Step 2

-နိုးထ

°•○● - Step 2 /T

"... and as I said! He took off like a bird-like he had wings spread behind him and threw a basket. Even the move he made was so iconic that it had a special name and logo. There was still no one in a basketball game that jumped up and walks in the air as much as him."

Two young children and a young man in his twenties were talking excitedly. Two adolescents from the town, 14 years old and 13 years old, were listening excitedly to what this new arrival told.

"So why are the rules of the game different in your world? We don't see it as a foul without breaking a bone. It looks so soft to give a foul just because you pushed or poked someone. Your style of play sounded so boring. But the guy you said was cool, I would like to see him."

When Eren heard these words, he remembered the time he saw young people playing basketball a few days ago. It was a very monstrous scene where everyone was kicking each other elbows and kicks. Coordination and rhythm were just wished dreams and the game was full of speed and agility. It was some the combination of fighting, running, and a weird death game.

"Probably in my world, human life is a little more valuable, so harming seems morally bad. Also, people in my world aren't genetically advanced like you guys. For example, you can beat 3-4 adult men from where I came from. And without any difficulty."

[These kids are just 13 and 14. If they were adults they could beat 5-6 men in my world]

Eren lit his cigarette and shared it with the children. Smoking was a very natural and harmless thing when nobody had cancer or something since they genetically have many times better organs and bones in their bodies.

Even underage children who were only 14 or 15 could drink and smoke.

While Eren was talking to the children about the sports-related history of his world, they stopped talking when the night shift hour approached. After Eren came to this spot, he opened the small waist bag he carries everywhere, put the cigarette pack in it, and started walking to his job.

When the town was already covered with muffled and ragged clouds, it was now beginning to be covered with pitch-black clouds and an almost moonless night. No stars were visible except for the blurry moon in the sky.

The thing Eren felt most strange is that this Moon he sees in the sky wasn't the same Moon he was used to seeing on Earth. This moon looked different, felt different, and looked alien.

..

When he arrived, Eren encountered something very surprising this time. There was a young girl instead of old Nihan, with whom he had been doing business for the past three months. This girl was sitting in Eren's favorite spot on the playground and was looking away.

Eren walked, trying to look cool while shouting, "Yes, at last... " He kept the cigarette in his mouth as he climbed the stairs. He wished it looked cool. He didn't want to look like a child as he climbed the kid stairs that allowed you to climb alongside the wooden stairs.

For the first time in a long time, he felt like the shy Eren in his old world, and he liked it.

"Hello."

She looked like a girl in her early twenties. She had jet black hair and eye lines that made him look Asian. She looked cool and beautiful with her fine black makeup. "Hey."

Eren thought that because he was smiling, the girl would also smile and give a warm greeting. But because the girl said "hey" once without even looking at him, he sat where Nihan always leaned. While he was sitting, he also caught sight of the beer bottle mountain in the back.

[This girl must be antisocial or something like that]

"Did Nihan decide to work during the daytimes? Normally he was also responsible for my language education. How did he manage to change his shift?"

Eren also experienced his second surprise that day

"Nihan is dead."

Ha?

Eren couldn't comprehend the words at first. Then when he realized that the girl was serious, he got angry. He got up from his place and approached the girl.

"How?"

He thought for a few seconds what to say, then hurriedly lined up what came to his mind.

"Why didn't they call me. Nobody said. What about his funeral? Or is there anyone who helped the people in his house? I mean his family members..."

When Eren asked whatever came to his mind in panic, he saw for the first time that the girl turned her head and looked at him with a strange expression.

"He was taken to the team trying to drive away from the mutants outside. He was cremated at the scene. He had no family. What would you like to do? Funeral .. "

Eren's expression didn't change when the girl said jokingly.

"Yes. It would be nice to see him for the last time before a little ceremony with my friend. And cremating..aah nevermind."

[I hate cremating. I would make an excellent grave for Nihan if I had the chance!]

Eren had already lost his romantic thoughts with the girl. He felt something in his heart that he hadn't felt before.

[So, losing someone feels like this]

For the next hour, Eren wondered why he didn't feel the same for his family and friends he left behind on Earth. He finally decided that it was the point about they were still living behind.

Ever since Eren came here, he heard everyone talking about death as if it didn't matter. In fact, death seemed to be an everyday occurrence here. But he had lost someone for the first time. An elderly grandfather whom he befriended and kind of respected. He was kind of a drunkard and funny friend that he put in place of his grandfather.

Eren took the cheap herbal tea from his bag to induce sleep instead of the usual coffee. The bottle was supposed to be coldproof. Yet, tea was already cold after making it an hour ago.

[Cheap things isn't working even in a futuristic world ha]

While drinking his slightly warm tea, the cigarettes in his mouth were always renewed. When one was finished, the other burned.

At one point he felt the girl turned to him, but he was too sad to deal with someone. Hours passed and Eren felt colder and worse. Tris arrived sometime in the morning and brought cigarettes and alcohol with her. Eren watched numbly as the cold girl next to her suddenly became serious. She stood with a jump and saluted to Tris.

Eren knew that Tris was an important person in this town, but that reaction was a little exaggerated.

"So you heard Nihan. I wanted to say it myself. I know you aren't immune to this hellish life as we are yet. But dear, you have to endure. Time is the only medicine for such losses."

Eren knew that he didn't lose his only love or a precious family member, and maybe these dramatic reactions were absurd. But leaning shoulder to shoulder with Tris, he was thinking about some really dramatic nonsense as he drank Ronk, a mix of whiskey and coffee local to this town.

Tris was there until the morning lights. Eren could have even established a greater affinity with Tris amid his sadness, had it not been for the Asian girl who was sitting upright near them and took her watch duty extremely seriously.

"See you and remember, sadness won't do anything well. Think of happy memories and focus on the future."

Just before Eren left the park, he was startled by the voice of her sexy guard friend.

"My name is Sophia. I didn't know you were close with the town's guardians. Sorry for my previous disrespect."

Eren nodded and thought of the word "guardian". Tris always said that she was in the communication station at night and it looked like a small radio room. Whenever Eren called, Tris was at the end of the line somehow. Questioning whether Tris was special like the flying woman she had seen before, he started walking towards her house. He didn't feel like answering the girl.

..

On the way, he watched people open shops and go to workplaces. Watching several electric vehicle riders swiftly disappear, he decided to buy one himself.

[Electric skates are probably cheap. I have to check how much they are.]

Eren bought several new cigarette packs and replenished his stock of matches. When he got out of the grocery store, he went back to the town center and walked to the corner of the park to a place he always saw at night shifts.

"John's Technology Store"

There were no advertisements or posters on the windows or anywhere in the huge shop. Eren once again realized that things were different in this world. In the old world, such places would be full of people. Or there should be advertising posters and writings all around right?. But there was only one man here except himself. He was also apparently showing the Comm 7 watch on his wrist for repair.

The queue was too short to be considered as a line. So, Eren looked at the few products inside while waiting for his turn. He wondered if he had the money to switch to a better model for Comm. And he compared the money he had saved for a long time in his account with the prices of the products.

[I must have a special talent to be broke on every planet I live in. One gets rich accidentally or something, right? It isn't even funny anymore...]

When Eren returned to his home, he was far from buying skates, and he understood that he didn't have the money to buy even a simple conscious cleaning robot. It was best not to touch his already saved money to buy low-grade slaves too. They would be clones or with a lot of sickness and various bad sides. Good or at least normal slaves were even more expensive than technological stuff. Eren left his dreams for the future.

[Will I ever have enough money to own these? I wonder..]

He was following the advice Nihan gave him when he first came to town months ago.

"Don't spend your money. Save up to the last penny and have your genetic upgrades done as soon as possible. No matter how safe it may seem, you never know when new features of the genetic upgrade will work. One day, a random swarm of zombies or millions of mutant creatures may come and destroy this place. Just save your money then start to think of other things, okay?"

Eren has been doing this job for the last three months. It was through Tris that they recruited a rookie and especially a stranger of the town to this job. He had saved almost everything that he had earned from his guarding job.

A month later he will have enough money to have a basic genetic vaccine. He would get a body close to the bodies of ordinary people of this world finally. Eren wondered if his look would change to a more handsome way.

He smiled as he took the cigarette he put in the ashtray next to his bed and smiled, thinking how nice it would be to live without being affected by simple diseases.

"Thank you for everything Nihan. I hope you are in a better place now .. "

He felt a bit melancholy as he whispered the first prayer that had been spoken in decades in this town.

..

Two weeks have passed since Nihan's death.

Eren was trying to sleep by listening to a melody he opened from his watch(comm) with his eyes closed. It had been two hours since he came home. It was an "I am ready-to-sleep all day" moment. Just as he was beginning to dream, his eyes opened with the sound of the door.

"Tap! Tap! Tap! Tap!.."

It was like someone was trying to break the door. Eren stood up with anger. He was so close to sleep that he was sure he was even dreaming. He didn't like the interruption of this beautiful comfortable feeling.

He looked at the tiny part of the clock on his wrist that showed the time. Because these devices, called Comm, are used for hundreds of different things apart from showing the time, Eren had difficulty finding the part that shows the time in this device. It was a long time ago, but whenever Eren looked at the time part of his Comm, he saw himself as someone who didn't understand technology.

As he looked at the clock, his anger was slightly reduced. But when he heard that the door was knocked on, he got angry again.

[If the next-door neighbor came for sex again, geesh! It is a little bit too much to call me every day. And just after when your husband leaves, woman!]

While Eren was thinking about his speech with Mrs. Twonsen, he saw a man in uniform in front of the door. He wasn't someone he knew.

"Are you Eren Yıldız?"

When Eren showed the watch on his wrist, the attendant brought his own watch closer and when the notification light appeared, the attendant nodded. He looked like a fast-moving person with a positive attitude.

"Only your name appears in the testament/last will list of Nihan Raell, who died in a daytime conflict with mutants last month. All those who were previously on the list are already checked and were confirmed as dead.

Do you approve of the will left to you by Nihan Raell?"

Eren said "yes" in a low voice, but his heart started to beat rapidly. It didn't feel good to have this situation when he was just a little numb and already said goodbye to Nihan. He was trying to forget that old grandpa figure these days.

"I have to state in advance that the will does not contain any obligations or debts, it is just a regular cash-deposit type. You should also know that there are harsh penalties in cases such as identity fraud. For example, if you aren't Eren Yıldız, there will be penalty charges. Do you approve of what I said and the transfer process?"

Eren didn't open his mouth this time and nodded his head back and forth. But when he noticed the working Comm and this man's attempt to record, he added urgently, "yes, I approve."

"I wish you a good day."

In just a minute, Eren was alone at the door.

He looked behind the attendant, who was hurrying away with his electric bike, and then the message on the Comm. His head was turning to the road and the hard-to-believe message on the watch again. He did that silly action three times.

Thanks to the Nihan he knew that many legal actions were happening with Comms in this world. He was already a person who grew up with smartphones on Earth.

The main surprising issue was the content of the message.

[No way... I am rich!]

...