1 From the Land of the Discovered

Beep...

The slow yet ever-present noise made by the ECG resounded as Garret laid down in his hospital bed. The room was a blur along with the faces of staff as they walked past. Garret could only focus on maintaining his breathing as he struggled to stay conscious.

Unlucky, truly unlucky

He had gotten canned green beans from a local farmers' market and did not realize anything was wrong until it was too late. Along with that, his future looked grim even with the antitoxin, Garret would probably be crippled for a long time and barely functional given physical therapy.

"Ah. What use is there in living anyway." Garret thought to himself.

He had been born into an age of technological peaks, yet with all that innovation to Garret, it all felt so hollow.

Even though he could hope for the future why bother doing so for such a bleak future in a boring world? At least if reincarnation existed there might be the possibility of being able to innovate and discover in a time different than this one.

Garret struggled to breathe as he realized everything was going dark. He felt every labored breath as molasses, slowly drowning him as his body constricted him. The continuous noise of the ECG faded slowly as his vision became pure darkness.

"Even with the antitoxin, I am dying. At least I won't have to pay my hospital bill." Garret snickered in his mind.

Unfulfilling, it was the only thing Garret could think about. Since the modern age had nothing to discover, the sense of finding the unknown could only exist in fiction and in places beyond our capabilities. The faraway stars could still only be viewed from Earth and at this point, technology was more about optimization and profit than true innovation.

All Garret dreamed about was discovering new things and experimenting his whole life but he was crushed when reality hit him in the face. While the Internet was technically an expansive area he could explore everything would be created by other people so there would be nothing he could call his discovery.

While the medical field made plenty of discoveries that Garret could have joined, to him the most important thing was that everything revolved around profit, and with the slow speed of research and rising costs it just was not worth the effort.

"Ah, to discover fire, make gunpowder, or even the wheel why couldn't I be born in an age that required innovators and not mindless drones to make products that are derivative of others."

"What use is it to think about such things anymore? I am dead after all!"

As Garret continued to think in a black void he could not help but realize he was probably still alive or at least the concept of himself as he knew it.

"Should this be good luck or bad luck? Stuck in an expanse of nothing with only my thoughts... I guess I have always wondered how people go crazy with only their thoughts."

This reminded Garret of sensory deprivation tanks only taken to the extreme. He was not breathing, hearing, feeling, or seeing but he could still think. As he was wondering about his peculiar state of existence, he could feel the presence of something nearby as if he was not alone.

At first, it was one then two then five, and the number began to expand rapidly as different-sized presences gathered in this black void. Upon closer look, it was not an expanse of black nothingness but incomprehensibly dense presences. They flowed and ebbed while some flickered others shone brightly.

Toward himself, his presence was incomprehensible as well as familiar. Garret had felt an intense feeling of deja vu as if he had been here countless times.

Looking among the presences, there were eight grand presences that stood out. Each grand presence was limiting the greater mass of inferior presences. Slowly each of these grand presence began to flicker and weaken as the amount of inferior presences built up to an amount past counting.

As the eight grand presences grew weaker they slowly started to fall apart into shards. Each presence greedily absorbed these shards changing each presence as they landed nearby. Only three shards landed nearby Garret and before he noticed they entered him and became one with his presence. Before he could try to guess what had just happened everything disappeared returning to an empty void.

"It barely feels like a moment has passed and yet I am already seeing things. I guess that is why people can't handle sensory deprivation. Perhaps it gets worse the longer I remain here. Not that I can do anything about it." Garret continued to himself.

As soon as he finished his thought he felt his consciousness drift as his thoughts slowed as if weighed down as he felt himself sinking.

"Ah, is it time?"

"Well, to at least know what happens when I die perhaps that is a discovery I can settle for." Garret smiled as he thought.

But before he was weighed down completely Garret could not help but think...

"I wonder what those presences were if only I could understand the information they held."

Before he could continue his train of thought it was interrupted by a new voice that was not his own yet came from his presence.

"My name is Reann."

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