1 James' Unfortunate Story

"Ugh..." James groaned weakly as he rolled over on the dirty floor and faced the ceiling of his confinement cell. The room was dark, stuffy, and stank of dried urine and feces. He tried to focus intently but he couldn't make out anything on the ceiling – the room was very dark.

A small rat ran across the room and stopped by his leg which was covered in grime so thick that it depicted how long he had stayed without a proper bath. He was so weak that he couldn't even shrug the rat away so he left it there– after all, its presence made him feel less lonely.

'What did I do to deserve all this?' James thought to himself as tears of sorrow and regret streaked down his eyes, 'Just because I'm the unwanted one? They've decided to treat me like trash and throw me away. Well, I've decided to grant them their wish– I'll die here and save everyone the bother of seeing a failure like me.'

There was a noise at the metal door and a slot was opened, revealing the hard face of a guard. James squinted his eyes because of the rays of light that landed on his eyes from the slot.

"Your meal!" The guard grunted and shoved a bowl of a watery brown substance through the slot. After shoving it in, he stretched his hand and picked up another bowl that was still filled with a watery brown substance. "Tsk! If you continue starving yourself like this, you'll die a slow and painful death."

'Get out... I don't care.' James thought as he heard the metal sound of the slot closing.

James Jade was the illegitimate first son of a multibillionaire business mogul– Charles Jade. His mother had committed suicide when he was eight because of the maltreatment that his father and his stepmother meted out to them.

The maltreatment that James suffered as a child was outrightly inhumane and callous– He was denied the right to education and was forced to stay at home and do all the housework while his stepbrother, Ryan had access to the best education. The poor treatment that James received made him develop autism and grow up antisocial.

He had also grown up watching his younger brother inherit all of their father's properties and leave nothing for him.

James tried to complain to his father but the man told him to go and hustle for his own money and that James wouldn't inherit a dime out of his hard-earned money. James was surprised but he stayed strong and went to the streets, trying to make a living for himself.

Life in the streets wasn't any easier as James found failure in everything he ventured in, it was as if he was cursed and when people noticed this, no one wanted to do business with him and avoided him like a plague.

He was picking dirt for the city's sanitary agency one day when some policemen accosted him and told him that his father and stepmother had died in a car accident. James wasn't bothered at all by the news but he was shocked when the policemen told him that he was under arrest for being a suspect in their mysterious car accident.

Everything happened so fast for him to take in and before he knew it, he was beaten mercilessly and locked in an unknown cell in solitary confinement. It was only later that he came to know that his brother had locked him up so that he wouldn't come to challenge the inheritance now that their father was dead.

"Haha.." James chuckled mirthlessly as he recalled his life experiences, "What a life... I wish I could just die now and end all this. At least no one would have to worry about me coming back to steal their inheritance."

James was just waking up from one of his frequent loss of consciousness when heard the locks of the metal doors of the cell being opened.

'Wait a minute... That's weird.' His cell doors were rarely opened so James wondered why they were opening it now.

"This one is very useless and I'm pretty sure that no one will miss him... You can take him." A guard said,

"You don't need to tell me... Look at how scrawny he looks... Tsk! It will be a miracle if he survives it."

James heard the two voices at the door but he didn't have the energy in him to turn around and see their faces. He could recognize one as the voice of a guard who worked there but the other voice was completely strange, he had never heard it before.

"Just take him away..."

'Take who away?...' James thought as he felt a pair of strong hands grab him, he tried to observe what was going on but his weak body gave up and he lost consciousness again.

The next time he regained consciousness, he found himself underwater. He instantly felt awash with panic.

'What the–' he thought in fright, 'how did I get here? I need to get out of here!'

He tried to navigate his hands to swim upwards but his hands only struck thick glass. It was only then that he realized that he was naked inside a glass container and the water was green in color– weirdly enough, he was also breathing comfortably.

'Uh... This is weird, what's going on here?' he thought.

On closer observation, he realized that there were several other similar containers containing people around him and they were all arranged in rows– as if they were experiments.

'What's going on here?'

Suddenly, there was a command that seemed to come from everywhere at once but it sounded muffled to James' ears– probably because he was underwater.

"Proceed with the first segment of the Think Like A God project..." The voice said,

'First segment of what?' James was confused, 'what's going on here?'

Unfortunately, James didn't have the chance to figure out what was going on because the green water began to vibrate gently, lulling James to unconsciousness again.

As he was losing consciousness, he caught a glimpse of a screen that hovered in front of his eyes.

<...25%>

<...75%>

<...100%>

The next time he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw was a light blue screen hovering in front of his face.

'What the hell is this?'

[Ding!]

[Congratulations! You have successfully installed the Think Like A God program..]