I sat down in my room, then lay back on the bed staring at the ceiling. I had just finished my first month of work and I could already feel the misery setting in. I used to party with friends all night and stay up late talking about my favorite games or what girl I was going to hook up with. That all ended abruptly when I dropped out of college to get a job. There had been a family emergency and I had to drop out of college to deal with it. My aunt had suddenly collapsed and my mother couldn't be at the house with my younger brothers and at my aunts side at the same time, so I had to return home and look after my brothers.

  After that I had lost my scholarship and there was just no going back. I cracked open a beer as I relaxed in bed. This was the first month of the rest of my life.

  There was a siren outside and a loud boom. What could that be? I paid it little mind and turned on the TV to the evening news.

  I watched the same old boring news anchor that always came on start rattling off how the country was at war and the future was unknown, soldiers were needed and don't be afraid if you're called to the draft.

  Well isn't that just great, as if living my life isn't hard enough already. I set down the beer and drifted off to sleep.

  As I drifted in and out of sleep I couldn't shake the feeling that the time I spent at work was compressed and the time when I was off was non existent. I dreamed of skeletons dancing in the fires of war when another siren went off followed by a loud boom. This one was significantly closer to home.

  I looked across the street and the building over there was on fire. We really were at war… This wasn't good. What if…. Right on queue there was another loud boom this time my wall shattered and the glass from my window blew in throwing me back. I climbed off the floor dying of pain and covered in cuts and bruises, my hands were shaking… My god my hands… They just wouldn't stop shaking. The cold winter air blew in through the hole in my wall and the fire burning outside illuminated the distraction. I had to get to safety,

  I ran out of my apartment to find complete chaos outside. The air was frigid and my entire apartment building was collapsing. The buildings around me were burning and there was fire everywhere,

  I ran into the streets to find them littered with debris and dead bodies. I walked at a trot, then sped up to a jog. Where the hell was I even going? I herd the planes over head again and looked up at the sky “Oh shit! “ I said as a plane flew over head and dropped something out. This happened so fast I couldn't react as something fell rapidly out of the sky and came crashing down right next to me. Is… Is superman real? Can someone please… Save….me? Those were my last thoughts before the bomb exploded killing me instantly.

  That was my life. Short wretched and a complete failure. What I really wanted to know was… If I died, how was it that I was still able to think about things?

  It was a misery. I could think but I couldn't move. I couldn't see and the sounds I could hear didn't make any sense. if I focused I could see a lot of blue lines but I didn't know what they were.

  I continued like this for some time, just trying to sort out what happened, and thinking of how my life was cut short just as it was starting out, and how it had gone so horribly wring from the beginning.

  One day there was light in the darkness and with it came pain. The pain, the light and the noise. It didn't take me long to discover that I had been born. My parents seemed like kind and loving people but I had no end of confusion.

  Was this real? Where was my goddess. Every anime I had ever watched there was usually a goddess that gives a bunch of cheat codes. There was no goddess, I just found myself here with no explanation.

  Time went by and I learned and I grew. I found that we lived in a small village far from the large empires and kingdoms that filled the land. We were still part of the civilized world though. My parents had a modest two story house, my father was a black Smith and my mother was just a home maker. Both of my parents were in their twenties and I had become the center of their lives.

  My father was determined to raise me to follow in his footsteps, and so from the age of five I had been learning to use a smithing hammer.

  By the age of 11, the memories of my past life started to slip away like an old dream. I tried to grasp at them and hold onto them but they slipped through my fingers seemingly never to return. By the age of thirteen, they were gone completely.

  My name was Milo and I had become proud of my father and the work that he did. My life consisted of helping my father with his work regularly and enjoying too much of my moms delicious cooking. I was handy with a sword and still learning to read. I just didn't understand how books would help with my smithing but since my parents demanded it I had little choice.