Let's get one thing straight. I didn't plan on being a hero.
Heroism is for people with better dental plans and fewer outstanding student loans. My plan for the day, a gloriously average Tuesday, was to finish my coding sprint, go home, order a pizza large enough to qualify as a small country, and continue my noble quest to find the absolute bottom of a streaming service's library.
It was a good plan. A solid plan. A plan that didn't involve becoming a human pancake on the unforgiving asphalt of Seattle.
But life, as they say, is what happens when you're busy making other, less messy plans.
It happened at a crosswalk.
The light was red, the little walking man was white, and a bus driver was apparently having a very, very bad day.
Or a stroke. I'm not a medical professional, but the way the bus mounted the curb and started bearing down on a group of tourists who were too busy taking pictures of a Starbucks to notice their impending doom suggested a significant workplace incident was in progress.
There was no time to think.
That's the funny thing they never tell you about heroism. It's not a choice. It's a glitch in your self-preservation software.
One moment, I was Kaito Yamada, 28-year-old software engineer and professional wallflower. The next, I was a blur of motion, shoving a family of four from Ohio; I'm guessing, based on their matching "I'd rather be in Cleveland" T-shirts, out of the bus's path.
I remember a woman screaming, a man shouting my name (or something like it), and the wide, terrified eyes of a little girl clutching a stuffed moose.
I even managed a half-decent shove on a guy who looked like he'd just stepped out of a tech-bro starter pack, complete with an Allbirds-and-patagonia uniform. Five people. I saved five people. It was, without a doubt, the most significant and athletic thing I had ever done in my entire life.
It was also the last.
The impact wasn't a bang.
It was a full-body, bone-pulverizing thump. A wet, final sound.
The world became a kaleidoscope of pain, twisted metal, and the smell of hot garbage from a nearby bin.
My last coherent thought, as my consciousness fizzled out like a cheap lightbulb in a horror movie basement, wasn't about my family, my unfulfilled dreams, or the grand, cosmic meaning of existence.
No. My last thought, crystal clear and filled with a profound, cosmic sense of regret, was:
"At least I died a hero… and a virgin. Dammit."
Then, nothing. The sweet, empty void. The great, silent unsubscribe. It was peaceful, in a way. No more deadlines, no more awkward small talk, no more wondering if I should have swiped right on that girl with the pet ferret. Just… quiet.
Until it wasn't.
The first sensation was a headache.
A skull-splitting, tequila-fueled-amnesia kind of headache. The second was the feeling of cheap, scratchy sheets against my skin. I groaned, my body feeling both impossibly heavy and strangely light. My eyes fluttered open, expecting the sterile white of a hospital room or the fiery pits of whatever hell is reserved for guys who never figured out how to talk to women.
I got neither.
I was in my childhood bedroom.
My old childhood bedroom, back in my parents' house.
The same faded band posters on the wall: bands I hadn't listened to in a decade. The same cracked ceiling with the water stain that looked vaguely like a disappointed Abraham Lincoln. The same lumpy mattress that had been my mortal enemy throughout my teenage years.
My brain did a hard reboot.
This wasn't right. I sat up, the scratchy blanket pooling around my waist. I looked down at my hands.
They were… mine, but not.
Smoother. Less calloused. The hands of a teenager who spent more time with a game controller than a keyboard. I threw the blanket off and scrambled out of bed, my legs feeling gangly and unfamiliar. I stood in front of the full-length mirror on the closet door and stared.
The face looking back at me was Kaito Yamada, but it was a beta version.
The 18-year-old model. Awkward, a little too skinny, with a face that hadn't quite decided what it wanted to be yet. The faint dusting of acne on my forehead was a particularly cruel touch. I had spent years and a small fortune on skincare products to banish that particular demon.
"What the hell?" I whispered, my voice cracking on the last word. Puberty, the sequel. Just what every man dreams of.
I stumbled to the window, my mind a whirlwind of impossible theories.
Coma-induced dream?
Elaborate prank by a billionaire with a twisted sense of humor?
Had I been reincarnated… as myself?
I pushed aside the curtains and looked out at the familiar street. Same houses, same trees, same meticulously manicured lawns. Everything was exactly as I remembered it from ten years ago.
Except for the people.
A woman was jogging past. And when I say jogging, I mean she was wearing what looked like a high-tech sports bra, a pair of running shoes, and absolutely nothing else.
Her toned, tanned body was on full display, glistening with a light sheen of sweat. She ran with a confident, easy stride, completely unbothered by her near-nudity.
My 28-year-old brain, conditioned by a lifetime of Earth-normal social cues, short-circuited. My 18-year-old body, however, responded with a traitorous surge of blood to a region that had been tragically underutilized in my previous life.
Then a man walked by, walking his dog.
He was bundled up like he was trekking through the arctic.
A high-collared jacket, loose-fitting trousers, and a scarf wrapped around his neck, despite the pleasant morning sun. He saw the jogging woman, gave a slight, respectful nod, and then deliberately averted his eyes, a faint blush coloring his cheeks.
My brain wasn't just short-circuiting anymore. It was melting.
I watched, mesmerized, for the next ten minutes.
It was a parade of the bizarre.
A mail carrier; a woman, wore a practical harness for her mailbag over a tiny, strapless top and a pair of shorts that were more of a suggestion than a piece of clothing.
A group of businessmen: all men, walked by in impeccably tailored, multi-layered suits that covered them from neck to ankle, looking like they were about to attend a funeral in a snowstorm.
This wasn't a dream.
This was a nightmare.
A deeply confusing, strangely tantalizing nightmare. It was like I had woken up in a parallel dimension where the concepts of modesty and shame had been put in a blender and served to the wrong genders.
The final nail in the coffin of my sanity was a TV commercial playing on a screen in a neighbor's window.
It was for a car.
A sleek, beautiful woman in what looked like body paint lounged on the hood, her voice a sultry purr as she described the engine's horsepower.
The man in the commercial, the one driving the car, was shown only from the neck up. He had soulful eyes and looked like he was on the verge of writing a heartfelt poem about his feelings.
I stumbled back from the window, my heart pounding.
I was in some kind of bizarro-world. An Earth where everything was the same, but everything was different. An Earth where I, a man who once broke out in a cold sweat asking a girl for a pencil, was now the weird one for thinking a woman jogging in her underwear was strange.