It was a cold winter night, the moon was not out and the street lights were not working properly, a man moves from the shadows with a drunken gait on the sidewalk, he wears a worn-out woolen sweater that can barely cover his arms, torn up sweatpants and reeks of alcohol.
This is Michael Williams, a Nigerian born US citizen in his forties. He moves up the street to a run-down apartment building and pushes open the rusty gate that creaks ominously. After a bit of shuffling, he manages to reach the door to his apartment. He tries to open the door with his key but fumbles with it causing it to fall. He tries to bend to pick it up but gives up after a futile struggle. He slides down the wall beside his door and sits on the floor.
He thinks to himself, why do I live in such a miserable place, why couldn't I change my fate of sadness and misery. He thinks of his younger years. The different things he could have changed, he could have been more studious, but he wasn't. He made a decision, I must do it, I have no more hope it's better to be dead than be in such a miserable state.
He picks up his apartment keys, opens the door and finally succeeds then enters his apartment and locks the door behind him. He moves to his room, opens the lowest drawer beside his bed (pretty much an old mattress on the floor) reaches in an pulls out a pistol he got from an alleyway, loads the only bullet he has into the chamber, chambers the round, lifts up the gun, points it at his head and shoots.
Michael committed suicide but just as his soul was leaving his body, it gets sucked into a vortex that appears randomly in front of him taking his soul and dropping it into the body of another version of himself. This version of himself was 18 and had just graduated high school the day before, he got drunk that night and Michael’s soul entered his body when he was asleep and the two of them merged.
Michael Williams got up from the bed in confusion. He looked around the room. It was the same as it was when he was 18 years old, just after he graduated from high school, and before the incident. He grabbed his head in agony as the two souls and minds merged. The memories of both lives became exceptionally clear after the migraine. He thought to himself: Unbelievable. I actually passed through to a parallel world. He moved his sight over the contents of the room. There was his table, with his laptop and his gaming consoles on it, his old phone charging by the wall socket. His alarm clock read [9:00 am] [15 June 2015]
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He stood up from the bed and walked into the bathroom. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and compared it to how he looked at that age. There is barely any difference he said. He began to question himself and the reality he now resided in. Is this real, am I real he pondered. His musings were disturbed by a loud knock on his room door. He replied; "Who is it?" on instinct. A male voice replied; " Michael get up and clean up yourself. There is breakfast in the kitchen. Remember to clean the house, your mom and I are going to the grocery store and the bank." "Alright dad" he replied. He heard his dad leave the house with his mom. He sat in the toilet for 1-hour thinking about his new opportunity to live.
After just thinking for an hour, he got up with a fire of determination in his eyes, raised his hands into the air and swore: "I am not going to make the same mistakes as before, I will turn my life into a success." Then he got himself cleaned and ready for the day. When he reached the kitchen, he saw the breakfast that was left for him and burst into tears. He remembered what happened to his parents when he was in university. They were in a car accident and did not survive the collision. When he was informed he was devastated. And due to his grief, his GPA fell that year and he could not recover. He stopped himself from falling into the painful memories of his previous life and decided to eat his breakfast.
After he had breakfast, he decided to return to his room to create a game plan based on his knowledge of the future. He sat down on his chair in front of his laptop, booted it up and opened a word processor. He began to write down information that happened in the future that he had knowledge of. He spent hours just going through his memories of his future and typing down this information. When he finished he started to write the plan. The first step; to raise money. This was the foundation of all his plans for the future. He will not let his parents suffer for him anymore. He will get enough money to help his parents while moving on to the other steps of his plan.