, then the cartilage, oozing out to bond my skeleton together once again. Muscles. Nerves. Blood vessels, organs, grey matter, all manner of complex compounds and trace elements, coming together to form that strange thing that is a human being. A pair of blue eyes, a head of brown hair, and it is complete.

I nod to myself in satisfaction.

Still, I’m not done yet. I subtly shift my bone structure, muscles and skin, resulting in an appearance starkly different to the original, although it isn’t any younger. I shift another few things around – hair length and pigmentation, eye colour – and I end up with someone with uneven blond hair, a short beard and a more greenish tint to their eyes.

Unrecognisable. But it’s the new me.

With a wave of my hand, clothing forms on the body – a rough tunic and leggings, along with a simple leather belt and worn boots. A scabbard forms by its side, complete with sword: iron with some trace impurities, comparable in quality to the swords made in this world.

Looking at the still lifeless body with satisfaction, I step forwards into it.

Thump.

My heart starts again, and I open my eyes, now unable to see the world of spirits and souls.

Who am I?

I am… Was, Phil.

Perhaps a more apt question would be ‘What am I?’

The answer is simple: I am the man who has it all. Power beyond imagining, power such that life, death, space and time have no hold upon me.

…But at the same time, the man who has nothing. No goal. No reason to be. Just emptiness.

I know there are things I can do to give myself meaning, and one day I will do them, and those days shall be good days. But until then… Well, they say that before you judge a man, walk a mile in his shoes.

Humans are a wonderful and terrible people, but for all their faults, they always keep walking. I wanted to experience life as an ordinary human, truly live a life and not just look through the cumulative memories of the world through psychometry.

Sealing away my powers and my memories, I forged myself a new identity. I lived a life as any other might, going through school, university, trials and adversity to eventually end up in a dead-end office job.

How then, did I end up committing suicide through monstrous cat in a forest on the face of a foreign planet so different to our own that the difference could be likened to water and wine?

Now, that is a story…