Arc 3: Choosing Reality by Embracing Life
Road to a hero:
Three chances in another world
Chapter 11: Conner Kyojin
Mom: “I made dinner, come on!”
Conner: “Alright I’m coming.”
Mom: “Where’re your glasses?”
Conner: “Oh oops forgot about them, alright I’m coming!”
Conner: “What did ya make!?”
Mom: “Breakfast for dinner, you have school tomorrow so I figured I would end your break with an easy meal.”
Conner: “Cool! Alright, can I eat in my room?”
Dad: “You don’t wanna eat in here?”
Conner: “Nah, I’m waiting for something to spawn in my game, my friends are waiting for me…..wait they can wait, I’ll eat with you guys.”
Mom: “Really! Okay, I'll sit down on the couch, I’ll bring everyone their food.”
Conner sits down on the couch, with his father turning on the TV.
Conner {Weird…why did I change my mind? I usually just sit and eat in my room, It feels like I haven’t seen my Mom and Dad in forever, oh well won’t hurt to eat with them.}
Dad: “So, how are you doing at school?”
Conner: “I have the same answer every time you ask me this.”
Mom: “Don’t be a pain, we just wanna know what you’re doing.”
Conner: “I don’t do much, just the normal grunt work, nothing else.”
Dad: “You know when you wanna get a job so you can start working towards a car.”
Conner: “Been looking, haven't found anything.”
Mom: “You hardly look, I can help you look sometime this week.”
Conner: “Na I’m good.”
Dad: “Man you gotta start trying to figure out what you wanna do, you can’t do nothing forever no matter how good that sounds.”
Conner {If only, I remember why I don’t eat with them.}
Conner: “Okay I finished my food, I’m going back to my room.”
Mom: “Alright, don’t stay up late, it’s a school night!”
Conner: “Yeah, Yeah I know.”
Conner walks to the bathroom to wash his hands. He looks in the mirror and he sees something very strange. He sees somebody wearing the same clothes, has the same face, and has the same eyes. But this man has a stronger-looking body, he’s missing his glasses, and his hair is longer, then the most important detail. He looks happy.
Conner: “WHAT THE HELL!”
Conner falls backward, surprised by who he saw in the mirror.
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Dad: “YOU OKAY!?”
Conner: “YEAH I’M GOOD!”
Conner {Gotta get my prescription changed or something god damn.}
Conner walks back to his room, he tells his friends he’s going to sleep, then lays on his bed, scrolling through his phone.
Conner: ‘What’s my password?”
Conner: “No…not that…oh yeah I remember. Weird I forgot it, welp I should at least try and fall asleep….early.”
Conner falls asleep, he dreams of four people, two young girls, one man, and one beautiful woman, all just out of his reach. He tries to run to them, but the road he’s running on just seems to get longer and longer, unable to hear, speak or feel, he’s like a ghost flying toward lost souls.
Conner hears a ringing noise, causing him to wake up.
Conner: “AAH!”
He looks over, seeing his phone's alarm going off for school. Conner calms himself, then gets ready for school. He takes a shower, though seemingly avoiding the mirror. He stands in the shower, letting the burning hot water hit his skin for about 20-25 minutes. He gets out of the shower, still avoiding the mirror. He dries his body off, scrubbing all the water off as fast as he can.
He gets dressed, grabbing a hair tie to play with while he waits for his mom to wake up.
Conner {Just gotta make it through the week, just another Monday, another week in the endless whole I gotta crawl out through one day at a time}
Mom: “Conner, are you awake!?”
Conner: “Yeah I’m up!”
Mom: “Alright your backpacks in the car come on.”
Conner: “I’m coming!”
Conner walks to his mom's car, getting in on the passenger side.
Mom: “You wanna drive yourself?”
Conner: “I would have a panic attack and kill us both in a car accident.”
Mom: “Conner! Just do it or you’re not going to school.”
Conner: “I’m cool with not going.”
Mom: “I’m gonna take away all your electronics.”
Conner: “I’ll drive!”
Conner gets in the driver's seat, starts the car, and proceeds to start driving to school.
Mom: “See you’re doing good.”
Conner: “Yeah whatever.”
Conner looks in the mirror seeing the same reflection he saw yesterday, scaring him though he remains focused on the road.
Mom: “You okay? You seem more stressed than usual.”
Conner: “Feels like forever since I've been to school, same with driving.”
Mom: “Tomorrow, don’t bring that hair tie, try and make it through the day without messing with it.”
Conner: “No thank you.”
Conner arrives at his school's parking lot, gets out of the car, and begins to walk into the school.
Conner {Alright calm down, just focus on messing with the hair tie, deep breath in, deep breath out.}
Conner makes it to his first class, he sits beside his friend while getting his history notes out.
Conner: “Hey you got the notes, I forgot to take them last Friday?”
Friend 1: “Yeah I got 'em, here.”
Conner: “Thanks, bro.”
Conner falls asleep after copying the notes, missing the lesson, and forgetting to do his online work.
Friend 1: “You gotta start doing your work man.”
Conner: “I just do it when I get home.”
Friend 1: “Yeah but if you paid attention you would get better grades.”
Conner: “That works for anything.”
Friend 1: “I guess it’s whatever, see you in 4th period.”
Conner: “Yeah see yah.”
Conner's eyes go blank, his happy expression sinking into itself. He starts messing with his hair tie, mumbling while walking to his next class.
The same thing happens throughout the day, Conner sees his friend, falls asleep, misses the lesson, then distracts himself from any social interaction by messing with something. The same thing he does every single school day. Trying to pass the time while not doing anything.
He gets out of school and walks to his mom's car.
Mom: “Did you have a good day at school?”
Conner: “Just as good as any other day.”
Mom: “Oh.”
Conner gets home, then he prepares to take a nap, resetting his energy.
Conner {It was weird… I didn’t actually learn anything, either there was a substitute teacher or we were just going over the material I already learned.}
He hears his phone start to ring, he answers the call only to hear a loud familiar sounding voice.
Conner: “Hello?”
Unknown caller: “WAKE UP!”
Conner hangs up the phone, puts it on silent, then goes to take his nap.
Conner {Four…more days…till the week…end…}
Connor repeats the same actions all week, doing nothing, while the teachers teach him nothing that he already doesn't know.
Dad: “HEY CONNER CAN YOU GRAB US A TWO-LITER FROM THE STORE!”
Conner: “YEAH SURE!”
Conner gets his jacket, then walks out of his house and to the covenant store.
Conner: “Bleh…at least I’m getting some exercise.”
Before he can get to the store, rain starts to fall rapidly. Conner has found himself in a thunderstorm and plans on just walking to the store and waiting out the storm.
Conner {Dammit, this hood isn’t helping from the rain. Kinda feels like I've done this before, walking in the rain, going to the store, in the same clothes as I’m wearing right now. But I can’t remember if I did it or not.}
Before he can get to the store, he hears tires screeching on the ground. Conner turns his head to see a Semi-truck out of control from the rain, unable to break or keep any traction. Conner's mind goes blank, as he starts taking steps toward the truck, with the only thing he can think of being “freedom”.
Before he can get in front of the truck, the rain suddenly stops freezing in place.
Conner: “What…the…hell…”
Everything that Conner could see was frozen in place. Conner fell to the ground, panicking and about to tear up when he heard a familiar voice again. Conner turns his head to see the man in the mirror, the altered version of himself. Almost like he’s the better version, stronger, happy, and overall just better looking as well.
Conner: “Who the hell are you!?”
Gray: “Names Gray Kyojin, and I've come to talk to yah about Isekais and whatnot.”
Conner: “What the heck.”
END OF CHAPTER
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