Home. What is home?

Some would say home is where one is born or where one lives.

For me right now my home is a place that is full of memories that would bring out many emotions.

From the perspective of my current family all they thought was that I missed my home even though I was only gone for 3 weeks and even then I was asleep during that time. But from my perspective I had not been in this home for quite a few years.

If one went for the details one could argue I had never been in this home as before this I lived in a fake reality but good thing nobody knew that. ` So to the others I've only been reminiscing a bit, that's all. `

A week has already passed since I came and it has been a busy week. Already after one night visitors had come. First came the neighbors asking how I was? After the general well wishing for one's good health, a good future and some more story telling about this or that. Nothing of that was important to me at least.

After them slowly the family gathered. Close family like grandparents and cousins, then the more distant family. They all had come to see me. To be honest I even had to go memory fishing to even some of their names. I had not been to such a big gathering in years. Many of them I had not even seen in decades. It was bizarre seeing them all come and wish me well.

Though everything had an end. The more the week was coming to an end the less of them came. I finally had time for myself and not being bothered by somebody. Right now I was sitting on a small wooden bench on my veranda and gazing a bit at the blue sky. Currently it was the start of summer so the sky had no clouds in sight at all.

Sitting there and sipping on my favorite carbonated dark beverage called coke, I enjoyed sipping at the cold drink. When out of my sight I noticed somebody approaching me.

` Well, well if it ain't my best friend from childhood. ` Technically I had two friends I spent my childhood with. One of them I call best best friend while the other is well best friend. This one is the best best friend Asim, while the other one was Esad.

“ Look who came to visit. You know I've been home for almost a week and you only visit me now, even Esad came before you. ” I made a statement as if judging him.

“ Hmph, of course he would visit you sooner his house is right there, barely 25 meters away. ” Asim never even bothered to make an excuse. Still looking at me for a sec. “ Considering your back home I wanted to come sooner but work and family kept me busy. You, ah doing good?”

“ Yea dont worry, was just messing with you. I am glad you came only now. Been a busy week for me too. Family gatherings can make you exhausted easily, I'm sure you know that better than me.” I said while motioning him with my hand. “ Come have a seat. Do you want anything to drink? Beer maybe?”

“ Sure if you have any. ” I nodded to that. ” OK be right back.” With that I went back into the house to get some. I never liked beer so I only ever drank some when I visited clubs in early adulthood. Never could quite get attached to the taste of it. Luckily due to the gatherings there were quite a few leftovers. Back outside with a cold beer I gave it to him and asked. “ So how's the family, wife and the kid. If i remember correctly he should be around 3 years old now. ”

Asking how the family is doing is always a good start to any conversation.

“ Doing good actually. They sent their best wishes to you. Wife sends them to be thorough but if I am being honest you have never ever had a conversation with her so that was probably out of politeness. As for the kid, well he's quite active for one being so young. ” replied Asim with a happy smile on his face. “ And you? I've heard they never found any problems with you and the reason for those 3 weeks. ”

“ Yea they tried real hard. ” Snickering at them doing their best to find an explanation. “ Though they will never find the reason no matter how much testing they do on my body. ” This time giving him a hint I hoped he'd pick up on it.

Right now I was not sure if I wanted to involve him at all. If he had been still single I probably would have but now he had a family to take care of now.

Raising an eyebrow at that I knew he noticed my hint but did not comment on it. “ Not that it matters now since you're already out, but what will you do now? Surely you won't go back to being stuck in this house? ”

Asim raised a good question. What will i do from now on? There are so many options to choose from. With my current capabilities I could do anything I want.

Facing away from him I stared at the blue sky again. “ I truly don't know. I have so many things i want to do.” Stopping for a second to bring them up from memory. “ I have always wanted to go around the World. To see it all in first person but at the same time I have a certain goal I want to pursue. ” Not mentioning the goal to him. If I did, I would have to come clean on so many other things too.

“ Travel the World eh, and how would you do that? You do know that for that kind of wish one would need money and how would you get that kind of money. Last I saw you had no job. ” Came a snickering comment from Asim.

“ Hahaha! ” Laughing at that, I said. “ My friend, money isn't the problem. Ha, no my problem isn't money right now but indecision at how I will go from now on. You see while I do want to travel the World it's not on my priority list. I have other stuff I would first have to get done.”

“ And what would those be?” Asked Asim but no reply came from me.

` Should I involve him or not?` I thought while looking straight at his face.

“ I don't think I'll be telling anybody about them yet. You see I am still brooding if I want to involve you in my goal or not. ” This time I told him my dilemma. “ You see unlike me you now have family, a wife and son waiting for you at home. Yes I could tell you everything and I know if I did you would follow me on my path but if you do you would have to leave your family. I don't want that to happen to you. You deserve a happy life not like mine, that will be filled with strife ”

Seeing him not quite understanding what I meant as he had no idea of what I was talking about. “ Look, it's not really important right now. In the future once I have figured things out I'll come visit you again. Then I will tell you everything and let you make a decision. For now lets just drink like good old buddies and talk about all the stupid things we did. ”

Nodding to that we chatted for quite a few beers more, well he did but we were interrupted as I noticed my new little sister coming home from school.

Seeing her Asim had no choice but to comment “ You know I will never understand how that girl could ever be born as your sister. If I had not seen her grow up, I probably would have never believed it either. ” Stopping for a second, he continued. “ How old is she again 15,16? How time flies. ”

“ 16 right now, second year of high school. Indeed if one does not pay attention time really flies away. ” I replied.

Over the course of this week I tried to interact as best as possible with her but it was hard. I could feel it as if she had lost the connection she had to me before I woke up. And my awkward behavior around her didn't help. It didn't matter how many recollections I went through in my memories. ` I guess only time will tell how our relationship will go.`

Soon she was in front of the house. And greeted my friend. “ Hello Asim. It's good to see you again. How's the family? ”

“ Good, you know nothing new. I was just saying here to Mir about how I could hardly believe that you and him came from the same family considering how beautiful you are.” Asim voiced his thoughts as he looked at her. Amila on the other hand showed some embarrassment but retorted to him. “ Careful what you say otherwise your wife will hear about it. ”

“ She got you there. You are no longer a bachelor, be careful of that mouth of yours.” Joking a bit on his behalf did make me feel good but then reply seriously. “ I meant it really. ”

` Hmm wait, why did i react so strongly to this? `

“ Hmph, overprotective as always. She will never find herself a good man with you around. ” Snickered Asim at me. This time my eyebrow twitched at the word boyfriend but I controlled myself. Not replying, I eyed my new little sister and with my hand urged her inside the house.

` Is this jealousy I just sensed? It looks like there are some reactions engraved into the body I never experienced before. `

Once she was inside I turned to my friend again but all I saw was some amusement, nothing else. “ Best we stop it here it looks like the beer is affecting you a bit. We don't want to escalate things do we? ”

Now he had some intrigue on his face but made a reply and stood up. “ Your right. Let's end it for today but do visit me. I don't think you've ever visited me ever since I got married. ”

“ I will don't worry. Once I have everything figured out I will pay you a visit.” I made a promise. But I could only say sorry in my head as I had no idea how long that will take.

Once he was out of sight I picked up the beer bottles left behind and went inside to place the bottles for recycling. In the living room I noticed Amila sitting there and staring at me with a face full of question marks.

Seeing that I wondered what it was. “ What is it? ”

ˇ Nothing. ˇ

“ Then why are you giving me that look full of questions? If you want to ask me something you can do so.” I replied absently a bit as I placed the bottles in the hard plastic box they had come in. Done with that I turned back to her expecting something but nothing came. Seeing nothing come I turned and left, but before leaving the living room I turned back to her with a hesitant look but eventually the question came..

“ Umm, you got a boyfriend or something? ” With a shocked face she shook her head sideways, so I nodded to that and left for my own room.

Once there I turned on my laptop. It was an older model of Asus RoG laptop. It wasn't anything new or strong but it could play a few of the newer games but my body didn't play them as much as I was asleep.

I had checked everything and the only thing it did was read web novels to spend the time with.

I've checked out the browser history a bit but anything that was read beyond 3 weeks was scrubbed clean. Weird but nothing impossible considering I had not used the laptop in 3 weeks.

Not having much time for myself I never bothered with an in depth exploration of it and probably won't either way as it didn't matter. What I did try was to see if I could find anything supernatural on the web but found anything that could not be explained or photoshopped.

Next I did some reading about spiritual stuff but not much fit me as most of the stuff just was more meditating, to find your center of being or some more theories of the supernatural. So I went the other way. I look up all the shit that people have invented in their stories about Life Essence or anything similar.

With some searching I found a few candidates that fit the bill but it was a manga called HunterxHunter that came the closest to me. So i've been reading it when I had the nights for myself and due to my reading speed being much more efficient due to the Life Essence I had no trouble comprehending it with just a glance and today I should be about done with it.

When I read it the first time I was quite shocked at how close it was to the real stuff sometimes, and so wrong about others. ` It was a nice system I could reference when I decide to make my own tho. `

` I won't be giving the full benefits of that system to anybody, probably, and when I do make something for others I'll abuse it heavily. I mean a Creator of his own power system has to be stronger than the ones he gives the power to. `

Like that a few days passed and thanks to my investigation I made up a simple plan for myself. ` Before I leave my current home and travel the wide world I will need to upgrade my body a bit. `

` Having all this essence at my fingertips and not using it is so unhealthy. `