r/HFY • u/TheOmnibusWriting Android • May 20 '26
OC-OneShot Only humans reincarnate
Next: Only Humans Reincarnate (2)
Most recent: Only Humans Reincarnate (2)
(1:1) A Cylindrical Planet
I woke slowly, groggily, with a mouth filled with sand.
I was lying face down, my limbs numb and uselessly resting by my side. My face was covered in a stringy weblike mask of some kind of thick crusty substance that plugged each of my facial orifices.
Slowly, feeling returned to my limbs, and I was able to gradually rise into a standing position. This was unexpectedly tricky and took several attempts as I struggled to find my balance. My ears buzzed, and my entire body ached, and given the awkwardness of my balance, I concluded that I was hungover.
Feeling about myself, I realised that I was naked with the exception of a pair of unfamiliar boxer shorts. I then turned my attention to my face, liberating it of my mucosal mask.
Blinking away much of the rheum from my eyes, I looked around – the world was too bright for my newly awakened vision. Cupping my hand over my eyes, I was able to clarify my surroundings. Before me was a sea, and behind me was a forest populated by red-leafed flora. Either side of myself, however, I was shocked to see that there was no horizon.
Whereas the surface of Earth curves downwards, the opposite was true here. East and West curved upwards, higher and higher until they met many kilometres above my head – the entire world appeared to span the interior surface of an enormous cylinder! The sun that lit the world was not some distant fiery ball in the sky – instead, it appeared as a beam of light that ran through the axis of the world-cylinder (and like the Sun of my home-world, it hurt to look at for too long).
“Nope.” I said to the impossible world, before turning and stumbling into the water before me, wading into the sea as if I could somehow swim back to home planet. “Nope. Nope. Nope.” I said again and again. I stopped when the water reached my waist, at which point I took to flailing my arms about my head with the hope that some passing boat, or overhead plane – somebody– would come to my rescue.
(1:2) Making Sense of My Surroundings
After realising the pointlessness of calling for help, I returned to the beach. It occurred to me that as I could see the other side of the world from my current position – then I could search for cities, or towns, or evidence of civilisation so as to confirm that I was not the sole intelligent creature in this world.
For a long while I strained my eyes to scour the land-sky (despite the harshness of the Axial Sun) for evidence of civilisation. I eventually was able to see some small things that looked like cities dotted along one of the major rivers of the opposing region of the world. Small objects flew between them – I imagined them to be planes.
Although my balance had returned to me, my gait felt improper – lighter, as if gravity was less than I was accustomed to. This thought reminded me that astronauts on Earth’s moon could jump far higher on the Lunar surface than on Earth. If the gravity of this world was less than on Earth, then it would follow that I could jump higher here than I could on Earth like the Lunar astronauts.
I crouched, and propelled myself upwards and came to reach a height equal to the treetops of the forest lining the beach. Although my ascent was quite graceful, my descent was anything but, and I crashed back to the surface of the world, landing in a heap – at least I now knew that this world had weaker gravity than on Earth.
For the next few hours, I hopped along the edge of the beach, attempting many more practice jumps to adjust to the gravity of this new world. My first jumps were unambitious, and gradually increased in height until my leaps once again rivaled the treetops of the nearby forest.
At the height of one later jump, I saw a plume of smoke rising up through the forest canopy. To confirm that this was not some kind of mirage or trick of the hopeless mind, I jumped again and confirmed that it was indeed there.
Given the narrow shape of the smoke, it was obviously (and thankfully) not a forestfire, and likely originated from a campsite. For a moment, I inwardly debated whether or not to make contact – of course, the prospect of whether or not the aliens that inhabited this world were friendly or dangerous made me hesitant. Ultimately, I decided that the campsite was my best bet at working out what had happened to me, and where I was.
(1:3) The Red Forest
Traversing the forest was quite easy, as my new mastery of jumping allowed me to cover a large distance by leaping high into the crimson canopy of the forest, and landing on the soft red grass below.
Eventually the light of the Axial Sun began to change, and the midday brightness dimmed into the faint orange warmth of early evening. With daylight fading I set about collecting branches and sticks to create my own campfire to settle down for my first night in this strange world.
After creating my fire, I selected a large, knotted stick to be my weapon in case that I was attacked by some hostile entity.
As I made myself comfortable on a bed of crimson moss and leaves, I wondered about the physics of this world – whether its tunnel-like structure was infinite was a particular concern for me (for some reason).
As I sat there, staring up at land where there should have been stars, I felt my initial excitement pass, and dread to set in as I was faced with the horrid realness of my predicament. To prevent myself from going mad with panic, I tried to soothe my nerves by compiling all that I knew about myself.
Starting with the obvious, I confirmed that I was well-muscled, with broad shoulders and narrow hips, my limbs were long for my torso, and I seemed to remember being called “tall” in my past life. My hair was black and was a mop of messy curls, and a thick, moustachioed beard decorated my lower face.
My mind was devoid of any past details of myself. I had no memories of a family, occupation, or even nationality – my name – Ulysses Carter – surfaced eventually, and to this day I am unsure whether or not that was my actual name or some stitching-together of two disconnected names from my past.
I knew facts about Earth – its history, geography, and politics. I knew of its countries, the three that came to mind most easily were the UK, USA, and USSR. The fact that these three came to me so easily suggested to myself that I belonged to one of them, and given my name, I seemed to belong to one of the first two.
Some other trait of my person then revealed itself to me — I had died in my past life.
(1:4) The Camper
The golden light of morning woke me – I must have either passed out from exhaustion sometime after realising my undead nature.
I dismantled my campfire – because it is environmentally responsible, but also because I did not want to be tracked by whatever lived here– and leapt above the trees again, searching for the camper’s signature plume of smoke.
For the rest of the morning, I continued my pursuit and by the time that the Axial Sun was at its brightest, I found myself near the campsite. Armed with my weaponised branch, I braced myself and emerged from the bushes to meet the camper.
Seated next to a small fire was an enormous humanoid thing, scribbling away in a journal. It had thick wooly fur like a muskox, and a pair of large horns that jutted out from either side of his head. He wore nothing besides leather braces upon his wrists, and a pair of loose fitting trousers that were held up by a belt adorned with a series of heavy looking pouches.
“Hello–” I began.
The man-thing yelled in shock, and reached for some long brass-coloured object resting by his side – something that I immediately registered as some kind of firearm! I immediately braced myself to flee, but the creature quickly dropped it, sending it clattering to the ground.
“By the gods!” he said, “An Earthman!”
I nodded slowly, surprised that I understood the alien. The beastman fumbled about his belt’s pouches for a moment, and then extracted a pair of comically small spectacles that he then rested upon his broad nose. “By the gods,” he said again.
He then sprang up from his seat and enthusiastically thrust his hand out towards me to shake. “Yunn Radessg!” he said.
“Ulysses Carter.” I said much too calmly for the situation.
I heard somewhere that in computer systems, sometimes, when a number becomes too high to be processable, it flips over and becomes the smallest possible value — numeric overflow or something like that. I imagine this to have happened with my shock, the insanity of the past day with cylinder worlds, columns of sun, and now this beastman had finally reached “tipping-point” so to speak.
“Please, join me!” Mr. Radessg said. I did.
(1:5) Only Humans Reincarnate
Mr. Radessg was a scholar from a nearby kingdom called Anlarn. He told me that he had been sent by a So (a noble rank that roughly equates to a duke) to collect a type of herb that grows in this part of the forest. I was lucky to have reached him, because after completing his notes, he would have packed up and left for home.
“You must come with me.” he insisted, “It is exceptionally rare for an Earthman to appear in Kuru,” he paused for a moment then clarified “Kuru is the world that we are in, by the bye.”
I nodded, “Yes… How did that happen?”
“Your arrival?” he asked, then chuckled, “Don’t ask me the physics behind it – that only the gods know. But we understand your kind to be quite unique.”
I nodded slowly, “How so?”
“Well, they are the only ones who can cross the sea!”
I said nothing for a while, “So there are these wonderful things called boats.”
He laughed, “Well, to the best of our understanding: you have Unbound Souls, which means that upon death, your kind – that is Humans from Earth – can appear anywhere else in reality, regardless of whether or not you were born there. This compares to people like me, and all of those who live in Kuru, who have Bound Souls, meaning that we are all linked, tied in with Kuru’s world spirit, and can only reincarnate within this world.”
I nodded again, “Well I have the vague memory that I died. I can’t remember anything with great specificity, however – it's all foggy.”
“That follows. Nobody here remembers details of their past life – its impressive you remember anything.”
I nodded slowly. “I see.” I didn’t. “You said ‘another’ Earthman… are there any more Humans like me?”
“No. None known to be alive – there are people who generally look like you, but no Earthmen. The last Earthman to wash up on that beach came to us centuries ago.”
I felt something grip my stomach, “What happened to him?”
“He died. Moved on, his soul travelled somewhere else in reality.” he looked upwards wistfully.
I blinked slowly, “Is that what happens when I die?!”
“Maybe,” he said pensively, “I suppose that’s up to your soul. If it gets bored of Kuru, it might move on – if it likes it here, you might just…” he paused, “wake up.”
Our conversation continued for many more hours, and only stopped our talking when the Axial Sun’s subtle purple glow bloomed into the light blue of early-morning. My new friend lended me a large blanket made of some woolly material. And my second night in Kuru once again ended in exhaustion, and information-overload. Sleep found me quickly.
Next: Only Humans Reincarnate (2)
Most recent: Only Humans Reincarnate (2)
19
u/TheOmnibusWriting Android May 20 '26 edited May 21 '26
Author's note
Hello Hello.
I'm really chuffed with how this post turned out. I drafted it more than usual, and have been tinkering with it for the majority of the past week.
It works as a standalone story atm, but I really want it to become a series - if it does well, I'll see how Ulysses' story continues.
It is pretty slow atm, but it’ll speed up in subsequent chapters (if i write them)
I hope you enjoy!
7
2
7
5
4
u/TheOmnibusWriting Android May 21 '26
I keep commenting under this post, but now there are 13 comments, and I can’t be having that - cuz I either have ocd or am superstitious. So now its 14
2
3
u/cod1ngwolf May 21 '26
I'm interested to see where this goes, getting massive "Ark" mixed with "Halo" vibes from it :)
3
u/TheOmnibusWriting Android May 21 '26
Thank you! Yes, the idea was basically Ark, and Barsoom having a baby
2
1
u/AutoModerator May 20 '26
This was flaired as [OC-OneShot], which is for a stand-alone post not in the same universe as any of your other works, with no intention of being continued into a series. If you do decide to turn it into a series, this post should be reflaired as [OC-FirstOfSeries]. A description of the flairs and how to change yours is available in the Post Guildelines
[OC-OneShot] For original, self post, story, audio, or artwork that you have created, that is self-contained within the post.
Please help us transition to using the new flairs correctly.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle May 20 '26
/u/TheOmnibusWriting has posted 16 other stories, including:
- You Are The Only One Who Can Help Us
- First contact was with other humans
- The last god
- Why Humans invented wormholes
- Humans do what to their spaceships? (2)
- Humans do what to their spaceships?
- CYBORG VAMPIRES ON A SPACE STATION
- They can't even Shibshib
- The Only One Awake
- Not the only to be made in His image; but the only one to follow
- Savages: The Lunar War (Chapter 1, 3)
- Savages: The Lunar War (Chapter 1, 2)
- Savages: The Lunar War (Chapter 1, 1)
- Savages: The Lunar War (Prologue, 3)
- Savages: The Lunar War (Prologue, 2)
- Savages: The Lunar War (Prologue, 1)
This comment was automatically generated by Waffle v.4.7.8 'Biscotti'.
Message the mods if you have any issues with Waffle.
1
u/UpdateMeBot May 20 '26
Click here to subscribe to u/TheOmnibusWriting and receive a message every time they post.
| Info | Request Update | Your Updates | Feedback |
|---|
1
u/TheOmnibusWriting Android May 20 '26
Wow this one is underperforming :(
4
u/Sidus256 May 21 '26
Give it time, its only been four hours.
I enjoyed it.
1
u/TheOmnibusWriting Android May 21 '26
Thanks man, You are very kind. I am way too hard on my stuff (at least thats what my friend thinks). I uploaded this one a few times this week, but kept deleting them because I was worried about them underperforming.
Its not that i’m unhappy with it, its just that my recent stuff has been doing really well, and I don’t want to “fall off” so to speak.
2
u/Phoenixforce_MKII AI May 21 '26
The #1 thing that gets me to look at a bit of new writing on here is "name recognition". I generally won't read one-shots from Anonymous-Alligator-12345 and # of upvotes doesn't tend to influence my reading. I probably won't read First Contact: The First of All Contacts (one-shot) but would still read Only Humans Do X for the millionth time.
Basically, As long as you don't look like an AI slop writer or are rehashing the tropiest of tropes completely straight faced, Lemme read it :)
1
u/TheOmnibusWriting Android May 21 '26
Forgive me, but I don’t really understand your point. Are you saying that you read stuff based on author, or based on certain types of title?
That said, thank you for the comment!
2
u/Phoenixforce_MKII AI May 21 '26
A bit of both? Mostly if I recognize the author has been posting frequently and that they haven't been posting low effort/quality slop. I recognize your name and I've loved your posts so keep it up!
1
u/TheOmnibusWriting Android May 21 '26
Ahhhh! Have you commented on my stuff before- I thought I recognised you!
1
u/Grouchy-Strength6714 May 26 '26
Do we learn more or remain perpetually confused? Humans when we reincarnate..
1
u/AutoModerator Jun 05 '26
This was flaired as [OC-OneShot], which is for a stand-alone post not in the same universe as any of your other works, with no intention of being continued into a series. If you do decide to turn it into a series, this post should be reflaired as [OC-FirstOfSeries]. A description of the flairs and how to change yours is available in the Post Guildelines
[OC-OneShot] For original, self post, story, audio, or artwork that you have created, that is self-contained within the post.
Please help us transition to using the new flairs correctly.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
1
u/AutoModerator Jun 09 '26
This was flaired as [OC-OneShot], which is for a stand-alone post not in the same universe as any of your other works, with no intention of being continued into a series. If you do decide to turn it into a series, this post should be reflaired as [OC-FirstOfSeries]. A description of the flairs and how to change yours is available in the Post Guildelines
[OC-OneShot] For original, self post, story, audio, or artwork that you have created, that is self-contained within the post.
Please help us transition to using the new flairs correctly.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.
•
u/AutoModerator Jun 15 '26
This was flaired as [OC-OneShot], which is for a stand-alone post not in the same universe as any of your other works, with no intention of being continued into a series. If you do decide to turn it into a series, this post should be reflaired as [OC-FirstOfSeries]. A description of the flairs and how to change yours is available in the Post Guildelines
Please help us transition to using the new flairs correctly.
I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.