The Discovery

Harry sighed calmly as he turned back to look down at the two children beneath him. It was a strange feeling to be fighting in the body of a child again, but Harry was good enough at CQC that he could adjust his tactics and actions to match the new height and weight of this body easily.

As for why Harry showed no hesitation in beating up children, the answer was simple. Was it not better to discipline them now before they grew up to be horrible adults? Harry remembered just how much of a menace he had been as a child and he knew that if not for his father beating the shit out of him whenever he did something stupid, then he would've ended up as one of the fools on the street that extort others for money. Those days were long past, but Harry knew how close he came to becoming a gang member.

These children were going to grow up to be just like that if someone didn't put them in their place, and Harry figured that he was as good as anyone else. After taking a beating like this from him, they would probably be too embarrassed to mention it to anyone. If they came back, then Harry would beat them all over again.

It was the job of an adult to discipline children.

A hand suddenly grabbed Harry's, and Harry turned to the side to see that it was Jenny. Jenny was looking up at Harry with wide, disbelieving eyes. She pulled back and immediately began to gesticulate quickly!

[Where did you learn to do that!?]

Harry thought about how he should explain something like this to her. It would be strange to say that he had been taking classes because he hadn't been able to do this before. If he had taken classes, then he should've been able to fight off the bullies when Jenny was in trouble. So instead, Harry decided to leave it up to Jenny's imagination. Harry shrugged and gesticulated back.

[I don't know. I just did it.]

Jenny looked from Harry back to the two boys who were still writhing in pain on the ground before looking back at Harry again and exclaiming.

[That's amazing!]

Harry smiled at her innocence and turned away to look around once again. The embankment that they were standing on was connected to a road through a shrub of bushes that had grown around the lake. There were large trees and more bushes on either side of the road, and far in the distance, Harry could make out the shape of houses that had been overrun by greenery. Harry knew that those houses were abandoned and always had been, and after putting the thoughts of the previous Harry in order, Harry was able to figure out that he would need to take this road to head back home.

Harry needed to find out more about this world and what happened to bring him here. The memories of the previous Harry were useful, but they were severely lacking in knowledge. It was obvious that the previous Harry hated reading and learning, so if Harry wanted to know more, he would have to figure it out for himself. Harry started to walk out from the shrubs to reach the road, and after a while, Jenny fell in line behind him.

…

The walk back to his house revealed a lot more about the state of the world where Harry had found himself. The child Harry didn't have a very wide array of information about the world in his head, so Harry couldn't really discern much from the memories that he got, but as Harry passed by various abandoned houses, overgrown green valleys, and torn-down buildings, Harry slowly began to piece together various portions of memories that were flashing together in his head.

The reason for so many broken-down and abandoned houses was because of something called the Discovery that occurred close to a thousand years ago. From what Harry pieced together, there was an invasion that occurred at that time. Creatures not from this world came from the sky with technology that was far beyond anything humanity had ever seen before and attacked them. The Discovery was mainly referring to how humanity discovered some obscure power in their souls and used that power to fight back against the aliens.

After the Discovery, humanity progressed at an outstanding pace and eventually, most of the human race left the planet behind and moved to inhabit other planets.

It sounded crazy to Harry, even as the information filtered into his mind from various conversations that the previous Harry had heard before. Aliens? Powers from the soul? The Discovery? It was all so outlandish that someone as old-school as Harry felt like he was in the twilight zone.

And with the craziness came a ton of questions that Harry needed answered. The first of these questions was why he was here. If the humans left this planet to inhabit other planets, then why were there still some humans here? Does that mean that there was some sort of criteria for leaving this planet?

Secondly, what sort of power could have given humans such an unbelievable boost in abilities and technology that they would be able to just leave behind the planet and take more than seven billion people out of the planet at once?

The child Harry did not have enough information in his head for Harry to figure out the form of power that humans had gained, so Harry figured that he would put a pin in that and figure it out more when he had a chance to do so.

But the part that stood out the most to Harry was the timeline of these events. According to the memories in his head, the Discovery happened nearly a thousand years ago. If that was true, then does that mean that Harry was still in his own world?

'Did I travel through time?'

Harry didn't believe in the spiritual. He was not religious, and the thought of something larger than all of humanity controlling our actions and judging us never sat right with Harry. But at that moment, Harry couldn't help but wonder if some sort of God was responsible for all this.

According to the memories in his head, today's date was 973 AD, with the AD meaning After Discovery. Harry didn't know what the date was before the world started using AD, so he had no way to gauge if he was really in another world or if he had traveled through time. To do that, Harry would need to find a history book.

Harry and Jenny made their way past a large group of women who were pushing some trolleys across the road and towards a train on the other side of the road. The train was very high-tech, with a cone-shaped nose, white-washed paint job, and sleek lining across the sides. One of the women recognized Harry and Jenny, and she came over and asked them in sign language if they were alright after seeing their wet clothes.

Jenny gestured to her that they were fine, and Harry just nodded. The woman was one of the matrons who worked at the orphanage on her off days. On other days, she worked at the scavenger scrapyard where she sorted and transported the goods brought back by the scavengers and took them to the upper valley to be sold. Harry remembered her from the few times he met her whenever he went to meet with his grandmother, so he didn't stop her when she reached out to pat him and Jenny on the head before telling them to head home and get dry.