I_H_I

Hi everyone, this is the author. You are now on a chapter that was supposed to be a prologue to the story, and for a while it was. BUT! I got a total cringe when I read what I wrote, so I decided to rewrite the story. If you want to read it, start at "Chapter 0 (Prologue?)." And I'll leave these bad chapters here as a reminder to myself not to do it so badly.

Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away, though not far enough to have dozens of movies, TV shows, and cartoons based on it, our story began nonetheless.

  On the edge of the stratosphere and the open space of a really titanic planet appeared a small ball the size of a baseball. This little ball, shining in all the colors of the visible spectrum, compared to the space around it, was comparable to a grain of sand in the desert, so inconspicuous from a distance, yet so beautiful up close.

   Not many would be able to recognize in this ephemerally-beautiful wisp of beauty in the midst of soulless-living, scalding-cold, deafeningly silent and terrifyingly beautiful space a strong soul, preparing for reincarnation. Actually, none of those few strongest entities who could recognize it was strong enough and as foolish enough to interfere in a special reincarnation initiated by the SYSTEM itself. This phenomenon, though rare, is not too significant in the SYSTEM-controlled part of the multiverse to risk absolute oblivion.

  The soul has been unconscious for some time, but this could not last long in the current variation of reincarnation. Gradually waking up from the most pleasant and restful dream that the soul in question could remember, it became aware that something was wrong. Gradually, somewhere on the border of the still sleepy consciousness, their highnesses Confusion and Panic began to let out their subtle, but no less dangerous claws. As the soul awakened, these two emotions intensified, but when the consciousness was fully awakened it suppressed any manifestations of these emotions and immediately began to try to understand what had happened. Well... almost.

 "What the. Fuck. Demon is going on here?" - That wasn't exactly the beautiful first thought of the hero of our story.

  After the soul had fully come to its senses and was finally able to think clearly, though not quite ethically, a small, translucent, blueish panel appeared in its mind that had the following on it:

  [Attention! Thanks to a great deal of accumulated karma, you have been given the opportunity to change your reincarnation! To start the reincarnation menu, mentally recite the key phrase Strange Ceiling]

  "Oh gods, blue screen, it's definitely time for you to change the person in charge of jokes, because the reference to an anime from almost a century ago is so unfunny it makes you want to laugh."

  [... To start the reincarnation menu, mentally utter the key phrase Strange Ceiling.]

  "Huh, so you can react to my thoughts not directly related to the topic, too. Interesting... All right, you'll have a clichéd Strange Ceiling," the soul pronounced with barely perceptible amusement in her thoughts.

  After this action(?) the panel disappeared, and in its place appeared a darker and richer screen with various inscriptions, more similar to the main menu in ancient games.

  [ User Menu ]

  [ - Status - ]

  [ - Creating an avatar - ]

  [ - Restore avatar - ]

  [ - Place of appearance - ]

  [ - Social standing - ]

  [ - Reincarnation - ]