Finn slowly opened his eyes with a severe headache.
The last thing he recalled was someone talking to him, but no matter how hard he tried, he could not recall what they had said. It was as if there was a gap in his memories.
Finn immediately realized that he was in his old room, which wouldn't have astonished him if the home hadn't already been sold a decade ago. He sold it after his parents passed away.
As he looked around his room, he saw his wooden desk with his computer, a shelf above it containing his schoolbooks, and a closet in the corner with all his clothing.
There was a nightstand next to his bed that he always put his phone on. The room itself wasn't too big or too small. It was just perfect for him.
A cold breeze caressed his face from the open window and made him shudder. Still clueless about his situation, he went to shut the window, but upon doing so, he saw his reflection.
Finn knew what he looked like, a 30-year-old guy who has had a rough life. Too preoccupied with surviving to worry about his looks.
Yet the person he was now seeing was far younger than what he was used to seeing in the mirror.
Still believing that he was not fully awake, he raced to a mirror that hung on the wall of his bedroom.
A person with raven black hair, ocean blue eyes, and a handsome face was staring back at him with a wide-open mouth and a startled expression.
Finn touched his face to make sure it was real, but this didn't make him feel better.
"This is me? It can't be... I looked like this when I was nineteen, so that just can't be true... The date! I must check today's date!"
Finn rushed to his phone, which was on his bedside table, and looked at the date. To his surprise, it was the year 2045.
"Does that mean I've regressed ten years into the past? Hmmm… It must have something to do with that thing I heard back there, but I just can't remember what it was."
Suddenly, he heard a voice inside his head.
'A thing? How rude. I have never been called that before. It seems that you are lacking some memories of our encounter. Allow me to fix that.'
Before Finn could even react, a searing pain hit his head, and all he could do was clutch it and curl up on the ground as he made the sounds of a wounded animal.
After a few minutes, the pain went away, and Finn felt like the fog that had made it hard for him to remember things had lifted.
"I heard an old-sounding voice say something about his feather and needing my help. So, I guess he was the one who sent me back."
'Yup, that was me alright.'
The same voice from before once again sounded inside Finn's head. After going through that terrible headache, Finn almost forgot about it, but now that he heard it again, he instantly knew what was happening.
"I have gone crazy... So that's the price I have to pay for regressing into the past. Now I have a split personality that won't ever leave me alone…"
The voice interrupted Finn as he was mumbling to himself.
'No, you moron. I'm the one who sent you back, but being locked up for eons got boring, so while helping you out, I decided to hitch a ride in your head.'
Finn was first glad that he wasn't crazy, but then he was very confused about what was going on.
"Wait, so you are saying you were locked up somewhere for a damn long time and then got bored, so you possessed the first person that came to see you? And who even are you?"
The more Finn thought about it, the more confused he became.
'I mean, that's just part of it. I also wanted to help my champion grow before the other gods chose theirs. Oh, I'm Loki, by the way. Nice to meet you.'
The voice merrily answered Finn's questions.
"Oh, ok, I'm Finn Gra- MY ASS! What do you mean you are Loki?! As in the god Loki?! And what champion! I have never agreed to any of that! Not to mention other gods?!"
Finn was overwhelmed and began spewing questions nonstop.
'Whoa chillax, I was just about to explain. Concerning your championship, the game Second Life wasn't just created for humans to have fun but was actually made by gods to find a strong human they can sponsor and make them their champion.'
Loki thought about his next words for a second and then continued talking.
'…The Earth, you see, has a lot of people living on it, and if all of these humans began to believe in one god, the god would become powerful enough to contest with the 5 strongest gods, The Heavenly Five. Of course, these five gods wouldn't simply sit back and watch, so they also selected their champions, and they were the top five players you knew before you regressed.'
Finn was listening to Loki's crazy explanation and asked one thing he didn't understand.
"If the gods wanted Earth so much, why not just take it? Why go in a roundabout way of choosing champions?"
Loki knew Finn would ask this and calmly replied.
'That's because when one of The Heavenly Five found this planet, he was already bored of his long life, which had nothing exciting in it. So, after finding it, he first observed it for a long time, then he told the other gods about it and declared that everyone would choose a champion from this planet.'
He paused and then began explaining again.
'Whichever champion will turn out to be the strongest will win the planet for that god. The other gods, not wanting to offend one of The Heavenly Five, all agreed, and the four gods from The Heavenly Five didn't want to miss out on the fun, so they also joined.'
Finn took a few seconds to process everything and then asked.
"Wait a minute. If you were imprisoned like you said, how do you know all this information?"
'I am friends with a few other gods that delivered information to the place I was imprisoned in. This way, I know about the overall situation, but I'm not sure of the details.'
"…So, you're a god, and I'm your champion. I'm supposed to fight other humans who are also backed by gods. Also, does every champion have a god talking inside their head?"
Finn, slowly accepting his fate, felt a shudder, thinking how many of the strongest heroes he used to look up to were schizophrenics.
'Nah, that's just you. The others aid their champion by giving them stuff, but they stay in their own domains. I, on the other hand, was imprisoned, so in order to watch the show, I had to fuse a portion of my mind with yours.'
Finn cringed at the thought of having a person watch him every time he went to the toilet or took a shower.
'I'm not interested in your naked body, and I'm a god, remember? Controlling whether I can see through your eyes or not is nothing for me.'
Finn exhaled a sigh of relief, and after some more back-and-forth with Loki, he learned some things that he could summarize in a few points.
Firstly, gods were limited to one champion each. They could take their time picking, but after 5 years, Second Life would close, and they would lose their chance to choose if they hadn't picked a champion yet.
Secondly, the champions wouldn't necessarily have to fight each other while playing Second Life. The game's purpose was to make the champions strong, and they also wouldn't die in the game, so there was no point in fighting each other yet.
And thirdly, after Second Life closes, champions will compete with each other to own as much of the Earth's surface as possible, and whoever defeats the other champions and their guilds will gain control of the Earth and win this twisted game.
"So, what's the reward? I mean, you guys get the planet, but what will the champions get?"
Finn expectantly asked with a slight sparkle of greed in his eyes.
'A request.'
Loki responded nonchalantly as he began studying Earth's customs via Finn's memories.
"Huh? That's it?"
Finn was surprised that after everything they would have to do, they would only get a simple request.
'What do you mean that's it? If any of those old fogies were to hear you right now, they would spit blood and faint. It's not just a request. It's basically a wish that will be granted to you by the gods. Remember how I reversed time? Now think of all the things you could get.'
Loki scolded Finn while not sharing the whole truth. Turning back time was against the laws of the universe, so breaking said laws put a considerable burden on Loki's soul, and he had to enter Finn's consciousness to heal.
But if it meant he would finally be free from his chains, he would do it again in a heartbeat.
"How did you turn back time anyway? If I remember correctly, you aren't supposed to be a god of time."
'I am able to temporarily steal a god's power. You can think of it as a skill. I stole a god's skill to turn back time.'
Finn thought that a skill like that was completely overpowered, so it must have had a huge penalty with it too, but he kept those thoughts to himself.
He looked at the calendar hanging above his desk and then noticed today's date, which he had previously overlooked.
"Fifteenth of April? So, I still have eight months before that happens?"
'Yea, I chose this date so you can change your tragic past that has tormented you for more than ten years already.'
Unaware of how Loki was looking through all his memories, Finn remembered the year 2045 quite vividly, as it was the year his parents died and he had to start living with his uncle and find a job.
Everything went wrong when he was about to blow out the candles from his birthday cake…