I scrunched my nose as the strong smell of blood hit me, accompanied by a massive headache, hunger, and exhaustion wrecking through my body.

"What the hell?"

I could see a pool of blood beneath my head. That explained the smell.

I tried to push myself up, but my muscles screamed in protest, and I collapsed back onto my knees. The world spun, a sickening carousel of twisted metal and glaring lights.

"Not what I needed," I muttered. "A free ride on the world's worst merry-go-round." I sat down on the ground, closed my eyes, and hoped it would help. My hand brushed against a sandy layer covering a metal floor. The smell of blood lingered in my nose. This was definitely not my room.

Okay, so what happened? I thought back to the last thing I remembered. I was heading towards my bed. I knew I had made it and laid down. So why am I not in bed, but instead on a dusty floor? Fighting the panic slowly rising, I rubbed the side of my head. It was wet. I opened my eyes to look at my hand.

"Blood? Did I hit my head getting up? Wait, that's not my hand!" I looked around, my confusion mounting.

Rusted pieces of machinery surrounded me, like something out of a hoarder's nightmare. The light from a door revealed even more piles of junk, while a faint glow from another light source at the far end of the room illuminated a bed and some kind of workbench.

I forced myself to close my eyes and think. Okay, I woke up in a pool of blood and in a body that isn't mine. Either I'm having a very lucid dream, or I was transported to a different body, like an isekai. Yeah, because that's not ridiculous at all.

Did I die in my sleep? I couldn't help but wonder about my old life before I shut that down.

"Fuck me." The words slipped out, more out of resignation than anger.

"This better be the worst lucid dream ever."

I spent some time just sitting there, trying to calm myself, letting the weight of the situation sink in. How did I end up here? What was this place? The more I thought about it, the more questions piled up, and answers were nowhere to be found.

I had to fix my current situation. The pool of blood was probably from this body, and the lightheadedness was a clear sign of blood loss. I didn't feel any blood running down my head, which was a good sign, but I was still weak and lightheaded. I needed to eat, to regain some strength.

Flashes of fragmented memories surfaced. Images of a fridge with brown-green cubes. It felt like trying to piece together a shattered mirror, but those cubes were clear enough. They were food. I opened my eyes, determined to get to the fridge.

Slowly, I pulled myself up, leaning on the wall for support. The room was small and decrepit, the walls cracked, and the ceiling sagging in places. Fragments of memory and stray words came to me. This was an old habitat pod, barely holding itself together, perched on top of a scrap pile.

Moving made every muscle in my body protested, but I ignored it and kept moving.

The mini-fridge was across the room. It had seen better days, refurbished, at least according to the fragmented memories I had. I stumbled forward, each step feeling like I was on a ship in the middle of a stormy sea.

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"Really, need the world to stop moving," I muttered, wobbling my way to the fridge.

I reached the fridge, my hands trembling as I pulled it open. Inside, I found the cubes, brown-green, exactly like in the fragments of memory. I grabbed one, unwrapping it hastily, and shoved it into my mouth. It tasted bland, with no real flavor, and looked like jello if jello were made from dirt and grass. Moss. They are nutrient cubes made from moss. Well, that explained the taste.

"Well, step one: not dying of blood loss. Check."

I leaned against the fridge, taking deep breaths, and chewing slowly. As the nutrient cube began to take effect, I could feel a slight return of strength.

Doesn't food normally take longer to digest? A stray thought answered my question. Nanomachines. I tried probing my thoughts a bit more but didn't receive anything else. Either the kid didn’t know, or that information was lost.

"Nanomachines and a busted pod on a mountain of scrap. I guess this is well into the sci-fi realms of isekai," I sighed, shaking my head. "Alright, let's figure out what else is going on here."

The only clue I had at the moment was those memories.

Sitting down, I closed my eyes, focusing on the fragmented memories again. The more I concentrated, the clearer some of the pieces became. I started getting flashes, words, images, emotions. It was like trying to read a book with half the pages missing. I needed to know more, to understand where I was.

A name surfaced, unsteady and vague. "Rhett." It echoed in my mind, like it belonged to me or rather, this body. Okay, Rhett, let's see what else you've got for me.

Another flash: an image of a planet covered in endless heaps of metal and junk, old starships piled up like mountains. The word "Corpo" came to me. A corporate scrapyard planet, owned by AstraCore Corporation. A place designed for dumping and dismantling old ships.

That explained the rusted machinery, the suffocating heaps of metal.

I kept digging through the fragments. Rhett was barely thirteen years old, living alone in this decrepit pod. He'd left the orphanage at age twelve, believing that the bonus credits he'd get for leaving before the mandatory age of sixteen would help him make it on his own. But he had tried to stretch his food too far, attempting to avoid going back to town. Eventually, he became lightheaded and tripped, hitting his head on a piece of scrap. It was a laughable way to die if it wasn't so sad, going out on his own at age twelve with nobody to take care of him or watch him.

"Damn kid," I muttered, shaking my head. Even here, in a future filled with tech and wonders, there was still poverty, loneliness, and desperation. Some things never change. No matter how advanced society becomes, there will always be those who are left behind or forgotten.

I took a deep breath and looked around, the truth slowly sinking in, everything was too vivid to be a dream. I was in someone else's body, stranded in a rusted, forgotten pod.

There were questions pounding at my mind, but I couldn’t afford to focus on them. Right now, I needed to deal with the immediate crisis at hand, survival. I forced myself to my feet; I had to figure out how to get through today and maybe tomorrow.

I needed to address the basics first. Shelter, food, water. One thing at a time. The pod was my only semblance of security, a fragile shell against an unknown world. This would be my home for now, so food and water were my immediate priorities.

I had a water bottle and a water tank, both of them low on water, and a day's worth of food in the fridge. I needed a way to secure these basics for the long term if I was going to survive.

As I stood there, stretching my sore limbs, it dawned on me that simply taking care of my basic needs wasn't going to be enough. Avoiding thoughts of my past could only work for so long, and eventually, it would catch up with me. I needed more than just physical survival; I needed to mentally adjust myself. I needed something to hold onto, something that would help me push forward in this strange new world.

A fresh start. A new name, something to signify this second chance, something separate from my old life and Rhett's. After some thought, I decided on "Ash." Simple, easy to remember, and fitting for someone rising from the ashes of two lives, quite poetic if you ask me.

"Ash," I said aloud, testing the name. It felt right. "Time to figure out how to survive this."

The fragmented memories gave me enough to start.

But falling back on my old training was the best option. The military had taught me quite a bit. Training was such a pain in the ass, but it was about time I used it.

"Step one: assess your situation," I muttered. I looked around the cramped pod, taking stock.

"Alright, Ash," I said again, this time with more determination. "Let’s see if we can turn this mess into something we can work with."