As it tickled, trickled, chafed, burned, and seared, it hurt, it ached, destroyed, and broiled. Red, grey, dark brown and all unsettling hues in between mark the barren plane, a battlefield strewn with infernal grimaces of a weary mind’s concoction.

Grimaces spewing nonsense in the language of bipedal cutthroat demons, dancing recklessly to a desolating tune as the lights dimmed and hope faded. Darkness prevailed.

It twitched, it tingled, it itched, it trembled, it quaked, it rattled, it spun, it flipped, it drifted. The endless unknown, a temporary home for the blip of conspicuous light hidden beneath the protective unassuming.

Empty vastness as the sole companion, accentuated by the occasional bright victory over nothingness, the only trace of the difference. Yet unwelcome nevertheless. Darkness prevailed.

Boom!! Amidst the abandoned lands, there was a long, straight mountain enclosed by an ancient grove of blossoming, wooden skyscraper trees that appeared to have won the misery lottery.

Its glorious, imposing majesty instantly turned bald and crooked, as if beaten like an unpardonable hoodlum ashen black and greyish brown by divine intervention.

There was a blast wave that uprooted tremendous trees tall enough to shoulder the distant sky, levelled entire wooden corridors, shattered what was not strong enough to fragments, and pounded into a pulp who failed to listen to instinct’s feverish tingling all the while reshaping the land of the primordial.

Sulphurous smoke plumes, dust clouds from undiscovered crevices, frantic screams of the forlorn and the smell of charcoal and charred flesh blended with earth’s farts to cover the land in a nauseous odour, visible to the untrained, naked eye.

In an instant, an outburst of terrible danger washed over the once cerulean sky, carbonising panicked flies and incredulous, skybound dragons caught in its net. Nothing was spared.

An unimaginably horrifying expression of nature’s rage beyond the living’s comprehension. Fire licked up the dead, sprinkling cinders across the land, mingling and intermingling with life’s breath as it laid the unlucky to eternal rest and set new foundations.

From the heart of the earth, gases oozed forth, creating utter calamity that razed the earth and tore the sky asunder. One last violent explosion at some point left the bald majesty’s smoky beggar’s cap with an ominous reddish-purple lustre that remained for ages to come.

Nothing can endure the cataclysm…? This was for the Gods to know. Civilisation was too far off to notice properly, too conceited to pay attention or decipher the event’s meaning. It went unrecognised by all. The anomaly’s entry.

As the tumultuous aftermath’s roaring intermissions faded, faint coughs escaped the hollow pit on a fated day when calm had mostly returned to the devastated lands.

In due course, something began to stir within fiery confines, something fanning the air in a vain effort to disperse the toxic fumes earlier rather than later, something ominous, charred pitch black.

Something fearfully staggered and crawled on four limbs towards the gloomy light, something wholly unsure of its place in the world, uncertain of what to think of up and down, left and right, reality and trance.

Fiery, glossy walls posed a serious threat to steady footing as it moved forward. Something... that should never have stood a chance. No matter who or where it was, its survival was contrary to all rules.

Nevertheless, the sluggish lifeform’s determination to survive proved stronger than any obstacles in its arduous path. It smashed through sizzling obstacles like meeting some of the most hated cretins of hazy memories.

With many boiling tears and much sweat evaporated, a darkened, possibly humanoid creature spilt into the cool afternoon suns’ embrace.

As hateful as a slab of meat tucked away in the most powerful freezer, they provided for the same unenvied feelings. Like a demented convict escaping from hell, it raised its brittle arms as if to cheer for them only to slump down immediately, followed by the rest of the body.

The lifeform had taken not even two steps towards freedom before it fell head-first onto the ash-covered, depressingly silent plateau, its life or death uncertain.

As the lifeform laid there, limbs sprawled across a thick, warm bed of suffocating ash, eyes shut tight, itching on its nose and skin as if beaten into immediate submission by old age, it thought.

For nought. “Uuu… uurghhh…” Barely audible whimpers and groans agitated the ash unnecessarily, decreasing the intervals between coughing fits and making life even worse.

This impact sure had packed a powerful punch, like what might happen to someone caught between a fangirl-filled bus with gradually opening doors and their idol of desire.

Crushed, to say the least. Thoroughly. In the end, with time came the need for recognition, a primordial desire to organise the shattered pieces of memory, a mess so great it may have been better to crawl out blank and unknowing.

No doubt it would have reduced the difficulties, wouldn’t it? It believed to recall being… human? Definitely male, in any case. In its–––or rather his–––twenties? Not important enough to linger on it anyway.

The average human, indeed–––tall, emaciated, scarred from head to foot, always seeking rationality despite enveloping treacherous madness. Did his last memory shard contain something like an ethereal tunnel of light?

If that really was the most recent shard… And before that… lots of stress? This finding wasn’t exactly important. No, he must use the time wisely, not waste it.

But! There was more to it, he simply had to dig deeper. More like... like despairing voices cursing God? Would that be all? Surely not. He had to concentrate hard. Then another unlikely idea emerged.

Perhaps a demonic summoning of idiosyncratic midgets, the latest memory before the last? The blazing sun so unrestrained, panting camels overflowing with blood, long knives glittering in the harsh light, a sandstorm heralding Kingdom Come, and...?

And guns! In an instant, our protagonist went blank, the buzzing stopped and intense pressure worsened an already frightening headache, quickly followed by a detonation-like quake that set everything right from what he could tell.

The fading memories of Linchester Linde’s successful escape from dear mother’s assassins unfolded in fragments, a horrible trip aboard a rundown cargo ship approaching Tripoli where he was stuck in an unassuming container.

His troubles with false papers and overeager police officers littering the way as ice-cold corpses, the ensuring mad hunt taking him well beyond state borders, the surprisingly good shelter he found in the desert while camouflaging as part of a certain stalwart group of Bedouin...

Then there was additional information available. He recalled more, which introduced instinctive fear and phantom pain. Linlin had successfully fooled his idiotic brother, who probably still did not realise the blunder of blowing up the wrong aircraft.

At the cost of his precious body double being blown to microscopic pieces, even his wicked, double-faced sister’s many unsuited suitors were pacified. So on both fronts, nothing could have gone askew, no?

Linlin had all he needed to implement his grand scheme: a few million dollars to seal certain rotten mouths, a bit of coercion here and there, extensive scarring there, and little visibility in public. The life of a ghost–––nothing difficult, really.

Back on track, it had been the most irritating thing ever to mislead old Mr President–––their oh-so considerate cosy family butler–––that the beloved thermonuclear dearies did their job properly.

When he finally realises, he will undoubtedly become furious beyond comparison, but by then Linlin will have come a long way... or so was his reasoning at that time.

This mindless order should, by the way, have given the Alps of Europe an artistic revamp in the name of peace just as it destroyed his private network of spies...

Sacrifices were unavoidable in the grand scheme of things. Linlin was sure that this event would be downplayed in the political narrative of a strong country. Just a few more sacrifices and the world would turn up fine... but not for him. ...and yet?

All the bitter planning, harsh calculations, and desperate struggles, had it been worth the effort? Hell no! It was eventually banditry that did him in if Linlin was to believe his memory.

Some rusty gun-wielding ignorants, prisoners to their trigger-happy urges. ‘…’ Our protagonist’s whimpers faded away, leaving only bitter disappointment as deep as the oceans.

So in the end, savage austerity… led to nothing. Reality sure was cruel. Or was it karma? The idea was unthinkable to him! Did he not know about the bandit raid beforehand? Simply because such an event defied predictions? Was that it?!

The first thing he’d do if time could be turned back would be to liberate his hateful stepfather’s private stash of all untested rail guns, then break into the top-secret military armoury and sweep every inch.

Later, he would coerce one of the many lesser cousins stationed there–––preferably with force, and if that failed, which was rarely the case as Linlin recalled, with words–––into taking him on a ride on a Russian Mikoyan MiG-25 fighter jet this publicly unknown group is secretly studying as if their lives depend on it.

‘Well, considering my mother’s murderous mood lately, they probably do big-time. Or is it… was, depended and did? No time to think about this now...

Just look up, will you? Shit.’ Maybe it was all a thing of the past now... and even if it wasn’t really the case, would that not be essentially the same for Linlin?

It certainly appeared that way, at least from the two suns burning brightly in the cloudless, purple sky. The larger sun seemed rounder and nearer than what Linlin was used to on Earth, the smaller sun seemed to be fairly close to the other.

In fairness, it took our protagonist a while to regain trust in his clotted abyssal black peepers. A few minutes later, Linlin began to vigorously question his sanity again.

He wasn’t that sure of their trustworthiness, not with the thought of his boisterous arrival and the still sizzling hole adjacent to the pillow-thick, ashen bed beneath his itchy back. It was like delirium’s concoction rather than the truth he wished to spot.

It might be a good idea for him to question common sense, before leaping straight to any hasty conclusions. Even better, while thinking–––something Linlin despised since he never seemed to get anything right no matter how hard he tried–––might he embrace truth and banish the unnecessary sparks of unconvincing thoughts far easier than he believed he would?

No matter what, one truth remained unquestioned. He’d died. That much was certain. Yet he was still alive and kicking. Another inexplicable fact. Why, though? Our protagonist found such silly notions to be both beyond his comprehension and irrelevant.

The meaning of life? Where do we come from, who are we and where are we going? Linlin was here, and that’s it. As a battle-hardened agent, it would be better to leave such questions to philosophers rather than to his own rather pragmatic devices.

The convoluted ideas people of such professions considered day and night were beyond Linlin’s comprehension. The purpose of this hardly understandable mumbo-jumbo and its utility was something he wasted no time in considering.

That is not to say that Linlin harboured any discriminatory thoughts about that particular profession. He had just never entertained such thoughts and time-squandering activities for the sake of his life.

He didn’t remember the entirety of his past yet, but what he knew sufficed to come to an early conclusion: Every second of Linlin’s short life, every fibre of his sorry being, was used up contemplating how best to survive in a hazardous environment called sweet home…

‘It might not have been the end of the world to leave that shithole. In retrospect, the more I recall, the darker it gets. Is this the past I remember or a nightmare I dreamed up? Ah, my throbbing head... agonising!’

As if he were two people, yet only one was currently in command. Whatever the other did, however he did it, it was beyond his understanding as well as influence. That’s right, it made no sense.

Was this right or wrong? Normal or... abnormally dangerous? In the midst of so many thoughts, shining light on this particular problem might have been the last thing on his mind.

Beep Beep Beep

‘???’ Devastating rackety static noises caused his brain to vibrate to the point it would not surprise him if it left through his orifices. He felt as if a trumpeter was standing beside him, winding with gusto for all he was worth.

A professional who knew little about his job on top of that! An immediate glance, however, rendered Linlin’s ridiculous hypothesis obsolete, since no living soul was in his vicinity, much less an idle, perverse musician.

Beep Beep Beep Beep Beep Beeeeeeeeeep!!!

There was no stop to it, in fact, it got worse and worse! It was as if his skull vibrated, his brain throbbed–––his sensory organs were trapped in a quagmire, and any thought that may have arisen was nipped in the bud before it could bloom.

It seemed as though the whole world jumped and he could no longer differentiate between truth and falsehood, reality and nightmare.

Kekekeh

The nightmare abruptly ended amid a nasty string of malicious laughter, as unanticipated as it came. Almost like a gurgle from a rotten gullet, steadily becoming mechanical with each repetition that could make anyone’s skin crawl. It came and went.

Kekeh Hehe Kakakah

Just as Linlin began to doubt whether everything he perceived had been truly conjured by delirium just as he suspected–––and whether it was possible to survive a precise shot to the head and lungs he’d just remembered, of course–––something changed.

The voice announcing the change was grossly loud and mechanically jarring as it hollered about a random log that was definitely not a normal occurrence. The man was about to go mad, of which Linlin was damn sure.

Pre-Installation Completed Begin Merger… Task Completed Begin Adjustment Sequence… Task Completed Execute General Protocol……. Task Completed Check security protocol………… Task Completed Delete Seeded Talent [Immortal] [Direct Delivery] Task Completed Check Pre-Set: …………………………. Task Completed Data Inference……………… Task Completed Begin Security Check Zeta………………… Task Outstanding Error! Error! Error! Ezzzzzzkt Rollback.............. Task Completed Visualisation in Progress… ~Welcome to Central, @!?)$§(~ ~System Version 0.0.0.1~ Name │ (?) Linchester Linde Gender │ Male (?) Race │ Human (?) Stage │ Lowly Worm Bioenergy │ 4 (10) Talents │

[Schizophrenic ⭐]

[Survivalist ⭐]

[Destiny’s Contractor ⭐]

[Gluttony ⭐] Skills │

none

Enable Helper [AI (?)]: Task Outstanding (0.2283)

“The hell…,” was all the young man could utter silently, before entering into a state of frozen passivity as strange knowledge filled his brain like water fills a bowl. And exceeded the volume it could contain not that much later…

Linlin felt so much pain that he believed if he had a soul–––a concept unproven on Earth even in the technologically advanced era he came from–––it was nearing collapse.

The inexplicable mystical cacophony of banging noises pounding on his mind’s door while mechanically blurting out what a few lifetimes weren’t enough to explain properly, grew stronger by the second, and then… there was no then.

Only darkness. Peace, finally. Having been in this new world for just a few odd hours, the irregularity finally fainted in the inhospitable wooden hell’s depths.

So started our protagonist’s epic journey to the most distant ends of cognition. Nothing fancy, no. Only... a weak, pitiful, trashed beggar clad in laughable remains, mentally scarred, muddled even, and terribly insane to boot.

He was destined to conquer uncounted adversaries, explore the far corners of his mind, enhance his genetics, understand the struggles of life, learn how to cope with mental baggage weighing mountains, and finally laugh freely with no regrets.

Linlin rose, his thorax heaved, as if he had just put the basic foundations of a pyramid together by himself. Mouth parched and littered with ash, his throat became sticky like dried glue as it clogged his windpipe.

As a result, breathing properly became an unimaginably difficult task. While Linlin inhaled the poisonous air, wheezed through his nose, puffed and spat, his windpipe rattled like rusty cogs in an abandoned machine.

To survive another day, he had to leave here fast, of which Linlin was certain. But since there was no oxygen in his lungs and no food or water to nourish his stomach, proper movement seemed an extravagant dream.

‘Why did I faint in this barren land,’ he thought to himself. ‘Not even fleas are welcome here, so why?’ Linlin did not know the answer. If he had only relocated before fainting, things might have turned out much better.

Yet no, he neither received a warning nor sufficient time to prepare. Shakily, Linlin stood up and took a tentative step forward. And then another. And then... he tripped. And rolled. Just like a marble down a ramp.

Faster and faster Linlin’s trip progressed as he uttered wheezing curses and throaty bellows muffled by an ashen cloud visible from afar, painting a dangerous target on him.

Due to the forest being an unsafe place to race through without a care in the world, our protagonist did not accelerate indefinitely. He then suffered a brief cognitive lapse before he realised what had transpired.

Linlin had been stopped. Suddenly, painfully. An overgrown, brambled shrub had done the trick. A resilient bush got under his skin, quite literally too. No mighty tree, fortunately.

“Curses,” he muttered, scratching here and there and rubbing angrily where bruises had grown like mushrooms on a wet grove. A variety of colours messed up his white skin.

He struggled uselessly for some time before he eventually wandered his hands down his rags to discover what had miraculously survived the string of mistreatments.

Or had not… A sudden gust of wind had stirred the ash and crumbled the cigar in front of Linlin’s narrowed eyes, leaving him chilled to the bone, bereft of soul food. “…now you’ve done it.” Our protagonist huffed while forcing a deep breath.

“my cig…” Almost in tears, Linlin sat there. It was only when a set of thunderous steps and inquisitive bellows scared him stiff that he gave up such useless thoughts. At that point, he realised he was in danger at all times.

End of Part I