"Why me..?"
he mentally whimpered, his thoughts tinged with despair
"They were all I cared about, Who would be so cruel. I mean I literally need them, no kidding I can't even move right now"
All he could feel was his body twitching as he tried to make the simplest of moments.
Pain wracked his body, slowly giving up hope his vision slowly darkened as he fell unconscious.
...
...
...
"Ouchh..." slowly regaining consciousness he tried moving his eyes open, it was much harder than usual for some reason... "Oh right... I'm basically useless now aren't I?" a man without bones was bad enough as is, he couldn't move and only be a burden to others, but for marrow it was much worse. He had lost his purpose.
"Well at least I guess I guess I won't die given how advanced our hospitals ar-" His body tried to shudder despite the pain. flashes of memory hitting him like a truck. A hospital ceiling. Surgeons surrounding him. One passing a long white object to another.
He forced his eyes open desperate to see anything other than those images...
Trees? Finally paying attention to his surroundings he heard birdcalls, not uncommon in modern hospitals as they are seen as calming sounds to most however what was unusual was the amount of green leaves he could see as he lay there.
leaves? they were leaves growing on branches? Not just decoration?
"Where on earth am I?" not in a mood to laugh at the fact earth was now a mess and that this certainly wasn't earth, he started to panic. He wasn't on a ship. He wasn't in a settlement. Unable to even move his head to better see where he was, the hard ground against his back, only slightly softened by what he could only assume was grass.
He knew the wilds of his new home planet were inhospitable to say the least. they settled on a Flatlands about 3 miles from the edge of the nearest place with trees. grasslands were just about the only place that wasn't crawling with the local "wildlife".
While flatlands were great farm land and from what the ships primary scans showed, abundant with underground minerals they were relatively resource bare of other key natural resources. so as such the city was settled with wooded areas at an arms length, keeping it within reach yet still not too close.
His realization of how far from "civilization" he was only forced his already fragile state of mind further into panic, not even bothering to try to calm himself down. He may have been earths best (and only) Space Vessel Commander but he was still only human.
After what felt like an age he began slowly getting a grip on the panic he realized there wasn't much he could do about it anyway so he closed his eyes and focused on the calming sound of bird song.
---
"Interesting..."
Looking down on him from above, a dark blurry figure sighed to himself as he watched him spiral into despair, waiting to see if he would come out stronger from it, and while disappointed that the mortal had accepted his fate quite so soon he was still amazed by how fast he had managed to deal with the panic of impending death.
"I didn't want to step in so soon but it looks like I might have to..."
"No I have a better idea... it will be interesting to see how things play out, I wonder how he will react. Hmmm how best to handle with this..."
---
Marrow trying to enjoy the atmosphere was interrupted by something unexpected, an almost computer like "ding" as his eyes snapped opened to see a line of text before him. at the same time a clear voice rang in his head..
[Congratulations! You have been chosen as the system host!]
....
he blinked in surprise only to find he could somehow still "see" the text despite his eyes having been closed.
"I mean people always called me mad, guess I am huh?"
[You are partially correct, you are indeed mentally unstable however you are not hallucinating or dreaming before you ask.]
"Uhhh how did you know I was gonna say that?"
[A voice appeared in your head and the first thing you ask is how I knew you were going to say something?]
"I mean you have a fair point to be honest."
"Why.. why me? i mean why did you choos- wait more importantly didn't you say you were a system? why do you sound so... well... human?"
[System Installing; It is advised to lose consciousness]
"WAIT DON'T AVOID THE QUESTION! also why would I lose conscio- URGH.."
a pain dwarfing all before hit him like a tidal wave confined to the inside of his non-existent skull.
[System start up initiated...]
[Scanning host...]
[Name: Jack Marrow]
[Age: Error]
[Race: Error]
[Body is extensively modified]
[Parent Race: human]
[Error age passed species known capacity by Several times]
[Modified traits: Immortal, Disease immunity]
[Heavy bodily damage detected...]
[Damage to tissues around the bones]
[System "Welcome gift 002: Second life" has been used in place to make repairs necessary to survival]
[Repairing...]
[System error; Missing essential component; bones]
[Repairing tissues...]
[Partial Repair Complete]
[Beginning alterations to allow system use...]
[Installing mana vessel and mana pathways...]
[enabling use of mana vessel and pathways...]
[Using mana to assume a semi-ridged structure to allow for movement and minor protective properties]
[Host has passed the point they can be considered "human" due to alterations. a new species name will need to be allocated when the host regains consciousness]
[System install complete]