Within the vast emptiness of deep space, James awoke with a groan and squinted as he looked around with his eyes in confusion. High above him he could see broken chunks of floating rock, an infinite number of distant twinkling stars, and two faintly glowing orbs that gave off just enough light to make the surroundings feel as if they were approaching sunset on a late-summer evening.

Those observations were swiftly shoved to the farthest corners of his mind however, as he immediately stiffened upon feeling the cool ground and a faint tickling of grass beneath his bare skin. Tears welled up at the corners of his eyes and a choked sob threatened to escape his throat as he slowly, timidly so, raised his shoulders.

With that small motion, the dam shattered and James broke down as he felt the soft earth scrape across his back for the first time in almost a decade. Despite not having done so for a long, long time, with purely instinctual movements the man curled his legs into his chest, wrapping his arms around them as he wept and laughed with relief.

After an unknown amount of time spent relishing in the sensation of feeling something, anything, below his neck once again, James stood up, fought down the urge to start jumping for joy, and took in his new location once again. What he saw only served to push his awe further.

He stood atop what could only be described as a small floating island, roughly a hundred square meters or so. Besides a large pile of stones near the edge, the surface was entirely covered in a thin layer of grass with no structures of any kind.

Walking to the edge and peering down, he was greeted with his third surprise of the hour, a small silver moon shone beneath his island and reflected off the sheer cliffs that dipped below. After exploring along the edge and reaching the other side, he was greeted with what he guessed was probably a nebula, faintly glowing a dim hue within its murky depths.

That was it, the island was barely large enough for a small house. So, having explored what little he could of his surroundings, James sat atop the stone pile and pondered his new circumstances while forcing down another fit of laughter as a faint breeze flittered across his bare skin.

It didn’t escape him how the fact that he was in deep space, alive and obviously remaining that way, violated nearly everything he thought he knew about the universe. No, he instead selectively chose to ignore that little detail in favor of focusing all his attention on forgetting how he’d spent the last 8 years as little more than a vegetable.

As James’ mind mulled over this new reality, a small screen suddenly appeared before him and nearly sent him tumbling off his rocky perch in surprise.

[Download complete…]

[Sending initiation packet.]

The man stared dumbly as he read the small blinking message, before he put the pieces together and a wide grin unknowingly stretched across his face.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

For the last few years, all he could do was read and watch various forms of media to pass the time and due to his obvious circumstances, the ones he relished in the most were undoubtedly all about reincarnation or transmigration. The idea that he could one day wake up and not be a useless sack of meat any longer, to stretch his legs as he’d done just moments ago, had intoxicated him more than any alcohol ever could.

Throughout most of the works he’d gone through, almost every character had something that made them special. Some kind of wise grandpa, rare knowledge, or holy brick. They all had their cheats and James knew that this had to be his. It was for this reason that he read through the following messages eagerly.

{James,

In case you haven’t already guessed it, I’m sorry to say that you passed away shortly before arriving in your present location. While this would normally have led to one of two options, which you should be able to surmise, your unfortunate situation throughout the years before your death offered a rather unique alternative.}

James scoffed at the wording, he couldn’t imagine anything worse than being trapped within a prison consisting of your own body and he felt nothing but relief knowing that he’d finally died. He had no one left after his parents passed and he knew that the best he could hope for was one of his rotation of caretakers casually making a remark about his passing at dinner.

{You may not know this, but your act of donating most of your military pension and your parents estate to various charities has, and will, help save the lives of billions over the course of the next hundred years or so. Your karma was thus high enough to make granting you an alternative feasible. However, if you would rather forget about your past life and start again with a clean slate, please say so now and the power within this system will see it done…}

James paused at the new info. He never thought that his donation money would’ve had such an impact. Honestly, if he’d still been living normally he would’ve never done such a thing. It was only because he realized he spent merely a fraction of it and it just kept piling up that he asked one of his few contacts to organize something out of it all. He didn’t even know what they did, only that it involved providing clean water, somewhere.

As for forgetting his past life, maybe if he spent another decade or two and ran out of media to consume.. Who was he kidding, he could never have brought himself to suicide despite how much he loathed his previous circumstances, he sure as hell wouldn’t want to do it now.

{Since your still reading this, then it’s safe to assume you have chosen to remain on this new path and thus the power provided to the system to facilitate it will be rerouted to other functions.}

[System recalibrating…]

[Calibration complete.]

James felt something click in place deep within himself and somehow knew that the system was truly linked to him for the first time. He could also barely sense it at the corner of his mind, like an infinite wellspring of…something. Not another consciousness or sentient being like those he’d read about in various works. No, he could tell the system was like another limb, another way to interact with the world like those that had been taken from him so many years ago.

Maybe if he’d lived a normal life it would’ve been uncomfortable or taken some extra time to get accustomed to, but strangely it just felt right to him. It was the same feeling he’d experienced just a little while ago when he regained his body and so, with a content smile, he stretched his new ‘muscle’ with a thought.

[Resuming initiation packet.]

{Good. Now then, let’s continue.

As you may have noticed in your life, our world has a wellspring of culture that floods into the everyday life of most people who reside there. This is, in fact, by design.

You see, our world sits upon a nexus of sorts, one you could compare it to magical lay lines that exist in some of the works you’ve read. Except, instead of magic, our world sits upon the crossroads of a vast number of different realities.

In fact if you ever wondered why things such as magic didn’t exist, despite how prevalent throughout myths, media, and folklore, it’s solely due to this nexus and the strain it puts on our little world.

We’ve tried a great number of ways to lessen the strain from tearing our universe apart, but by far the most successful one was sharing the burden with humanity via having more and more life forms know of the various realities out there.

As you should’ve guessed by now, yes, most all of the media that you consumed throughout your life was directly due to this little bleed through into the minds of select individuals. Being the intelligent man I know you are, this also means you understand what that implies…}