A/N: First off, the title is a tribute to the song by Our Last Night, from their new album Selective Hearing. I highly recommend their songs. Secondly, I have no idea where this is going. In this case, that is quite deliberate. This is a self insert, but one taken seriously. Instead of asking, "what would happen in situation X?" I'm putting myself in the situation and typing what my actual reactions would be. Hence, panic attack after realizing that I'm not dead. Also, knowingly and deliberately pissing off Lung. That's exactly the kind of stupid thing I would do. Warning: some mentions of depression throughout, but nowhere near as much as I had in the first draft. Without further ado, I present to you, Broken Lives.

Chapter 1: Open Your Eyes

When a computer tower fell off a shell and crushed me to death, I figured that was the end. I didn't mind all that much; I'd stopped truly caring about my life after approximately 8 years of life. I did feel a little bad for the people I was leaving behind – well, one of the people anyways - but most of my emotional attachments had been willfully shattered. I'd turned primarily to computers as a form of escape from reality, so the little part of me that was upset to be leaving so soon was largely overpowered by the sheer irony of my death – the one thing I positively valued in my life was ultimately removed my from it. Hopefully I didn't traumatize anyone with my morbid laughter.

Naturally, waking back up what felt like immediately after was disorienting, enough so that I almost immediately started puking. On the concrete which was apparently there now.

Okay, what the fuck just happened? I just fucking died, and while I'm far from a religious person (I'm largely an apatheist, to be quite honest), I'd done some extensive studies on various mythologies as a pre-teen, and I've never heard of an afterlife like this. Clearly, I still exist, but I also just died, so while I've never heard of an afterlife like this, the existence of an afterlife completely different from every single one humans believe in wouldn't exactly surprise me. Now it's just a matter of figuring out if this is more of a "heaven" or a "hell."

I slowly pushed myself to my feet, absently noting that I felt a bit thinner and slightly stronger than I did five minutes ago. Not really strong, but enough so to be noticeable. Once I felt that I wasn't about to fall down, I swiveled my head around, taking in the surroundings.

The first thing that stuck out was what looked like a box - okay, this is odd. That is definitely a dumpster. I was beginning to get a sinking feeling in my chest. No afterlife would have a dumpster. There would be no purpose. That basically just leaves reincarnation. That's not too bad, right? I can deal. I can totally deal with that. Not a big deal. I'll be fi

panic panic panic

"I'll be fine," which is why I immediately fell to my knees and began hyperventilating. Crap. I haven't had a panic attack this bad in years. Okay, breath in, breath out. No different from those asthma attacks I gave myself after knowingly forcing myself past reasonable limits without my inhaler back in junior high. No biggie.

A gruff, masculine, voice startled me. "Who the fuck are you?" I didn't recognize the accent, but I'm not in Kansas anymore, and it'd be a huge coincidence if I ended up in exactly the same place on my second Earth that I was in when I left the first one. Probably. Maybe. I'm not exactly well versed in the whole "where you go when you die" thing.

... which leads to some more nerve-wracking questions, such as "Shit, am I going to have to do this again? If I die here, is that the end?" To be quite honest, I was very thankful that I didn't have time to think about that right now. It probably wouldn't have ended well.

Fortunately, I'd managed to (mostly) recover from my panic attack, so I quickly jumped to my feet and turned to look at the speaker. And promptly paled. As obsessed as I was with Wildbow's Worm, it would've been impossible not to recognize Lung. Shit. This is Earth Bet.

"It probably wouldn't have ended well," because this is so much better.

Lung raised an eyebrow. "I don't know who put you up to this, but I advise you leave immediately."

In retrospect, maybe I should have kept those thoughts in my head.

"Yes, sir!" I squeaked. "Sorry to bother you Mr Lung sir!"

Rule #19 of not getting the shit beat out of you: if someone is able to squish you with the same amount of effort you put into making breakfast, don't anger them. Be respectful. Curse them out later when they can't hear you and there's no risk of it getting back to them.

I immediately moved to leave, before realizing I had a slight problem.

"Uh, quick question, Mr Lung: where exactly am I? Also, what year is it?"

Naturally, that was when I realized I had a bigger problem. Fuck, I don't remember when canon starts! Lung is here and isn't immediately trying to kill me, so this is probably pre-canon – or, knowing my luck, this is exactly at the start of canon. Wait, what do I do now? Where do I go? I don't have any powers. I don't have any skills that are applicable in a universe with Tinkers. Shit. I have no purpose, no way to make a living, no home, no money… I'm totally fucked. Crap.

Before I could worry myself any further, Lung decided to humor me. Sort of. "You are in ABB territory. It is one year before Lung year."

…what? I thought to myself. Apparently, my confusion showed on my face, because Lung proceeded to explain, even if I only barely heard what he was saying.

What the hell is my life? I died and woke up on Earth Bet, and now Lung is giving me a lecture about the Chinese calendar?!

I'm pretty sure that's the moment when I fainted. In front of Lung. Fuck my life.

As I lost consciousness, only one thought ran through my head: "Remember we all go down in flames, we fail to live up to invisible names, without a heart and stuck in our minds, we can't forget that we all live broken lives."

...okay, only the last line actually went through my head at that point, but it just doesn't have the same impact without the rest of the outro; the beginning is especially fitting given the whole "Lung" situation.

For the record, because I apparently need to mention this on a file no one else should ever see (fucking Tinkers, this is totally unsafe isn't it), I'm typing this about a week or two after my arrival on Bet, on a lightweight laptop. I have encrypted this file using a cipher based off of AES-512, and the key has approximately 200 bits of entropy so even the presence of organic supercomputers should in theory not matter, but given the fact that Tinkers exist, there's probably no real way to prevent someone from accessing this. Actually, that XKCD comic is perfectly accurate right now: they don't need to break the security, they can literally pull it from my mind. Hell, Lisa could probably break it in seconds.

… actually, one last idea. I'm going to hide the encrypted data inside of my music collection! I knew all that time I spent on steganography in middle school would pay off!

...I'm not insane, Lisa! Just thought I'd make sure you knew that! Also, please don't look too deeply here. Some things I'm going to deliberately leave out because they could quite literally lead to the end of the world. Don't try to push it please.

Anyway, I need to figure out my plans for the approximately two years I have before I die, so this ends my first log.

- Urg Urk

A/N: that signature is a nod to With This Ring, a Young Justice SI where the Orange Lantern SI is unable to say his name. That's not the case here, but I thought it'd be a nice reference. Also, I should actually be able to update this regularly, seeing as this first chapter took less than an hour start to finish. Rather small updates, but I might be able to get out 1000 words a day, if not more. Also, if anything is too technical (e.g. the mention of steganography, or AES-512), let me know and I'll a quick explanation.

- pixelherodev

Oh yeah, one last thing: I am going to deliberately leave certain things out, as mentioned in then second to last paragraph. My SI is writing it under the assumption that the supposedly impenetrable encryption is meaningless, which is actually not an unreasonable thought.