Jack hated this section of the trail. It had eroded recently and a rhododendron bush blocked what remained. The only way to pass through was by stepping from root to root, hanging onto the branches for balance, and hoping he didn't lose his grip. As he crab-crawled through the bush, he faced the up slope and at his back was a steep downslope. If he lost his grip, the tumble down the mountain might prove fatal. He was halfway through this rough spot, reaching for a branch with his right hand, when his vision went black.
In a panic, he clutched at the branch he was holding in his left hand while his right hand flailed about, reaching for a branch, any branch. Yet his clutching hand felt nothing. The realization sent a spike of fear through him and he cried out, flailing his arms, trying to grasp anything.
Even as he tried to flail and scream, nothing happened. His arms didn't flail because he had no arms, and he didn't scream because he had no lungs. He was bodyless, floating in a void. Not a starry void, like the depths of outer space, but an empty void, like a blank universe devoid of all matter and energy.
His initial panic dissipated into the nothingness before he could even think to try a second breath, and soothing calm replaced his panic. The sudden transition from panic to calm should have been jarring, but it wasn't. One moment he was feeling panicked fear that he was falling to his death, the next he was calm, like floating bodyless in a void was just another Tuesday.
Did I die? He wondered. Is this the start of my afterlife? As he contemplated the possibility that he had died, he wondered what would happen next. Was he awaiting judgement? Was he stuck in limbo? Would he be isekai'ed? Since he didn't have lungs or a mouth, he tried mentally yelling into the void.
HELLO? ANYONE? GOD? ADMINISTRATOR? TRUCK-KUN?
Nothing.
So, he waited. His thoughts turning to the future he had planned — go to college, finally get laid, maybe go into cancer research. He honestly wasn't certain what he wanted to do beyond college. Science interested him, and he thought he might want to go into research, but he also liked the idea of getting involved in the space industry, maybe go into space, or at least work on something that gets sent into space.
His thoughts eventually quieted, and he found himself just being. But as his mind drifted, he felt like he was expanding, becoming somehow more. More what, he didn't know. It was a strange, but oddly pleasant, sensation. He did not know if minutes, hours, days, years, or centuries had passed, but eventually a series of message in glowing gold text appear, disturbing his quiet contemplation. They were not so much visual messages as they were messages inserted directly into his mind, but despite their abstract nature, they still felt gold and glowy.
[Synchronization Initiated]
[WARNING: Soul strength below threshold]
[Synchronization Paused]
[Initiating emergency soul enhancement]
[Soul strength has reached minimum threshold]
[Synchronization Resumed]
What? Soul strength? Was this a System, like in the novels he'd read? The first few messages, the ones prior to [Soul strength has reached minimum threshold], felt distorted, like hearing voices under water or trying to read a sign through a heavy rainstorm. They also felt old, like they were generated some time ago. He assumed this was because of his soul's weakness, preventing him from properly receiving them until it grew strong enough. Then two more messages interrupted his thoughts.
[Synchronization Complete]
[Genesis Heart Installation Complete]
Genesis Heart? Before he could think further on the origin and meaning of the messages, he felt his body again, and it flooded his mind with sensations demanding his attention. Chief among the many complaints clamoring for his attention was a thirst more intense than any he had ever felt or imagined he could feel.
Ugh, what happened? His mind became fuzzy. His mouth felt like it was coated in sticky paste, and his tongue was stuck to the roof of his mouth. He tried to open his eyes, but they burned like they were coated in sand. Desperate for water, he reached for his backpack drinking tube.
A rustling sound filled his ears, and something pressed against his arm, preventing it from moving. Am I trapped? What is this? Still fuzzy headed, he flailed in a panic, trying to escape whatever was holding him. The rustling intensified. Eventually, his fuzzy brain put two and two together and he realized he was tangled in a bush.
Finally, understanding he wasn't trapped, just embedded in a bush, his panic receded, and slowly worked to free himself. He didn't know if he had somehow become tangled in the rhododendron he was previously traversing, or if this was a different bush.
With some effort, he extricated himself from the bush. Once on his knees, half kneeling inside the bush, he grabbed his drinking tube. He stuffed it in his mouth and sucked on it. The first mouth full of water tasted so sweet that he thought he'd died and entered paradise, and the second mouth full was just as sweet. But when he pulled for a third time, he only got half a mouthful, before hearing the worst sound of his life. The gurgle of air bubbling through a tiny bit of water.
No, where's my water?!
He sucked desperately on the drinking tube, but no more water came out. His water reservoir should have been at least half full! He always filled it to its three liter limit whenever he went on a hike and he usually only needed half of that. So it should have been at least half full. He pulled off his backpack, then pried open gritty eyes and saw a blurry image of a stick jammed into his backpack.
Damn, no wonder my back hurts! He pulled the stick out if his pack and say that the end was wet. If not for the sturdy material for his backpack back frame, it would have impaled him! Sadly, his water reservoir wasn't so lucky.
He put the drinking tup back in his mouth, then lifted his pack over his head, trying to get at the remaining few drops or water. His efforts rewarded him with a tiny dribble that amounted to nothing more than a half sip of water.
Fuck! He still burned with thirst. Two and a half mouthfuls of water were not enough.
The water he had consumed seemed to help because he could finally blink his eyes clear. He was kneeling in a rhododendron and it wasn't the one that was blocking the trail he'd been hiking. Arm's length away from him, just past the rhododendron, was a precipitous drop, and opposite the drop was a steep slope covered in brush and small trees. Wherever he was, it wasn't the trail he'd been hiking.