Waking up, I noticed that I was not in my room. I thought that maybe I was still dreaming, because last time I checked, my room wasn't that big, and my sheets weren't that soft.
Try living on a college student's budget, and you'll quickly discover how lucky you were when you were younger, not worrying about money, and oh so trivial things like quality of life.
My parents did alright for the most part. We were middle class, not upper-middle class mind you, but mid-middle class.
My Mom died when I was 15 in a car accident, and my dad did the best he could.
He managed to send me to college, but I guess he wasn't able to hang on for too long after the love of his life died.
He eventually got sick, and fell into depression and died.
I had to move in with my aunt and her family, whom I didn't know much about. I just think they were relieved that they didn't have to take care of me, as I was pretty much self sufficient.
Especially after my mother died. I had to depend on myself, plus I was going to college at the time, so it would have been pathetic if I didn't know how to take care of myself.
I spent a lot of years in depression dealing with it. My mother's death took a real toll on me and I sometimes thought it would have been easier if I just gave up.
My dad wasn't able to help me as he was barely able to help himself, but I kept telling myself that my mother would have wished I was happy and safe. She was always so optimistic and saw the good in people.
I was always kind of negative. I saw things for what they were and I always saw the many ways something could go wrong and my mind would automatically try to find solutions or think of things I could do to turn the situation to my advantage or at least avoid the worst case scenario.
I was a problem solver at heart. The best way to describe myself would be to say that I was careful, meticulous and opportunistic.
I wouldn't willfully hurt anyone as I wasn't malicious. I liked to help people because I always thought that if you weren't part of the solution, you were part of the problem.
People always complain about society being unfair. It's just that most people have a general disregard for people they aren't emotionally invested in. There is a certain lack of empathy for your fellow man, and rarely does anyone put themselves in another's shoes.
To be fair, there are good people, but the scum of society does thrive on bringing everyone else down with them.
I sometimes found that I had a cold logical side to me on certain matters. I didn't objectively think killing was wrong, but it all depends on the reasons and methods used. People die every day. It's simply either due to war, accidents, crime or even themselves.
There is something I once heard that really resonated with me. It was something along the lines of ' Guns don't kill people. People kill people.'
Conflict in general has existed as long as man has. Hell the moment there were more than half a dozen people on earth someone (Cain) killed his brother due to jealousy.
As long as there is want and desire, there will always be conflict. It's a part of being human. Sometimes conflict could lead to growth, but it can just as easily lead to destruction, if you don't learn from your mistakes.
Policemen, soldiers and anyone who belongs to any government certified organization has a license to kill and rarely does anyone raise a fuss about it.
Even when military drone strikes end up having a staggering 90% civilian death rate where schools, hospitals and streets are bombed to kingdom come, nobody seems to notice or even care that a guy sitting in a chair in his office is killing thousands of innocent people; deeming them as collateral damage.
The hypocrisy of it is staggering to say the least there are so many layers of it, including a bunch of - esims associated with the issue. I don't want to even get into it.
Returning to the present, I got off my bed and stood in front of a large mirror I noticed next to my bed.
I was shocked to say the least I was frozen in place and a cold sensation gripped my heart. Looking in the mirror, I found someone who wasn't me looking back at me.
My appearance before was 5,11. I had black hair and dark brown eyes. I used to be fairly muscular a bit on the heavy side with some fat and had a tan complexion.
The person staring back at me looked completely different. He had long blonde hair that went to the back of his neck. He had light blue eyes that shined with intelligence.
He was also a couple of inches taller, almost 6,2. His build was slimmer like a swimmer's physique fairly muscular but not too bulky and he apparently worked out a lot because damn you could cut diamonds on his abs. I calmed down after a few minutes, but my mind was still racing. 'Am I finally starting to lose my mind? Maybe, I slipped into a Coma, and I am having a really vivid dream.'
Tentatively and with careful steps, I stood in front of thee mirror again, and really examined myself.
It was strange. This appearance looked kind of familiar like, I've seen it somewhere before .
I started to look for clues, or any kind of identification around the room. Anything that could tell me whose body I was in, I found a desk with some drawers and a closet that had a lot of clothes.
I went and searched the desk and found a wallet in one of the drawers I opened the wallet and found a driver's license and an ID card.
I started reading the ID card.
"Okay, name Douglas Ramsey, issue date 2004 expiray date 2012, date of birth is 12/07/1989. Okay, so I am apparently in the past and younger cause last time I checked I was 22 not 16 and ready to graduate from college and it was 2020, but why was the name kind of famaliar ?"
I put away the wallet and ID card and started to look for other clues, the kid had a lot of books most of them were novels and stories in different languages, so I guess he liked reading.
I also found a computer it was an older model but looked new but since I was apparently in the past it could be considered quite new and which also confirmed that this kid's family has money after taking a minute to remember how these things worked I opened the computer. " Wow, Windows XP its been a while."
I went online and started to look for some information.
Thank god, Google was around back then. I first googled my new name and some useful information about this kid's family.
I felt kind of guilty for taking over the kid's body but it wasn't exactly my fault so there wasn't much I could do but try and honour what I was given there wasn't much left for me in my old life.
I could probably go to college again and continue with my old career path.
I also tried to search for my old name but couldn't find anything, but I found some information about my new body apparently this kid's dad is a known lawyer in Salem Center named Philip and his mom's name is Sheila who is a psychiatrist.
So, both his parents are alive? This is going to be difficult I don't remember anything about this kid's life.
His parents are bound to find something strange about my behavior, I should try and avoid them for the time being, at least until I can figure out a way to not draw attention to myself.
I look at the time on my computer and the date, it was Saturday morning 'Thank god its the weekend I don't know what I would do if I had to go to school right now' I thought to myself.
Next, I decided to get changed and freshen up a bit. A few minutes later, I was back on my computer trying to search for information regarding my current predicament when I noticed the date was set to 2005.
I also discovered I went to Bayville high in Upstate New York, which was a few miles away from my current location.
It didn't take me long before I was looking up news articles and such. A bunch of articles on a recent breakout of Bird flu, Hurricane Catrina was a few months ago Tony Stark partying and giving away a yacht hmm... what else ?
" Wait. Tony Stark ?" I started reading some articles and found many that talked about Stark industries.
I also found articles on major corporations like Hammer industries, Rand industries and even OzCorp whose Ceo was Norman Osborn.
" What the hell ?! Where the hell am I and why does Tony Stark look like Robert Downey Jr ?!"
(End Chapter)
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