Chapter #14

AN: I got same good news and bad news. In the last ten days or so I was in kind of a pseudo quarantine due to more than half the house getting the VID.

Now that I am cleared to go, I kind of have go back to my job that I just got.(I mean seriously I barely worked like a week before this shit happened.)

So, I will not be able to put more than one chapter per day... Yeah that's the bad news. Scary shit isn't it, anyway take care of yourselves wear your goddamn masks and get your VID Vaccinations.

______

Zeno woke up, this time he wasn't in an orphanage but a hospital. Smelling the all too familiar scents of hospital Zeno thought he started as a baby again for a second until he felt his body.

'I seemed to be around four years old judging by my height.' Zeno thought as he inspected his body.

He noticed some bandages around his ankles and an IV drop on his arm but other than that his body was in perfect shape as usual.

Laying back on the bed Zeno closed his eyes before calling out to his system. 'Okay system. Hit me with it.' He mentally spoke.

[With what? I am not a physical entity, all I can do is emotional damage.] System laughed but Zeno could sense its nervousness.

'This life's memories? A four year old should have some memories right?' Zeno pressed on.

[Yeah, now that I think about it. You officially have amnesia.] System chuckled awkwardly before going silent.

Zeno opened his eyes and rubbed his forehead to ease his headache. His system is unreliable as ever.

Zeno decided against calling a nurse since he wanted to rest a bit more and started to sing to clear his head.

"I hear voices in my head.

They counsel me, they understand me.

They talk to me..."

[...]

{...}

_____

After an hour, a nurse entered Zeno's room. She was pleasantly surprised to see him awake but her enthusiasm died after Zeno said he didn't even remember his own name.

The poor nurse had to explain to Zeno about his identity and the condition of his parents.

As Zeno expected his name hadn't changed. As for his last name? Who cares about such things when you have such a unique name?

On the topic of parents Zeno learned that they had a traffic accident and he is the only survivor that got out with minor injuries that healed by the time he woke up.

'Really System? Did we just kill two innocent people for my reincarnation?' While Zeno doesn't give a shit about killing, he would rather not kill innocents.

[Nah, they would have died at a similar time if you didn't exist. The only thing we did was make things more dramatic since they left an orphan child behind them.] System cleared it up.

'Morbid but I can live with it. Also you can do all of that but you fuck up the memories?' Zeno retorted.

[No comment.]

Since Zeno didn't have memories due to his System's fault, the nurse had to look into his relatives and they found out that his grandmother was still alive.

'...' Zeno mentally glared at the now shivering system.

[I figured you wouldn't want to deal with an orphanage again. That place was too restricting.] System defended itself.

Finding it logical Zeno stopped glaring at the poor thing while leaving a threat. 'You better hope it won't be worse than Orphanage.'

Once Zeno was cleared to discharge, the hospital staff informed his grandmother.

She was less than pleased about the whole deal until she heard about how much money was leftover from his parents.

Zeno had no opinion of his new grandmother, she too didn't care about Zeno.

They soon reached her house, it was a pretty normal suburban house with a small backyard and a garage.

"Alright, I will subscribe to a weekly massage session, your room is in the attic. 

Dinner is at seven, if you miss it you'll starve. Now piss off." The grandmother who Zeno didn't even bother learning her name just waved him off.

Zeno didn't care, it was actually better this way since she won't give a damn about him, he could have more freedom unless he brought trouble.

_______

Once Zeno got situated at his grandmother's house he started to wonder which world he was in. 

It was only logical since he ended up in Crysis before without aiming for it.

'I hope it's something I can recognize.' Zeno hoped as he looked over the newspapers.

The current year was 1992 and he was once more in the USA. This meant that his chances of recognizing which world he is in is rather small.

'I miss 2020... Well, more like I miss Netflix and YouTube.'

Zeno being an otaku, he mostly focused on anime and light novels. So he doesn't have much knowledge on entertainment media taking place in this country.

'The world symbol was a microscope. This world cannot be normal but it is definitely science based.' Zeno soon gave up on looking for clues.

He just needs to get the funds for his nanosuit and start building it. He could take some time to rest his mind and go through his past life's memories.

'Unless this is some kind of apocalypse world.' Zeno frowned.

[Maybe it is a zombie world?]

Zeno could handle a Zombie apocalypse as long as the zombies are made of biological weapons or things of that nature but...

'Please don't open your good-for-nothing mouth.' Still, Zeno didn't want to bother with such a world.

[...]

_______

Soon two years had passed and Zeno decided that he needed to get out of this house to have some fresh air.

He had been mostly living in the attic and only coming down for meals, his presence was so thin that his grandmother would forget about him from time to time.

She on the other hand was having fun crushing his parents money for herself. She even got herself a boy toy.

Zeno was disgusted by the poor fellow but a small conversation revealed that his family was poor and he had three sisters to feed.

He apparently didn't have enough to afford for his own education, so he got into this business to make sure his sisters would go to school.

While finding it admirable Zeno got bored of the story quickly and pulled the 'I am a child wtf bro' card before disappearing.

'I might use him to pull another Tony, but his character is unreliable.' Zeno thought.

During the two years Zeno went through some of his previous life's memories while his own memories were left for later. It was just too unfortunate that he cannot skip some parts.

'Why must I watch everything?!' He lamented the lack of a fast forward button.

Since he recently became six Zeno figured he could give the kindergarten another try and sleep there without listening to his horny grandmother.

Today was rainy and he had been walking to the school alone. Zeno wasn't sure his grandmother even knew he started kindergarten.

Zeno was the one that handled the procedures, she just signed the paperwork without reading the it.

On the way he saw a heartwarming scene of an older brother dropping his little sister to school, she seemed around his age.

The girl had short, brown, spiked hair, while her eyes were silver blue. The elder brother too had brown hair and silver blue eyes.

While the scene was heartwarming, the elder brother's appearance seemed familiar to Zeno.

'Well, I can just introduce myself.' Shrugging Zeno made his way towards them.

"Ah, hello sir. I have been suffering from amnesia for the past two years, and you seemed somewhat familiar." Zeno quickly played the amnesia card to gather pity.

"Sorry kid, I don't remember you." The elder brother answered.

"I see, I am Zeno by the way." Zeno's head dropped like he was disappointed before he introduced himself.

"Alex Mercer, and this is my sister Dana. You two will probably be classmates, so get along okay." Alex patted Dana's head before going towards the High School section of the school.

Hearing him Zeno froze, his mind stopped for a second until he realized he was alone at the entrance.

Dana apparently didn't bother waiting for Zeno who was frozen like a statue and went to her class.

'How rude! Also fucking Prototype System! This is our vacation?!'

[Well, it's not surprising considering the proximity to Crysis world, maybe in the next life we'll get to somewhere nice.]