Max's consciousness slowly returned, his senses creeping back to life as if waking from a long, disorienting dream. He felt cold—bone-chilling cold—and his body ached with a strange stiffness that didn't belong to him. His eyelids fluttered open, revealing a world bathed in dim, gray light. The first thing he saw was a pair of tear-streaked eyes, wide with a mix of hope and fear.
A young girl, her clothes ragged and worn, was kneeling beside him. She looked no older than eight or nine, her small frame shivering in the cold. Her face, though smeared with dirt, radiated a heartbreaking innocence. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she clutched his hand, her fingers trembling.
"Brother?" she whispered, her voice cracked and fragile, like a bird's call in the dead of night. "Brother, you're awake!"
Max blinked, trying to make sense of what was happening. He wasn't in the Netherworld anymore—that much was clear. But where was he? And why was this girl calling him her brother? Panic flickered in his chest as he realized he had no memory of this place, no connection to this body he found himself in.
Before he could speak, the girl's face lit up with a joy so pure it was almost painful to witness. "I was so scared," she cried, hugging him tightly, her small body shaking. "I thought I lost you, Strong."
"Strong…" Max repeated the name, his voice hoarse, as he tried to piece together what was happening. This body—this life—it wasn't his. He had reincarnated, but not into a newborn. He had taken over someone's life, someone this girl loved deeply.
The girl pulled back slightly, wiping her tears with the back of her hand. "Are you hungry?" she asked, her voice tinged with concern. She quickly reached into her tattered pocket and pulled out a small, moldy piece of bread and a fish bone that had been picked clean. She offered them to him with a wide, hopeful smile, as if presenting a feast.
Max stared at the pathetic offering, his heart aching. This was all she had to give—this was all they had. He could barely swallow the lump in his throat as he took the bread, the reality of his situation crashing down on him.
"Where… where are we?" he asked, his voice barely more than a whisper, trying to grasp the enormity of the situation.
The girl, still smiling through her tears, answered with a simple, matter-of-fact tone that broke his heart even more. "We're in the slums, in Federation Beleux. World code 32002," she said, as if reciting something she had memorized long ago. "It's one of the weakest worlds in the federation galaxy… but that doesn't matter, right? We have to go to the dustbin for checkup today. If we don't find anything, we'll be hungry… again."
Max felt a wave of helplessness wash over him. He had been flung into a life of desperate poverty, in a world where the fight for survival was a daily struggle. The girl—his sister, as far as she knew—was barely clinging to hope, her joy at seeing him alive a fragile thing, easily shattered by the harsh reality they lived in.
He swallowed hard, looking into her bright, hopeful eyes. "I promise you," he said, his voice firm despite the uncertainty gnawing at him, "I'll get us out of this. I'll save you from this poverty."
Her face lit up, and for a moment, it was as if the world had lifted off her tiny shoulders. She nodded eagerly, a wide smile spreading across her face. "I knew you would, Strong! I knew you would save us!" she exclaimed, her voice filled with absolute faith.
Max watched her as she ran off, eager to find food in the dustbins, her small feet carrying her through the dirty streets with a speed and determination that belied her frail frame. He stood there, overwhelmed by the weight of the promise he had just made, his mind racing with thoughts of Earth—of the life he had once known, where food was plentiful and poverty, though real, had never been like this.
Taking a deep breath, he tried to stand. But as soon as he put his foot down, something bizarre happened. The ground beneath him cracked, splintering like a scene out of a disaster movie. A force—no, a power—exploded from his body, sending shockwaves through the dirt and creating holes in the ground as if he were a one-man demolition crew.
Max's eyes widened in horror. "Oh, crap—"
Before he could even finish the thought, the world around him twisted and warped, reality bending like a funhouse mirror. One second he was standing there, and the next—poof—he was gone, vanished into thin air.
Meanwhile, somewhere miles away, the girl came to a screeching halt, clutching a half-rotten apple she'd found. She looked around, puzzled. "Huh? Where'd Strong go?" She shrugged, taking a bite out of the apple. "Eh, maybe he'll find me later. He's Strong, after all."
As for Max—or Strong, or whoever he was now—he was left floating in the ether, wondering what in the galaxy had just happened and how he was going to keep that promise if he couldn't even keep his feet on the ground.