Chapter 3

For the 2nd time in my long life I awake in an unfamiliar place, as long lost sensations flood into my mind, the feeling of the ground beneath my back, and temperature on my skin, I breath for the first time in Eons, uncaring of the burning sensation within my lungs from the polluted air, and sweat covering my skin in the uncomfortably hot air, I am satisfied to have finally regained a body. 

But I only allow myself moments of rest, the burning in my lungs a grim reminder that should I wish this new life to last I needed to find a way to clean the air, I luckily seem to have appeared in clothes. The same ones I wore the moment of my death all those eons ago.

And so I quickly remove my shirt, fashioning it into a primitive mask, my lungs begin to feel better as most of the larger particles are filtered out through the fabric, but it is far from the Idea solution, for now my first goal should be figuring out my location, as well as getting a better mask, food, and water, and as I inspect my surroundings I find myself surrounded by garbage, seeming to find myself in a large landfill.

I inspect my person, finding my proportions to be the same as when I died, and wearing the same clothes. Luckily my eyesight seems to have improved, and the chronic pains and headaches of my last life had left me, the noxious fumes likely to quickly change that.

But for now I am in good physical condition, so I should get moving before problems arise.

*timeskip*

It has now been 3 hours since I began moving, and I have begun to struggle to breath. During my trip I managed to find a gas mask in good condition, but lacking any filters, it did however, do a better job at forming a seal around my face, so I replaced my makeshift mask, and simply covered the ports designed for filters with my shirt.

I also found a phone like device in perfect condition, likely discarded due to a new model coming out, it even turned on when I tried it, however I was unable to get past the lock page, and its battery was almost dead, the fact that it had charge at all was already a miracle I attributed to more advanced batteries as this world seems more technologically advanced than my last one, if not more dystopian.

Luckily I was able to repurpose some spare parts from other broken machines I found into a makeshift solar charger for the phone, but hacking into it will have to wait for later.

As for how I was able to easily repurpose the parts into a functional charger, it seems that my mind is much more powerful than when I was a human, to be specific, it is just as powerful as it was in my soul form, so it seems that eons of life had some benefits.

I had been forced to tie metal to the bottoms of my shoes, the numerous sharp objects within the rubble quickly degrading my shoes, as such I had to sacrifice locomotion, my shoes now much more rigid, I quickly developed blisters on my feet. But the pain was negligible, so I continued walking anyway. Just recently I had spotted buildings in the distance, factories if the large belching smoke stacks told me anything, as I approach the cancerous clouds that float above.

All my lasts life's common sense tells me to stay far away from the disgusting smog, but now I have no choice if I wish to live, my body has already began to suffer from the balefull pollution that filled this apocalyptic planet. My only hope is that whatever lifeforms built this place have the technology to keep me alive, and don't simply naturally live in such conditions. Although I doubt any biological lifeform could live long in such a hellish place.

(3rd pov)

The workers slave away at the factories as they have for years now, the capitalist dystopia that had taken hold of this world, they spent their years working for companies that cared little for their lives. The governments of the world having long been replaced by the rich elite, there were no laws to protect the citizens.

And the ones that remained were rarely enforced. Now people die every day, the unprotected workers lose their limbs and lives to unshielded machinery, radiation, and toxic fumes. Only to be replaced as if they had never existed in the first place.

On this particular day, a few guards spot a single man stumbling out of the wastes. Wearing a shirt as a mask, it was common knowledge that the desperate and unlucky would commonly get lost in the wastes, searching for artifacts, or the trash of the elite. Comparably treasure for the common man.

But this particular one was grossly underprepared, the lack of any working air filters speaking of extreme desperation, as the guards felt slight pity for the man, but they saw people die within the factories in droves, and it was often their responsibility to clear the floor, so their sympathy had long eroded. But they did feel respect for his survival. As the man got closer, his body glistened with sweat. His physique was perfect, telling of a childhood with ample food and protection from the pollution choking the life from this world.

This confused the guards, but they stood stoic. And the man came to a stop before them, cold emotionless eyes staring deep into their souls, his pupils as dark as the void, and the guards began to shiver, the man's eyes invoking an indescribable feeling of inferiority. And the man asked, no, demanded, a cold voice speaking of experience unlike his apparent age.

"Give me a mask." a younger guardsman moved to answer the request, not even noticing his movements until he had returned, a relatively fresh mask, the guardsmen had a bucket of masks they stole from the managers trash, the manager himself using a new one every day, before tossing the still relatively fresh filters.

And the man let out a low hum in thanks, taking the mask and removing the one still on his face, putting back on his shirt, his face now exposed, nearly flawless, reinforced the image of an elite in their minds. As he quickly strapped on the new mask, taking a deep breath, and releasing it in a long sigh. His strange voice returning, "much better."