I do not own Worm or Command and Conquer.
Edited by omnimercurial
One moment you are preparing to go to sleep, and the next, you are underwater, struggling to breathe. With a desperate push, I manage to emerge from my watery prison and rescue myself.
"Gagh..." Coughing and throwing my hands and feet around wildly, I eventually managed to get myself to shore.
When I move to get myself as far away as possible from the water, I exhaust myself and just lay down on the dirty beach, looking at the night sky, and savouring the foul air, which smells horrible, but is strangely beautiful for my strangled and oxygen hungry lungs.
"Where...the...fuck...am...I" was my first phrase, which helped me notice something rather extraordinary. My voice now sounded very different than that which I was used to.
'Please no' Races in my mind on repeat, so with a terrifying thought taking hold, I crawl back to the water I had previously fled from, towards the closest thing to a mirror I could hope to find anywhere around myself.
Instead of my own familiar face, there was a stranger looking back at me. A young face with a barely grown moustache and beard. Green eyes still at the very least, but these Eyes were of a shade and colour, much darker than what I was used to. The look wasn't an ugly one however, yet still far from an example of a top model. No sharply defined cheekbones or anything extraordinary. Though a small yet distinctive scar, just beneath my brows, gives me something of a roguish appearance, the rest was unremarkable, ordinary lips, not too big and not too small.
After a few minutes staring and trying to reconcile the conflict between my memory and my current state, I crawled slowly away from the water and sat down on a nearby metal box.
I continued sitting there in silence, trying not to totally freak out and failing at said attempt rather miserably.
'Okay, okay, calm the fuck down, breath and think' So with a very deep breath, I started looking around my environs.
I was near to a run down, dilapidated Harbour or Dock, a Ship Graveyard?At least, I think it is a Ship Graveyard, given the gathered assortment of rusting hulks, that once upon a time must have been sea worthy? Maybe?
The second thing I do was to closely look at my clothes. They were wet and uncomfortable, but still better than nothing.
Now that I was able to concentrate on them, I noticed that there is something in my pocket, so with a trembling hand, I reached in and grabbed at it.
It was a wallet, just a simple black wallet.
Inside I found some dollar bills, one photo with a family of four people and an ID card.
'Let's check ID card first' I consider.
With a little effort, he took out a laminated piece of plastic. There besides his new face's photo, there was also a name and some further details—James Rainer, 2/27/1994, 6,1 feet high, male, caucasian.
"Well, it is official. I am in some isekai bullshit." My voice it seemed was still rough and in the final stages of puberty, but already I could say it's going to be a baritone at some point in the future.
After scrutinising the ID, I remove the photo and examined it closely.
He could see himself pictured within and three other people also present—two adults, which should or could be his parents, as well as a young girl, who appeared to be about eleven or twelve years old.
'Twelve, she is twelve years old' That was the sudden thought that had suddenly appeared in my head, I then froze.
'How do I know that?'
In a moment it hits me, I get a second thought, or perhaps it would be better to say... An emotion.
Sadness, that is what hit me so hard. Just looking at this photo gives me a depression level of almost total sorrow and despair.
With a monumental effort, I eventually put everything back in my wallet shakily and force myself to walk.
I don't know my destination, but the memory of James somehow guides me through the boat graveyard and into the trainyard.
While walking, I get further information about the place I now found myself in. I was living in a dying city or an impoverished city. Maybe I was mistaken and it was just a poorer part of the city, but I never saw so many homeless people or junkies out on the street in such numbers in my previous life.
Some groups of mean looking teenagers, who should really be at home near this sort of time, were engaged in beating some poor homeless guy.
I wanted to go over and help the guy, but I was wet, tired and not entirely in control of my new body yet. Intervention at this point could be my death sentence, so with regret and frustration I keep myself moving away with faltering steps.
Finally, I reached my goal, a lively apartment complex.
It was a four storey building. From the sounds being emitted, I could also conclude that the amount of people who lived there, was too much for the building to accomodate officially.
This was somehow also my home.
'Basement, I rent a basement here' Were the thoughts that the sight had prompted.
This was yet another unexpected, but helpful thought from this previously inhabited body that I now resided within.
It turned out to be disappointingly easy to get inside my new home. If anyone can call it a home anyway, as instead of a cosy abode, this new home was instead far more akin to a shithole.
Bare and unclad walls that lacked insulation, some mould in the corners and a bed with a closet, nothing in the way of a bath or a shower, only a toilet and a sink.
There was however a table with a letter on it.
It was easy to guess what kind of letter it was. A Suicide letter, instead of reading it, which felt something of a bad idea all around, I quickly threw it into a toilet and flushed it away.
The wet clothes of the one known as James, also soon found themselves in the trash bin near the toilet.
'I need to sleep.'
So using the last of my strength, I slowly walked to the bed and collapsed upon it.
Instead of a dreamless sleep, instead I get to suffer awful nightmares and memories of this body's dead parents, who were both sadly harmed by Lung and Kaiser, another blight caused by their fights that kept creating casualties.
The hauntingly young sister of James was also wounded during these battles and now was in a coma, all because Panacea cannot or will not heal brain damage.
The destruction of home and family, were what led to his life becoming, whatever this farcical hollow excuse of an existence is.
With the knowledge of this new life, came profound sorrow and an abyssal like despair, something that now has become thousands of times more important than before.
He was after all totally alone in this new strange world, completely without his old or his new family, no resources and almost no money.
Then everything changed.
He saw stars, vast beings of hideous yet beautiful complexity, far beyond his limited all too Human understanding.
Even so, this could still be a chance of an answer to his problems.
A technological tree sprang forth, one made up of varied forms, with weapons, ammunition, vehicles and more. But beneath the tree was a crystal, a green, bright, powerful and mysterious crystal.
He awakens then with a harrowing scream and whispers the word... a word that may be epoch making, a word which will change the world.
"Tiberium..." He utters with a gasp of elation and temporary revelation.
He then falls unconcious again, and this time his sleep is dreamless and uninterrupted.