At some point he remembered precisely one thing from childhood, one single specific memory. This memory was from the time when they transitioned into a new home. The one his supposed uncle left for Orion and Freyaa before their birth. He passed off the incident as a child's imagination or the like at first.

All of a sudden, he remembered it as clear as day. It was less like a memory and more like something was calling out to him, challenging his rather reasonable belief of it being a daydream.

'The book. The book exists.' He thought to himself. ‘But where is it?’

He searched every bookshelf, drawer, and closet but he struggled to remember where it was, that is, if it existed at all. Eventually he found himself in the attic.

“What are you doing up here Orion?” Freyaa, who must have heard him messing around came up to check on him.

“Hey Freyaa. I’m looking for something.” Orion said.

“Well, what is it?” She asked.

“I’m looking for a book, you know, the one with the star thing on it.” He explained.

“You mean the book you got from the weird ghost lady that used to follow you around.” She nodded.

“Uhh… Yeah?” He said.

“It should still be here in the attic.” She said looking around. “I imagine it’s in one of these boxes. Let me help you.”

The two of them dug through boxes to find the book. After an hour or so, Freyaa managed to pull it out of a dusty cardboard box.

“It's written in shadow or something, right?” Freyaa asked as she was flipping through the pages.

“Yeah, it should be.” Orion replied.

“And it's got a bunch of depressing shit about the end of the world and all that?” She asked looking a bit closer at the page she landed on.

“Uh… yeah.” Orion finally looked up from the box he was sifting through.

“Here it is!” She presented it to him with some feigned enthusiasm. “So, I guess it's time to get a move on with the preparations…”

“Something like that.” He got up from where he was sitting and joined her.

“You probably don’t remember well enough, but I knew this day would come eventually.” Freyaa said handing the book over.

As soon as he grabbed it his foresight reopened. But not in its entirety, he couldn’t quite remember what it was, but he knew S and the Lucidians had some sort of hand in it.

"It was… Perhaps for the best S sealed up these powers until now." He said to himself. He was trying hard to reorient himself to the dimensional flow around him.

“What was that?” She asked.

“It's not that important, we can talk about it later.” Orion was still a bit too off to continue the conversation, so he started to look through the book instead.

He was grateful though. Having visions of the future on top of all the other issues would only make it harder to come to terms with reality. It was hard enough to figure out the other conflicts in his head. He would have to thank S for this later in some way.

His foresight only worked short term now, and the book contained a rather rigid series of the events. As long as he followed the path as well as he can, it should lead to the optimal outcome.

There were a few things on which he was not too keen. First, he had to be close with someone slated to die. It appeared to be so out of place and annoying.

Considering they didn't appear to connect to any other important data point... It would be much easier to avoid the circumstance all together or at least, not to become attached.

“If only I could remember why the past me even bothered to include it…” He thought.

But, with his current degree of foresight, he felt if anything was altered with changing this course of action, it would still be within his control.

The second thing he didn't like about the plans was, he was meant to be involved with some shady business. Something both dangerous and a bit guilt inducing.

In order to create something that can combat the distortion a lot of people would need to die. When humans die their souls leave their body and release a specific kind of energy. Humans don’t die naturally at the required rate to gain the amount of energy required.

In order to obtain what he needed, he had to develop a certain kind of drug. This drug would eject the soul from the body, killing them on a metaphysical level. He intended to use this alongside whatever power remained in the dimension to create a unique alloy capable of fending off the distortion.

Orion could just barely remember trying to find a solution in his past life. Being able to see the future doesn't make one omniscient. The possibilities are limited by your own imagination. Orionis Ab struggled with this greatly.

‘This is stupid.’ He had thought. ‘Surely someone has an answer to all this.’

Bringing this situation up as a hypothetical in internet forums yielded mostly useless responses. Misanthropic comments were the most common. Anything practical was unfortunately not viable.

The main options people came up with were to start some manner of war or commit mass murder. Both of which would contribute to arguably terrible outcomes.

“Do you have any ideas S?” He asked them.

“I really can't help you with that.” They groaned. “Just blow ‘em up. I dunno.”

“That won’t work. We’ve already discussed this.” He said.

S was far too uninterested in the affairs of mortals to assist properly, as they had no idea what constituted a solution. Sure, they understood death wasn't the most ideal circumstance for living creatures but anything beyond that was outside their understanding.

“A war would take too many lives and destroy humanity in its entirety if it went too far. Needless to say, mass murder would not put me in a beneficial position.” He thought aloud.

“What difference does it make again?” S asked.

“Well, even if the Lucidians and their cohorts understand… The humans not looking favorably on me will disrupt the creation of The Facility Project. We won’t be able to tunnel into the Rintz sector without it.” He explained.

It didn't work, nothing worked. If he figured out his abilities as a shadow and tried to masquerade as a reaper of sorts it still would end in his demise. Silly little plans like that held no ground to achieve the required results either.

“I wouldn’t be able to control the spread of a plague. I’d get caught no matter what other manner of disaster I try to create.” He said looking through responses. “A drug or poison to kill people would get caught too quickly and yet again put me in a bad position.”

“Well, you don’t have to kill them right? You just need their souls.” S interrupted.

“That’s true.” He admitted.

“Couldn’t you just make a drug to do that instead of kill them?” S asked.

“Theoretically, but who would willingly take a drug like that?” He closed the responses.

“I’ve seen humans use drugs with worse effects than that for fun.” S suggested.

“You mean something illegal?” He asked.

“What do human laws have anything to do with me?” S sighed.

“Hmm… If it’s made with a taste of dimensional energy there won’t be a way for someone else to recreate it. It’s feasible but… It doesn’t sit well with me and it’s still quite dangerous.” He thought about it.

“Just go with that plan. It looks like it will work.” They urged him. “We don't have any more time.”

That was unfortunately as far as that discussion could go before Orionis Ab eventually came to the end of his lifecycle. Unable to come up with a better solution nor to find one between all the nonsensical solutions others provided on this hypothetical.

Sacrificing the few to save the many. Regardless of how good the outcomes, was still quite awful, at least to Orionis B. He himself, who struggled all his life, might have ended up just like his soon-to-be targets.

People don't become addicts for no reason, and he knew that quite well. It didn't even require that much, just a single mistake and they’d be virtually dead because of this course of action.

Even if his past life was still him, Orionis B couldn't help but resent Ab for putting him in this position.

‘Did the me from before know that things would turn out this way? Perhaps he knew I would retain my foresight and find a way to reduce the harm.’ Orion knew that wasn't true, he was never supposed to have foresight. But he wanted to believe things could improve now that he did have this power.

The only person he had to turn to about this now was Freyaa. But he couldn't tell Freyaa too much either, it would influence the future far too much this early on.

He would have to tell her everything eventually, but now wasn't the right time for that. He couldn't help but wonder if there ever was a right time for that.

He wasn’t even sure how much she already knew.

He planned out his life in a meticulous manner the short week following the book's rediscovery. He made some changes to things in the near future that he hoped would minimize the impact he would have on others.

He also planned on how to increase the capacity of the future facility project. Finding ways for more lives to be saved from the distortion. He hoped it would be enough to outweigh all the other unfortunate tasks he needed to do.

Did he think himself a tragic genius? No, not even close. If anything, Orion thought himself to be an incompetent moron grasping at straws for the hope of survival. Perhaps that was just his self-loathing.