A small light that soon become bigger… was the first thing that I saw when I opened my eyes, but slowly, my memories came back to me. I had been driving back from my parent's house after being deployed for a whole year. I had a nice dinner with them and as I was driving towards my apartment, a car coming from the opposite direction had crossed into my lane… then nothing I woke up here.
It didn't take a genius to realize that I had just died in a car accident, but the fact that I could remember what had happened was what left me puzzled, after all, from what we know, it shouldn't be possible to remember your life or at least that's what books made us believe.
"Sleeping away the day does not make time stop, brother. What if a bomb dropped right near us? "A familiar voice was heard from behind. I sat up and only then did I realize that I was somehow alive or at least had a body.
I looked around and found myself in a familiar room, our unit barracks, and on the opposite bed sat my best friend and brother in arms that died in an ambush, Lincoln. He had the same idiotic expression on his face that he always had when he would wake me up for our night duty. He had always loved to tease me when I slept like a log, a skill that I developed in boot camp.
Looking at him as if he was an alien was the only thing that could do while my mind tried to process a singular thought. "How could he be here?"
"Weren't you dead, brother?"
"You aren't?"
"Fair point…so what are you? I don't believe that my friend would have waited for me to die, just to drag me to hell."
"I'm everything other than a God, if it makes you feel better if you really want to find a name to me that would be a devil of some sort."
"So what's going to happen to me now?" Hell, Heaven, or maybe a chance to another life?"
"Depends, where would you like to go?"
"Just like that? No catch or hidden motive?"
"C'mon mate, I was here when this universe was born, do you think that a mere human is that important? I just wanna help a fellow soldier."
"Smells like a trap."
"Because it is one, I kind of regret letting your memory intact, that smart head of yours saved your BIA and your life from death more than once."
"Do I at least get some boons? Or is it just the normal wipe of your memory and good luck?"
"I can give as many boons as you want, but you will also have drawbacks scaling to how good or bad your boons are. Before I forget about it, no systems since those tools will just get killed by the universe. Sadly for you, you can't retain your memory, but I will make it so that you know that this ain't your first life, just to give you an existential crisis."
"I'll play it safely, rather than choosing tons of boons, I will simply choose one. By the way, do I choose my new life or it is random?"
"For a boon, you can choose it."
"Forget it then. Let's be honest ,since I can't get my hands on an easy life, I will choose to get a better body so I want a body similar to that of SPARTAN-II."
"Can't really do that mate. Not only would a SPARTAN be overkill in the world I would send you, but that will make you an unstoppable killing machine for almost all of your human enemies. So, I'll give you the body of Frederic-104, the second generation of Spartans, but you will only be half as strong as he was when you reach your mid twenties. You will still be quite a force to reckon against for most humans, but you won't be unkillable, at least compared to a full-fledged SPARTAN. Before you get too excited you will suffer for that body. As sad as it sounds, nothing is free in this world, not even these boons, even if you already paid the price. You will have to get through some rather hard times to get stronger and who knows if you will manage to reach the end of your world."
"Beggars can't be choosers. So what is the bad news?"
"The drawbacks will be that a few prehistoric dinosaurs that would roam your new world. Nothing too extreme since you didn't ask to become Doom Guy or someone as overpowered as him. As for the second drawback, a new race of feral mutants will live in the world. Those creatures will be strong enough to tear ODST as if they were paper, which means that they could give you quite a headache if caught unprepared for their attacks, especially since they will always be in groups bigger than five. The good news is that most of these creatures are in a few places around the globe so you won't have to worry too much about them. Not to mention a few other small changes that might help or might kill you. "
"I wasn't expecting that, and while it depends on what world would I be reborn, those two additions may as well spell my doom."
"Well then mate, Good Night and Good luck, you'll need it."
Before I could respond, everything faded to black, and the next thing I knew, I woke up in a simple solitary cell. Looking around the room, I saw just a bed and a desk with a chair and nothing else, then again I was supposed to be locked. While I was by no means an expert on 'The 100', even I could recognize the cell that was shown in the trailer of the first season of the show. Unfortunately for me, I didn't manage to watch this particular TV show, before my sudden death so my first boon will be more or less useless unless someone mashed together more shows into one single reality, but I doubt that someone is that bored.
Soon after I properly wake up, memories of my new life start making themselves clear in my head. My name and appearance remained the same with the only change being my birthdate. I was on the Ark on May 21rd, 2132. My father, Marcelo Kennedy met my mother, Laurie Holden. Unfortunately, she didn't live long after giving birth to me thanks to some kind of disease, one that my father would never talk about, and therefore I wasn't able to learn the name and symptoms of that disease. By the time I was seventeen, my father did something that cost his life. He was a guard and surprisingly he was also a friend of Jaha. He didn't told me what he found out, but soon after that day, five guards broke into our room and dragged him out. I don't know why, but he seemed to have learned something that could create a riot on the Ark, at least that's what I believe, happened. Unfortunately, his curiosity killed him and at the same left his only son, alone in this fucked up world. Once my father was ejected into space, I was forced to fend for himself, like most orphans that lived onboard the Ark.
As for how I got myself a trip down to Earth, well let's just say that when they broke into our home to drag my father without an explanation, I put two guards in the infirmary for a few months when they decided that I was apparently a threat to them. While it was the truth, that doesn't mean that two normal humans could fight a Spartan, even if it was a weaker one.
I would never forget standing in the Council Chambers in Alpha. It was the first time I've ever stepped foot in Alpha without my father to accompany me, and even then I still didn't back down or knell before Jaha and his fellow council members, yet that didn't stopped the assigned guards to drag me behind them - quite literally, as there was a short chain attached to my handcuffs, and they were walking quicker than I would have liked, hoping to conceal me from the rest of the inhabitants of the Ark and the dirty work that they were doing, then again, my case wasn't a normal or even a common occurrence onboard of the Ark. Some people may question why I'd done what I'd done to those two poor guards. So there, I stood in the Council Chambers, feeling at peace. Feeling relieved. It was only hours after I'd almost killed these two guards, and to be honest, I supposed that most of the children that were in my place would have been filled with pure terror when they stood before the Council, waiting to be sentenced to death. But I on the other hand? I just stood there facing the High Inquisitor himself as I like to call the Chancellor thanks to his job of sentencing people to death.
Just as I was done going through my memories, I heard the door opening.
"Prisoner 001, stand up and face the wall." The guards entered my room, and I could only comply, not feeling like giving them a reason to fight me. It wasn't worth it after the first fifteen times, each time sending one or two guards to the infirmary while I would be shocked until I'll lose consciousness. Their hatred for me hadn't faded in the 690 days they had locked me away. When I raised my head to face the guard, I saw a needle out of the corner of my eye, and to be honest that made my heart racing. There was only one reason they would enter my room with a needle, but it wasn't my time yet.
I was a week away from turning eighteen, but did it really matter if they floated me that now instead of the next week? A hand grasped my wrist instead of the typical cool metal of the handcuffs, and I flinched away, causing the guard to quickly take a few steps back. When the guards saw that I wasn't going to fight back, all four of them sigh in relief before they once again surrounded me. There was a prick in my upper arm, a few in my wrist, and then everything went once again black.