Chapter 2: The Origin Heralds

’Hmm—so soft.’

Damon twisted and turned, and in every direction he did, he felt such comfort; it was like he was sleeping on a cushioning cloud.

He reasoned that this must be heaven. It’s quite fitting, really, for someone who loved to sleep so much to be granted a haven designed like a comforting bed.

But that wasn’t all. As Damon reached towards his head, he felt a pillow, just as impossibly comforting, like he was laying his head on clouds. They felt exactly as he always imagined his pillow and bed would feel if he was rich enough to afford those expensive customized ones he saw on massive billboards.

’So this is death—’

’I have to say—it’s not so bad.’

Damon’s thoughts were peaceful, like they always were. He immediately accepted the fact that he had really died, and he was in his own version of heaven. Life, as he knew it, had always been too stressful, and a continuous struggle against his very nature that sought to simply be.

His mind played what he called pictures of his last memories of his time alive. For someone who slept so much, Damon had a memory that was borderline perfect. He could even recall clearly the time he spent in his mother’s womb if he tried to.

The memory Damon played through his mind as he slept peacefully at the moment was when the private jet crashed straight into his room.

The statistical chances of a plane crashing into one’s home were one in several billion. Infinitesimally unlikely. Yet it had happened to Damon, as if the universe were saying to Damon, ’Look, I can do worse!’

But Damon wasn’t sad he was taken out with such vigor; he rather felt bad for Leo, who had also met his untimely end. Leo had so much more to live for, while Damon was barely living.

His thoughts also went to Mr Lee and his wife, who live on the second floor, as well as his only friend in the building, who lived in the room right next to Damon’s.

He hoped the crash was a contained event and that as many people as possible survived, especially those three. He reasoned Mr Lee and Mrs Lee probably did, since they lived on the second floor, while Damon lived on the fourth. As for his friend—he hoped she survived too.

’Rest in peace, Leo’

MEOW

’.....’

’Leo?’

Damon would recognize his cat’s sound anywhere. And that was certainly Leo, which had him considering that Leo must have tagged along to his own heaven.

But then, Damon began to feel a soft paw tapping repeatedly on the side of his face. It felt exactly like how his cat usually tapped him awake when he needed something. Down to the texture of his paw against his face.

With great effort, Damon slowly pried his dull blue eyes open and was met with Leo’s heavy frame sitting on his chest and looking Damon in the face, his paw still tapping repeatedly on Damon’s cheek to wake him up fully.

"Yes—I am awake, Leo."

Hearing Damon speak, Leo jumped off his chest, and Damon was faced with an unfamiliar ceiling.

He already felt something was strange about his afterlife when he was woken up by Leo. Now, looking at the massive ceiling overhead, he was even more convinced.

His former ceiling was less than half of this, and certainly did not have these fancy recessed lights. Even the paint on this ceiling was cream-coated and detailed in beautiful patterns along its marbled carvings.

"Hmm...Fancy."

Damon complimented the design. It was very much his taste—but this was certainly not his room.

"Where in the world am I?"

Damon muttered as he sat up, taking in the rest of his surroundings. Though his expression remained in its usual blank state, he was in a state of unrest, staring at the room that felt like it was plucked straight out of his rich lazy man’s fantasies.

First was the bed he was sitting in. Calling it a bed wouldn’t do this beauty enough justice.

This cream colored, cloud-like Imperial-size wonder took up more than half the entire room. The material was soft, temperature-regulating, and felt like a cashmere-blend encased in breathable organic cotton.

Damon felt the sheet fabric between his fingers; it felt like how a five-thousand-thread-count material would feel if he ever had the chance to come across one. The duvet was light and weightless, and Damon had to consciously stop himself from falling into them and drifting off into a deep sleep he knew not when he would wake up from.

The four walls of the room were painted a soothing cream. Damon counted three paintings in total hanging on the walls, and one of them stood out to him. It was a painting almost exactly the same as the sleeping Koala painting that hung in Damon’s room. Almost, because this one’s frame was made of rose gold instead.

’What exactly is going on?’

The room had no TV, just an incredibly large ceiling-to-floor cream curtain that took up the entire left side of the room. The curtains looked heavy, expensive. It had patterned stitches that were very much to Damon’s taste.

The entire floor of the room was covered in a thick woolen rug. Daman pushed his feet into them, and it felt like his feet were submerged in fluffy clouds. The rug was just the right temperature for him, just like the bed.

The only other items in the room were a wardrobe and a brown circular table, with perfectly round sides. Damon enjoyed symmetrical things.

The table was right next to the bed; it looked simple, but the wood it was made of seemed anything but ordinary. On it was a black remote, a vase containing a similar but healthier Venus plant—as well as an expensive-looking phone.

It was strange but soothing to Damon, as this room appeared exactly like how he imagined his room would look if he was rich enough to afford to do things as he pleased. The room even had certain similar but altered items to his own, like the painting and the Venus plant.

’Am I really in heaven—’

As this thought formed in Damon’s mind, he suddenly felt delirious, holding the bed frame for balance; a barrage of mental images began to surge into his mind. Memories of a person almost exactly like him, yet having lived a completely different life from his own. Like opposite sides of the same coin.

Only after about ten full minutes had passed did the memories that had ravaged through his mind finally settle. Damon regained his mental balance, the memories of a seperate consciously completely integrating with his own.

"So that’s how it is."

Damon murmured. And after integrating the memories he just inherited, only a single word could aptly describe how he currently felt—weird.

Now Damon began to observe his body, as well as the clothes he was wearing.

His skin was still pale, but it didn’t look malnourished; it looked porcelain, flawless even.

Where, from his perspective, just a moment ago he was wearing a faded-out oversized blue T-shirt, now he had on a purple satin pajama that felt velvety smooth on his skin. Everything around him screamed wealth and affluence. And for good reason.

He stood slowly, the usual weakness in his bones still there, but not because this body was starved, but because this body had barely exercised a muscle since coming into this world.

Damon took measured steps towards the large curtains to the left side of the room. But then he paused along the way. Turning back around, he went to the table situated by the massive bed, picked up the remote that had just two buttons on it, and then walked back towards the curtains.

Standing in front of the curtains, Damon pressed lightly on one of the buttons on the remote, and slowly, smoothly, the massive, heavy curtains began to part from the center, revealing a floor-to-ceiling see-through tempered glass and a breathtaking view beyond.

"That’s—an impressive view."

Damon uttered, awed by the view. It was a view his memories told him he’d seen an uncountable number of times, but those were memories of a different Damon Einsten.

Damon was currently in the master bedroom of a Skyrise Penthouse suite. Sunlight flooded in, completely overshadowing the warm lighting of the room.

Below him, a familiar but unfamiliar city brimmed with life. Active streets between office buildings and affluent apartments, fancy cars and simple taxis jam-packed on an active road, hundreds of people rushing from place to place, to get on buses, heading to enter buildings, or waiting to cross the road. There was order in the disorderlyness of it all.

Everything looked so tiny below since he was so high up. Damon watched for a few moments; he could only imagine how loud it would be down there, but he was too far up for the city noise to reach him. The entire penthouse was also soundproof.

"There you are, Leo"

Damon said to Leo, who was sitting in front of the tempered glass, looking down on the city like a king from his throne.

Then, realizing something wasn’t adding up, Damon looked at Leo, his thoughts trying to reconcile the inconsistency as he added.

"How are you also here, Leo ?"

There was no doubt about it. This was his cat. This was Leo.

And Leo was right here—

Right here with him, in an alternate version of reality, where Damon had come to possess the body of another version of himself.

Damon walked back to the bed as his mind played images of the memories he had inherited.

Damon Einstein of this reality, or maybe just a parallel world; Damon still wasn’t sure.

Where poor Damon was born to a bootblack father and a seamstress mother, this Damon Einstein was born with a diamond spoon in his mouth.

The Einsteins of this reality were a new-age husband-and-wife billionaire couple who made their fortune building companies around cutting-edge tech. The value of their company, as well as all their other assets, was already astronomical before their child, Damon Einstein, even came into the picture.

This Damon lived an extremely privileged life, one where his every whim was satisfied. Exactly the kind of life the poor Damon wished he had.

Where the poor Damon was called lazy, and his parents decided he had a severe sleeping problem, this Damon’s parents were never even around to notice the peculiarities of their son.

Maybe they did to some degree when Damon was much younger, around the time when a nursing mother couldn’t be separated from their child, but soon the only parental figure for Damon was his personal nanny, as well as his butler, who basically took over all facets of Damon’s care very early on his life.

Poor Damon felt this was comically ironic—

He had parents who were around but couldn’t afford to take care of a child like him, whereas rich Damon had parents who were never around, but he lacked for absolutely nothing.

Poor Damon understood that rich Damon was the lucky one. This version of himself literally never had to lift a finger to do anything, and would only occasionally make an appearance at a very short family dinner between himself and his very busy parents, once a month. And on months when he was feeling very sleepy, he didn’t even bother to show up.

"What a lucky guy."

That’s the thing about being lucky enough to be born into immense wealth. You never really notice how well you have it. Where poor Damon constantly dreamed of a life like this, for rich Damon, it was just his normal reality.

"Well—not anymore, I guess."

Damon muttered as he pieced together how he had come to possess Rich Damon’s body.

The last thing poor Damon experienced was a private jet ending his life, and as he sifted through Rich Damon’s final memories, all he saw was the young man sleeping for longer than he used to, out of lingering sadness because of his parents’ sudden passing.

Yes, Rich Damon’s parents had died just a month ago—

And the bizarre part was the method by which they died.

Their private jet had lost control during takeoff and crashed into a building, exploding on impact.

Other than attending his parents’ funeral and avoiding an annoying cousin who had so rudely intruded into his life for the sake of cheering him up after his parents’ passing, rich Damon spent his time as usual, locked up inside his carefully curated room that was specifically designed for the purpose of sleep.

And once in a while, when he needed more space from the world around him, he would hop on his very own private jet to one of their many vacation homes. But he loved his home at this penthouse the most.

This was how Damon spent his grieving process, sleeping for longer and longer stretches of time.

And there was one more thing as well—

Because Damon directly inherited all the combined assets, companies, stocks, and properties that belonged to both his parents—

He instantly became the wealthiest person on the planet. A discovery that took the world for a spin.

There was no contest to his parents’ will since it was set to be ironclad, as if they knew something would happen to them. His loyal attendants handling most facets of the process and Damon putting in the immense labor of a few signatures.

Damon Einstein, son of Rose and Robert Einstein, whom the public didn’t even know what he looked like until the day of his parents’ funeral, became a worldwide sensation overnight.

Because of his striking appearance, as well as the fact that he’s rarely ever seen, they soon gave him a nickname online—

The White Prince.

Rich Damon greatly disliked this attention, especially the attention of those allowed access to him.

It’s been exactly a month since then, and Rich Damon was back in his penthouse after spending some time sleeping in one of his favorite vacation homes.

The scene that greeted him in his penthouse when he had returned this day was quite disturbing, courtesy of his cousin. But luckily, his personal room was untouched.

Rich Damon had changed and climbed into his bed for a nap—And that was it.

This memory was only a few hours ago, and in his sleep, poor Damon—this Damon had now awoken in his body.

This world was like his own, but a lot of the flow of events had been twisted, following a different trajectory, similar to the stories from novels Damon’s friend in his former home used to so excitedly regale him about.

Poor Damon never imagined something like this would happen to him. He always felt separate from the reality around him; now he had been thrust into a different reality entirely.

And he had to admit—

He loved this reality.

For some reason, he had the feeling that the other version of himself, the rich Damon, was alright.

So he wasn’t feeling remorseful that he had usurped someone else’s life; he simply felt happy that he could finally live the life he’d always dreamt about—

A life of abundance and peace.

One where he could be as lazy as he wanted, never having to lift a muscle for anything—

After all—

He is now the richest person on the planet.

Damon’s lips curved into a nearly imperceptible smile; his dreams had finally come through.

Even though the presence of Leo, who was currently relaxing into those high-quality curtains, was still confusing and didn’t fit into the stories he’d heard about from his friend regarding such miraculous fantasies—

He couldn’t be happier that Leo would be getting to experience this new life with him, and he could tell that Leo was happy too.

Damon was about to head into bed to enjoy a happy nap—When suddenly, a really loud trumpet sound erupted all around him—

It didn’t feel like the sound was from an external source; it rather felt like it was blown directly into his very soul.

Before Damon could get his bearings, his vision was suddenly enshrouded by a dazzling purple light, causing him to squint in great discomfort and disorientation.

This dazzling light began to take the shape of unrecognizable characters—

Then a voice followed—

This voice didn’t sound human. It also didn’t feel like what was being said was in any language Damon had ever heard of—

But for some strange reason, just like the characters floating before him, he understood what was being said.

The color slowly drained from Damon’s already pale face as he took in what this ethereal voice was saying—

Purple characters fading and rearranging into new words before him—

[REJOICE, FOR THIS IS THE END OF YOUR WORLD"]

["PREPARE THYSELVES, O PITIFUL MORTALS—"]

[" THE ORIGIN HERALDS THE START TO YOUR TRIALS"]

Damon had to clean his eyes with the soft sheets on the bed as he reread the messages—

"..."

"Surely, these guys can’t be serious.....right ?"