World 7

Everything's Normal

"Every day, every week, every month, every year, it's all the same.
Nothing ever changes.
It's like I'm stuck in a loop.
I'm tired of it, I'm tired of it all."

It's 2016, Dan is a 24 year old man living in Irvine, California.
He's nothing too special. Just an average salesman slowly making it by in life.

He has his main focus on being retired by 55 years of age.
He's hardworking and ambitious but is mostly lacking experience at the moment due to his young age.

*Beep*, *beep*, *beep*, "Ugh," Dan groaned as his alarm clock buzzed away.
It was 6:00 A.M, as Dan always woke up at that time during week days.

It was currently Wednesday and the week had so far felt like molasses slowly slugging down a sticky honeycomb.
Dan swiftly brushed his teeth, showered, got dressed, and started driving to his work by 6:45 A.M.

Dan played some tunes on the radio as he slowly trudged through the traffic of cars.
It was now 7:13 A.M, Dan was 13 minutes late for his work and the traffic would not cease.

At 7:22 A.M, the traffic finally cleared and Dan swiftly got back on track.
He sped up a bit due to the fact that he was already late.
His heart rate steadily increased as his foot got heavier on the pedal.
His eyes were locked on the road as his hands began to tremble from adrenaline.
As he sped up more he could no longer hear the music from his radio, only the pure roar from his engine and the tires across the road.

As his consciousness seemed to slip away he aimlessly began to swerve out of control. *Crash* Dan went straight into an oncoming vehicle.
Glass shattered everywhere as his car spun around.

By what seemed to be the works of a miracle Dan did not die.
The impact swiftly knocked him back into reality as he quickly assessed the situation he was now in.
He was bleeding quite a lot due to the glass shards.
His door was a little stuck but after prying for a little bit he managed to barge it open quickly making his way to the car he just had the collision with.

Running up to the window and peering through Dan saw an unconscious man in the driver's seat with a woman in the passenger's.
Now this ordeal had caused a pretty big ruckus and traffic was starting to form on both sides of the accident. Both cars were smoking and Dan wasn't sure if either were going to blow or not.

"Hey!" Dan yelled as he began slamming on the windows of the other vehicle.
Then he reached down and began yanking on the cars door handle.
With all of his strength he tugged and tugged but the door would not budge.

He quickly ran to the passenger's side and tried to open that door.
Luckily for him that door was only slightly damaged from the crash and came open without too much effort.

After getting the door open, Dan carried and dragged the woman's body off the road and a safe distance from the vehicles.
He then went back to the man and saw the car was now quick on fire!

In a panic Dan reached into the car and grabbed the man's arm.
He quickly used up the rest of his strength and managed to carry the man over to the woman.

Only about half a minute later the man and woman's car blew up.
Dan was now standing on the side of the road staring at the two unconscious bodies pondering his mistake.
He then passed out due to blood loss.

||1 Day Later||

*Ring*, *ring*, *ring*, church bells ringed as a large crowd walked into the building.
Hoards of people rushed in and sat down on the pews.
A woman walked up to a podium in front of all the pews and began to speak, "Margaret and Jeff will be missed.
They were the perfect owners of this company and I cannot imagine the idea of taking their places and running this company on my own.
They were almost like parents to me hiring me when I was still a teenager.
For those of you who are unaware Jeff and Margaret were killed in a terrible car accident due to a young man's reckless driving.
Because of incidents like this I will be donating $40 million dollars to Humans Against Reckless Driving Association."
The woman finished, not a single eye in the building was wet.

Then the woman proudly took out a large check and handed it to an employee from H.A.R.D.A.

Meanwhile, "Ugh, where am I?" Dan awoke in a dark, cold, stone, square room.