James awoke feeling strange, incredibly so, foreign sensations assaulted his being in a way he found hard to put into words, even moving felt weird, it was as if he was in a completely new body, James tried getting up but failed spectacularly, his hands felt strange and his control over them felt weak, shaking his head, he recalled everything that had happened to him so far, everything felt unreal and impossible for him, form him waking up in that strange void, the excruciating pain he felt that seemed so distant now despite him being sure it was there moments before his eventual collapse.

It was all so strange and unreal, never in his life would he imagine these things happening to him right after the other no less, maybe when he was a teen when he used to read all the fantasy books he could get his hands on, but the James then and the James now were very different persons, he then would daydream about outlandish fantasies, slaying dragons, saving kingdoms and stoping entire undead armies but he now would laugh at such things, reality hit him hard in high school and he was forced to grow up.

James never regretted the change he went through growing up, everyone changed as they grew older, some more than others but they still changed at the end of the day, he had a comfortable life back on earth and was the owner of a small pharmaceutical business, life was good, he didn't want to leave, he didn't want to die, he was pretty sure he died, but couldn't remember how which was a tad frustrating but James decided that it would be better to figure out where he was and what was going with his body first.

Barely managing to lift his head James was met with another bizarre sight, tiny blue motes dominated his strange new vision, they floated in the air randomly, some areas had more motes than others and James felt a strange feeling wash over him if he looked at those spots too long. Taking a closer look at the "ground" he was standing on, if one could even call it that was also made up of these tiny motes, the only difference being the feeling of dread and stillness he got when looking at them, they even radiated a sense of stillness and durability, curios about these motes that seemed to make up everything, he decided to inspect himself.

He tilted his head to the left and moved his hand into the range of his sight, James felt as if he was looking into a live fire, he felt as if his eyes, or whatever he was using to see were on fire, billions, possibly trillions of tiny red motes dominated his vision, they made up his entire arm, lines of them twisted and converged constantly while some seemed to fade out and lose their luster only for them to be pushed out and be replaced by a new, firey red mote, they replaced where his skin, veins and arteries and even bones should be, each layer more thick and compact than the rest.

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Upon inspecting himself more he realized that his entire body was made up of these tiny red motes, James wasn't sure how he wasn't getting a headache from watching so many tiny things all at once, in fact, he wasn't even sure how he wasn't panicking or freaking out right now, James felt his vision improve slightly, the sudden improvement caught him off guard and made him realize how bad his vision was.

The more he looked the clearer it got and the easier it felt, at first everything looked almost pixilated but James found that if he tried hard enough his vision would mysteriously improve, it was strange, to say the least, logically James knew change didn't just happen because once focused a little harder each time but nothing that had happened to him so far had any logic to it at all, nothing made sense and it took everything he had not to lose it.

With his new and improved sight, James inspected himself once more and found a small spot where almost all his motes came from, a small red inferno was raging where his stomach used to be, spewing out fresh red motes while taking in old ones simultaneously, looking closer he spotted hints of colors he had no name for and shapes he couldn't describe in the absolute center of the small inferno.

Mesmerized by the sight James let his curiosity pull him, his sight shifted once more and he could see a bit better and felt the limits of his vision increase slightly, the world felt clearer and the motes that made up his body were more detailed and felt more alive he felt his focus heighten as he tried to dive deeper but as he got closer he felt his vision abruptly shift and he was back to staring at his fiery red hand.

The sudden shift in perspective was jarring, not even seconds later bright golden text bloomed in front of him, impossible to ignore and annoyingly bright.

Anomaly named James [%%E16], your death wasn't supposed to be this way but it ended up like this anyway I wanted your soul to be sent to [######] but that didn't happen, somehow, either way, please survive so I can collect more data on you, how you survived having your soul ripped open, reorganized and spat out by the reality point is a mystery to me. To contain your anomalous nature I have placed your soul in the inventory of a [F] ranked hero and gave you access to parts of his system for monitoring and growth.

The message sputtered and glitched before rearranging itself into a format James was familiar with.

race: Infant hateful astral spirit

Hateful Ee:50

mind:1

soul:1

sanity: 95%

skills:

Ee sight [5] [p]

Ee manipulation [1] [A]

imbue emotion [1] [A]

Manifest fire [1] [A]

Fire manipulation [1] [A]

A myriad of emotions ran through James he struggled with uncontrollable anger, and he was murdered? Who is behind those texts? He was an anomaly? This entire shitshow was because of an accident?

-1 sanity

sanity: 94%