Chapter 1: Transmigrating.
" I’m still alive?" Adrian’s eyes snapped open like someone who was startled. the wooden ceiling above him confusing him instantly.
" Wait a minute, where the heck am I?" He felt a dull, stiff ache in his neck and back as he felt his body and limbs were still intact, no searing pain or anything of the sort.
Currently, He was sitting on a rough stool, his upper body slumped over the edge of a simple, narrow wooden bed in an unknown place or room to be precise.
" First I’m in some new place, now it’s no longer the middle of July but winter?"
The small room smelled faintly of herbs and felt unsettlingly warm. Even as he saw the white cold scenery outside. The more he understood, the more confused he became.
Pushing himself upright, sheer disbelief making him dizzy, Adrian scanned the absolutely plain walls before his gaze locked onto the bed.
Tucked under a thick, patched quilt was a woman. She was awfully pale, with a tell-tale sheen of sweat on her forehead. He only needed a single glance to tell that she had a fever.
" And who is she?" he wondered, secretly panicked since a complete stranger had been next to him while he was unconscious for who knew how long but when her current state sunk into his mind, he realized that she really couldn’t have done anything to him otherwise.
Nevertheless, he wasn’t sure whether someone else might’ve been here earlier.
Wracking his mind, The last thing he could clearly remember was the blinding flash of a truck.
***
It was a late, lonely night. Adrian was walking home after working several hours of overtime at his office job.
Thankfully, it wasn’t completely dark out at the time, the streetlights in the suburbs gave him some leeway to see his path home, even if some of them weren’t all that bright.
He suddenly saw a small delivery truck turn down the street, its headlights momentarily blinding his eyes at an angle.
But the truck vanished from his mind when he heard something els that caused him to stiffen out of surprise, the sudden frantic, uneven pounding of footsteps closing in rapidly from behind him.
’ F*ck! A robber in the suburbs? I just finished overtime, can’t anyone catch me a break?!’
He twisted his head just in time to catch a glimpse of the so called robber but instead, he saw a distressed figure in a dark hoodie and sweatpants?
She wore thick glasses, and her black, silky, waist long hair was disheveled, partially blocking a face that was covered in ruined make-up, her eyes puffy and glistening with tears.
"Adrian you bastard!" she shrieked, her voice shaking with rage. "Go to hell! How could you mess with my feelings like that?"
" Was i really that much of a joke to you, that you ignored my messages for so long?"
’ Hold up, isn’t she my coworker?’
’ Now I remember, her name was Angela... She’s even the reason I’m going home this late! How could she quite without informing anyone, thanks to her, the boss forced me to take care of her workload till he found someone else!’
Adrian completely ignored what she said, instead he was fuming to see her again but, her hands were on his chest before he knew it, shoving him with surprising, hysterical force.
’ W-Wait!’
His feet slipped on the damp pavement, and his body moved back, landing on the cold dark road.
HONK!!!
Adrian felt as if his soul left his body when he heard the trucks horn sound next to his ears.
This wasn’t a joke, The truck was suddenly, horribly near.
" Are you crazy?!"
A shout of utter disbelief tore from his lungs as he managed to choke out: "When did I ever—"
The rest of his question was instantly cut short by a deafening, metallic crash. A bolt of all-consuming pain shot through him from the impact, and the world went dark.
***
" That psycho woman."
Adrian rubbed his forehead, muttering, because he didn’t want to wake up the woman on the bed.
" I never meant to play with her feelings. I was just too busy... Cleaning up her mess" He grumbled before sighing heavily.
"One week... I stopped texting her for one week, and she killed me? What sort of horrible joke is that–?"
His complaint was cut short as a crushing, splitting headache slammed into his skull. It wasn’t just pain, but at that moment , he felt a a torrent of foreign memories pouring into his mind, the life of a complete stranger.
" ARRGH–" A guttural scream rose in his throat, but he managed to clamp his mouth shut, struggling to keep the agonizing pain at bay, refusing to disturb the lady who was already dealing with her own issues. But alas, fate was a fickle thing.
Fortunately, The sharp pain subsided just as the woman in the bed stirred, her eyes fluttering open.
" Adrian? Your still here?"
She looked at him with worried, feverish eyes. "Son, Why are you still here."
" And what happened to you, You look completely drained."
" I thought I told you not to push yourself, it’s snowing everyday yet you still continue to venture into those forests looking for herbs.
Adrian forced a reassuring smile. " Mom, i’m fine, There’s no reason for you to worry, I just washed my face with some warm water." he said, the word feeling oddly strange but he made it work, not letting the woman suspect a thing.
The woman looked skeptical but chose to believe him in the end, closing her eyes to rest.
Adrian got up afterwards and left the room.
Standing outside, he took a moment to breathe. The memories he just received turned out to be quite a tragic story.
The original body’s owner had simply died here, quietly, without his mother realizing, from a severe cold, because he had overworked himself to death caring for his sick mother.
(AN: Hope you like the story so far, please feel free to support using whatever you can, whether power stones, reviews, comments, golden tickets, gifts.)