(Shawn's Pov, 1st person)

*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap**tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*tap*….

"Hey, buddy!" Shouted a gym employee, awakening me from my trance of capitalism. At first, I was angry, who dared interrupt the advancement of my heavenly kingdom of chickens. Raising my head, I turned my body to look at the man. He was an Asian human, probably one of the trainers. Opening my mouth, I was about to ask why he had interrupted me, that's when I saw the clock.

It was closing time thirty minutes ago! When I started playing it was mid-day! Shooting up from the couch, my back snapped painfully from being in a hunched position for so long. "fuck" I muttered under my breath. I apologized to the trainer and speed walked to the exit.

Shoving my pad into my pocket, I approached the exit. The glass doors slid open when I was close enough. Taking a step outside I was hit with the cold nighttime air, countless stars dotting the pitch black sky. The cold air didn't faze me at all, in fact I quite liked it. I proceeded to walk back to my truck, which was parked near the front door of the gym.

My truck was large with a sleek design, along with a black paint job. The doors to enter the bad-ass truck were absent of handles, replaced by sensors that opened the doors when it made contact with my hand. Cracks in the tires emitted a red glow, something I payed extra for. I placed my hand on the front-left door of my truck.

After a short second the truck door popped out of its frame, still attached by a mechanism located nearest to the front. The door then rotated upwards, allowing me to enter my truck. Hopping inside the door automatically closed behind me, sealing me inside. I pressed a button on the dashboard, and the truck flared to life.

Instead of the rumble of an engine, a soft whir of an electric motor was in its stead. Pressing some more buttons on my dashboard, my truck automatically started to transport me back to my home.

.....

I was on the road back home. The gym was located on the outskirts of the city, and my home was in the country. The futuristic suburban houses and occasional shop were replaced with green grass and trees as the distance between me and the city increased. It was at this time that I contemplated something that I thought about for a long time.

Why? Why me? Out of the seven billion people on earth, why was I the one that got to experience this? It was basically reincarnation! It may be pure coincidence, but it might not. Either way, there was one thing I was sure of. This was an opportunity! An opportunity to live again, to exist again.

Live, exist. Those two words reminded me of my life on earth. I remembered my parents, my friends... My family. I remembered my grade school, my home... All of that was gone now. All that is left.... Is me. With a deep breath, I pushed those thoughts aside. I was coming up on my home, new home.

But there was one thought that I couldn't push out. What would my friends have done if "it" happened to them too? Before the thought could dig deeper into my head, it was broken by the navigation board signaling my arrival. With a sigh, I exited my truck, the dirt crunched as my shoes impacted the ground. My house was surrounded by trees, similar to the pine trees of earth.

The ground was mostly plain dirt with a few patches of grass here and there. The house itself was three stories, with the outer walls made entirely of brick. And green metal roofing. I built it myself, with the help of a few contractors. The house was illuminated by the trucks headlights. The house was based on the home that I spent half of my original childhood in.

The contractors were curious why I wanted to live in a house like this. My reply was "I just like old houses, really old houses." I didn't want to tell them that I had the most significant Praeteritum Sui case ever. It was a secret that I kept to myself, not even the people I trusted most. It was surprisingly easy to hide, as you had to actively search for it inside the brain. Hell, the only reason why it was discovered in the first place was because some parents noticed something about their kid.

The reason I hide it, well, reasons are that some people don't really think highly of people with that condition. And that's putting it lightly, very lightly. The other reason was two words, "scientists and curiosity" When it was first discovered they were all over the place, trying to study every 'patient' they could. Though their rights kept the gov from ripping them away from their life, but the publicity did attract attention from reason A.

"Moore Green" I whispered the name of my home to myself. I stared at it for a couple-long seconds before finally walking towards the front door. The dirt crunched every time I took a step. The light from my truck illuminated my way. Approaching the front door to my house, I grabbed my pad. Pulling it out of my pocket, I unlocked my door. *click*

The door was a dark green, with a brass doorknob. Reaching out, I grabbed the knob and twisted. Opening the door, I entered my home. The lights turned on automatically. The floor was made of smooth wood. Some of the walls were brick, others were dry wall. I didn't bother to go to my bedroom, I just made my way to the living room and fell onto the sofa. Using my pad, I turned off the lights. My eyelids slowly drifted closed as I fell asleep.

(The Machines Pov, 3rd person)

The sounds of metal sticking metal echoed through the corridor. The machine felt relief as it limped down the hall, Ghost by its side. The machine could see the exit to the the endless hallway in this dilapidated, old bunker. It took a while for it to reach it, but once it did, the feeling of relief had flooded its entire form. Thankfully for the Ghost, it could fit.

It had walked for far longer before. But, with it being heavily damaged, and trekking down the seemingly never-ending corridor had struck worry into its system. The machine plugged its cord into the doors terminal. Oddly, like before the door was already accessible to the machine. But it didn't care, it just wanted to find something, ANYthing that could repair it and turn away its worry.

Opening the door, the machine was met with a medium sized rectangular room. On the far right wall was a half tube, a terminal beside it. The machine knew what it was, it was a repairing station. The wall in front of the machine had angled glass peering into the pitch black depths of an artificial ravine. At the foot of the windows were more terminals, most likely for data storage. 

On the left-side of the room was a strange obelisk. It was rectangular in shape, and it stopped at the machines waist. The strange obelisk had a perfectly flat top, and if the machine was to turn a full 90* degrees backward it would be able to 'lay down' on it. Above the strange obelisk was a series of mechanical arms with specific tools attached to the end. Only two of each pair of arms had the same tool, with one exception.

Two drills, two claws, two lasers, and one scanner. It was probably about that upgrade thing. But the room was different, severely different… The first thing that differentiated this room to the rest of the complex was that it was so…. Clean. The walls, floor, and ceiling didn't have a speck of dust on them, and there wasn't even a scratch of damage anywhere to be seen.

The second thing that was different was that the room was white. The usual black metal and eerie green glow was replaced with a white surface and good lighting. Even the terminals were different, the green glow of the screens were replaced with blue. Things are changing, things are definitely changing.

The machine just stood there, hesitant from confusion and how alien the room was to it. It just stood there trying to process what it just walked into, it had once downloaded something on a terminal giving it a basic understanding of color. But it had never expected to see a color that wasn't brown, black, or green. After waiting for a couple minutes, the machine finally decided to enter the alien room.

Limping into the room, the machine headed for the repair station. The Ghost followed suit. While the repair station fixed the machine, it stood there, staring into nothingness.

Meanwhile, at Zesshi's...

(Zesshi's pov, 1st person)

"Now, how do I set this thing up?" I asked myself. Currently I was trying to get this 'ELECTROCUTER 9000' to work. I had already plugged the thing in, now I just had to do everything else. "Place six electric pads over abs" I read aloud. 'So I just have to put these things over my stomach?' I thought to myself.

Currently I was wearing a white sweater and some blue jeans. Pulling up my sweater to expose my belly, I then proceeded to place the electric pads on my hopefully future abs. Once I was done, I looked back at the instructions. "Turn on the ELECTROCUTER 9000" I spoke to myself, again. Looking for a switch, I found it on the left side of the device.

Flipping it, I immediately felt jolts of electricity surge into my belly. With wavy lips, I sat down on my couch. I really hoped this worked, or else I'll have something to discuss with that guy. Leaning into the couch, I decided to watch some T.V. Yeah, that might make a good distraction from the pain!

Reaching for the remote, I started to browse for something good to watch. "lost In space, no... Love and Lust, no... Umpire, no... MusIc aNd wAr, no... Transcendence Is me, no..." There's nothing good to watch! Just watch something, anything. "Uh, FinE. I'lL jusT watch thE news." The electricity was making my speech sloppy. 

With the press of a button, the T.V. switched to the news channel...

(Shawn's pov, 1st person)

My sight drifted from every corner of my home. Floating in the air. Bodiless, just my mind and sight. I continued to drift through my dark house, no thoughts, no body, just aimless floating. It went on like this for perceptibly forever. Until my sight landed on the door out. Slowly I inched forward until the door covered nearly the entirety of my vision.

Then, suddenly, the door swung open. My sight blasted off into the forest. It kept going until there was a break in the treetop. A small patch of grass with a large rock in the center, moonlight seemingly focused on that one rock. My sight began to zoom in on the lone rock, inching ever so slightly.

I was a meter away from it when my vision turned sharply upwards, towards the countless stars of the night sky. With unimaginable speed, I found myself in the vacuum of space when seconds ago I was in a forest. The sun peaked from behind the planet like a child. But it gave me enough illumination to see... Them.

The first materialized after a bright blue flash erupted out of nothing. It was a sphere, its metal chassis painted white with one large, blue, glowing eye in the center. Countless of identical, but unrecognizable things orbited around it. In its eye I found intelligence. Another thing appeared.

It appeared with a bright green glow instead. It had a design similar to a starship, but was much more alien at the same time. And unlike the other one, it appeared heavily damaged, but could still easily hold on. It did not have an eye. But instead it had a brig on top of it. I could not see inside of it, the green glow it was emitting prevented my sight from peering inside. But I could still see something, power.

Then a third one appeared. This one was not a singular object, or something with things orbiting around it. It was instead an entire armada, painted orange and grey, with an alien design. But the armada was extremely damaged. Most of the ships appeared to barely be holding on, supported by a heavily damaged and exhausted capital ship, the biggest one.

Some of the other ships were just gone, destroyed. Their lifeless shells floating through the void with the rest of the armada. The capital ship had a brig too, like the green one. I could see something through the glow, unity. My sight focused on the doomed armada. I could see something different through the orange glow. Instead of unity, I found 'help.'

It became audible then, repeating help over and over. Then it started to become louder, and LOUDER. It repeated help faster and faster until each 'help' seemed to overlap each other. My vision began to shake, becoming darker. It seemed like it was going to consume me, until...

……….

My body shot straight up. My breathing was ragged, like someone who almost died. It was morning, sunlight flowing from the windows. Calming myself, I breathed deeply. My ragged breathing returned to normal, light breaths. "It was just a dream." I said to myself. But even then I knew that it was something, more than a dream...