1 Chapter One - Prologue

Author's Note:

So, finally the rewrite is here, I want first to preface that I wanted to try something different, so some of you might not like this at all, which I understand completely and if you want something closer to the original, I have another version of this fic ready to upload. The prologue is a bit... sad, for a lack of better words, but I thought it was only logical for the story to progress and make sense with a character that gets transmigrated.

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Chapter One - The Prologue

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Hello, friend.

Hello, friend? That's lame.

Maybe I should give you a name, but that's a slippery slope. You're only in my head. We have to remember that.

Shit.

It's actually happening, I'm talking to an imaginary person.

What I'm about to tell you is top secret, a conspiracy bigger than you could ever imagine... I live inside of a fictional world; I mean it quite literally. I'm in a different universe, you could say.

That doesn't make much sense, does it? Well, why do you think I'm talking to you?

I know this shouldn't be possible, maybe this is all a dream that I'll one day wake up from—or maybe not. But that doesn't make it any less real in my mind.

I'll start from the beginning, when I was at my lowest.

I was a sophomore in college once. During that year I turned twenty. And all I could think about was dying. Dying almost seemed to be the most natural solution to my problems, and even now I wouldn't be able to say why I didn't take that final step.

If I die, I use to tell myself. Then the world simply wouldn't exist anymore. It was a captivating, almost bewitching thought. The present world wouldn't exist, and reality would no longer be real. As far as the world was concerned, I would simply no longer exist—just as the world would no longer exist for me.

Crossing the threshold between life and death would have been easier than swallowing down a slick, raw egg.

Perhaps I didn't die then because I couldn't conceive of a method that could fit the pure and intense feeling I had towards death.

But method was beside the point.

If there had been a door within reach that led me straight to death, I wouldn't have hesitated to push it open—without a second thought, as if it was just part of ordinary life. For better or worse, though, there was no such door.

I couldn't fathom why I had reached that point, where I was teetering over the precipice. There were actual events that led me to that point—that I knew all too well—but why should death have such a hold over me? Enveloping me, shrouding me like a cloak.

Like Jonah in the belly of the whale, I had fallen into the abyss, one untold day after another, simply lost in the dark, stagnant void.

It was as if I had been sleepwalking through life, as if I had already died but not yet noticed.

When the sun rose, so would I—I'd brush my teeth, throw on whatever clothes were at hand, ride the train to college, and takes notes in class. Likes someone in a storm, desperately grasping at a lamppost, I clung to my daily routines, like pillars keeping me alive.

I spoke only when necessary, and after class, I would return to my solitary apartment and sit on the floor, my laptop on my lap—and I'd watch movies, animes whatever I wanted really—but I always went back to Kuroko No Basket.

It was a silly anime, to be honest, about a group of high schoolers playing basketball with superpowers. I loved it mainly because I loved basketball, granted I wasn't good at it by any means, but still, I loved the sport and superpowers made it even more fun. It was one of my pillars, you could say.

Sometimes I dreamt of being in it, playing with the characters and living life to the fullest.

But I couldn't do that.

I was not special.

I was just alone.

That's another one of the reasons I watched the anime, the desperate desire to escape from reality. When I'd imagine living in that fictional world, playing with the characters or even simply watching the show, I wouldn't feel the thick could of nothingness swirling around me, or the silence of my solitary apartment squeezing my eardrums. I wouldn't feel the loneliness. I'd feel a sense of freedom, an escape.

And when I wasn't thinking of dying or of playing basketball with fictional characters—my mind was blank.

It wasn't hard to keep from thinking. I didn't really listen to music nor had any sexual desires to speak of. Events occurring in the outside world were, to me, inconsequential.

When I grew tired of watching anime, I wondered aimlessly around the neighborhood, sometimes I'd play ball with the other kids from the block or if I had a test to prepare, I'd study.

I took a shower every morning, shampooed my hair well, do the laundry twice a week. Cleanliness was another one of my pillars: laundry, bathing and teeth brushing.

I barely noticed what I would eat.

I usually had lunch at the college cafeteria, but other than that, I would hardly consume a decent meal. When I felt hungry, I would stop by the local supermarket and buy some fruits and vegetables. Sometimes I ate plain bread, washing down with milk straight from the carton. When it was time to sleep, I would have a glass of whiskey as if it were a dose of medicine. Luckily, I wasn't much of a drinker, and a small dose was enough to send me off the sleep.

I rarely dreamed.

But even when dreamlike images arose from the edges of my mind, they would have nowhere to perch on the slippery slopes of my consciousness, instead quickly sliding off, down into the void.

My mother died giving me birth; you see. And my father was a petty thief. Never could hold down a job. So, he just robbed, convenience stores, shops, small time stuff.

I respected that man. I thought that shit was cool as a little kid. A few years after that, they finally caught him. Sent him to jail. Died five years later. My respect went with him. I thought he was free doing what he did, but he wasn't.

He was in prison.

I understood that all too well now. The reason why death had such a hold over me became clear then. I had nothing to live for. I had no family, no friends to speak of, I was alone. If it weren't for Gus, my pet goldfish, I'd be completely empty

I wasn't always alone—that's what really made it difficult.

It wasn't like I was afraid there would be an awkward moment where I'd run into them on the street. No. That was just quibbling.

The pain was, if anything, more intense and weight down on me more greatly than physical distance. Alienation and loneliness became a cable that stretched hundreds of miles long, pulling my breaking point by a gigantic winch.

But all of that disappeared one day.

I broke out from that prison. I died; you see. Not voluntarily of course. But I did leave the world behind. It was ironic in my opinion, it was so cliché and stupid. Like in a isekai novel, I was hit by a truck. And died, scared, and bleeding out on the street.

I had escaped and at last, took my final breath.

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And then I woke up with a gasp.

I closed my eyes, feeling them burn behind my eyelids—I could hear my heart pounding in my ears. My skin was hot and slick with sweat, soaking my pillow and blanket. My body was in bad shape, of that I had no doubt. Pains riddled by body and my stomach rolled as though I ate something bad last night.

I sat up and blearily looked around my room, slowly regaining consciousness of my surroundings. The place appeared to be familiar—it was my bedroom after all—but a nagging sense of unease lingered in the back of my mind.

The window's shutters were closed, leaving only tiny slits through which the early morning light shone.

'What happened yesterday?' I thought. The last thing I remember was crossing the street on my way home from college, and then seeing a truck, and lights—no that would be impossible. With a groan, I pushed back the soft sheets and got up from the bed. That took more effort than I anticipated, and I felt faint from exertion, though, not enough to stop me.

I rose up, my feet trembling beneath my body. A part of me wanted to lay back down, curl into a ball and fall back asleep. As I stretched my arms and legs, I realized something.

My body felt different. It was shorter and slimmer.

'What the fuck?'

I lurched to the mirror on my wardrobe, almost tripping myself. I peered into the mirror's gleaming surface. I stared wide eyed.

My hair was the first thing I noticed; it wasn't brown, but rather a stark white, short with a pushed-up fringe. My eyes had also changed; instead of almond-shaped brown eyes, they were now bigger and blue. And that wasn't mentioning my face. A stranger's face stared back at me, younger—and more boyish than man.

'What the actual fuck?'

I stumbled back, my hands on a face I wasn't sure was mine. I started hyperventilating. It took a few minutes to get my breathing back to normal, and another few minutes to get my mind to calm down.

'All right, this is a fucking dream,' I told myself. I tried to remember what happened yesterday but all I could think of was lights, a truck, and the screeching sound of tires trying to slow down in a very, very short period of time as I crossed the road back home.

'Wait. I remember now, I was hit by a truck.'

Then a large blue tinted screen appeared right in from of me.

[Welcome to the Rebirth Program!]

[Would you like to continue?]

[Y/N]

Wait what—

I screamed.

And that... was how I found myself here. How I found myself in Kuroko No Basket.