I died in a nightmare.
It was not one of those glorious movie deaths, with epic music and memorable phrases that make their spectators cry and, likewise, never forget those characters that grew so much affection in them while enjoying the story.
No.
My death was a fall. Long Eternal, As if the world had opened under my feet and swallowed me without a single explanation.
I expected that, in the midst of that fall, I could wake up abruptly and realize that everything has been a damn nightmare.
I remember the sky. Not the blue that everyone loves, of which we have all witnessed to see, of which God himself has described in the Bible as paradise. This sky was red, in some parts, it was painted with very dark gray, in others, purple, and in others, black.
As well as if they were burning from within. Black clouds danced as hungry spectra and a whisper - a mechanical, broken and distant voice - spoke to me directly to the soul, but I knew very well what I was inside my head despite being aware at that time because that nightmare I perceived it almost realer than real:
[Welcome, at this time, you have been chosen to be our new bearer. The global restoration system is online. Soul synchronization ... completed.]
And then nothing.
Absolute darkness.
Until I opened my eyes.
But they were not my eyes.
And this... It wasn't my world.
At least, it was not the world that I remembered to have seen for the last time before bedtime that night.
I woke up panting, with my heart on the verge of collapse inside my chest, in a bed that I did not recognize how mine, because the previous one was a moderately comfortable bed, despite not being one of the finest and most faces of the market, it was an adequate bed to only sleep in it, a single person.
On the other hand, and now, I am under a roof that seemed improvised, with pieces of scrap and rusty sheets that, at any time, a very strong hurricane could collapse them and leave me homeless.
The air smelled of smoke, burnt metal and despair. My hands - the slopes, were definitely not mine - trembled as I lifted them to my face.
"What... shit...?"
My voice. It is acute. Strange Female
But how...? It is supposed to be a boy before!
How can I be receiving female characteristics, having aroused?
I threw myself out of the bed of a jump, I couldn't stand more, be lying after this.
I stumbled upon an empty ammunition box and I fell from Bruce's in front of a broken mirror.
Fragmented, like my mind at that moment. I looked at myself. Or rather, I saw her. Me. Now, I have black hair, long to the shoulders, leather tanned by the sun, a fine scar crossing it - crossing - the left eyebrow. Eyes like thunderstorms.
It wasn't me. And yet ... it was.
I was inside this body that is absolutely unknown to me.
[Your soul has been synchronized: completed transfusion process]
[Current identity channeled: Leila Vance]
[Position: the chosen]
[Main Mission: Restore the world's core]
[Remaining time: 364 days: 23 hours: 58 minutes]
[The system and this universe welcomes you, Leila]
I stayed in shock.
The words floated in front of my eyes as if they were part of a holographic interface. As a damn role -playing video game of those who used to play on weekends without intention to leave until he was the best player of all time, but with the worst possible immersion: forced reincarnation, sex change, and a suicidal mission that I never wanted to be part of it.
"This is a fucking joke..." I whispered. What I loved least, was that someone would like to get ready with me, and believe that this stupidity was going to be fun for me as soon as I woke up from my nightmare.
But the roar distant from a supernatural creature that should not exist in any plane of reality - a kind of mixture between a tank, an insect and a shout - reminded me that it was not.
That creature made me realize that, in effect, I was living a new transformed reality.
This world was broken.
Indeed, they needed help.
But my help?
How were I supposed to do it?
And I - Leila, or whoever was now - was the only piece that the system had decided to use to repair it.
Why me? Don't know.
Perhaps, and like everything in life, I have something special growing inside me to have been selected to be part of this mission.
The only thing I am clear is this: if I am going to save this world, I first have to survive it.
"Well, if I have no choice... I will do what is necessary to help this world to survive. Because now I am part of it, and if I have been chosen for that, pro something will be."
I stood up staggering me, as if I were trying to learn to handle my new body because, it is true, it feels very different to be a woman to be a man, and unfortunately, now, I have to see reality in a more positive way, I have to learn to handle my own body if I really wanted to help the world, saving it as the chosen one that I have been named by issues of destiny.
I was still difficult for me to feel "inside" this body. It was like wearing borrowed clothes that I didn't finish looking good, because I was very tight and feminine for my liking.
Since I always wore comfortable man clothes, such as jeans, sweatshirts, pants, and things like that. I have never used shoes with heels, and although I have stalls were ankle boots with more or less medium and thick heels, I was very difficult to drive them as if they were shoes.
Every movement that I made seemed forced, clumsy. My soul was attached with adhesive tape to this new housing, and I have to adapt to it as it gave rise as soon as possible.
The place where I was an improvised hut, raised with remains of concrete, oxidized metal and burned wood. The walls were so thin that the wind made them creak as if they were about to collapse.
They were similar to those that showed fantasy video games in which I used to waste my free time in my past life.
In the corner, a rudimentary oven still emitted dim heat. There was a backpack on the table, and next to it, a small rectangular screen embedded in a kind of floating black crystal that flicked.
[New initial tutorial available. Do you want to activate the survival protocol?]
The lyrics appeared again, again, reflecting as holographies. Suspended in front of me in the air. As if the universe were asking me if I wanted to learn to keep breathing, since they have felt that I needed it.
"Yes...", I murmured with a voice. "Show me what the fuck I should do, please..."
[Activated survival protocol. Welcome, Leila. This world was destroyed 97 years ago after the fall of global energy nodes. Humanity collapsed. Fauna and flora mutated. And technology devoured what was left of the planet.]
[Currently, only 3% of the original population is still alive. The rest ... it is not. And what is not alive, still walks.]
The last sentence gave me chills.
What the fuck of the world have I aroused?
Would it at least resemble the worlds of science fiction films and the end of the world that I loved to see when I didn't want to play on the computer in my free time?
Would those films help me something to survive in this world?
[Now, your new role as chosen is simple to perform: you must restore the nodes, clean the corrupt areas and reactivate the central nucleus of the planet before the world collapses completely. Limit time: 364 days.]
Saliva swallow just thinking that I have 1 year to reactivate everything that, once, was ours, and that, now, it has been invaded by things that who knows what they were.
[Starting introductory mission: survive your first day. Objective: Exit the shelter and reach the abandoned tower in the Alfa-9.]
[Reward: Activation of the global map and first point of physical improvement.]
I sighed. Ironic. In my previous world, I could not even get good notes in physical education with the daily physical conditioning routines that we had to comply with. Now I had to save the world to improve my physique.
How ironic is destiny.
Don't you think?
"Great," I said as I grabbed the backpack. Inside I found a bottle of dirty water, an expired energy bar, a small flashlight and a kind of short, rusty knife, who knows what all those things would help me if they were totally damaged. Welcome to the futuristic stone era.