Prologue - The Life and Death of a Loser!
I walked behind Harry, the same as I did every day to school. At least for the last two months, this had been the routine. My friend did not look back once as he jabbered away to his new girlfriend, Nancy.
At least she graduates next year, I thought as I kicked a rock on the sidewalk. It skittered along for a few feet when I failed to connect fully.
Harry and I had been inseparable since elementary school. We had become friends due to proximity—as we had grown up next door to each other. Harry's parents and my guardian made sure we did all the same activities. Soccer, baseball, even martial arts, until everyone realized I was terrible at any coordinated activity.
Harry had excelled at everything.
That continued into high school. Harry was on just about every sports team, while I just...existed. I had decent grades but wasn't anywhere near the top of my class. I had some friends, mostly people who would say "Happy Birthday" but nothing more. The entire cheerleading team had baked a cake and sang "Happy Birthday" to Harry.
Despite his popularity, Harry stuck around as my friend. He brought me to parties, where I sat in the corner. He made me go to the homecoming dance, where I sat in the corner. We played video games together and shot hoops at Harry's house.
During dinner, I tried to be invisible while Harry's parents talked to his sister and Harry about their days.
My real parents had disappeared years ago. No letter. No "going out for milk." Just gone. So I ended up spending a lot of time at Harry's. His parents treated me like another son. Harry's sister was a year older than us, a senior, and the unrequited love of my life. We had all played together when we were younger, but I knew I didn't exist in her orbit anymore.
I stood back as the trio approached Miss Dodd's class, letting Harry get a minute of privacy before he had to go to his own homeroom while Nancy and I sat through Combined Science.
I hated Combined Science. It should have been test tubes, jets of gas, and sparks flying all over the place, like I'd heard about from Harry's sister. What I got was a new teacher and an hour propped on a stool watching Miss Dodds write on a blackboard. You had to write everything down even though the photocopier was invented forty years earlier.
It was only the first lesson, but I was still sleepy because I'd been up late playing Sparking Zero the night before.
Nancy sat next to me. Like Harry, all the teachers thought Nancy was fantastic: always volunteering for stuff, neat uniform, glossed nails. She did all her diagrams with three different colored pens and covered her exercise books in wrapping paper so they looked extra smart. But when her boyfriend and the teachers weren't looking Nancy was a total cow. I hated her. She was always winding me up about my foster mom being fat:
"Peter's mom is so fat, they have to grease the bathtub or she gets stuck in it."
Nancy's bitchy friends laughed, same as always.
My foster mom was huge. She had to order her clothes from a special catalog for fat people. It was a nightmare being seen with her. People pointed and stared. Little kids mimicked the way she walked. I loved my mom, but I tried to find excuses when she wanted to go somewhere with me.
"I went for a five-mile jog yesterday," Nancy said. "Two laps around Peter's mom!"
I looked up from my book.
"That's so funny, Nancy. Even funnier than the first three times you said it."
I wasn't the toughest kid in school, but any boy would get a punch for saying jokes like that. But what could you do when it was a girl?
Tomorrow, no matter what Miss Dodds said, I'd sit as far from Nancy as I could.
"Your mum is so fat—"
I was sick of it. I jumped up so fast my stool tipped over backward.
"What the fuck is your problem, Nancy?" I shouted.
The lab went quiet. Every eye turned to our table.
"What's the matter, Peter?" Nancy grinned. "Can't take a joke?"
"Peter, pick up your seat and get on with your work," Miss Dodds shouted.
"You say one more word, Nancy, and I'll..."
I was never any good at comebacks when it came to girls. What was I supposed to say that wouldn't make me look like an ass?
"I'll—"
Nancy giggled. "What will you do, Peter? Go home and cuddle big fat foster Mommy?"
I wanted to see something other than a stupid grin on Nancy's face. I grabbed Nancy off her stool, shoved her up against the wall, then spun her around to face me.
I froze in shock.
Blood was running down Nancy's face. Her cheek had a long cut where it had caught on a nail sticking out of the wall.
I backed away. Nancy cupped her hands over the blood and started bawling her head off.
"Peter!" Miss Dodds gasped. "You are in extremely serious trouble!"
Everyone in class was making some sort of noise. I had no idea what to do. No one would believe it was an accident. Harry was going to hate me!
I made a run for the door, but Miss Dodds grabbed my blazer.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Get out my way," I said and gave Miss Dodds a shove. She toppled backward, limbs flipping helplessly in the air like a turtle turned upside down on its shell.
I slammed the classroom door and ran down the corridor. The school gates were locked, but I escaped over the barrier in the teachers' car park and stormed away from school, muttering to myself getting less angry and more scared as it dawned on me that I was in the deepest trouble of my life.
I walked for what felt like hours, my legs carrying me aimlessly through familiar neighborhoods that now seemed strange and hostile. Every passing car made me flinch, expecting it to be a police cruiser or worse—Harry's parents coming to look for me. The cut on Nancy's face kept flashing in my mind, along with Miss Dodds sprawled on the floor like an overturned beetle.
My phone buzzed in my pocket for the hundredth time. Probably Harry. Or the school trying to reach my foster mom. I switched it off completely.
The afternoon sun beat down on my neck as I found myself in the shopping district across town. My throat was dry, and my school uniform felt suffocating. I needed to think, to figure out what to do next. But my brain kept spinning in circles, replaying the scene in the classroom over and over.
I hadn't meant to hurt Nancy. I really hadn't. But trying to explain that to anyone—to Harry, to the school, to my foster mom—seemed impossible now. I was too old for this kind of mistake.
I was eighteen in a few weeks. I wouldn't just be suspended or expelled. They might press charges.
My stomach growled, reminding me I'd missed breakfast this morning because Nancy wanted to walk to school early. The familiar sign of Eddie's Mart caught my eye.
I'd left my chocolate milk in my in Miss Dodds room—a tragedy, really—so I stopped at the little mart. I had three bucks in my pocket, which should've covered a bottle, right?
Wrong.
I stepped up to the counter, chocolate milk in one hand and some crumpled bills in the other. When I tossed the money onto the scratched countertop, the cashier—a pimply-faced guy with a bored expression—eyed the mess of cash and then gave me a look over the cash register's glowing green digits.
"Three dollars and two cents," Pimple-Face Clerk said, tapping the green numbers. "You're two cents short."
More than three dollars? For one lousy bottle of milk? I must've made a sour face because Pimple-Face snickered.
"What, you don't have enough milk money?"
I dug in my jeans for spare change. A lone penny mocked me from the bottom of my pocket. I saw the 'take-a-penny, leave-a-penny tray' and scooped one of the copper coins up.
"Hey!" Pimple-Face's eyes narrowed like I'd just killed his dog or something as I dropped the pennies on the counter. "The cup says 'take a penny, leave a penny.' It doesn't say take a penny."
Before I could blink, Pimple-Face had snatched the pennies back, dumping them into the tray with a metallic clink.
"C'mon, man, it's just a penny."
Pimple-Face made a big show of shrugging, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth. "If daddy didn't give you enough milk money, that's not my problem."
I turned away from the counter, eager to get out of the depressing excuse for a convenience mart before I did something incredibly stupid. Like smacking the shit out of Pimple-Face for being such an asshole over a penny.
A scruffy, middle-aged dude with long blond hair in a ponytail took my place at the counter, reeking of stale beer and cigarettes. The guy was holding a case of Bud Light and slammed it down with a grunt.
Pimple-Face sighed dramatically. "You know the drill. I need to see some ID."
Ponytail Guy waved a dismissive hand and turned away from the counter, his attention snagged by a display of sunglasses hanging on a wire rack. He ran his fingers along the rows of plastic frames before picking out a pair with bright neon frames.
Pimple-Face scowled. "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you not to mess with the merchandise unless you plan on buying."
Ponytail Guy shrugged and let the cracked shades drop back into the wire basket. But his carelessness brought the whole display clattering down in a heap of tangled wires and plastic frames behind the counter.
"Seriously?" Pimple-Face bent over to clean up the mess, muttering under his breath. "Why do I even bother..."
That's when Ponytail Guy struck.
Faster than you could say "shoplifting scumbag," Ponytail Guy lunged over the counter, his hand disappearing into the cash register. He scooped up a fistful of bills, his movements practiced and smooth.
I stood there, frozen with my jaw hanging open. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Did that dude just… rob the place?
Ponytail Guy must've seen my dumbstruck expression because he locked eyes with me for a split second. His lips curled into a smug smirk as he scooped up the bottle of chocolate milk.
With a casual flick of his wrist, he tossed it across the store.
On pure instinct, I snatched the bottle out of the air. Now, I wasn't much for stealing, but I had to admit—Pimple-Face had it coming for being such a dick over one stupid penny.
I turned to hurry out of the mart, but a shout from Pimple-Face stopped me in my tracks.
Pimple-Face had finally noticed what Ponytail Guy had done. "Hey! Hey, you can't do that!" he was shouting, and his hand reached for something under the counter.
Oh shit! I froze. Was Pimple-Face going for a gun? Was someone about to be shot over a few bucks?
Ponytail Guy must've had the same thought because he lifted his jacket and whipped out a pistol from his waistband. He didn't even hesitate.
BANG!
I jumped nearly a foot in the air as the gunshot cracked through the store. The bullet caught Pimple-Face square in the chest. His grimy work shirt started turning red and his eyes went glassy with shock as he crumpled backward, hitting the floor with a sickening thud.
Oh fuck! Oh fuck! I could feel my heart thundering against my ribs. Someone had just been shot! Right in front of me!
Ponytail Guy didn't even flinch as Pimple-Face went down. He swung the pistol toward me and I found myself staring down the barrel. Ponytail stalked over to the unmoving body of Pimple-Face and kicked him hard in the ribs, making sure he was really down for the count.
"Sorry, kid," Ponytail Guy said when Pimple-Face still didn't move or even make a sound.
"Wait! Wait!" I shouted.
On pure panic-driven reflex my hands shot up in surrender, but Ponytail Guy wasn't listening.
His finger tightened on the trigger again.
BANG!
The force of the bullet slamming into my body knocking me backward and I hit the dirty linoleum floor in a heap. I could feel a burning pain in my chest. My body balled up on the ground and somewhere far away I could hear the sound of sirens.
"Fuck!" Ponytail Guy shouted and he ran out of the store.
I watched him go, my chest still burning. So hot. Beyond anything that I'd describe as pain.
Confirmed. Cancel Pain...successfully acquired.
Am I going to die…?
"Oh my god!" a voice suddenly yelled and I felt hands on my body.
I looked up at the hazy figures crowding around me. Strangers who had noticed the commotion were watching me. Most were on their phones...and they weren't dialing 9-1-1 for help. They were recording.
I was dying, and they were all recording it.
What the hell was wrong with them?
Only one man was trying to help. An older man who looked like he was on death's door himself.
"Y-you're bleeding...you won't stop bleeding!"
I really didn't need to hear that right now. No shit I was bleeding. I was human and had just been shot!
If you shoot me, I'll probably bleed all over! But damn, this is starting to hurt though...
Confirmed. Resist Piercing Weapon...successfully acquired. Following up with Resist Melee Attack...Successfully acquired.
The burning feeling in my chest was starting to fizzle out. Replaced by an intense, frigid cold attacking me from head to toe.
That... That's probably bad... People die once they bleed too much, don't they?
Confirmed. Constructing a blood-free body... Successful.
The pain and the heat were pretty well gone by now. It was just cold. Cold as hell. I felt as if I was gonna freeze in place.
Confirmed. Resist Heat...successfully acquired.
Shit. I think this might really be it...
I was going to die. I could feel it, and I hated it. I'd never had anything going for me my entire life and it…It wasn't FAIR!
There was a sound like jingling bells and a translucent box appeared floating in the air above me.
Do you wish to live?
Yes or No?
What is that? I tried to speak. And failed. I tried to reach out and touch the box, but my arms weren't listening. They wouldn't move.
I summoned up his remaining strength, striving to whisper one more word.
"...yes..."
Confirmed.
Reincarnation requested.