A familiar feeling encompassed Thebe. A feeling of senselessness and stickiness, yet now it was different - almost slippery.
"What happened? Mom and dad…"
"Did I fail?"
"Oh god. Did I… die?"
Thebe attempted and succeeded in opening his eyes, upon which he was bombarded with piercing white light, burning his eyes.
Thebe's body reacted to the violent stimuli faster than his thoughts could. As he instinctively closed his eyes he thought to himself,
"God, that hurt… "
"God?"
"Was that bright light God? Have I finally passed on for good?"
He tried opening his eyes again, taking caution to not open them so carelessly this time.
What he saw was what looked like dozens of old style monitors from his original world, and massive machinery that seemed to stretch on for miles.
Continuing his observations, he realized he was completely submerged in a mostly clear, slightly blue liquid.
"Ew. This feels like slime."
Moving his eyes from his left and right, he saw he was part of a seemingly endless row of submerged children.
"What in the world is going on here? Why are there kids here? Why am I here?"
Frantically, Thebe began looking at himself, seeing wires and tubes running along his body, same as the children.
He tried to pull them out, but he quickly realized he couldn't move.
Trying to find a way out, Thebe saw his reflection in the glass of the vat. It was a face he did not recognize.
The cold, undeniable truth set in as Thebe realized what had happened.
"Oh no, not again."
"I've been reincarnated."
After spending some time going through the five stages of grief, Thebe tried his best to figure out his situation.
He was covered in tubes and wires, stuck in a vat, and couldn't move.
Not good.
Just as Thebe was arriving at that conclusion, he heard footsteps approaching the row of vats, the steps echoing throughout the metal building.
"Deig shvatach vagan. Krouz vie horgandach deush."
Hearing the voice, Thebe quickly shut his eyes, pretending to be asleep like the rest of his vat-mates.
"Horken dabuch shtauden dach. Vieten."
"Vieten?"
"Vieten."
He heard the voices pass by his vat. He decided to keep his eyes closed until he stopped hearing them, just in case.
What he heard, however, was more chatter, where they stopped in front of one of the monitors.
After a few more minutes of conversations, Thebe heard
"AVAKEN!"
After hearing that, he opened his eyes just in time to see two men, with one pressing a button on a keyboard.
After the button press, he felt the liquid drain from his vat. After looking, he realized the same was happening to the other vat people too.
"What's going on? Are we released?"
Suddenly, he felt a surge flow directly through his brain, filling his mind with knowledge.
War.
With the liquid completely drained from his tank, he managed to pick himself up, noting his limbs now working.
Getting up along with him were the vats in his row.
With his newfound ability to freely move, looking behind him, he saw dozens of rows of vats.
"There must be thousands of people submerged here…" He thought to himself.
That thought was interrupted by a staggeringly dissonant voice. "GOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING!"
"AWAKEN, MY WARRIORS!"
As he said that, the glass of the vat sunk into the ground, leaving Thebe exposed and naked - similar to the thousands of other vat people.
Two men stood at the front of the arrangement, one holding a microphone.
They were both wearing a pale green uniform, with the microphone man wearing a purple hat - similar to a beret from Thebe's original world - and the other hatless.
"Come forward and organize into a single-file line! Er, a single-file line is where you line up with one person in each spot."
"Go, Go, Go!"
The second after he said that, all of the "warriors" ran to the front and began to line up. Not wanting to stand out and be suspicious, Thebe followed.
"Forward, MARCH!"
Thus, the line marched forward, down one of the nearby hallways.
Thebe, who has never marched in his life, somehow instinctively knew how to march, right along with everyone else.
"The surge! They somehow inserted knowledge into my brain. Just how advanced are these people?"
Not advanced - just lucky, Thebe was soon to learn.
"HALT!"
And so the line halted.
"You will walk forward, one by one, to receive your uniform. Cherish it! It is the only one you will get."
Once Thebe was up next to receive his uniform, he was assigned a "Tag". He was 0732.
After grabbing a uniform, the troops were to go into the showers, presumably to wash off the slime from the vats.
After taking an… awkward group shower, Thebe put on his uniform and was sent to his barracks.
All of these facilities were located in the same building, so Thebe had not seen the outside yet.He wanted to.He was assigned to barrack #37. As he walked into the room, he saw a group of people talking to each other. One of them looked over and saw Thebe.
"Hey! Are you 0732 or 0726?"
"I'm 0732…"
"Nice to meet you! I'm 0721, and we're your bunkmates!"
0721 introduced Thebe to his other bunkmates.
Among his bunkmates were people of varying height and gender, with no pattern - except that they all had brown hair, and were all fairly young - not older than 15. They were also all rather nice.
After talking for around ten minutes, a familiar voice rang over the intercom.
"Now that you are all situated in your barracks, get comfortable! Training starts in the morning! Welcome to The Dyrus Empire." *click*
Right after the man ended the announcement, all Thebe's bunkmates tensed up and saluted
"Glory to Dyrus!"
"This feels rather… authoritarian." Thebe thought to himself.
After a few hours of getting to know his bunkmates and card games, the lights suddenly switched off, signaling lights out - and bedtime.
Thebe could not sleep.
Instead, he spent his time trying to unravel the information that was beamed into his brain earlier in the day.
From what he was taught, he belonged to a place called The Dyrus Empire, a fairly large country, planning on getting larger. He is one of thousands of "Quick-Soldiers"; people mass produced in vats to be used as cannon fodder. Apparently, he was nothing more than a few cells five months ago, and now he's, well, not. He had also learned basic war tactics - don't get shot, don't get bombed. The basics.
After processing this section of the information, Thebe made a connection to the World Wars of his original world.
"A world with rapid growth and memory insertion technology is still fighting wars like this?"
A strange world indeed.
Still unable to sleep, Thebe tip-toed his way into the barrack's bathroom.
He turned on the light and looked at himself in the large mirror that lined the wall, above the sinks.
Thebe was now a boy with brown hair and a round face. He also had freckles and brown eyes.
He also noticed he was a child.
"I can't be older than 13! Why are they sending children to the front lines?"
"Hey, what're ya doin in here?"
Hearing this startled Thebe enough to almost jump out of his skin. He looked over and saw the familiar face of 0721.
0721 was fairly tall, significantly taller than Thebe anyway, had brown hair, and blue eyes.
"Wow, you scared the crap out of me"
"Sorry! I saw the light on from my bunk and got curious. Can't sleep either?"
"No, not with training starting tomorrow."
"Same here. I'm so excited!"
"Huh?"
"To be trained is to be of better use to Dyrus!"
Thebe felt sick.
"Oh… yeah… I'm excited also!"
He was not.
"Well, try to get some sleep. A foggy mind will interfere with training! Goodnight."
"Goodnight."
Thebe turned off the bathroom light and made his way back to his bunk. Silently, he thought to himself,
"What the hell? Is everyone like that? Why are they so eager to die for a country they just learned they were a part of?"
And then it hit him.
"The memory insertion! I can think through it rationally because I have previous experience, but these kids, they have the experience of a newborn baby. They only know what was in that insertion - which, if I recall correctly, is mostly war propaganda."
"Quick-Soldiers. We really are just walking meat shields, huh?"
Left alone with his thoughts, Thebe slowly drifted to sleep.
The morning arrived loudly to the sound of the P.A. system blaring.
"WAKE UP WARRIORS! RISE AND SHINE! BE AT THE TRAINING GROUNDS OUTSIDE IN 10 MINUTES! GLORY TO DYRUS"
Thebe did not sleep well. He dreamt of his mother and father. He was dreaming about what used to be an average day. He would wake up, help his mother with breakfast, and then play in the meadow until his father returned home, where he would listen to his stories in the evenings. It was nice… really nice."
Thebe was then abruptly awoken to find his cheeks wet with tears.
"Ughh." He said, drying his face off with his blanket.
"Wake up 0732! It's time to train!"
"Alright, alright."
Thebe changed into his uniform and followed his bunkmates until they ran into a large door. 0721 opened the door to what Thebe anticipated was the outside.
Thebe hadn't seen the outside since his last reincarnation, so he was a little excited to find out what this world looked like.
What Thebe saw, however, was soul crushing.
Outside was gray and brown. The only green in sight was the green of the uniforms. This emptiness stretched as far as he could see.
On a podium in the center of the training grounds was the man with the purple hat.
"I will start off training today with an announcement! The following warriors did not form correctly, and have been removed; 0045, 0289, 0693, 0726, 1382, and 1590. If one of these failures would have been your bunkmates, not to worry! Their beds will be removed and the extra rations will be evenly distributed."
"Now that I have finished the announcements, let's begin! Training Protocol #023!"
#023 consisted of one hour of what would've been considered a burpee in Thebe's original world. Surprisingly, neither Thebe, nor the rest of the soldiers, got tired throughout the entire hour.
Thebe did find it rather boring, though.
"Excellent! Training Protocol #125!"
#125 had all of the kids enter the sparring area of the training grounds and spar against each other. Fortunately for Thebe, he had trained and earned a second degree black belt in Judo as an attempt to impress his parents. He hadn't trained for a while, but he was sure the muscle memory was still there.
It was.
Thebe was effortlessly defeating opponent after opponent, never losing in the entire two hours.
It seems he was being too careless, however, as when purple-hat was checking on the students Thebe had caught his eye, and was watching him for the past ten minutes, or five opponents.
"You. The one who keeps winning. What is your tag?"
"0732… Sir."
"Interesting."
"Whoops…", Thebe thought to himself.
After the man left, Thebe heard another order.
"Time up! Training Protocol #001!"
Arms Training.
All of the soldiers started to jog to the firing range, which was large enough to fit a whole supercenter into.
After they arrived, they all grabbed a rifle and set up in their spots.
Again, Thebe was in luck. Like before, as an attempt to please his parents, he co-founded the marksmanship club, a club in his highschool that focused on, well, shooting. Because of this, he was a fairly good shot, despite the crudely mass-produced rifle in his hands.
After continuing to hit his target - which was in the shape of a human - he ended up shooting the head off.
He went out and replaced his target with a fresh one - but not without getting noticed.
Like last time, Thebe got carried away and shot a few shots too well, and realized too late who was standing behind him.
"0732, was it? Extraordinary."
Watching purple-hat raise a microphone to his mouth, Thebe heard him speak over the intercom.
"Training completed for the day! Enter the mess hall for lunch, the rest of the day is yours!"
"Except for you." He said, after switching the mic off.
By now, Thebe had begun to grasp the chain of power. This man was on top, commanding thousands of soldiers at his whim. Thebe had surmised he was some sort of commander, like from his original world.
Thebe began to reflect upon this startling revelation and came to only two simple words…
"Uh oh."