I have always been an unremarkable man. I never had much in the way of ambition other than to live a comfortable life, living within my own means. I worked my job at a small warehouse near the port of Astoria Oregon, went home, played video games and pretty much kept to myself. Sure that made me a bit of a loner but I did keep a small circle of friends that I visited as often as adults with their own lives and schedules could manage. I couldn’t say it was a perfect life, I had lost friends and family along the way and it had definitely contributed to my more reclusive nature, but I had my little brother who I was really close with and had ridden out some of the worst storms of our lives.

  “-I’m telling you man, you should watch the live stream. This shit is pretty incredible if they can pull it off.” Richard, my little brother said over the phone.

  I smiled slightly as I stared out the open window of my car, letting the cool breeze of the pacific waft through. I took a deep breath of the ocean air. I still had fifteen minutes before I needed to head inside the warehouse to start my shift. I liked to arrive a little early to get my head in the game for work. I found that I had a better overall workday if I came to work early and mentally prepared, opposed to many of my other fellow co-workers showing up at the last possible moment to clock in. I had tried that when I was younger and found I typically was in a worse mood than if I had just spent a little time centering myself.

  “It is,” I said, finally agreeing after my thoughts had started to wander. “If they can get the experimental drive to work in space, it’s gonna be massive.”

  NASA had been working on an experimental propulsion system for one of their new rockets and early tests had shown a ton of promise. I wasn’t as big into the technical aspect of space travel like my brother was. We had both grown up on a healthy dose of sci-fi movies and had spent countless days playing together either as rival captains of our own spaceships or fighting aliens as explorers to new worlds. My brother had gotten more into the science aspect as we got older while I enjoyed the more fiction part of Sci-fi. I loved the anime with giant mecha fighting wars in space for one cause or another. I had a poster in my room of a popular franchise with mecha that had V crests on their heads and little mechanical goatees. I still enjoyed building their models even as an adult.

  “The early projections are that we will be able to make it to Mars in two days from earth. You have to understand, until a couple years ago it would take an unmanned reconnaissance vessel roughly nine months to reach mars. This could change everything!”

  I had to move my phone a little ways away from my ear as he spoke louder and louder. Unable to control his excitement. It really was an amazing leap in technology and I was happy to indulge my little brother for a few minutes until it was time to go into work. I checked the clock on the center console of my car. I had five minutes left.

  “Well bro, I’m gonna let you go. It’s almost time for me to head into work. Enjoy the launch and text me later how it went.” I said as I got out of my car and stretched a little.

  “Ok broski, have fun at work! I’m gonna watch the livestream.” He ended the call somewhat abruptly but I only smiled. He typically had a one track mind about the things he was passionate about. As his brother, I understood well. I was much the same way, I just had marginally better people skills than he did.

  Our boss was late opening up the warehouse so we could start clocking in so I decided to walk a little ways towards the seawall to enjoy more of the salt air. As an Oregonian I enjoyed the cool humidity. There was lots of moisture in the area and we boasted being one of the few areas in the country that had an actual rainforest.

  I watched the waves lap against the seawall as seagulls cawed overhead. In that brief moment I felt at peace. I checked my phone and realized my boss was officially late. Richard’s launch had already started and the rocket was likely already approaching the edge of our atmosphere. Not that I could tell from where I was. The launch had been on the other side of the country in Florida.

  All the same, I looked up to the sky. There wasn’t much to see. In typical Oregon fashion, the sky was overcast and likely meant rain in the next few hours. I didn’t mind it in the slightest. I felt more secure when the sky was overcast. I could never articulate as to why that was. The gray clouds just made me feel safe and gave me peace.

  My boss Greg, finally had pulled up to his usual parking spot. He looked like shit, clearly he had woken up late as his clothes were all disheveled and I could tell his eyes were red even all the way from where I was standing. He had been going through a rough patch after his wife had left him and took his daughter with her. We all gave him his space. I’ve been working at the warehouse for five years and he has been my supervisor since day one. He was a good boss that was firm but fair. He had gone to bat for us on a couple of occasions when the owner tried to cut costs by cutting our hours while nearly doubling our work load.

  I waved at him as he tiredly got out of his truck to which he waved back halfheartedly. He fumbled through his keys trying to unlock the warehouse while I looked back at the ocean one last time.

  I noticed a strange flash of green light on the horizon. For a moment I wondered if I had seen a freak moment of aurora borealis but that quickly changed as the light grew in intensity and size. It…was coming my way.

  “G…guys” I said behind a lump in my throat. “Uh…Guys” I tried again a little more clearly but none of my co-workers had heard. They were focused on my boss fumbling the right key into the door.

  “Guys!” I finally shouted. That got their attention as they all looked at me at the same time. My boss dropped his keys and cursed, kneeling down to pick them up, not bothering to turn around with everyone else.

  “What the fuck?!” Tom, one of the forklift operators, yelled as the wave of green light quickly spread towards us. It was still a long ways away but that distance was shortening rapidly.

  My co-workers began to panic and started shouting. “Hurry the fuck up Greg!” One of them, at my supervisor. He finally looked over his shoulder and stared blankly at the rapidly approaching wave of green light. Someone snatched the keys from his hand and quickly found the right key before jamming it into the lock and opening the door for everyone. Some were like Greg. Frozen in place, just staring at the wave of light.

  My body had gone into motion before my mind had caught up and I began sprinting towards the warehouse. One of my coworkers was dragging people inside who were not moving. A few people were shouting it had to be the explosion from a bomb and for people to get inside.

  The wave of light was almost on us. Eighty feet, fifty feet, A couple of my coworkers were shouting at me to run faster. Twenty feet, I was almost there!

  …And then I tripped and landed hard on my face. I had enough time to look up and meet eyes with Greg. His face with a mask of shock and horror before he finally broke out of it long enough to shout at them to close the door. I could see shame in his eyes as our eyes met. He mouthed “I’m sorry” before the door slammed shut.

  I didn’t blame him. I was out of time. All I could do was cover my head in a vain attempt to protect myself. The green light washed over me. The last conscious thought I had left before darkness took me was “What about Richard?” I was the only family he had left and I was sure I was about to die.

  When I came to, the first thought that came to me was that I didn’t feel any pain. I didn’t feel anything for that matter. My mind was sluggish to form coherent thoughts. When I began to form something in my mind it would quickly slip away. I couldn’t open my eyes or was even sure if I possessed eyes any longer. It was just darkness, absolute darkness.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  It felt like it took me centuries to form the thought Where am I? Followed a millenia later with that thought Who am I? I had vague memories of my life but they seemed so far away it was nearly impossible to grasp them.

  “Who are you indeed?” A voice echoed in my head. The voice sounded surprisingly familiar. Like Sir Patrick Stewart had worn out his voice and each word took great effort.

  I tried to speak back to the voice but I didn’t have the vocal cords to speak. So I tried directing my response in thought. “Who are you?”

  The disembodied voice chuckled slightly. “A good question but one I am afraid that neither of us have time to go into detail about. Suffice to say, I am someone who is here to fix a mistake. Our time is sadly limited.”

  My thoughts were coming quicker as some semblance of my memories came back to me. “Wha-what happened?” I finally asked.

  “I’m afraid we don’t have time to go into that either. The best I can do is say that a mistake had been made and humanity paid a steep price for it. We can’t do much to balance the scales so-to-speak but we can help a little.”

  The memory of a green wave of light crashing over me and the final thoughts of my brother came back to me. As if sensing my thoughts the voice spoke once again. “Ah, I see. The quality of a person can sometimes be determined by the final thoughts one has before facing death.” The voice sounded genuinely sad.

  “I can’t give you your brother. Though I suppose I can tell you that he is alive and well. The same I can not say about you.”

  I felt so confused. Nothing was making sense. Though, knowing Richard was ok did bring me a little peace.

  “I guess this means I’m dead?” I asked the voice.

  While I could not see anything, I got the impression of a sad smile in my mind. “Yes and no. You are for lack of a better word, data. We were unable to prevent what happened, but we were able to save some of those that were caught in the wave.”

  I internally frowned. “Data? Like you downloaded my consciousness or something? This sounds like some weird Black Mirror shit.”

  There was a soft chuckle as the Sir Patrick voice spoke again. “It’s not a good example but the short version is we were able to extract what you humans call your souls. Time is growing shorter by the minute so I’m afraid I can’t speak on the topic more.”

  I felt frustration bubbling up. Nothing was making sense and for some reason, time was short. Despite time feeling like it didn’t have any meaning where we were. Wherever that was. “Then what the fuck can you tell me exactly!?” I said, exacerbated.

  I felt a small, warm smile come from the Sir Patrick voice. “I’m sorry, none of this was supposed to happen this way and we were caught off guard. Believe it or not, this is happening to millions of people at this very moment. It’s a stress on what we can do so our time is severely limited.

  Sir Patrick cleared his raspy voice the best he could before adopting a more official sounding tone. “You can’t exist on earth anymore for reasons we don’t have time to get into. Not at least, your earth.” Sir Patrick had to take a break for a long moment as if speaking, even if it was speaking in my mind, was difficult.

  “We can give you a second life if you wish but you will not return to your home. Your home will not exist much longer as it stands. If you permit me, I can search your mind and find somewhere that will be compatible with your desires.”

  I frowned internally again. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

  “It is a common trait among humans to dream of a world they could thrive in. For some, that might mean becoming a superhero, fighting crime in the streets, for others it's living in a tropical paradise with a harem of beautiful ladies.” Sir Patrick laughed at that thought. “These are building blocks that we can work with, though not exactly the way you would like.”

  This was all bizarre and hard to come to terms with. It felt like the plot to an Isekai mixed with the concept of heaven. I could choose where I wanted to go. Does that mean I could choose a world filled with magic and dragons? My thoughts went to a popular book series that was adopted by HBO that made me subconsciously shiver at the thought.

  The Sir Patrick voice could sense my question forming and answered before I could ask it. “Your earth doesn’t have magic. Or at least, not the way that you humans think of. But there are worlds that do hold magic. A myriad of worlds like earth but different at the same time. Some far more advanced than yours and some far more primal. But, no matter where we send you, none of them will be your earth. Similar, yes, some even similar geographically speaking. But it won’t be your home.”

  I got the mental impression of someone looking down at their watch and a small frown crossing a face. I couldn’t get a distinct image of the being that was talking to me but there was something there. Like it was just at the very edge of my perception. Like something I could see out of the corner of my eye, but every time I tried to look at it, It would remain at the furthest corner.

  I had so many questions and I couldn’t begin to figure out which one I should ask first. I could sense the Sir Patrick voice smiling at me sadly once more. “I’m afraid our time is almost at an end. I must search your mind now or else your risk becoming truly unmade. Do I have your permission to search your mind?”

  I wish I had hands at that moment. I wanted to run my fingers through my hair to help me think. Small distractions like that bought me a little time to think and the minor act of self comforting helped stimulate my mind. I didn’t know if the voice was being honest with me or if this was even real. For all I knew this could be a massive hallucination because I hit my head even though I had no recollection of hurting myself that way. I could be in a coma in a hospital bed right now and this was the fucked up dream my mind came up with.

  I growled in frustration. If it was a hallucination then I would just have to roll with it, the alternative was death. “Fuck it. Fine, search my mind. Let’s see where the crazy train takes us.”

  Sir Patrick’s voice was beginning to sound strained. “Wonderful! I am truly sorry that you and your people were put in this predicament but we will do what we can to bring balance. Now rest, I will search your mind and find you a new home.”

  My mind became heavy and thought drifted away. I felt the warm presence of the entity begin to search through my thoughts and memories. I had heard of people talking about seeing their life flash before their eyes but this felt different. Like someone had taken the best hits and played all the clips simultaneously.

  Scenes of my brother and I watching teenagers with attitude fighting monsters in a giant robot, scenes of Richard fighting me in the front yard with sticks that we pretended to be swords as we gave each other big welts. Memories of my brother and eye taking out all of our favorite toys and then we had them battle each other in a massive war. Other core memories began to surface as I felt tears welling up in my metaphysical eyes.

  Richard had been a huge part of my life. The thought of not being able to talk to my little brother again hurt me in a way I couldn’t begin to express. I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye.

  Other memories came to me, lonelier ones where I endured hardships alone, the feeling of striking out with every relationship I had ever had. The feeling of being the strong one when my parents passed and I was the one everyone looked to, to be strong.

  The flashing memories began to slow as the entity that I had permitted to search through them began to withdraw from it until it was at the edge of my perception once more.

  “I see.” It said contemplatively “I think I know the kind of man you are and the man you wish to be.” Sir Patrick said. His voice sounded like it was coming from a radio speaker that had blown mostly out and heavy static nearly drowned out his voice. I mentally leaned in to try to hear him better

  “We are sorry there is not more that we can do, but hopefully this will bring you some measure of peace. Be wary though. Danger and hardship will follow you. Adapt and survive.” I tried to reply but I found I couldn’t. Whatever connection I had with this entity, it was at its end.

  Sir Patrick was almost impossible to hear now. “Follow the song and you will….” The static sound drowned out the last words before one final “Farewell”

  I felt a strong pulling sensation as if my ethereal body had been stretched impossibly long like a rubber band before snapping in the direction I was being pulled. My consciousness faded to black as oblivion took me once more.