He remembered metal and a sudden cold. A shove that turned the world into light and then nothing; a scrape of sound that belonged to a machine. There were no cinematic flash — only the primitive, animal clarity that comes at the edge of consciousness: this is ending.
Then there was silence, he had always wondered what came after death and now he had an answer. If someone had told him that he'd have to wait in silence after death he would have surely scoffed at the fool "nonsense" he would have thought, but alas he was dead and was now waiting in silence alone with his thoughts. As he was thinking about what else he would have done if he were alive something unexpected happened...he felt the taste of rain on his tongue, so he wasn't dead after all "hmphh fool".
He slowly opened his eyes to a sky the color of ash. His body felt foreign, that would have been normal, if someone is hit by a car their body would definitely feel different but that was not the case with him, his body felt too different like he was in someone else's skin. He could feel the rain on his skin, not the generous kind that washed things clean, but the kind that left a film on skin and made the city smell of rust and wet concrete. He lay on uneven pavement, one shoulder scraping against gravel. He could hear shouting, the thud of boots, a child crying some streets away. Familiar noises, but wrong.
It was the language, a language he shouldn't have known but he somehow did.
When he finally came to his senses, he tried to move. As he was getting up he looked down at his hands they were smaller than they had been that morning. They were callused, dirty, nicked with old, unsightly scars, he remembered his hands being soft and beautiful. Yup, he understood now, this was definitely an illusion he must have hit his head on the floor after getting hit by a car.
"hahahahaha " the laugh came out hollow and unfamiliar, as he tried to humor himself.
The jacket that hung off him was too big, patched at the elbows, and smelled faintly of smoke. He tried to remember how he had come to be here, on that pavement, in that body, and his mind offered him only a slow, split-second image — and then a sharp and sudden pain that made him hiss through his teeth a a car, a flash of light, the sensation of falling — then came another set of images a boy living in the outskirts of NQSC for as long as he could think, of surviving on scraps, of being alone since he could remember, of a common illness that took hold during winter, the feeling of comfort in his final moments as of knowing his suffering was coming to an end and finally a name "Loki" as the memories settled like two different books in his head and the sharp pain subsided and he truly started to realize what had happened to him, he had transmigrated.
As if on instinct he checked his pocked. There was a coin stamped with four letters: NQSC. He knew what that stood for "Northern Quadrant Siege Capital", and ofcourse he knew where this place was, humanity largest Stronghold in the walking world. Shadow Slave. A name that had sounded like fiction once.
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By now Loki had fully realized what had happened to him he had transmigrated in the world of Shadow Slave and yes he had taken on the name Loki maybe he felt bad for the kid or maybe it was something else.
Well it definitely wasn't because this name was cooler then his own definitely not. Loki felt both fear and excitement, fear because he knew how brutal this world could be and excitement because who wouldn't wanna have cool super powers.
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Loki looked around him what he saw was a slum clinging to the remains of industry: broken pipes, ragged awnings, a row of shuttered shops with posters peeling in several languages. People moved like scavengers, elbows out, expressions flat and used to coal-smeared days. Slowly the the excitement of living in a new fantasy world was fading and the reality of his own situation was settling in and with that he truly realized how fucked he was.
Loki felt fear then — not the cinematic fear he'd felt when watching a horror film, but the dread that chills a person to the bones.
He had died once, now he was alive once more in a world that wouldn't even leave his bones behind, maybe dying of an illness truly was a comfort in this god forsaken world.
Loki stood and started walking, he took a street that inclined down, away from where he was and kept going, in an alley he found a mirror cracked and leaning against a bin. He avoided looking at his face right away, afraid of what he'd look like, mind you he was quiet handsome in last life he wouldn't mind being ugly but a good looking face could get a lot of things done. When he finally did, he saw a boy of fifteen or so, a narrow, almost delicate face, high cheekbones, a straight but slight nose, and lips that naturally curly a little, his skin was pale and sickly, his eyes were the most striking thing about him thin, foxlike, and a bit too bright. A dark black color. His hair were the same color too, they fell just above his eyebrows, his body was slender almost fragile in build that was to be expected though overall Loki looked like a polite, quiet young man.
Having collected his emotions Loki realized he was hungry. The thought was sharp and immediate and hunger teaches a practical kind of thought: where to get food. He moved towards the market because that's where the military rations "synthpaste" was provided, he knew that from his memory he also knew what it tasted like
"Truly a dish worthy of being eaten by those following the God of Death!" He thought
At the market, no one wasted glances on him until he nearly fell over a crate. An old woman barked at him. He mumbled an apology, paid for nothing because he had nothing, and walked on.
As Loki went through the memories in his head he learned that the laws here were simpler than the laws in the books: might first, cunning second, mercy somewhere very far down the list, that's exactly how the kid 'Loki' had survived for almost a decade. If you were noticed for the wrong reasons, you would run into a series of unfortunate events. That fact sat like a stone in his chest. Loki knew he wasn't built for this be if he wanted to survive he'd have to adapt.
Night was approaching and Loki had to find a place to sleep, he knew of one from the memories, a small container with holes in the roof, reminded him of a boy who lived under a staircase he felt bittersweet at the thought.
Eventually he found the place but Loki slept badly, curled under a torn blanket with the rain outside. Dreams came thin and sour that night: flashes of his last life, moments spend with his family, the scent of food his mother cooked for him, the games played with his siblings those moments he hadn't cherished felt like the whole world to him now. He woke thrice, each time the sound of sobbing echoed in the container.
He had died and thought it the end. Now he was in another world, Loki knew he'd have to move on and accept his new reality if he really wanted to live and not just survive.