Rou, 30 years old, single, without a house of his own, no car, zero savings in the bank and no friends, looked at the sign on the street that was written in English, "Harth Avenue, 0010th Street... but where the hell am I? "he wondered aloud, holding his head with both hands as he did not recognize the buildings around him.
Just a few seconds ago, Rou was in front of his television watching the news of a colossal meteorite that was going to impact his world in the coming months. Who would have thought that the news was lying and a few seconds later, everything around him was filled with fire as a huge fiery rock destroyed the atmosphere, wiping out life all over the world.
"I should be dead...but all this crap feels so real...", a few meters away from him, a family was crossing the street with smiling faces after the traffic light indicated that it was safe to move forward. Thinking about what the people in the movies did, Rou pinched his left arm without measuring his strength.
"Ah! It hurts like f...," he shouted, "Then I'm not dead," a homeless man looked at him with a frown on his face and said, "People are getting crazier lately, it's better not to be around those kind of perverts".
Hearing the words of the homeless man, Rou looked for the first time at his body which was wearing a tight yellow pants and a narrow shirt with glitter at the top opening of the neck. How crazy could he dress that way highlighting the part of his crotch Rou thought as he noticed that people's eyes were on him, a few hundred meters away he saw a police car, blue in color running towards his direction.
"Whether it's a nightmare or not, it's better to run away from this place", taking a leather bag, which seemed to be one of his belongings, Rou jumped over a metal fence and ran through a long alley that ended next to two metal containers. Rou was not a person who exercised, the last time he exerted himself in a run was when on the TV was an offer to take 3 x 1, managing to fill his cupboard in just one trip, when he hit the ground on the other side of the alley, he did not feel tired, but he could still hear the police sirens and decided to hide in a manhole a few meters away from him.
After half an hour hiding in the darkness of the sewer, Rou came to the surface trying to sort out his thoughts. In the time he spent in solitude hiding in the sewer he could see his body quite wide, yet he felt more energetic than his former self.
Like a stealthy thief, he jumped into the concrete courtyard where there was a clothesline full of men's clothing. With a single movement he threw away the exotic clothes he was wearing, giving off a foul smell that forced him to hold his breath.
"This should do for now," wearing a white shirt and clean blue denim pants, which threatened to break the buttons that kept them on his skin, Rou walked out into the alley with his head down, hoping that no one would recognize him.
Still, where I am, it seems to be a city like Manhattan or New York, maybe I'll be in the United States, but then, didn't the meteorite damage reach here? he thought as he walked through a park. On the way he got rid of the leather bag that contained nothing interesting besides some glitter and paints used by a special kind of people.
While wiping his face in a water fountain, Rou was astonished to see the smoothness of his oily skin. "God or Buddha is making fun of me! "He said, slamming his fist against the stone structure, in front of him was his younger version, the one who spent 4 years of his life in the walls of the XXXX university, abandoning it at the end.
He had returned to the past, was the first thing he thought, as he did not know much about the United States, maybe he was in one of the states that did not appear on television, so, approaching a store, where there was a group of screens showing the news, he looked for some clue that would help him.
Most of the images were of advertisements, where well-dressed and slim models were offering all kinds of products, it was a few minutes later, that among the images he was able to identify something important. In front of him, two men, one white and the other black, were fighting against space beings, while a small dog, with a strange sense of humor, was making fun of them.
"Because it feels different," Rou wondered aloud. He had seen the movie advertised on TV more than a dozen times, but the protagonists, although they were similar, were not the same as the ones in his memories, besides the ad did not end there, seconds later, a simple word caught his attention, Active recruitment!
What did the word recruitment mean, Rou was not so dumb as to not know the meaning of their words, still what was the point of joining a fantasy movie to fight aliens, maybe they were recruiting personnel, that had to be it.
While he was immersed in the commercials and advertisements, Rou felt a pang in his waist, coming out of his thoughts, he turned and saw an old man, maybe 50 years old holding a metal extender in his hands, -Fatty, if you are not going to buy anything, stay away from my store, don't you see that you are scaring my customers.
The old man bellowed for a moment, and hitting the ground with his right leg he returned to his store, -Nobody wants to buy my products, and now an idiot is bothering my store", without looking back, the old man closed the door of his store with a slam of the door.
It wasn't the first time he had been treated that way, Rou left the old man behind regardless of his words. Somehow he had returned to the past, in what seemed to be an ancient version of America, at least he was sure of that.
After walking for an hour aimlessly, his stomach began to demand food. It was common for him to eat at least 6 times a day, he had never left his special schedule even if the world was about to end, although in his thoughts that was stupid due to his current situation.
Rou walked down St. Evans Avenue, where there were hundreds of restaurants and food stalls filled with customers devouring the contents of their plates. Looking up at the sun in the sky, he found that it must be close to two o'clock in the afternoon, but he had no money to pay for food.
When he reached the end of the avenue, he lowered his head without luck and wondered why he appeared in that place. Rou had read fantastic stories, where the main characters gained a great deal of strength, a powerful system, and fell in love with women who would later become their companions and then their lovers.
"Staff needed to wash junk."
Rou saw a sign taped to the back of one of the restaurants, his stomach growled again, demanding food. "This must be my salvation", he said taking the sign in his hands, walking to the place indicated at the bottom on a map that even a small child could follow.
After walking two blocks, with a large sweat stain on his back, Rou took a long breath and rang the doorbell of a restaurant hidden in a dark alley, with some big guys staring at him like prey.
"Oh, who the hell are you and what are you doing bothering Brother Kang," shouted a bald man, pulling a cigarette in his hands. The man must have been almost two meters tall, beating by far Rou's height, who was at a height of one meter seventy.
"Hey Gio, leave the brat alone," spoke in a calm voice, a blond man who was reading a modeling magazine. Rou felt grateful to the man, actually that was him, an 18 year old brat, left behind was the 30 year old man who at this moment would be sitting at home watching TV with a snack.
As he was about to thank the man, Rou froze when he noticed that the blond was looking at some muscular men in the magazine with a lascivious look, he quickly decided to take out the poster in his pockets and explain the reason for his arrival.
"Oh... so you are for the job. Brat, you should have said that first, Brother Kang is not here right now, but if you want to work, just come in, we will explain to Brother Kang ," the bald man changed his attitude to a more friendly one, patting Rou's shoulder, he opened the back door of the restaurant and pushed Rou inside.
Where have I gotten to... thought Rou, remembering that he still needed to eat if he didn't want to starve to death.
In front of a mountain of plates and pots full of grease, the bald man, called Gio, threw him a yellow tablecloth and some sponges to start working, "I expect a lot from you boy, when brother Kang arrives don't forget to greet him, if not...", Gio crushed a can with his hands and threw it to the garbage, "That will happen to you".
Rou stood frozen in the middle of a kitchen in a mess, it was a little crazy that a restaurant like that was working with the current state of the kitchen, even so, he took the apron and the sponge and began to work.
"Damn you, whoever sent me to that place," Rou said as the hours passed.