Adam Hartwell was never the smartest or strongest, but what he did have going for him was his better-than-usual intuition about people. Whether it was others lying to him or predicting which way his opponent would move back on his school sports team, his senses were always better than others. It served him very well in school as it helped him gain an advantage over his peers. However, this never gave him the edge in life. He never pursued higher education and despite his strong senses, he spent his life struggling to get by. Being an only child and raised mainly by himself due to his mother's death when he was younger, his father was never too interested in him and spent his time out working as a lumberjack. Spending long periods away from home and never being there for him made Adam grow up and only rely on himself. But Adam never truly blamed his father's absence for his current situation. He was never too keen on socializing anyway but after spending years going from job to job and never having enough money to live on, he too turned to working long hours doing manual labor for shit pay. Being 31 and lacking any proper education or life goals, he spends his time working his ass off knowing that sooner or later he would need to get a new job that would hopefully pay more to afford anything more than his little apartment and barely functioning second-hand truck.
It was the end of fall when Adam woke up early in the morning. His new gig needed him to drive an hour and a half to work every day and he didn’t want to be late yet again and have his ass whooped by his annoying boss. He could tell that the guy didn’t like him for whatever reason but he needed the money so he would just have to suck it up. He made himself a coffee and snacked on a piece of dried bread left over from a couple of days ago. It was hard to chew but he washed it down with his mug of coffee and made his way to the door after making a mental note to stop by le local store on his way back. After getting to his truck and spending a few minutes heating the engine to try and get it started, he set off for another day of work at the construction site of some family's new custom-built home. He would spend the whole day mixing concrete and climbing scaffolding, mainly as an extra set of hands for the builders. His boss hired him to fill out the ranks of his main team and as such he was given the annoying and menial jobs that nobody else wanted to do. This gig was going to last another few weeks before his contract ended and he would need to hunt for something else again. The cold air made everything more annoying and despite sweating all day the wind still felt like daggers with every breath. Winter was always a pain when working outdoors so he would be on the lookout for gigs that he could do indoors after this. Last year he spent three months working in a tile factory but the back-breaking repetitive moves he needed to do all day made him swear never to go back. Before he could think about it any further, one of the builders came up to him.
“Yo Adam got a minute” he was a tall man built like a gorilla sporting a long curly beard in contrast to his bald head covered by a beanie hat. Adam liked the guy the most out of all his teammates, Paul had spent years working on various construction projects and was a very open and likable guy. “Sup Paul, lost your phone again?” The large man waved him off with his hand and came to rest on the stack of wooden planks Adam was currently sitting on. “You know very well that that was just a one-time mistake. I wanted to talk to you about something else.” The large man reached into his jacket's inner pocket and took out his phone which he now kept close to him at all times after the hour-long search the other day that resulted in it being found on his car seat. I know you need work after this and I have a cousin that owns a convenience store and is looking for competent people to help out. I told him you might be interested, I can give you his number if you want” Adam looked at the man with confusion for a moment before realising that his problems may not be so hard to solve after all.
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On his way home from the construction site, Adam was more hopeful about the future than he had been in a long time. After all, Paul was a great guy and convinced his cousin to give him a shot. He was eager to finish his contract with his current boss to be able to work for Paul’s cousin in a cozy store for the winter. Beats working on some construction sites exposed to the biting cold of the coming winter weather. He made his way back home and climbed up the stairs to his apartment with exhausted legs. But only after making his way inside did he realize he forgot to stop by the store to get some more food on his way back, his thoughts of the future fully occupied his mind at the time. He instead found some of last night's pizza to put in the microwave and plopped onto the couch to watch some TV. Despite his lack of degrees he still enjoyed staying up to date with the latest discoveries and enjoyed watching various documentaries so the Discovery channel was almost always his go-to. Today however he was too tired to care about the world's air and water circulation and its relation to different climates across the globe. He very much wished it would change to send him some warm southern air to unfreeze his apartment as the cost of heating was too much for it to be on all day, meaning he comes home to a cold apartment every day and has to wait for it to slowly heat up again before going to bed.
That night he dreamed of lying on a warm tropical island with the sun beaming down on him and the distant noises of tropical birds in the distance and remembered thinking, everything will sort itself out just fine… Basking in the warm sensation made him feel more relaxed than he had ever been after spending the whole day working. This calm dreamy relaxation was short-lived however as Adam heard a loud screeching noise and woke up with a jump. Sitting up, he tried to find its source but only confusion met his mind as he was no longer simply dreaming of a lovely beach getaway but was sitting on a patch of grass between a couple of bushes with the ocean in front of him and a tropical forest behind him. Adams's mind felt as if it had hit a wall as this didn’t feel like a dream and the adrenaline now coursing through his body agreed with his assessment. He tried to rub his eyes to wake back up only to realize that he was currently awake. He stood up as fast as he could to try and understand the current situation but then he noticed something that truly made his heart sink. The sun was at least 5 times bigger than before and the moon was nowhere to be seen. However, what truly made his legs tremble uncontrollably was the colorful semi-transparent pale blue and white rings extending out across the horizon. He dropped back down again and stared at the giant planetary ring in awe and confusion until his mind finally clicked.
“I’m not on Earth anymore…”