The Mistaken Reincarnation Of Leon AnKhel

Waking Up To Death

I don't think I really understood what just happened to me. It didn't make any sense, and a feeling of panic was beginning to build up within me like never before. How did I get here? I was just about to go into my bathroom and take a nice long bath, after almost six hard hours of work, when suddenly I found myself lying on the ground, smelling like death, with a significant amount of bones around me, human bones.

Was I in hell? Is this what death feels like, I wasn't sure, because to be honest I didn't feel dead. I just felt weak, depleted, drained, and like there was something at the back of my mind, pounding and begging for release. It gave me a headache that at the moment I could really do without, but for every other thing, it was completely out of my hand.

I was afraid, very afraid. So much so that I spent an hour lying down right where I was, and hoping that everything I was currently experiencing was just a dream. And I would have remained there, if not for the rumbling of my stomach and the hunger pains that came with it. This wasn't Lagos anymore, heck I doubt if I was anywhere in Nigeria, or west Africa, or the bloody continent as a whole. Was this some sort of experiment by the Americans, or the Chinese, I really hope it's not something like that.

*grrrrrr*

I was no stranger to hunger, but with a mind as unsettled as mine, I have to get things in gear or suffer the consequences. I couldn't very well lay down here forever now could I. I picked myself up, and almost immediately, I fell to the ground. It was then I noticed, that the clothes on my body just turned to dust, and the body beneath was not the one I recognized, this was definitely not my body.

My skin was still dark, and I was still as tall as I remembered, which was the only thing in my life that I actually took pride in; that and of course my well endowed little brother. Though based on what he looks like now, I would say he has seen better days, much more better days.

I crawled my way past the pile of bones and the insects that have made said bones their home. I really couldn't see much, because it was as if I was buried under a mountain of corpses, and something had just dug into said mountain a little, creating a path for me to come out. But every move I made was stressful, and that's when the words showed up.

{Mission: Escape the pyramid of bones you're buried under.}

{Reward: System activation, +1 to all stats.} {Time limit: 20 minutes}

{Penalty for failure: Death}.

There's a running joke about black men and their fears of death, especially Africans. You might think that you can't make it, and that it would be too much of a stretch for you to do something, but watch happens when your life is placed on the line. Even superman won't be able to match your tenacity, and at this moment, even half dead, superman really couldn't match my tenacity.

Whether the words that appeared out of thin air were true or not, I didn't care. In fact to be honest it was not the fear of death that forced me to start scrambling over bones and crushing brittle skulls with an open intense fervor. It was the fact that a screen actually appeared in front of me, and had words written on it. I'm a healthy African male, or I was, and the one thing I can say all Africans have in common, especially Nigerians, is our fear of witchcraft. And without a doubt, words floating in the air and telling me I will die, is black magic, the very worst of them.

But my enemies and the wicked will not take my life today. I'm covered with the blood of Jesus and protected by the holy angels of God. Which speaking off, now would be a good time for them to appear and save my f*****g life, now that the devil is at work once again.

I didn't get the answer I was looking for, neither was there an angel with a blazing sword, slicing apart the timer that was hanging at the edge of my vision. I was running out of time, and every step I made, using every inch of my entire body to crawl out of this burial mound, hurt. My naked body was slick with sweat, but with the constant contact with bone dust and ashes, my entire body was now covered with a grey mud, and believe me, it doesn't smell or feel nice, not one bit.

And so I crawled and climbed, and pulled and pushed, until I got to the top of the almost twenty meter tall pyramid of bones. But I only had ten seconds left, and I was still not completely free of this pile of death. At that moment, a black crow cawed and flew past my head, causing my body to lose balance, and dip over the side of the bone pile. I couldn't stop myself as I rolled down like a helpless log, shifting a few bones and cracking a few ribs in the process. My body rolled until it came to a stop at the foot of a pillar with a banner hung over it. Even with my frail body, I hit that pillar hard enough that the banner came loose and covered my body.

But as if that wasn't enough, said banner was held together by a metal rod that happily found it's way to my head with loud bang. And just before I closed my eyes, succumbing to a sudden concussion, exhaustion and multiple fractures. I saw the screen in front of me change its display.

{Mission completed.} {All stats +1/ activating Game World System XXRT08065292019/ Bonus Rewards given: Unlocking Memories of Current body and Syncing soul residue.}

I didn't understand a single thing there, but I darkness was coming for me just fine. It was actually at that point I realized, that I didn't actually know my name…..weird right?