Back on Earth - April 12th 2024
“And we’re back with Mike and Chris! On this episode of 'What did Mike Break on His Hummer,' we’re gonna show you how NOT to install a new roof rack, AAAAAAAND… fight with an oil pressure sensor on a 6.0 with no room in the engine baaaaaaay!” I boomed in my best announcer voice, though It probably sounded more like that muppet game show host.
Chuckling, Chris looked at me like I was an idiot. “Mike, you’re not even working on the sensor!”
From on top of the hummer, I glanced down at Chris, who was sitting in the corner, watching a how-to video.
“I know! Doesn’t mean I can’t announce what we’re doing to our adoring fans.”
He paused the video and gave me a look like I was delusional. “What fans? You mean your other 32 personalities?” He said it in a sarcastic tone, but sometimes I wondered if he really thought I was crazy.
“Hey, I have fans,” I said smiling. “I don’t know who or where they are, but I’m sure there are millions of people that just adore me.”
Chris just chuckled and rolled his eyes. “No wonder you’re still single.”
As I was attempting to route a strap through the proper channel on the roof, I heard a voice that echoed from everywhere and nowhere at once.
“Initializing, new admin preparation in process.”
I looked around,trying to pinpoint the source of the voice.“Hey Chris, did you hear that?”
“Hear what? You farting again?” Chris said, looking at me suspiciously. “Dude, go outside next time. The fan is on and it blows over here every time you do it.”
“Not that,” I said. “I mean, I did, but that’s not what I was talking about. I just heard a voice say a system was starting or something.”
“No.” Chris replied, an annoyed look on his face. “I’ve been watching this stupid video to see where the sensor is on this piece of crap. I really hate engineers. You have to fight so many parts just to get a tiny sensor out. I thought you were gonna sell this piece of junk!" Chris's irritation was evident.
My eyes narrowed in mock offense as I pushed my chin down and opened my mouth. Chris, unfazed, knew it was just my way of having fun. "This beast is a work of art, you know you love it," I said with a laugh, "As To Thialo!"
Without looking, Chris flipped me the bird. "Still no clue what that means," he muttered, returning to his video. Chris and I have a unique way of relating–a constant stream of playful banter, insults, and practical jokes keeps us both sane.
My older kids, Alec and Cookie, grew up with their mom in prison. Addiction and delusions of grandeur led to her demise, both literally and figuratively. My youngest, Jeff, lost his mom in a tragic fire. Chris, on the other hand, never had any children. Him and his ex wife were high school sweethearts, after twenty years she blindsided him with multiple affairs and a ruthless divorce that left him practically empty-handed. So we really only had two options in life, humor or insanity.
We met in our early twenties, a near-brawl bonding us over a shared misunderstanding. Neither of us realized the other was a master of witty jabs, and my ADHD made me misinterpret his sarcasm as hostility. Thankfully, tire irons didn’t come into play and a shared sense of humor averted disaster, turning a potential news story into a lifelong friendship. Almost twenty years later, our banter remains as sharp as ever. Humor, we'd learned, is the key to surviving life's little blows. No matter the scenario, laughter always makes it better.
I was making my way through life as many adults with ADHD do. We become very okayish at a bunch of things and exceptionally good at a few. We think we can figure everything out but normally just halfway finish things and then end up with a garage full of cool ideas that never came to fruition. I was currently earning a living by working on a few different projects for people. Remodeling a basement for one. Which I was currently waiting on materials to finish. Fixing some brakes on a truck for another. Ultimately I just did what I needed to survive. I tried to play and have fun all the time so becoming wealthy was never a goal of mine. I decided to enjoy life instead of seeking some distant goal of financial freedom. The last thing I wanted was to be wealthy if I had to waste my life obtaining it. What good was money going to do me if I wasn’t physically able or had the time left to enjoy it.
"Hey, I said I'd fix it!" I reiterated, tightening the bolts on the roof mounts. "Just a few more and... Oh crap!" Suddenly, a fierce cramp seized both my legs. "AAAHHH! LEG CRAMPS! I can't move!" I yelled, collapsing forward onto the roof rack, my legs locked in painful spasms like a fainting goat.
Chris glanced up at me, sprawled out and clutching my legs. Bursting into laughter, he mimicked Nelson from The Simpsons, "Haw Haw," though his impression left much to be desired. "That's what you get for skipping that banana this morning, you douchebag!" he chuckled between wheezes. “I’m Mike, I don’t need fruit. I’ll just eat more meat.”
As I writhed in agony on top of my hummer, a strange tingling sensation quickly crept higher up my legs. "It's spreading! This isn't normal. Cramps never feel like this." Panic began to set in as I realized something was seriously wrong.
Chris's amusement was at an all time high. "You gonna fall? I can come hold your hand if you want, or maybe i can call you a waaambulance? How about I find someone to give your wittle baby weggs a massage? "
"Shut up!" I growled through gritted teeth. It wasn't funny anymore. The tightness was now radiating into my stomach. “It’s in my stomach now.”
"Wait, seriously?" Chris said, jumping to his feet, his tone shifting to concern. "I thought you were just being a baby. Is it really that bad? You good to climb down?"
I attempted to climb down, but before Chris could reach me, my left eye ignited with a vibrant blue light. It pulsed from my pupil growing so intense that it seemed like a laser was shooting out, spreading across my entire eye. Chris's jaw dropped, his face a mix of shock and horror. "Dude, what the hell are you doing?"
That was the last thing I registered before everything went black. Not just the darkness of a power outage, but a complete void, an abyss where light not only didn't exist but couldn't exist.
“Phase 1 complete. Mana link created. Beginning phase 2 of admin preparation sequence.”
My entire body erupted in a pale blue light. The cramps had not only spread throughout my entire body but now my blood felt like it was boiling from within. My head throbbed with a pressure so intense it threatened to crack open. I’ve had burning sensations before, a searing sensation that blistered the surface, but this… Nothing could have prepared me for this.
Every molecule in my body was on fire, literally melting from the inside. Time ceased to have meaning. I was certain I had died, trapped in an eternity of this white-hot torment. The pain was so excruciating that my entire sense of being vanished. With my vision gone, every muscle fiber being shredded to its base elements, and my blood morphing from a liquid to a gas under the overwhelming heat, at that moment, I wished desperately to just explode and end it all.
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Finally, everything went blank. No pain, no thoughts, no sights, no sounds. Nothing. If I could remember anything at that point, I imagine it would feel like being reduced to primordial goo without any real existence anymore.
“Phase 2 complete. Both body tempering and system integration complete. Beginning phase 3.”
Finally, my thoughts began to coalesce into something coherent. Amid the lingering haze, I heard the voice again and thought, “That sounds like a stupid robot. What the hell does it mean by integration complete?” The pain had vanished, leaving a strange void in its place. I still couldn’t see anything, but the absence of pain was a relief. It was as if I was floating in a sea of nothingness, a vast improvement over the previous agony. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of gratitude for the reprieve, however temporary it might be. “I’ll take this over complete agony any day.” I mused, trying to make sense of my bizarre situation.
Suddenly, Out of nowhere, lights started flying towards me, a dazzling spectacle straight out of every hyperdrive sequence ever filmed. As a sci-fi fanatic, I appreciated the cliché of traveling fast through space, but I realized as utter horror washed over me: I was probably about to endure another wave of agonizing pain. I braced myself as best I could, but how do you prepare for something like this?
Then came the real shocker. It wasn't just lights streaking towards me, but entire planets, suns of all sizes, vast nebulas, entire galaxies–the whole cosmos. It was bizarre. Sure, most lights in space are ultimately suns or reflections, but this felt different. An unsettling glow pervaded the emptiness, converging in on me. I tried to shut my eyes, to savor my pain-free moment, but my left eyelid wouldn't budge. It felt like the epicenter of a swirling black hole, devouring everything in its path. Acceptance washed over me. "Well, crap," I muttered.
I don’t know how to explain the feeling of the entire cosmos being sucked into your eye, but it was almost euphoric. I braced myself for pain, burning, or even instant death. What actually happened was the most amazing feeling imaginable. In that mind-blowing instant, I grasped everything anyone had ever theorized about the universe:planetary formations, molecular behavior in a vacuum, elemental transmutation, even the math and physics of instantaneous space travel. It was a cosmic knowledge download, a glorious rush of universal understanding.
As time sped by I witnessed possible futures unfold. The entire history of our universe played out before me. The birth of planets, galaxies forming from seemingly nothing, destruction on a cosmic scale, and wonders that humans have never even dreamed of. Then, a startling realization struck me: I could see into other universes, each teeming with multiple sentient life forms. The most profound vision was the birth of the very first species, their remarkable transformation, and the devastating plague that infected them. This monumental sight was etched into my consciousness, overshadowing everything else, until there was nothing.
“Phase 3 complete. Admin mind convergence accepted. System Reboot in progress.”
The next thing I knew, I was back in Chris’s Shop. Everything looked exactly the same. Chris was in the corner watching the same video. Just as everything was before the pain started.
I’m not too proud of this next part. I’m a pretty athletic guy. I’ve done multiple sports, a little bit of martial arts, and wrestled for a few years. I have a very good equilibrium and have never had an issue with balance. Even in my 40’s I usually move with confidence. But sure enough, at this moment, I stood up and immediately fell off the side of the Hummer.
Chris heard the crash and came running to see what happened. He found me lying under the rack, laughing. I looked up at him and said, ”I forgot I didn’t have it mounted all the way.”
“Haha. You’re so stupid!” Chris said as he almost fell laughing. He was barely able to contain himself as he went to check and see if the shop floor got damaged.
“How do you forget something like that? You’re lucky your fat blocked the roof rack or you’d be fixing some concrete too, buddy.”
“Dude, I think I might have just blacked out and had a crazy hallucination for a minute. I just had the worst leg cramp of my life, then my eye started glowing, then I exploded in light, then I sucked light into my eye, then I knew everything, then I was back on the roof of the Hummer. Oh, and I heard that stupid voice again. It said something about an admin or phase 3 or some crap. I'm pretty sure it sounded like a robot.”
“Ummmm, did you land on your head?” Chris said with a raised eyebrow. “You’re definitely hallucinating. I didn’t hear anything”
“I don’t know, maybe. If so, I just had a wild hallucination then. I’ve definitely never had anything like that happen before.”
“Okay okay, if you’re gonna milk falling off your roof, I’ll put the rack on for you too. I already know you're insane, but if you want me to do it for you, just ask.” Chris said while smirking.
“Oh, I forgot I got you something for helping me.” I reached in my pocket and pulled out my middle finger, making sure to smirk exactly like he did as I showed it to him.
“Let’s take a break” Chris said while chuckling. “Maybe you just need some food. You do need to consume like 5000 calories a day to make sure you don’t lose any MUSCLE.” The muscle part he said with air quotes.
“Rude!!” I said, But it made me laugh.
“Chris, don’t be jealous that I’ve been chatting online with babes all day,” I said in my best Kip impression from Napoleon Dynamite. I realized at that moment that even attempting an impersonation from that movie was too advanced for my limited skills.
“Jesus dude, that was bad” he told me “One of your worst ones yet!”
“Shut up fatty, I’m totally down for getting some food, by the way.” We both just laughed.
“I really don’t feel like I was hallucinating, I heard a damn robot voice multiple times talking about phases and rebooting. There’s no way all the pain I just went through was a hallucination. Did you seriously not hear anything?”
Chris looked at me like I was crazy. “Last thing I heard was you struggling to get the rack mounted and then you fell. Which is why I think you need to eat. You don’t normally fall off anything”
“Was my cramp part of the hallucination?” I asked.
“What cramp?” he responded. “I mean, that would make sense, you are pretty old and think you don’t need fruit anymore.”
“Never mind,” I said. “Let’s just go get some food. I’ll finish this stuff after I eat.”
The rest of the night went pretty normal until I left. We got some food, finished putting the roof rack on, found where the sensor was and the easiest way to change it, and then I went home.
This is where things started to get really weird. I began to notice little things that just didn’t make sense. It felt like my perception was astronomically more aware of everything driving down the road.
I could see what looked like a field mouse 1000 feet away in some brush. “Wait” I said out loud. “Why do I know that’s a vole and it’s exactly 1123 feet away.” Noticing a small mouse at that distance wasn’t impossible, but it was way farther than I thought I could see, and I knew every detail of its location as well as exactly what it was. I also knew details that I didn’t remember ever learning like the fact that they are generally nocturnal in this area. Before tonight, I not only wouldn’t have noticed it, but I didn’t even know they were called voles.
After thinking for a second, I actually still knew exactly where every car around me was. I could tell if each driver was paying attention or not, who was on their phone, who was texting, and even that one girl that was singing along to her music.
I always try to pay attention to other drivers because I think driver’s ed teachers just pass anyone who doesn’t kill them, but this was a whole new level of awareness. It was so intense that I almost had to pull over. I wasn’t sure if I was about to pass out or have another hallucination. The last thing I wanted was to cause a car accident because I blacked out again.
When I got home, I just sat in the driveway for a few minutes. “What is happening to me?” I said out loud as if voicing the question would somehow provide me an answer. My perception was insane. I could tell that on my street there were thirteen houses on each side. Six houses on my side had movement inside, and ten on the west side of the street. There were a total of fourteen cars in driveways and thirty-one lights visible from my exact location.
“Okay, Just go inside and calm down.” I mumbled. “There’s got to be a logical explanation for this.” I started thinking about what the voice was saying earlier.
“Crap…If I’m about to be Isekai’d to another universe I’m gonna be pissed.” I muttered.
I’ve read probably 40 different series about that scenario, and I don’t want to be a hero. The last thing I need is more responsibility. These are supposed to be my ‘me-time’ years. The kids are grown, and now I just have myself to look out for.
When I opened the front door, my dog Peaches was more than just excited to see me. It was almost like I could understand what she was thinking. Rottweilers are funny like that; they literally have four modes that define their entire existence. Play! Eat! Lick! And Sleep!
This was different. It was almost like she was trying to communicate with me. I don’t really know how to explain it because, of course, she couldn’t talk, but I could almost understand her thoughts.
Surprise, surprise, it was about food. I knew it was time for her dinner, but I could sense an extra level of excitement and hopefulness when I walked towards the fridge. Did she know I had an extra t-bone I bought yesterday? How could she know that? I had put her out so she wouldn’t smell it when I brought groceries in. This was getting weird.
I decided to go straight to bed as soon as possible, hoping that after a good night's sleep, things wouldn’t be so messed up.
Luckily, dinner went off without a hitch. However, I did notice a few things. It was like my sense of smell was extremely enhanced. I think I drooled more than Peaches did when I was grilling my steak.
After cleaning up from dinner, I started my normal bedtime routine. I got things ready for the morning, put out my clothes, brushed my teeth and turned on the shower. This was where the weirdness started again. The water temperature wouldn’t change. I could see steam when I turned it to hot, but it was just lukewarm. I switched it to cold. The steam stopped, but the water remained the same temperature. “What the hell is going on?” I said in an irritated tone. “This is getting more and more messed up.”
I decided to just put the knob to the normal spot and got cleaned up. Luckily, nothing else happened before I got into bed.
A strange feeling washed over me as I lay in bed. Thinking about the voice, and drawing from my experience playing video games, I had a crazy idea. On a whim, I spoke aloud, "System?"
The response was immediate, echoing both within my head and seemingly everywhere at once. I nearly tumbled out of bed, startled by the unexpected answer. The jolt woke Peaches, who erupted in a flurry of barks.
“Reboot sequence in process. Estimated time to full activation: 12 hours 13 minutes 22 seconds. Please be aware that during the activation process admin may experience random increases or decreases in attributes and abilities.”
This time I screamed in frustration and shock, “Oh, what the hell?!”