A young man in his early twenties is walking down the high street, their are no factors that make him stand out. Be it his average looks or his cheap clothes, he was never gonna make anyone stop in the street in awe. At least that's what he fault.
See, AJ had just moved from his hometown of London, England. All the way east, to Tokyo, Japan as far as possible away from everything he knew. Now, why would any sane person travel all that distance just to change his environment. Because he was done with how everyone else visioned how he would live his life. See, AJ was done with the pressure that was placed on his shoulders by his friends and peers. That he must work hard for minimum wage, that he must become an outstanding person, eventually even having kids and settling down with a women they chose. He was done with it.
His parents were in a crash a couple months ago and after going to the funeral, AJ could not live in that hole any longer. The only reason some call London "the city that never sleeps" is cause if people don't make enough, they won't have a place to sleep. Similar to New York or any other big city in the west, everything revolves around money.
The main reason Tokyo was the place of choice for him was just, glorious piles of money. At least that is what he envisioned. See, AJ loved the internet and the internet, well it loved Japan. Be it the numerous amounts of video games or films based on how great Japan was. Be it that everyone around him wanting to go on holiday here or even live here if they could. His mind had been made up, exactly a month after the funeral. He bought the cheapest tickets and jumped on a plane to the land of the rising sun. This was with only £500 and a little suitcase filled with cheap clothes and a plan.
When the plane arrived at the airport, the first thing he did was grab his luggage and ran straight to the entrance of the place. He stepped out of the entrance with his eyes closed, he took a deep breath and then exhaled. "Finally, I'm free". You would have thought he was being chased by how ecstatic he was just to get away from his past. "This is my fresh start, this is my chance to live". He walked across the road not knowing where he was going but he did not care. This was it, this is we're he would become the man he always wanted to be.
As he was walking down an unknown high street, a lorry was driving recklessly in the distance. "Truck-kun" the little weeb shouted, thinking that he was hilarious. Not knowing that "Truck-Kun" thought the exact opposite, speeding up and smashing into the gaijin, who had lost consciousness.
When he opened his eyes, all he saw was white. No really, everything around him was white. Kinda like being under the ocean but without the need to breath or move. AJ just stood there, still in shock. "There is no way that just happened , no way. I must have collapsed from dehydration, that's it". While AJ was trying to convince his recoiling mind, a voice suddenly sounded. "Wow, so much for a prodigy. This child had so much wasted potential". "We even put him in a time zone we're he was part of the main civilisation and still all he did was moan".
AJ looked at where the voice was coming from but as he did, he recoiled. What he saw was a man, then a lizard standing on its back-legs, then a women with a fish head. Trust if you saw what he saw, your idea of god would have been obliterated. The one thing that scared AJ the most was that, even though he was being talked to. He felt that he was more being talked about by several people while being in their presence. Kinda like the House of Commons, we're the privileged look down on the poor for being useless and not like them.
"Hello child, or should I call you junior. Humans were always a weird species that had to take ownership of their child by naming them after themselves".
"What are you?" AJ asked.
"That's not fair."
"What's not fair?"
"How dare you assume I have to be anything, maybe it has to do with you clawing at the sky, desperate just to be something". The thing said while the fish head smirked.
"Look whatever you are, why am I here?"
"Ohhh, good question. I think it had to do with a friend of yours."
"What friend?"
"Awww, you don't remember child, here let me play the moment back for you."
Suddenly, AJ's eyes rolled over and then the truck hit him again. The weird thing was that he felt the pain of his body tearing apart like it was happening again.
"Don't waste my time"
Suddenly the room flashed back into view again, AJ recoiling like he had just stepped on the hardest piece of Lego and it knew how to fight back.
"Enough with the questions, I am here to tell you three things.
One, you wasted your life.
Two, your plan to get money by teaching people how to speak English would have failed.
By the way so original and Three, that I have taken pity on you."
AJ stood there stunned, this was just to much for his brain to cope with. Some half human half lizard thing was standing in front of him telling him all his doubts were reality and that he could redo his failure. However, after dying twice. He wasn't in the mood to move, much less improve.
He could barely utter a sentence.
"What must I do"
"There you go, that's more like the you I know. How about I give you a chance to restart your life from when you got off that plane. However, I do have a clause in this contract."
"You must follow everything I tell you to, if you want a better life that is"
AJ had no words for the thing, he just nodded.
"Excellent, well I must go. I am a busy boy after all. Well you must go, actually to be correct."
A flash appeared in front of AJ and then he fell unconscious.