A worthy childhood?

The sounds of chirping woke me up. I opened my eyes to see that I was in a garden. I could see a lot of exotic birds and animals all around me. They were just frolicking about and playing around. I felt a hot gust of air on my arm. To my suprise, i realised that it was an animal that was sniffing and smelling me. When I turned around, to my shock, I saw a cheetah smelling me. I was too scared to speak. It noticed my shock and playfully licked my arm and walked away, not before swatting my face with its tail.

As I was still reeling from the shock, I heard a sweet voice "don't be shocked child. There's no hostility here so don't worry." I looked around, trying to find the source of the voice but to no avail. "Dont look for me. I'm everywhere and nowhere. I know the past and the future. I'm omnipotent. I know what you're gonna ask next but I've been told by multiple entities that it is annoying if I answer their questions before they even have the opportunity to ask so I'll let you speak mortal" she said.

I was shocked by it but strangely, I quickly got over it . Maybe it was the peaceful surroundings that calmed my restless heart. "So I'm dead right? The last thing I remember was confessing to the nurse who took care of me that I wished I had a few more children so they could accompany me when I was on my last legs. I really felt sad at that moment. My entire life, I worked hard and struggled to set up a huge business. From being an orphan to becoming one of the most successful and richest people in the world was some feat. But, unlike the usual protagonists in other stories, I didn't become a loner. I married the love of my life and we had a wonderful son. Despite giving my all to build my industry, I made sure that I was a part of his childhood"

"Family meant a lot to me. I spent my entire childhood without experiencing the life that my classmates had. Being picked up by their loved ones, getting their parent's signature in order to go on a school trip. I was the odd one out. Even if I purposefully messed up my exam, the teacher would just say its ok, you'll do better next time instead of admonishing me. I was basically always getting the sympathy of others instead of their actual care. So I made sure my son had his parents involved in every part of his life. Maybe, I did a damn good job so when I was on my deathbed, he was out there, helping other poor children. Luckily for me, when I took my last breath, I could vaguely remember seeing him out of the corner of my eye. "

The voice laughed lightly and said "I know about everything that you've experienced in your life. You are special. Because you broke thr algorithm. Yes, don't be suprised. The afterlife is way more advanced when it comes to technology. We have our own algorithm that predicts the way a soul would behave. 99 percent of the time, the alhoritm correctly predicts the way a soul would behave. But there are always some exceptions. Even is some soul manages to break it, it will always be people who went down the wrong path and eventually become serial killers or dictators. You were the only one who broke the algorithm and moved into a more positive direction. The algorithm predicted that you would be bitter throughout your life. Even though you would eventually succeed in life, because you never felt love, you had no idea how to love others so you would end up a bitter rich person but you were totally different. Not only did you end up loving someone, you even married them and gave birth to a lovely child, raised him into being one of the most loved and respected individuals in your world."

"Anyway, here you are. We don't have much time left. Well, let me be honest. I have a party to attend so let me just finish this quickly. Because you were so good previously, I've decided to give you an opportunity to experience a new life. A different life. I know what you wanna ask and all of your wishes and requests. Bur this isn't like those online stories youve read so you can't wish for somerhing extraordinary. So I'll just get this over with as I'm in a hurry. It is a world that consists of a lot of the tv shows and movies that you've watched and indulged in. No, you won't be getting a system. Yes, you'll keep all of your memories and finally, I'll give you a very high IQ and spacial thinking. I know deep down, you don't just wanna be a businessman but also an intellectual. I'm sure you can work wonders with this. With your courage and careful thinking coupled with all the extremely high iq, im sure you will do wonders. I hope you have loads of fun and.."

I interrupted in between "will I...have a family?" I asked solemnly. "Well, that will be upto you."the gentle voice replied. "You will be born an orphan. Or rather, you will inherit these memories when you become an orphan. It will be upto you to seek a family for yourself. All I can do is place you near the modern family household because i know you always envied the bonds the family shared with each other. But, you will have a few distant cousins and relatives that you might recognize. I don't want to interfere anymore as I am curious regarding the path you take. One final warning though, this world might not have any supernatural stuff but there are human disasters so you have to be alert. I'll see you again after you die. But don't die soon. I have a bet going on with my colleagues. If you do certain amazing stuff that we didn't expect you to do, we might reward you too. Anyway, I'm late. See ya when you die. Bye!"

I was shocked as I heard the last few sentences "wa..wait.. what do you mean dangers? And rewards?" but before I could recieve an answer, my vision went black. I was in total darkness until I felt something poking my toes before I heard "His feet are responsive doctor House" I slowly open my eyes only to see the popular Dr house from the tv show house staring at me. As my eyes focused, I heard him say "welcome back young man. I would have called you a boy but given your circumstances, I felt that man was more appropriate. Congratulations,you are perfectly healthy and I'm sure you can heal perfectly fine. Physically atleast though losing your parents and living the rest of your life as an orphan will be quite hard" he said with a smirk.

That's when my memories hit me. My name was Jake. Jake Gallagher and im 14 years old. My life was pretty much a Rollercoaster. I was very talented in math and physics as I had participated in a lot of competitions, national and international and won a lot of medals. I was known as a prodigy but 2 to 3 years ago, I started my rebellious phase because I was tired of my parents forcing me to study while I wanted to explore music.

Our family started to argue constantly which often resulted in me being grounded. We had just moved into this new neighborhood and on the first weekend there, our parents decided that we should go out for a small roadtrip. The house we had just bought had a lot of work left to be done but they wanted a break. On the journey, me and my mom got into another argument. My dad turned to us, trying to convince us to stop arguing but he didn't notice the truck that was on the wrong side of the road. And then, I woke up at the hospital.

I felt really lonely seeing that only the doctors accompanied me through out my hospital stay as I had no other relatives registered. I knew my dad and mom had a diary listing a few of our relatives but we haven't been in touch with them for ages so yes. I, an orphan became an orphan again. That was when I remembered what the gentle voice had said. When I thought about the real estate agent who sold the house to us, I realised what she meant that it's upto me to find a family.

It was Phil Dunphy who had sold the house to us. I had also enrolled in the school where Haley, Alex and Luke studied. I had an ideal situation to try and get involved in the lives of my ideal family. They weren't always happy with each other. They had their own issues and problems and they often fought but one thing that was constant is that they loved each other.

Soon, I was discharged from the hospital and made my way to my home, feeling excited as well as apprehensive regarding what was to come.