Rebirth [1] - The Price Of Knowledge

Earth - Year: 2061

A man with black hair and golden yellow eyes sat atop a building and ate his lunch while looking into the sunset.

Raising the sandwich to his mouth, he took one bite after the other until he had finished it.

His rations had run out, and for the last 7 years of his life, he had tried everything he could to bring Earth back to the way it was before its fall.

The man smiled and took out his revolver before flicking it to the side and putting a single bullet in it.

"This has to be my worst day yet." He chuckled.

The man snapped the revolver to the side, closing it before spinning the cylinder and pointing the gun at the roof of his mouth.

That man was Seth Evergreen, a 50-year-old man who dedicated his life to pursuing knowledge and was the greatest scientist of his generation.

While his intelligence was nothing to scoff at, his IQ didn't compare to that of great scientists like Einstein and Newton. However, it wasn't his intelligence that built his ladder to the top, but his insatiable hunger for knowledge.

Seth was orphaned after being abandoned by his parents at a fire station a few days after his birth. However, in a way, abandoning him was the best thing to ever happen to him, since it was only then that the hole in his heart opened up and craved to be filled with something else.

However, for a few months, he had no idea what his body wanted from him. Or at least that was the case until he picked up his first book.

The moment he finished reading the book, he felt like a spark had been created inside his soul, and it was waiting to be satiated.

He couldn't stop himself afterward. It was the first time he had ever felt something like that in his life, so he never let go of that feeling and strived to feel it every day.

However, that spark grew into an insatiable hunger and greed for knowledge that he couldn't control ever since.

His advancement was world-changing. He created cures for hundreds of diseases and illnesses and discovered/created technological and scientific advancements that forever changed human society.

In his pursuit of creating the perfect species, Seth came upon something he shouldn't have.

He had cracked the life equation and discovered the 'healing factor,' something capable of curing all diseases known to man, even aging.

One might have called it enlightenment at the time, but now that Seth looked back, it was nothing but a curse.

Seth published his new 'medicine' and advertised it as a drug capable of restoring age and giving people eternal youth. And just like the brainless fools humans have always been, they believed him; since when was the last time Seth Evergreen had been wrong about something?

That was their first and only mistake. The healing factor didn't reveal itself because humanity was ready... It revealed itself to Seth because he was ready...

In less than a month, the human population had begun to mutate.

Some became monsters beyond recognition, and others became a mutated gorefest of humans clinging to life with the very little will that remained in them after losing everything they once had.

Seth had tried to find a way to bring back humanity for over 7 years, yet now that his rations were gone and supplies were dwindling, he lost all hope.

For once the spark that lit his soul vanished.

He was no longer Seth Evergreen, a man who saved humanity from thousands of diseases while advancing technology by a hundred years...

To the survivors, he was now known as Seth, the destroyer of Earth.

And so, he pulled the trigger, and for the first time since he began this ritual, the gun finally heard his pleas.

*Bang*

At that moment, his life flashed before his eyes. He wasn't technically a good man... No, he was a selfish one who did everything in pursuit of his own goals, yet no matter how many regrets he had, it no longer mattered.

And so, a bright flash of light blinded him before everything became black, and he returned to the great abyss that lay between life and death.

He felt at peace, yet that only lasted for a few moments.

The abyss flashed green for a moment before a symbol appeared before him.

An emerald eight-pointed star encapsulated in a circle of the same color appeared before him. It was shrouded with a golden-emerald aura that expanded to the ends of the abyss.

Seth recognized the symbol... No, he was the one who had discovered the symbol.

What shone before him was the inscription of the life equation, and it had revealed itself to him once more...

The light faded, and everything returned to black once more...

*GASP*

Seth opened his eyes while gasping for air.

His heart was racing, and his body screamed in pain.

His hands were covered in blood... No, those weren't his hands... They were green and disgustingly large for his body.

He was covered in blue blood... His own blood. But since when was his blood blue?

Seth slowly crawled to a nearby pool of water. He seemed to be in some kind of cavern, but the colors around him didn't make sense... They were so much more than anything he had seen on Earth, yet it almost seemed natural.

He struggled to get up, but when he finally looked into the pool of water, he didn't see a reflection of himself.

He saw a grotesque green-skinned creature look back at him, making him almost fall back in shock.

However, before he could do so, he saw a blade slash through his neck, decapitating him instantly and dropping his head into the small pond.

Seth found himself in the dark void once more. The emerald eight-pointed star emblem appeared again before sending him into another body. This time he was a horse that had just been shot in the head.

The buildings and clothes of the humans around him looked victorian, and as he stood up, he turned around and looked right down at the barrel of a shotgun before his brains were blown out the other side.

Then it happened again, and again, and again, until finally, Seth had lost count of all the lives lived.

It felt like he had tried out every creature out there, from an ant to a whale; he had done it all.

However, when he saw the emerald emblem appear before him, there was a feeling inside him that told him that this life would be different.

The green emblem shone brighter than ever until it finally encapsulated his vision.

'Hmm? How the hell did I die already?' Seth asked himself while looking around. Everything around him was just black, and he couldn't understand why.

Yet, instead of seeing the green emblem, this time, he saw a light at the end of the tunnel. He also felt something around his neck, but he completely ignored it.

Was he finally going to heaven? Or was this just a way to keep him from going mad just to return him back to his hell for his sins?

When he finally swam to the other side, the blinding light forced his eyes shut as a pair of delicate yet enormous hands held him.

'Giants? Wait, no... Holy shit I'm finally human! A human baby, but still a human!" Seth cheered with joy, making everyone in the room look at eachother with confusion after hearing the newborn's weird cry.