Earth; a thriving, civilised planet situated on the outskirts of the milky way galaxy. Quite unremarkable from afar, but up close it’s a wonder to behold, being one of the most unique and beautiful planets amongst the known universe… Well at least that’s what the humans who inhabit this planet believe, while they are quite advanced considering how long they have existed for, but they are still a far cry from the other races scattered throughout the universe, who have had millions or even billions of years to thrive before humans even began to walk the earth.

On this peculiar planet, there exists a rather unremarkable young man, no special attributes to speak of, just perfectly average, average height, average looks, average physical abilities, simply someone who you could easily miss if not paying attention; this young man’s name is Ben, 21 years of age, standing 172cm tall, long brown hair, slightly overweight, and a scar ridden face as a result of numerous years of acne, if there was anything even resembling a striking feature, it would be his bright blue eyes, and his smile, which seemed to garner the attention of others.

…

“As much as I love the rain, I hate being caught in it!” Ben’s sighed to himself, having spent most of the day hanging out with his best friend, playing games and exploring the local city, Ben begrudgingly journeys home in the dark while riding on his bike and is caught in a sudden rainstorm, being unprepared for it results in him being soaked to the bone within minutes.

Exerting more force into his cycling in an effort to warm up, he gradually gains more speed “I seriously wish they’d do something about these potho-!!”

CRASH!

In the effort to warm up, Ben’s speed goes against him as he hits a deep pothole covered by the rain water, causing him to fly over the handle bars and land in one of the puddles with a thud. After landing Ben rolls onto his back and lies there for several seconds in an attempt to calm his frustration, several seconds pass until he begins to climb to his feet.

“Hah, thankfully there’s nothing serious” he scans his limbs with his eyes and pats himself all over to check for any damage, but sighs in relief when he only finds some scratches and the start of a bruise on his left knee. he approaches his bike and lifts it up from the floor to inspect it “ah, Goddammit! Of all the times for it to break, it had to break here?!” After noticing the badly damaged front wheel, Ben throws his bike several feet away from him, being cold, wet and now with a broken bike how could he not explode in frustration?

After several seconds he takes a few deep breaths and calms his mind, and proceeds to walk over and pick up his bike once more. “at least it can’t get any worse than this... I should have a spare tire hidden somewhere, I’ll replace it when I get home, guess I’ll have to walk the rest of the way” after a closer inspection of the damage and a small sigh he begins the walk home.

Almost as if his words had an effect on the world, less than 10 seconds later, a police siren accompanied with bright flashing lights appeared from the adjacent street, perking his head up Ben looks in the direction of the sudden event, screeching tires enter his ears and blinding lights block his sight “What th-?”

Taking a step back he lifts his arm to try to block the sudden light from hurting his eyes, as he steps back his unfocused mind forgot about the numerous holes littering the road, with the sudden surprise of losing his footing, his body loses all balance and tumbles backwards towards the ground, all the while the blinding lights and screeching tires are getting closer and closer.

Realising what’s about to happen Ben’s instinct’s kicks in, midway through falling, rather than fighting it and trying to right himself, he uses the momentum of his fall and kicks off the ground with his only foot still connected to the floor, acting similar to a spring, his speed increases and instead of falling towards the floor his body was rapidly propelled towards the edge of the road and out of the way of the speeding vehicle... that’s what should have happened, but his fate was already sealed, as a result of the previous fall, his knee was more damaged than he realised, as he used his left leg to push himself away, his knee buckled under the pressure and caused his body become suspended in the air directly in the path of the fast approaching vehicle, while he did managed to react in time, there was nothing else he could but wait for the vehicle to take his life and hope it did so painlessly.

The moment Ben realised what was about to become of him, his body and mind became filled with a sudden bout of energy and his surroundings began to move in slow motion, his brain started to operate at an exceedingly fast pace, fuelled by the absurd amount of energy now pumping through his veins; as a result even the raindrops seemed as if they were suspended in mid-air.

“Is this really happening right now? I never thought my life would end up ending in such a crappy way, couldn’t I have at least gone out while trying to save someone?” a burst of anger ran through his body, he did not wish to die, and to die in such a way only infuriated him, though it wasn’t long before his mind cooled and wandered towards a more pressing matter.

“My parents, my friends, my girlfriend, looks like I’m never gonna see them again...” a long pause followed, the realisation of his current predicament began to overwhelm him as he began to inwardly cry, as no tears would fall.

“well I’ve had a good life, I have some regrets but that won’t matter in a few seconds...”.

In this state of limbo, Ben didn’t think of a way to survive since he knew that was impossible, he couldn’t move any part of his body apart from his eyes and mouth, nor was his body even capable of surviving the impact, no, instead he reminisced about his life, since he seemed to have a near perfect memory in this state he attempted to re-trace his memories and re-live his entire life a second time, enjoying and remembering every second, from birth, to childhood, through his teenage years in high-school and finally his last few years in university leading up to now.

…

After what seemed like an eternity his closed eyes slowly opened to reveal a pair of eyes that didn’t resemble their previous dull sheen, instead they shined with a dazzling light reminiscent of a star, almost as if they were polished to perfection, all the while possessing an unfathomable depth that could be compared to deepest trenches of the world’s oceans; even with opposing qualities of light and dark, they created a feeling of serenity; a perfect equilibrium.

After opening his eyes, his mouth spread into a bright, satisfied smile, in that moment he could be said to have reached a sort of enlightenment, no one who saw this scene would believe that he had embraced death.

“I’m still here?” Ben suddenly brought forth a question, after having come to terms with his death, he was still, for some reason, stuck in this limbo state and had no idea how to release himself from it, he couldn’t move or talk, all he could do was think... once again after what seemed like another eternity, no matter what he tried, he couldn’t find any method to try and get himself out this frozen state.

Having so much free time at his disposal Ben managed to work out that while time seemed frozen it was still moving, although it was extremely slow; The time difference turned out to be much more than he expected, using a simple method he roughly calculated how far the vehicle had moved and having a rough guess of its speed he started counting, starting at seconds, turning into hours, then days, then weeks until it finally clicked, for every one second of real time, equals about 120 days within this frozen state! With how fast the vehicle is going it would take about another 2 seconds to kill him in real time meaning having to wait around 240 days, or about 8 months before he died, while this doesn’t seem like a bad thing because he gets to live for another 8 months, it is also extremely horrifying, even Ben himself realised it as soon as he figured out his remaining time left.

He would have to experience excruciating pain for 8 months...

After counting the time difference the vehicle had now moved closer, it wouldn’t be long until it finally hit him; his current position was similar to a bridge pose with his right arm extended as a result of him trying to launch himself towards the road side, the best scenario is that there is no pain while in this state, but that was unlikely since every one of his senses was still in working order, so he would still definitely be able to experience pain.

Because of the huge time difference, he would experience the pain of every single bone breaking, tendon snapping, muscle tearing and organ crushing and there would be nothing he could do to stop it.

As the days ticked by the vehicle finally made contact.

The initial hit did not hurt very much at all, at most it could be described as a constant light pressure, like lightly pressing against a wall, but as time progressed the pressure increased, going from uncomfortable itch, until finally sharp pain.

After several days, being able to pass out would have been a luxury but it never came, the only thing that he could feel, or even think about was pain; the skin on his arm began to split, the muscles and tendons started to stretch and slowly tear themselves apart, the bone had yet to break but he could feel it bending under the intense pressure.

“AHHHHH!!” All Ben could do was scream within his mind, no sounds could escape his mouth, and no attempt could be made to alleviate the pain, although something did come of this situation.

CLICK!

“Ah? Wait... It doesn’t hurt anymore?” All of a sudden, an audible click sound echoed within his body, although he did not hear it since an immediate wave of euphoria swept through him the moment the pain disappeared. even though he could see his arm had been reduced to a mangled mess of shattered bone and flesh, he could no longer feel it “I know I have a fairly high pain tolerance, but isn’t this a bit too much?” Trying to think of a reason for this sudden change, there was one conclusion that suddenly popped into his head “is my body adapting to the pain?”.

Ben came to this conclusion after recalling events of humans achieving incredible feats under extreme circumstances “maybe the pain was so intense it overloaded my brain? Don’t tell me I have brain damage now… the car hasn’t even touched my head yet” After a sudden revelation he recalled the moment the pain stopped and the sound of a click that followed “would that work?” he conjured the image of a switch being flipped with his mind “Ahh!!” the moment the switch produced a crisp click, the pain immediately threw his mind into turmoil, the sudden introduction of severe pain sent his body into shock and almost knocked him unconscious, it took him several days to recover enough before he managed to turn off the switch. Ben had attempted to flip the switch many times during that time but to no avail until now, it must only be able to activated when he’s in a suitable condition “note to self: never touch that switch again”

... ...

“I hope this ends soon, even though the pains gone, it ain’t nice seeing your body being mutilated in front of you” with grim smile on his face Ben stared at his mangled body, it’s now been just a bit over 7 months, with less than a month to go before his head is completely crushed, relief began to show in his eyes “it’s almost here. I wonder what’ll happen to me when I die, it’d be nice if I could reincarnate but looking at the state of this world I doubt there are any gods that even care about this place anymore” with a sigh he resigns himself to his fate and closes his eyes, spending his last month in peace.

All the while he’s been in this painless state, he can still feel everything that’s going on, every tear, break and rip of skin, bone, and muscle, and unbeknownst to him, every single cell, bone, muscle, tendon, organ within his body had been flipping small switches within his mind, unlocking the hidden potential of his body and granting him control of every single component within his body, the reason he missed all these things was because of his comatose state, without being able to move any part of his body, all of the changes went unnoticed.

The final days approached, the vehicle had finally reached Ben’s head, and his cheekbone had just began to shatter under the force “This is it then, ah, I already knew but human bodies really are pathetically fragile aren’t they? It’s so easy to kill us, who knows I might get lucky and come back to life as a water bear, it’d be nice to be indestructible, haha” with a chuckle Ben ponders his potential future, but he knew how it would really end, with him as a pile of ash in a hole in the floor.

Staring straight up into the night sky and towards the numerous stars dotting the sky, a smile appears on his face “it’d be cool to see the universe too, who knows how many other species are out there” one of his lifelong dreams was to become an explorer of the universe, meet aliens, experience extremely advanced civilisations, and immerse himself in all the wanders that dot the empty space.

“Well that’s not happening, this is it for me... I’ll see everyone of the other side”

Sending another beaming smile toward the sky he lets nature take its course. The vehicle finally smashed through his skull and ruptures his brain tearing it to pieces, his vision blurs and slowly fades to black, time once again returns to normal speed and his body is sent flying across the street in a broken mess and collides with the floor in a pool of blood.