He appeared in a long-broken alleyway surrounded by tall buildings though many had collapsed either sideways or in on themselves, the vines growing around and all over what was once a clearly thriving city but the thing that makes him freeze is the wrist band on the arm of a skeleton one he knew far to well as although he never wore his anymore he kept it in a bag to remember the family that once was.
He was on planet cerulean, his birth planet but not as he knew it but rather as he looked around, he realized it was during the start of the apocalypse.
Many new technologies came out quickly with access to new items but so too did dangers and disasters leading to the life he knew but now before him he was looking at what the cities looked to be like around a year or two after the disasters struck and he wonders how the others were thinking staring at such a new and strange world.
---Welcome to a world newly introduced to energy, your job is to help stabilize and rebuild a stable place, if you succeed this false planet will be the root for your country to grow and your original starting village will integrate with the land here. Be warned the original life on this planet is hostile to invaders and if they view you as one will kill you, best of luck. ---
The starter village will be given this false version of my original planet as the basis for its environment, I shake my head to get rid of my straying thoughts and focus on finding Wyatt.
Running through the alleyways of what was once a prosperous city I see many bodies some semi-intact some broken apart but only a few had the wrist comm as at this time it was considered something only for a higher up making the skeleton I came across earlier probably someone really important in the past though I have no clue who.
Finally, I see someone standing on top of one of the tallest buildings fighting some giant birds the size of buses though he seems more amused than in trouble, the energy made it easy for me to know it was Wyatt.
I leap and with the aid of some wind I climb rapidly to meet him killing several birds feeling strange as what is clearly at least rank B monsters in my world are simply a swing of my hand now, truly how life changes with a simple accident.
Landing beside Wyatt I immediately go to tell him where we are when I freeze seeing helicopters heading this way and without thinking shout out in my home tongue, "We are here, could you tell us the direction to the nearest settlement." the men in copter seem to freeze and I see Wyatt's clearly confused face as he has never heard me speak in this tongue though I am rusty and hold a thick accent it is still enough to be understood for what I said.
I look to Wyatt with a I will explain later look they land in front of us and point guns to us which they know will not work and so do we but neither acknowledge this.
We look at each other and I realize I am by far the one who looks out of place as Wyatt looks like a very handsome man of our region while I look like an extremely exotic outsider, truly if it didn't leave a certain pain in my heart I would laugh out loud at the irony unfortunately we can't let them take us for enemies so I start introducing us.
"Hello, I am Aadi and the man with me is Wyatt. I am originally brown hair and eyes but felt extreme pain and some type of energy and next thing I knew I looked like this; do you know why I have changed so much no one else I met had as much change as me and if anyone could tell me it would-be the country men like you."
Play up their pride while keeping in line with reality they knew, during the first few years after the return of energy and emergence of tunnels some changed though none to my extent, they don't know what I looked like before so all they can think is some minor changes occurred and I naturally looked beautiful before and my awakening simply pushed this to the extreme add on someone who looks so good looking next to me and my ability to speak their language they will not be overly nervous though still doubtful.
Soon they are taking us to a small base with around 1000 people, bases of this size were long since destroyed in my time and this one already looked on the brink of collapse with many looking on the verge of starvation with many clearly sick.
Wyatt next to me looks neutral to anyone who didn't know him, but he was the next to be a continental protector for a reason and his disdain for such horrible treatment of citizens was well known, so for what is clearly a government base to have the people under it in such horrible condition while the soldiers don't look even the slightest but troubled was a clear sign of mistreatment.
We are given a small apartment to share between us which is considered incredible treatment in this time were there can be up to ten people sharing a tiny apartment.
Once the door closes Wyatt is looking at me clearly expecting my explanation, "This is my world or what it used to be early on during the tunnels appearances, I see the wrist comms on the higher ups along with uniforms that used to be used by the military before they fully developed a material for use against the monsters."
I see the look of shock and then contemplation as the tower never does something without reason and for my world to be the setting for our starter village indicates my world may be more at play than we assumed.
It has been over 20 years, I was merely 10 years old when I was forced into that tunnel and now, I turned 35 just before entering the towers 10th floor meaning it has been 25 years since I was last in my birth world and without a doubt things would have changed drastically as they always do with war as a backing to rapidly advance like with Wyatt's world when they discovered me.
I look at the small apartment we are in along with the bare walls and lack of anything but two beds a couch, the pantry was empty, and the stove ad long been removed replaced with a basic fire stove heater as most likely such a small base lacked access to electricity.
The beds had thin sheets clearly not enough for the slowly decreasing temperature of winter though it isn't something me or Wyatt needs to ever worry over as neither of us need to think on temperatures as we could survive even being set on fire for a while much less a little heat or cold, but the same can't be said for the civilians who have even worse situation than us.
It is clear why small bases didn't last long either at the hands of monsters, or to their own inability to make an environment people would survive and work in.
That night we squeeze into one bed together to sleep as it is rare to have such peaceful time in the tower, especially now that we are out of the beginner section and the time flow is now once more 1:1 along with no more revival if one dies which none of us have ever needed to worry over but others now are truly risking their lives and will be more cautious with their choices and actions slowing overall process.
The next morning, I imprint the language into Wyatt's mind so he can speak though it will be very poor with his muscles unused to such movements.
Walking out of the apartment we are stared at by many as our good looks and high strength has long since spread through the base especially about how the military found us mass killing bird monsters on top of a building making many look at us with greed most likely wondering if they can use us.
We approach the registration office that had been closed due to how late it was last night, and they ask us if we will sign up for military duty which we both decline deciding easily to be scavengers who go out on our own.
The reason was multi-faceted first being us not agreeing with the militaries way of doing things like hogging food and vital survival materials, while the second was we wanted to look for our teammates as they must be close as one often spawns close to their team in base building trials like this.
Grabbing some raggedy backpacks along with the basic rations for non-military people which is pack of ramen along with a half-filled water bottle and a small dry biscuit.
Looking at the food Wyatt's disdain grows while he sees my lack of surprise at the rations.
Truly although not so bad as they had better nutrients in them it really still didn't taste much better than this small gray biscuit and water although not as restricted was still heavily monitored to prevent waste meaning one had to wash fast and only drink a limited amount, after all we only had the walled off area to live in for the average person none could hope to buy the meat and food from outside the wall or the really nice food grown within.
I see Wyatt hide his emotions quickly, but my lack of surprise shows that even in my own time things didn't get much better than this for food or water.
Leaving the thin-walled area, we head out into a half-destroyed city filled with small monsters and creatures like slimes and goblins who want to get the stray's, we kill all that we passed despite the lack of anything to gain from it gaining strange looks as most wouldn't bother killing such creatures as they are not worth the effort.
We walk through destruction and see some more skeletons in the rubble as none bothered cleaning it up, I remember the emergence of the plague that was soon to come due to the buildup of negative energy.
Truly we brought most of the deaths upon ourselves by not properly cleaning up and taking care of the weak after.