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The pain in my chest was unbearable. Just moments earlier a spear was plunged deep into my chest. Well it was actually a twisted pole from a road side guard. A possibly during driver jumped the median and crashed into my car. It happened so fast I couldn't turn the wheel fast enough.

Now I can see the glass shattered around me. I lay in my seat reclined with my hands to the sides. My head just staring at the twisted metal sticking out of my chest and through the empty windshield. Blood splattered across the dash and the messy splashes of rain.

I choked a swallow of saliva and breathed Shakey and scared. This is it... I know there is no surviving this. I don't need to look at the entry. It's best I don't. If I do then I'll panic and waste the small amount of time I have left. It's alright... Just stay calm. Cherish it...

I wish I told her how much I loved her before I left. We had gotten into a fight just before leaving. She was upset about her boss being a prick and I blew her off by saying my boss was worse. I should have just let her vent without me competing with it. She has been stressed lately and just needed support from me. I knew that. But I had to be an asshole and do that stupid thing.

I wish I saw my daughter's soccer game last night.. I was supposed to be there but work called me in. I told her after dinner that I'd be at the next one. I shouldn't have made a promise I can't keep. I'm sorry Lizzy... I can't help but think of her life. The day she was born was the most magical I've ever felt. Her face was so tiny and scrunched up screaming.

My wife held her close as they cut the cord. Tears flooding her face. This was the most loving moment I felt in my life. Soon there were millions of diapers and cute laughs that are so contagious you don't even know what's funny anymore you're just laughing with her. The days she would run up to me saying "daddy daddy look what me and mommy made for you!" And I'd see a popsicle cupholder and pencil holder all covered in glitter and stickers for my desk at work.

I actually put that on my work desk. It sits right next to my picture frame of them and my calendar. I even placed a cloth on the cupholder to protect it from my coffee cup.

And the smile my wife gave me when we first met. I had to be the arrogant asshole who insulted her car while changing its oil. I didn't know she was standing behind me and she really gave me her two cents worth of my ass. She knew her stuff and she really knew how to dig a hole into my soul. I still feel guilty for calling her car junk. She told me to apologize with a cup of coffee.

She gave the same smile on our wedding day. She stood in front of me holding my hands. She was dressed in white with rose gold accents because she was a bit of a rebel with traditional wedding dresses. The moment I kissed her I knew I was staring the best journey of my life.

Why didn't I appreciate it more...? Stay home more and work less... I gave my job most of my time. And what for...? As I sit here dying that job means nothing. They can replace me tomorrow... But my wife and daughter cannot. Sure they can move on but they can't feel the same again. I should have just been there more.

I'm sorry Renee... I'm sorry Lizzy... I love you both...

....game over....

....I opened my eyes before I was even able to process thoughts. The room was bright and white. Did I survive?

"Hello Jeffrey. You seem to have come out of the program nicely."

"What...?" I looked around dizzy. "Where is my family?"

"Uh oh... You don't remember. This happens sometimes." The doctor scientist looking guy sat down in a little chair Infront of me. "Your name is Jeffrey Daniels not Jeffrey Plain. You have been in a fantasy world during the period of your medically induced coma while you healed up from a car crash. The crash you experienced in the game is the same one in real life."

It all came flooding back. I was in a crash... But everything else... My family.. I'm a single man living in a crap apartment with no one. My heart ached. I loved them... Still do.. but they... All those memories... They were not real..

"Please let me go back in.... I want to stay in the coma.. I want to go back.."

"If we place you back in your body won't be able to function properly anymore and you'll eventually slip away. You'll die."

"So be it... I rather die with them than live alone here.."

"They are not real Jeffrey"

Every time I close my eyes I see their faces. I feel their warmth when I hug them. I can feel their souls close to mind. Something lodges in my throat draining it from moisture and forces me to cough. It won't go away and my eyes begin to flood with salty stinging tears.

"I... Don't... Give... A... Damn..." I express slowly with an authoritative tone. "I have a soccer game to see. Lizzy is counting on me to keep my promise and I need to apologize to Renee for being an asshole."

"Alright then..."

I lay back down as the doctor injects me with a syringe of something. I start to feel drowsy.

*It's alright guys... I'm coming home now... I love you both..."

Nice, barely any wait!

Just posted the next part!

Just posted the next part!

Just posted the next part! Thanks for reading!

Next part is up!

Just posted the next part!

Posted the next part!

Ax was overcome by a feeling of empathy. Those six fateful words—irreversible once uttered, all encompassing, all destroying—bonded Ax to the human for reasons which transcended atmospheric borders and inter-species divides.

These two men had a shared trauma.

“You love someone else?” Said Jim, his tone even, too much so.

“That’s right. I’ve found someone else. I can’t stand to be around you any longer. He makes me happy, which is something you haven’t done for me for as long as I can remember.”

“You don’t know what love is, you fucking monster!” Jim said, his face flush with the coalescence of rage and embarrassment. “If you knew what love was you wouldn’t be doing this to me!”

Holly laughed in his face. “Don’t even go there, Jim. The ‘woe is me’ bit is overplayed.” Holly picked up steam. She spat each successive word with more force as her disdain for Jim finally overflowed in a tirade of anger and disgust. “You’re not enough of a man to even begin to give me what I need. You’re just a small, insignificant roach who scurries about the ground coveting crumbs and scraps. You hide from the light of day and flee from consequences. That’s why you spend all your time at the Institute, because you can’t face me. You can’t face yourself!”

Ax shifted on the dog bed. Something wasn’t right here. He was overwhelmed by a feeling of deja vú. This was more than just empathy, he had seen this before, heard these words, felt these feelings. His heart began to race and his fight or flight reaction began to kick in. His shell instinctively changed colors to blend into his surroundings.

“Oh fuck you, Holly! I’m not hiding from anything. I work so much because I have better odds of finding intelligent life in space than I do in my own home!” Jim screamed and then smiled to himself as if he were surprised the insult had landed so well.

Holly’s face regained an unsettling stoicism in light of the insult. “You’re a failure. You’ve always been a failure. There’s a reason you have no friends, no family who will speak to you. You want to know why no one wants to invest time and energy into you? It’s because you have no potential. You’re nothing and you will forever be nothing. And to top it all off, you got the one person in this world who could stand to be around you killed.”

“No, no, no no! I didn’t get Prox killed! It was an accident!” Screamed Ax, much to his surprise.

He stopped a moment and regained his composure, took a beat to remember where he was. This wasn’t his memory. He was in Jim the human’s mind. The memories wouldn’t respond to him, they weren’t talking to him.

And then Holly turned her icy gaze his direction and addressed him.

“What’s the matter. Ax? Don’t like a taste of your own medicine?”

More in the next comment. r/InMyLife42Archive

Please do

Love this!!! Didn't see the twist coming, so glad the mc is acknowledging herself!

Notify me when part 3 is out

Oh, thank you for the compliment ❤️

Auditor of the month award sales skyrocket.

Thanks! Writing up the next part as we speak!

Female henchmen, low level threat, superpower: turn anyone's outfit (including equipment) into a maid outfit

"You don't want to open that." The guard was dressed in strange garb, almost like a human soldier, but also jester-like, as if he couldn't quite decide how serious he was about his occupation. I had been waiting ages to begin this particular experiment, so his strange appearance was not about to deter me.

"Yes, I do. This is the whole reason I've traveled across the universe... to examine creatures so primitive and yet, so perplexing." Perhaps I could reason with the man. I could, of course, force my way into the deep recesses of the human's brain, but then I would risk fracturing the specimen's mind. That wouldn't do since I had already reached my abduction quota for the quarter. Patience and cunning would be the best path. "Step aside, and I promise to simply observe and not damage any of the neurons or processes I encounter."

"Well, alright then." The colorful soldier said cheerfully as he stepped aside. I could hardly contain my excitement. I had succeeded. I was finally going to observe the internal workings of the elusive earthling. My findings would surely be published in scientific papers across the galaxy!

Slowly, I opened the heavy metal door and peered inside. My initial observation upon poking my head in was simply a quiet darkness. Had I been forewarned of what I would encounter beyond the threshold, I would have gone no further. But ignorant of what awaited me, I ventured through to find the discovery of my career.

It only took a moment in that tiny room before the pain and shouting began. It was everywhere... noise... flashing lights... confusion. I have never been so over-stimulated in my life! I immediately turned to retreat, only to find the metal door shut tight behind me.

"Let me out!" I banged on the door in desperation. This was not at all what I had intended. I hadn't brought the proper equipment to withstand such calamity. "You must open the door!" I screamed.

"Can't do that." The soldier's voice was as even as before, completely untroubled by my predicament. "It's my job to keep all trauma sealed away. I can't let you out until it returns to its dormant state."

"No, please!" I didn't know how much longer I could handle this. I hadn't expected nor prepared to withstand the intense commotion I was experiencing this deep into the specimen's consciousness. More blaring alarms and random screams filled my ears. I began to feel dizzy. "Please! How long am I trapped in here?"

"No, one knows." The soldier said. I fanned my face and leaned against the door. What had I gotten myself into?

Then, just as suddenly as it had begun, the commotion stopped. I looked around me, finding only darkness and silence once again. Slowly, the metal door opened, and I fell out of the room and onto the Subconscious room floor. The soldier-jester blinked at me but said nothing as he shut the door behind me. I didn't care. I was just grateful to see a familiar face.

"What was that?" I asked when I finally found the courage to speak.

"Suppressed childhood trauma. We don't go in there." The soldier answered matter-of-factly.

"I can see why." I answered and bolted for the exit.

They are going to learn our peaceful ways.... BY FORCE

Alannah and Derrick: newlyweds. That’s what the messily painted on the back of their car said. It’s what it had said for the past year. They’d never bothered to erase it; in fact, the swaying breeze of Acorn Avenue and its inhabitants thought it was cute. Everyone, from the oldest and stubborn man that secluded himself in the corner home, to bouncy, young Sally down the street, would whisper about how sweet the couple looked. They would comment on how their hands were intertwined on morning walks every day of the week, how Alannah would always blush when Derrick whispered something in her ear. Secretly, they all craved that affection was theirs to hold instead, but they never said it. To Alannah and Derrick, they were the most conscientious of neighbors.

But Acorn Avenue was no longer quiet about its secrets. People were boarding up windows with any nails they had to spare. Minivans, ones seemingly big enough to hold entire families, sped down the street with only one to two people in each. The rest of the space was needed for supplies: food, water, stacks of legal documents that people pretended still held importance.

Change had truly come to the Avenue, to their carefully crafted middle class utopia. The only constant thing, then, was the couple’s held hands. They grasped each other tighter and tighter every second, their skin reflecting the light of the TV in front of them.

Derrick felt he couldn’t watch, and so he buried his head into Alannah’s neck. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he whispered over and over again. She didn’t redirect his guilt.

Instead Alannah forced her gaze to remain on the frantic newscasters in front of her. Their speech was garbled, practically unintelligible. Many had already fled the station, presumably to make sure their families were safe. This left the program with one image to project again and again: the capitol burning, the American flag a shriveled mess of its once vibrant stars and stripes.

After a while, Alannah turned her head to look at Derrick. “Do you want to run,” is all she said. It was more a fact than a question; it was an inevitability.

“I should’ve listened to you,” he choked out. “I should’ve fucking listened when you wanted to move to Paris, but no, I just had to have my job. I just had to succeed here.”

“Derrick, we have to go,” Alannah simply said. She felt no attachment to this place, anyway. For the eyes of Acorn Avenue had always felt suffocating to her. They were always watching, commenting, only willing to see the surface image of Derrick’s perfect wife. “I packed the car already, last night.”

Derrick simply shook his head and sucked some snot in through his nose. He cupped his face with his hands and started digging into his skin with his fingernails.

“So, you don’t want to run,” Alannah noted. She looked at the TV, then at the sniveling mess that was her husband. She loved the idiot, she thought. She always had the energy to comfort him, to conjure up tears to match his own when he needed it. But something was different under the light of the fire burning on the screen.

Somehow, she felt exhilarated. “Come on,” she said softly, pulling Derrick up from the couch. The fabric had already been implanted with his form in the mere 6 months they’d had it. Something about seeing the indentation made a chill run up her spine. She had to look away.

She led Derrick down the hallway, then out the door, and finally to the car. His body was almost limp in her arms. He was there, but not quite there, somehow at the same time.

She reached into the backseat and pulled out two Subway sandwiches. She, like the doting wife she was, had made sure to get his favorite. She placed it in his hands, guiding his numb fingers to grip onto it fully.

She unclasped her hair from its tight bun, letting its natural waves fall into place along her shoulders. She flipped down the mirror, seeing herself - the one she recognized - for the first time in longer than a year. She couldn’t quite remember when she lost track; perhaps it was when she met Derrick, perhaps it was when she chose him over moving to Paris, perhaps it was even when she said her first words to another person.

Derrick was clenching his eyes tight. He couldn’t look. He couldn’t see the beauty in the fire, but Alannah did. For, in the glittering reflection of her rearview mirror, nobody was watching.

She put the car into drive, and as she looked to back out of the driveway, she only read part of the painted message scrawled onto the window. Alannah: newly. That’s what it said. And that’s what she would be.

Need to learn more.

In a galaxy brimming with strife and rage, borders marked out across the stars as bubbles of civilization forming and popping without cause, one bubble seemed to consume its neighbors with no sign of stopping.

--

The admiral of the Kazark fleet waited at the border of their territory between the Orion Spur and the Perseus Transit. They didn’t call them this of course, to them it was simply ‘katakuanak’. They had waited here, for what felt to them as a full galactic rotation. Years of perfect silence with only reports of the home-worlds and the other boarders to entertain themselves. The Kazark were not the social type in this galaxy, it seemed nobody really was, at the end of the rotation you were either too insignificant for another race to care, or equally matched on all fronts. Technology had stagnated across the galaxy as every last element was perfectly understood and its limits pushed to the maximum potential.However, something was off, the Gῦlon hadn’t made any significant effort to enforce their boarders with the Kazark in a significant fraction of a rotation. Radio signals from deep within their territory seemed to be more alive than ever, though they were a whole fraction old as it was nearly a thousand light years to their core worlds.“Report” an ensign on the bridge shouted breaking the stale air. “Laser impulse from the high royal command!”

“Relay” The 1st Admiral announced, triggering a network wide communique to all vessel in this region of the boarder net.

“The royal collective has reason to believe the Gῦloncivilization has collapsed from the inside. Decrypting the signals caught leaving their core region has revealed a major internal threat to their civil structure resulting in total governmental collapse, cultural stratification, and new unrecognized data that we believe to have come from the overtaking powers. We will use this opportunity to push our boarders into their former territory. Send the reserve armada ahead to capitalize on their weakness and snuff them out before the new leadership can get things back in order. End of transmission”

The 16 admirals of the fleet were already stirring to heated discussion of the matter as the casual channels of the net sprang to life with rampant xenophobia, spur-of-the-moment propaganda, and patriotism for the core worlds no member of the Net had ever even visited.

The fleet set out with remote operated sensors scouting ahead. As they passed the first several solar systems of the Gῦlon owned space they were surprised to find little activity, as if everyone had packed up and left.

As the Net reached roughly 30% of the way into Gῦlon space, the reserve armada finally raised their speed. Blasting through the compressed wave of spacetime ahead of the Net at nearly a light year per minute. It wasn’t long before they reached the core worlds of the Gῦlon. The planets were enveloped in dense layers of ships, civilian, alien, and military alike, as if every single Gῦlon had been brought home for some major event. Then, the Kazark fleet was horrified to see their systems blare to life with unexplainable alien graffiti. Whats more, it wasn’t of the Gῦlon species, sure they were present in some parts of it, their unmistakable visage covered in some unknown flair similar to that of this new, bipedal alien menace. For all they had said against their solar rivals this fate that has befallen them seemed worse than anything the Kazark could have imagined nor wished on their enemies, subservience to some adornment addled species and forced to wear their trinkets like pets.

“Sir” the communications officer bridging on the head of the fleet ‘Klarnbor’ spoke up over the noise

“It appears to be basic radiowaves, the frequency happens to be resonant with our communications array”

“Just make it stop!” the commander screamed through the torturous noise.

Seconds later the prattle finally subsided, followed by an unknown vessel instantaneously landing itself in space dead center of the reserve fleet, facing the command vessel. A massive panel of basic electromagnetic lights jumbled around to show a stereotypical Kazark holding a foam glove over its appendages and poorly translated script next to it referring to ‘spaceship warranties’.

“Whatever that thing is Sir it must learn quickly…” a tactical officer blurted out dumbfounded

“This must be a trap…surely they expected us to make such a rash attempt on our enemies…” the captain trailed out with a lack of confidence in his theory. “Send an urgent pulse transmission to the Net, advise halting the advance until further information becomes available-”

“Report!” the ensign shouted, cutting off the captain “We just received a pulse from the Net stating that the Royal Collective has made contact with this new race called ‘hoonyams’, all weapons are to be powered down until further notice. They have also requested that we ‘dispense with pleasantries’ and convene all of our peoples with theirs and their ‘friends’.”

Every member aboard the bridge was now in utter confusion.“That’s impossible, how could they have made it within our territory, the net should have caught them?” the tactical officer demanded.

“Since when do we converse with xenos?” another asked.

Suddenly a new voice arose over the debate in the minds of every Kazark in the reserve fleet. “Greetings new friends! We are glad to see you’ve decided to join us here, come partake in the party and bury the hatchet with our mutual friends the Gῦlon!” The Commander doubled over on himself, severe pain tearing away his willpower. The voice, in its excited and joyous tone continued “OOH don’t look now but weve found another friend to add to the collection! You remember the Itzxatl right? The buggos to your galactic north? Their hivemind is joining the party too!”

“Impossible…they aren’t even capable of communicating with another species…how?” The communications officer said through pained breaths.

The voice responded “Oh that’s simple, we just sent them our‘good vibes’, like we are doing for you right now! Come to think of it, I don’t think Ive met a species yet that has refused to be our friends!”

“Look, if you stop your ‘vibes’ we will surrender to your demands” the captain spat with the voice of one pleading for their lives.

----

I wanted to go hard-syfy here but the execution fell apart. So instead the humans are winning via telepathy that causes their 'friends' to submit, leaning more into the 40k orcs with their ideas manifesting in ways that allow them to ignore the limits of science or friend-making.

Also reddit botched the formatting, sorry about that...

Ha! I love this. Is this implying we haven't discovered reality hopping because no one has ran a horse off a cliff at sufficient speeds yet or is that special to horses from Eren's reality?