So, where do I begin? I guess I'll begin from the end. The end that began the beginning. So my name was, yes, was, because that isn't my name, no, that isn't my life anymore. What do I mean, you ask? Well, you're about to find out just what I mean.
So my name was John Eldson. I was your average teenager living your average teenager boy life. You know; puberty, high school, college, having a crush, getting rejected, shutting out the world, having just one close friend, etc. If your life was different or better than this then congrats, you won the lottery. So, I was in my second year in college and my best friend Jace told me about strategy games, you know, the classic create your own kingdom or city and war against other players kind of game. It turned out I loved them and I was quite good at them too. In no time I had topped the leaderboard and finished with "World Domination I". The game was beautiful, immersive and multidimensional. It was a masterpiece.
I wasn't really a bad student so my parents didn't mind me staying indoors playing games on my computer all day long. They felt that I deserved the leisure. But you wanna know what I felt? I felt like shit, I felt like a loser, a nobody. I wasn't a hot jock that attracted the ladies, I wasn't even good at any sport. I wasn't a looker too, neither was I fashionable. I was socially awkward and quite the outsider, a great target for bullies. That was why I preferred to spend my time conquering virtual lands and fighting virtual wars rather than facing life's adversities head-on.
So in the second semester of my third year in college, when I was about 16 or so, I got really sick with fevers, stomachaches and gas. In three days it had gotten worse but I had to go to the hospital. They did all the tests and the results came in. I was growing multiple malignant tumors in my colon. That explained the blood in my stool for a couple of weeks prior. I was put on chemo but my situation only worsened. Eventually we were informed that I had only about a year left for the cancer to spread and eventually kill me.
At first my parents were distraught. They then began pandering to my every whim, buying me anything I wanted and letting me eat whatever I wanted. At this point I didn't know that I had a year to live, they didn't tell me. Apparently they wanted me to live my life to the fullest with the little time I had left. In fact to my surprise, I asked them to purchase the latest world domination instalment "World Domination II" and in a week it was shipped to our home. That was the day I discovered why they were being so nice and bending backwards for me.
When the "World Domination II" game came, I answered the door and took the package. I opened it and I was so elated. I rushed upstairs to my parents room to thank them for it and saw the door slightly open. They were arguing "We should tell him…" my dad said to my mom, "…it's no use hiding it from him anymore, he's still going to find out eventually " he said. "That's the problem with you, you know nothing apart from tough love" my mom replied with a hint of disappointment in her voice. "It has been five months now, don't you think it's time for him to learn the truth? He'll be confronted with it sooner or later" my dad replied. "I wish it was me" my mom said breaking into a sob, "Why does my baby have to go so soon, he has his whole life ahead of him"
I soon understood and as I pushed open the door to their bedroom, the stopped and looked at me. "Why…?" I asked, "Why did you keep it from me?". "We just couldn't bring ourselves to do it", my dad replied, my mom sobbing in his arms. I could feel the tears welling up in my eyes too as it dawned on me that I wouldn't be alive by next thanksgiving. "Why didn't you tell me…?" I said weeping. I dropped the game I had collected and left the room. I ran to my room and spent all day and all night crying. I refused to go for chemo for close to a week. I hated everyone and everything. I was hurt.
Eventually my parents were able to reach out to me and we talked it out. My dad even decided to create a WD2 account and play with me and we created an alliance and named it "The Malignance" to poke fun at the cancer that would imminently take my life. By now eight months had passed. Again I was the top ranked player in WD2 annexing a total landmass of 56,000,000km² in game meaning about ¼ of the total landmass on the server belonged to me. I was the "God-King of Malignance" in-game.
Well, as expected my health began to fail and I began to grow weaker, suffer more pain in my abdomen and sometimes even throw blood up or pass it in my stool. I had entered stage four and my hair had begun to fall off. These remaining days of mine were spent in the hospital. On my bed when I could I played WD2 and one day I posted in the forum that if I ever my territory in-game got conquered, they should know that cancer won. This wasn't to elicit pity, no, it was my last statement as the greatest WD player ever.
I lay on my deathbed and the morphine helped to numb the excruciating pain I was in and as the lights faded out, I heard my mother say "Even if you weren't our biological son, know that we still loved you as any parent would love their child". This was the last thing I heard as I passed away. Then suddenly woke up in a hospital. I heard the doctor saying "Another prince my Lord…", I opened my eyes and tried to speak but instead I babbled like a newborn. Suddenly a tap on my butt hurt so much I started crying. I wasn't in St Maria's Hospital anymore. I wasn't even in our own world anymore. I was about to find out that I had reincarnated into a new world called Lerra.
I was the 13th son of a monarch in a kingdom called Lornia. The funny thing about all this was that I seemed to recall everything about what happened in my previous life where I was a nobody while still knowing every detail of my current life. And that is where my story truly began. After the end of my life on earth.