I woke up and found my back and even my face were a little sore. I sat up, stretched, and rubbed my face a little.

“That sure stings, can’t remember the last time I was drunk enough to fall on my face, ugh.”

As I felt up my face, my hands lingered on my hair. Something was off… I opened my eyes and looked around and realized I did not recognize where I was. Looking around it was a giant dorm, multiple beds, each with their own chests. The entire room seemed to be some old style bricks with honest to goodness torches keeping the place lit. My hands, still probing my hair, slowed. Then it all clicked, my hair was shorter, an unfamiliar place. I stared at my hands, my much smaller than normal hands… It all came rushing back and I jumped up, off the bed. No one was around, so I quickly stripped off all my clothes, except for the underwear and examined my body.

Shocked would be putting it mildly. This was definitely not my body. There was a lack of hair, pretty much everywhere and I was no longer on my way to a dad bod. I looked actually pretty athletic but paired with what I remember about the height difference from earlier, I figured I was young, before my metabolism died off. Okay, so obviously this is some kind of fantasy thing going on here. Let’s just…. Start with the most plausible and see if I can work this out. Some new unheard of hyper-realistic VR? I closed my eyes, placed my hands on my head and willed myself to remove a headset.

Nothing.

Okay. Don’t panic. Stay calm. Breathe. Breathe.

I squinched my eyes a little harder and tried again. Nothing still. Okay, so that wasn’t the way. But it's okay! That’s just one thing off the checklist. I’m sure my list has many things left on it to try!

Let’s see next would be, maybe trying to open a window, or game screen? Yeah , let’s try that.

“....Status?” I whispered. I waited.

Nothing. “Status!” I tried again, maybe the conviction matters? That could be a thing, right? I waited a bit and still got nothing. Maybe intent? That would make sense, otherwise you could accidentally be opening windows all the time if you just casually mentioned status in conversation. After concentrating real hard on what I wanted to appear I tried again. I waited… Nothing.

“Stats! Character! Menu! Inventory!” I ran down a list of game functions that should surely work at some point. I received nothing for all my work. Okay, so this was not the sword MMO anime happening to me. That’s great on one hand, I’m not needing to worry about wasting away to death somewhere for one. So, see, good news!

On the other hand…. I guess that would make this the slime anime? I…. I died? Reincarnation is real and I’ve gone back in time to the medieval ages or another world? Wait, the time travel one makes even less sense to be honest. I would have rudimentary knowledge of how everything goes. That would be setting myself up for a change the future kind of situation and extremely paradoxical, right? Another world it is then. Okay, full steam ahead with that idea. Unfortunately I don’t have a magic voice in my head or anything indicating I’m the chosen one. Okay, so reincarnated as an average Joe in another world. Great. Just what I wanted, to be ordinary! Yeah, right, who would want that. Also, reincarnating as some young teenager? What is up with that? I thought I had to go through the whole growing up thing all over again. It feels like I was just injected into someone's body. Wait.... did I essentially kill that person then? He clearly had a life before I got here. I mean, how else would the body be here for me to reincarnate into then? Wait, pull that spiraling thought back. I didn't choose this. Heck, I didn't even know reincarnating was a thing. There was no way I was taking the blame for that. I didn't choose to die and certainly didn't choose to take this kid's life.

Alright, current dilemma resolved! On a somber piggy back to that though... I died. Letting that sink in for a bit I tried processing how drunk I actually had to have been to die just from that. Was it simple alcohol poisoning? Did I do something inanely stupid like driving? I.... I can't remember. I think that is hitting me harder than even the death. I've always been proud of my memory, it is what got me through school after all. Even when I've been drunk or tried drugs, I could always remember how dumb or free-spirited I acted.

Okay Will, shake off the depressive feelings, that does not help you in the here and now. In fact, let's do a little bit more focusing on there here and now. Where am I? Getting back to the room I was in, I decide I wanna check out these stone walls first. I walk on over to the closest one to the bed I woke up in. Speaking of, what a spartan thing it was. It was just a frame, mattress and sheet. I would definitely be roughing it here if I had to stay. I was about to chuckle when something else dawned on me, and I walked over to poke and prod the mattress. Yup, it was definitely one of the old timey ones, stuffed with feathers or something. Guess I would not be getting a good sleep here.. although it is better than straw, so I guess that's a plus in its favor. Sighing, I continued on to my inspection of the wall. Getting close I really wonder how they made all this work. There's no proper bricks and I'm not even seeing mortar or anything, its all just random sized rocks. I reach out to knock on the wall and it feels like that sturdiest thing I've ever felt in my life, well... multiple lives at this point. Honestly I can only compare it to some steel girders I felt when I was in high school when they were putting up a building where I live. Back to the point, even the roof is made like this it looks like so I guess worrying about it falling in would be pointless.

Moving on, let me go check out one of these torches. I was definitely curious about these, they were crackling which is fine and all, but I wasn't seeing any smoke nor was there a smell like oil burning, so I definitely had my curiosity piqued. Moving towards one I began hearing some low rumbling and some background chatter coming from a door. Remembering that the room I was in appeared to be a dorm due to all the beds in it, I imagine people are coming back. Deciding I need to hurry and inspect this torch so I don't look stupid, I take a step and hear the sound of my foot smacking the stone floor and realize something....

I'm still only in my dang underwear! The room is adequately insulated and so I wasn't feeling cold at all and paid no attention! Not wanting to be caught in this situation I abandoned the torch and ran back to what I can only assume is my bed and began retrieving my clothes. The sound of walking and talking was getting louder by the moment and I did not need to deal with being near naked when everyone came in. Luckily the clothes were pretty basic and I got them on in no time. Now, how to appear nonchalant? I tried various poses of sitting on the bed before I gave up and just laid down and stared at the ceiling with my hands behind my head. If someone recognizes me, maybe they'll approach me first so I don't have to go looking for friends that this boy may have known. Or, I guess, enemies he may have had already too. Is there a bully I have to be aware of? Argh! This is so frustrating. I'm going to have to play it cool for a bit and just follow what everyone else does so I don't mess anything up.

As my contemplation wraps up the door opens and a bunch of kids pour through the door. These must be my dormmates I realize as I remember that I too appear to be 14 to 15 or so. Although I began to be a bit suspect about that as I notice its not just boys but girls too. That seems a bit, strange, considering the age. The room was quickly filling up, but a few kids were definitely heading my way. As they approached, they broke off from the little group they were in and all went to their individual beds and chests. I began to worry that this kid did not have any friends after all. It would be both a blessing and a curse. I wouldn't have to worry about saying the wrong thing and making people suspicious of me, but nor would I have any kind of group I could fall back and learn information from conversation.

However, I was rudely interrupted from my musings on the subject. It seems I had let a boy and girl get close to me while worrying and the girl came right up to me and...

THWACK

Gave me a fairly hard smack upside the head. I began staring at her and rubbing my head. She was giving me the older sister vibe as she was standing there, akimbo, but kind of bent over and glaring menacingly at me.

I pause to let my translating gather my thoughts....