It was too early in the morning when my phone’s alarm started to beep at me, my body jolting upright before I turned and fumbled around on my bedside table for it. After blinking my eyes blearily for a few seconds, I finally managed to turn off the offending device.

“Shit, I have to get to work.”

Rolling over to the other side of my bed I stood up and plodded over to my bathroom.

As I walked into the bathroom I was greeted by my own tired-looking reflection. My plain brown hair, not dark brown or light brown just plain old boring brown was sticking up all over the place in its usual morning mess. Blue eyes set in a plain face glared irritably back at me from the mirror.

The uninspiring sight before me was split in two as I reached up and opened the mirrored door of the cabinet to pull out my razor.

After a quick shave and shower I pulled on my usual winter clothes; jeans, a long-sleeved t-shirt and a hoodie before venturing out into the living area.

“Morning Bro,” my flatmate greeted me as I walked out of my room.

“Yes, it’s a morning Tim, thank you for not calling it a ‘good’ morning.” I grumbled in reply.

“Let me guess, you’ve got work again?” Tim asked, with a small smile on his face as he shook his head at me in exasperation.

“Yup,” I replied as I walked past him into the kitchen to start making my breakfast.

“Rick why do you even work there?” he asked as I opened the fridge door in search of some milk.

“Despite how stressful it is to work there it’s still better than being unemployed and broke,” I replied grabbing a couple of slices of bread from the pantry.

“I don’t think your parents would mind paying rent for a few weeks while you found a new job you know,” Tim pointed out.

“Yeah, I know that,” I sighed as I made my way over to the toaster and plonked the two slices of bread inside. “But they’ve already spent so much money on me and my brother. There’s no need to do that to them. As soon as I find another job, I’m out of there.”

I looked out the kitchen window towards the peninsula and groaned as I saw that the hills were currently white after the dumping of snow that we’d had last night.

“Looks like it’s another lovely winter’s day,” I sighed irritably knowing that I was going to heave to walk to work anyway before glancing at Tim who was about to leave. “Be careful man, it’s a bit colder than you’re used to.”

‘You’re telling me,” laughed Tim as he walked out the door. “At least I’m driving, you be careful walking down the hill in the ice.”

I gave him a grin as he pulled the door shut, and soon I was seated in front of my laptop with my coffee and toast.

“Well better have a look and see if anything good is up,” I muttered to myself as the computer booted up.

I finished my breakfast as quickly as possible. I knew from experience that being even a minute late would earn me a lecture on the virtue of punctuality from my Manager. Which was pretty ironic considering how often the Manager and her friends showed up late. I had told the owner about this on multiple occasions and while he had believed me (he had actually been there one time that she had been late and had asked how common this behaviour was) there wasn’t that much he could do about it since he spent most of his time out of town.

Grabbing my bag and coat I walked out the door into the cold winter’s morning.

“I can’t believe that bitch changed my timetable without asking again,” I muttered to myself as I walked down the slippery street nodding at another pedestrian as I passed.

I specifically asked my Manager to at least tell me if she was going to change the days that I work like this it’s hard to make plans if you have no idea what you’re going to be doing a week from now. This was especially important to me because I worked two jobs; one during the day and one in the evening. Luckily the boss at my other job was much more understanding than the bitch who ran the café that I worked at during the day.

I noticed a woman crossing the road just after the long curve when I heard a screeching sound, followed by a car horn sounding, I turned towards the racket and saw a small car was sliding out of control, skidding around on the icy road.

Swearing to myself I looked back at the woman crossing the road.

“Dammit lady you have to move!” I shouted loudly before realising that she’s wearing earphones and she can’t hear me or the car.

Sprinting across towards her she looked up at the last minute. Her eyes widened as she saw me charging towards her with horrified look on my face. Pushing her out of the way I try to use my remaining momentum to leap out of the way of the out of control car before realising that there was no way that I was going to be able to get out of the way in time.

Well crap.

As the hood of the car screamed closer, I could clearly see the face of the driver set in a rictus of horror through the windscreen, creating a strange juxtaposition as a reflection of my face wearing a very similar expression appeared before the car slammed into me.

As my body came into contact with the oncoming vehicle, I felt most of the bones in my body break with excruciating clarity. The bumper of the car came into contact with my hip first, turning it to powder and causing my body to bend in a most unnatural way as my head smashed into the windshield. The sensation of my skull crumpling like a tin can was the last thing that I remember before everything faded to black.

I don’t know what happened to my body after that. But I was pretty sure I was dead and the screen that had appeared in front of me.

System Notification

Congratulations recently deceased!

You are being offered the chance to aid the development of an intelligent species.

If you accept this offer, we will transport you to a new world and give you a new body of the same species that you will be aiding. You will retain the knowledge that you had learned throughout your life and will be given access to the different benefits that the System provides.

An Admin will now explain to you the details of the offer.

“What the hell? Am I losing my mind?”

Message from Admin-51340

Your mind is currently splattered over the outside of the vehicle that hit you as well as leaking out over the road.

Huh, looks like I can communicate with the screen by willing it somehow. I guess I should be thankful that something is responding to me, even though I’m either dead or having an extremely lucid dream. Either way there isn’t anything I can do about it now…

“Wait why am I not freaking out?”

Message from Admin-51340

You are dead, we are preventing your soul from moving on and controlling any adverse reactions you might have so that you can make a rational decision about our offer.

“Oh, that makes sense, why me though?” I wondered as I noticed that the part up the top of the screen had changed.

Message from Admin-51340

You are one of many deceased humans who have been chosen in the past hour. You were chosen to aid the Yajash due to the potential your soul possesses.

If you have any further questions you may ask.

“Yeah that didn’t help much. My soul’s potential? Why are you taking humans dead humans and giving them this chance anyway?”

Message from Admin-51340

Your soul has an affinity for both life and change and these will manifest in a variety of ways depending on the decisions you make.

We are offering this chance to you and other humans because you don’t have anything to lose, you are dead, the members of the various species you and the other humans would be helping are not, this is another chance for you.

Well that’s more than a bit vague. Well if someone wants me to do something I should be able to ask a few questions.

“You used the term ‘we’ is there more than one you or is it the ‘royal we’?”

Message from Admin-51340

We are the combined consciousness of a species that reached the highest level of civilisation and lost the need for physical bodies, becoming part of what is now known as ‘The System’.

Well, I guess that sort of answered my question.

“Why are you trying to help the Yajash?”

Message from Admin-51340

We are not the only existence like us. Where we wish to see other species attain our level of existence there are others like us who find amusement the suffering of lesser beings. They are best known for pitting intelligent species against each other for sport or creating abominations that prey on everything else.

We wish to aid other species by creating new bodies for souls from other worlds who are interested in living another life. In this case we chose Earth, which usually sits outside the area we can affect. We used a lot of power to access this world and make this offer to as many souls as possible.

If I could get offended by the ‘lesser beings’ comment I probably would. But, I guess I can’t deny it either. If I still had my mind it would have boggled at the idea that this was happening; a species that had completely transcended life as I understood it, and they were still unable to access my world for more than an hour. And more beings like them who thought of intelligent species whom I was going to go right ahead and assume were about as smart as humans were as toys for their amusement.

“Alright, I think I’ll help, but first I need to ask some questions the first being what can you tell me about the world you’re sending me to?”

Message from Admin-51340

Very well.

The world that we want to send you to is a primitive one designated Edra. It is a temperate world slightly larger than Earth and has an abundance of life. Some of these organisms are similar to those that you have already seen on Earth, but most are vastly different. Many of them are extremely dangerous.

That was ominous. I wasn’t exactly someone well-versed in fighting or survival skills. I knew some basics but what I did know was mostly so that I could survive until help came. In layman’s terms I was a city boy. Still with a little help from the Yajash I was sure I could survive.

“Alright and what can you tell me about the Yajash?”

Message from Admin-51340

The Yajash are a species we have watched over for a long time, they are mostly human in appearance and have developed a society based on magic and respect for nature, meaning their technology will be very different from your own. However, your experiences on your own world should still be able to aid them. One other small piece of information about the Yajash; they hate metal-based technology.

Disliking metal-based technology did make sense for a nature loving species, hell there were people on earth who felt kind of the same way. However, it was something that would take a bit for me to adjust to. In fact, it kinda made someone like me who had lived in and around a city my whole life a poor choice, but I guess they had a limited number of people to choose from.

“That’ll take some getting used to, what about the body you will be giving me?”

Message from Admin-51340

We will give you a body as similar in appearance to your original one as possible. You will look somewhat different since you will be a member of a different species, but you will still be a young male.

Sounds like they’ve put a lot of thought into this. It also told me that the Yajash had different genders much like humans.

“Thanks for not trying to turn me into some strange gender I don’t know about. Alright what about these ‘benefits’ that were referred to?”

Message from Admin-51340

This world is connected to the System giving the beings that live there the ability to grow more powerful by levelling up and learning various skills like the games on your own world. Since you will also be connected to the System in this new body, we are offering to make for you, you will also be able to do these things.

Well that makes this offer much more interesting. Come to think of it that kind of sounds like some of the fictions I’ve been reading.

I still not sure I can completely trust this so-called Admin. There’s too much information I’m missing. On the other hand, if I am dead, I don’t really have a better choice. So, I guess I’ll take the chance and try to make something of myself in this new life I’m being offered.