"Is this really it for me?"
The last words of a man, as he fell off an impossibly tall tree and was about to hit the water beneath him.
While he was falling, his entire life flashed before his eyes.
From his days on Earth as a member of DEVGRU, to throwing everything away and risking his life by entering a wormhole, to luckily surviving the ordeal and then reaching the top of his new magical world, to then leaving everything behind once again to sail to unknown lands...
Everything happened in a split second, before he finally hit the water, putting an end to his life's journey.
...
Or so he thought.
Much to his surprise, he got another opportunity to open his eyes.
Once he did, he found out that in fact, not only was he not dead, his body was still intact!
His right arm that he heavily injured while falling down, an injury so deep that he could feel the wind blow directly into the bone of his arm, was now perfectly fine.
The broken legs he thought he would have as a result of falling from such a high point, were also in perfect condition.
It was as if nothing had even happened.
When he stopped paying attention to his body and took a look around however, he did discover something strange.
He wasn't alone.
'What the hell is going on?' A deep frown etched itself onto his face. He found it hard to make sense of the whole situation.
All of a sudden, he was with five other people who were in military gear, which seemed very familiar to him, carrying guns and equipment which were also extremely familiar-looking.
Everything seemed normal to him, but once he tried to think about what he was actually looking at, he found that he couldn't recognize a single thing.
He then tried to take a look at the faces of the people he was with, but he found that he couldn't.
It seemed like his head was a bit shaken up, because whenever he tried to take a glance at their faces, everything immediately became blurry.
One of the men seemed to notice that something was wrong with him and called out, "Bravo 6, what's wrong with you? You okay?"
What he heard sent a jolt throughout his body.
'Bravo Six?' In the short amount of time since he opened his eyes, he already had a vague suspicion about the nature of this place, but after hearing what they referred to him as, he was no longer just suspicious, but sure.
His poker face disappeared in an instant, morphing into a cold, even slightly aggressive expression.
Sure as he was, he still needed to be absolutely sure, so he quickly took a look at his surroundings, looking for anything that could confirm his suspicions about what was happening.
It only took a second.
Even in his current condition, with his head shaken up and a vague feeling that he had forgotten something, it still only took him a second to recognize the nature of this location, and to then look at what he was wearing.
That's all it took for him to get rid of any doubts he might have still had.
He was wearing the same uniform the rest of them were wearing, in a place he had never gone to in his capacity as a civilian, with other people who despite not being able to see, he could vaguely recognize.
Everything made sense. He should have guessed this was the case as soon as he opened his eyes.
How was it possible for him not to be dead? Hell, even if he could survive, how was he not the slightest bit injured?
This wasn't real, that's how.
What he saw in front of him had all the hallmarks of a covert operation, and these "faceless" people were all members of his first team in DEVGRU.
He might not be able to see their faces, he might not even be able to recognize the specific mission, but this much he was sure of.
Unlike what one might think however, he was far from pleased to be reunited with them.
"The past should stay in the past…"
He tried to calm himself down by talking to himself, but he was finding it harder and harder to suppress himself the longer he went on.
"I've never regretted what I did. Not even for a second. In fact, if I could go back in time, the only thing I would change is that I would do it myself, in person and face to face.
"Getting blown up because of your pathetic naivety. Because of your sense of heroism… Because you prioritized the safety of some god damned foreign civilians, over your own brothers!
"You were a bigger threat to me than any mission target could ever possibly be. Looking back on it now, I should've killed you all a lot sooner than I did."
His face warped as anger overtook him at the thought of this experience.
The man lifted his HK416 assault rifle under the shocked eyes of his "teammates" and he mowed them all down, like the filthy trash that he saw them as.
Unlike last time however, this time he was doing it in person. Even if it was all just in his head.
Just as he thought, the hallucination ended and he successfully regained consciousness, finding himself to be deep underwater.
Opening his eyes, he quickly snapped out of it and got rid of any distracting thoughts. Instead, he remained calm and assessed his situation.
His right arm hurt like hell, but otherwise he found it to be surprisingly okay, relatively speaking of course.
Turning his attention to the other parts of his body, he felt that his legs were numb and his spine felt a bit sore. Compared with what he thought was certain death however, he was over the moon with his current situation.
There was a little paranoia at the thought of whether or not he was in yet another illusion, but he quickly dismissed it, since the pain felt far too real for that to be the case.
On the other hand however, he discovered that a large portion of his memory was gone. In fact, precisely the last 30 years of his life, he couldn't remember.
He was instinctively aware of their existence, but he couldn't recall anything from that timeframe. His last memory was from when he was 32 years old.
Even then it was fuzzy, as he vaguely recalled something about a wormhole, taking a risk... and then nothing.
'Sigh.' Shaking his head, he got rid of these distracting thoughts.
'I'll have to make sense of this later. Now is not the time.'
After taking a moment to analyze his body and clear his head, he quickly made his way to the surface.
Luckily for him it looked like he was only out for a couple of seconds, otherwise he wasn't sure if he would have had enough time to reach the surface considering how deep underwater he found himself to be.
He popped his head out of the water immediately after reaching the surface, using his uninjured left hand to clear his eyes and inhale a deep breath of the almost sweet smelling oxygen.
While he was falling to what he thought would be his death, his eyes noticed a couple of animals drinking from the water and although it was just a quick glance, he was pretty sure that they were not a threat.
While he was not out of the woods yet, he took a second to just breathe, calm himself down and analyze the situation.
The first thing he took note of was his odd physical condition. Now that he was still alive and had more time to think, things just weren't adding up.
As a veteran Tier 1 operator, his body was very durable, but he knew his body inside and out. His arms should have nearly snapped off at the very first contact with a branch at the speed at which he was falling.
Instead, not only were they fine, he even managed to break through two more branches in the process with no significant damage aside from a deep flesh wound.
Despite how horrific the injury looked, he found it miraculous that a flesh wound was the only thing he sustained.
Aside from that, at the speed at which he hit the water, he figured his spine should've been damaged and his legs should definitely be out of commission at the very least, if not even in worse condition.
Instead, his legs were only temporarily numb, and his spine was completely fine.
Except for the injury his right arm had sustained, you wouldn't be able to tell that he had just fallen from over 150 meters just a few moments ago.
To top everything off however, he also felt a sense of unfamiliarity from his body.
Something had definitely happened, because if he fell like that back on Earth, he would be paralyzed, and that was the best case scenario he could think of.
'Why do I know that I'm missing exactly 30 years? And what the hell happened in these 30 years to make me able to survive such a fall?'
The longer he thought, the more questions he found forming inside his head.
'If I really am missing the last 30 years of my life, then that would make me 62 years old right now. How is it then, that I feel way better than I did in what should have been my prime years?'
After a long pause, the man exhaled heavily. Recognizing that this was a pointless exercise, he slowly put aside these questions that kept popping up in his head that he had no answers for.
He made some small but deliberate movements with his left arm, trying to figure out just what was different with his body.
It was an odd sensation. He didn't feel like his muscles had changed in any way, yet he felt way faster, stronger and had an impossible amount of energy.
This was definitely something to further explore, however now was not the time for that.
The most urgent thing he had to take care of now was his right arm.
He was losing too much blood, or at least what would usually be too much blood, as he hadn't figured out the extent to the changes in his body.
His mind was telling him that this was an urgent situation, but his body only told him that it hurt a little. He didn't feel like he was losing any strength whatsoever, so then, the question was, was it really as urgent as it would seem?
Yet another question that he didn't have an answer for.
What he did know, was that regardless of if it was urgent or not, he needed to get out of the water and take care of it immediately, as he wasn't one to take any chances when it came to his life.
The other thing he took note of was his head, as It had definitely seen better days.
He was shaken up a bit, found it hard to find his balance and was dealing with a splitting headache all at the same time.
A place to rest his head is what he needed at the moment, but he doubted he would find that anywhere nearby.
He had no memories that could explain to him why he was on that tree, or how he ended up there, or why he fell, but what he did remember, was seeing some smoke far off in the distance.
Right now, that smoke seemed like his best hope.
'The smoke is the only landmark I saw, but it's a few days away since I'm going to be travelling on foot. I'll need to find a way to survive first.'
With a goal in mind, the man made his way out of the water.
The nearby animals retreated a bit as soon as he got close to them, warily looking at this weird human that fell from the sky.
While they were looking at him however, he was also looking at them.
It was strange and relieving at the same time that while he at this point assumed that he entered the wormhole and ended up on a completely different planet, he still managed to see familiar looking animals in his new environment.
Looking at the deer gave him some relief, however upon taking a closer look, he was also very surprised at what he saw.
One of the deer was bigger than the others, bigger than what he thought possible for a deer.
Its eyes were also different. There was more to them than he had ever seen in a deer, or in any other animal for that matter.
They looked more alive, almost… human.