What would life be like for me if I had more faith in myself? What would happen if I had some ambition and pursued something greater? What would happen if I could just be reborn and start fresh? These were questions this young man asked himself regularly. 

Liam was a twenty five year old American man who worked in a warehouse full-time and didn’t do anything else productive with his days.

He would go home after work and play video games or read novels about fantasy worlds. The heroes always inspired him to do greater things, but nothing in the real world ever got him excited to push himself. 

Day after day Liam wondered how he could change his life, but in the end he never changed anything. Was this lack of ambition? Laziness? No it was likely due to the fact he just never believed in his ability to do anything greater than work in the warehouse that he hated with all his heart.

Although Liam was not very ambitious, he was still pretty content with his life. After work he spent his time doing the things he loved to do even if it was considered a “waste of time” to most people he met.

Liam was a very kind and considerate guy, but his shyness made it pretty easy for people to miss that fact as he kept to himself unless someone spoke to him first. That’s just the way he lived his life. He never poked his nose where it wasn’t suppose to be…

Until one day…

Driving home from work he saw smoke coming from the sky a few blocks away. Although he couldn’t see any flames he was completely sure it had to be a house fire so he called the fire department as he whipped the car around the next corner.

Skrrrrrrrrrrt

“Yes hello, there’s a big house fire”

“Can you give me the address please”

“I’m not quite there yet can you give me a moment, I’m around the corner”

As Liam turned onto the block where the fire was all he could do was break out into a panic.

“Oh my god”

“Sir, what happened”

“The fire is massive”

“We’ll be there in ten minutes sir please stay on the line”

Just then….

“SOMEONE HELP US PLEASE”

Liam had no idea how to react to this situation at all but out of pure instinct he bolted straight for the front door while saying one last thing before dropping the phone.

“They don’t have ten minutes”

He was scared. Very very scared. He didn’t understand why he thought he could possible save anyone when the fire department would likely fail to rescue anyone from a fire this size.

Liam was terrified but his instincts made him move without his say in the matter.

The front door was locked.

‘There’s gotta be a way in’

He looked around for a couple seconds before spotting a potted plant on the porch to his left. He grabbed the pot and threw it as hard as he could at the big window next to the front door.

SMASH

He immediately climbed through the now open window and ended up cutting the back end of his arm but it didn’t seem too deep. He pulled off his shirt and tied it tightly around to stop the bleeding just in case.

He heard a woman crying from upstairs so he started climbing slowly as the steps no longer seemed to be stable.

CRASH

The steps fell as soon as he made it to the top floor.

‘Well that could’ve been bad. But how do I get back down now?’

As he got closer to the room he called out to the woman.

“HELLO, WHERE ARE YOU?”

“THE LAST ROOM TO THE LEFT, PLEASE HURRY”

By the time he got to the end of the hall the smoke was already hurting his lungs an unbearable amount but he kept pushing forward being weary of his burning surroundings. All he could hear was the sound of the fire rapidly engulfing the building and things falling to the ground throughout the building.

‘I have to hurry’

When he got to the end of the hall he got extremely nervous to see the other side of the door.

“Back away from the door”

BANG

Liam kicked the door with all his strength and luckily it was enough to open it however…

When he entered the room he saw the mother pinned down by a dresser and two children. The older was a young teenage boy that was trying his best to free his mom from the dresser and the younger sister was no more than seven or eight and she was unconscious.

‘This is really bad, I don’t think I’m strong enough to lift that.’

“Please get them out, don’t worry about me it’s fine! Please hurry!”

Liam didn’t know what to do. He tried moving the dresser but it the drawers were full so it was too heavy to move. He lifted the unconscious child and began walking toward the door.

“You can’t leave my mom please! Please save her!”

“Listen kid, I promise I’ll come back for her but I have to get you and your sister out of here first. I won’t leave her here you have my word I’ll do everything I can. We don’t have time, let’s go”

The kid started crying but he understood what had to be done, he knew saving his sister needed to come first or they would all end up being burned alive.

On the way down the hall where he came from he heard something to his side and instinctively grabbed the boy and pushed him behind himself.

THUD

The walls were beginning to fall apart now. Time was running out fast now.

Creeeeeeeeaaaak

The floor gave out and Liam fell right through it still holding the child but quickly protected her head with his free arm.

“AHHHHHH” 

His leg was the first thing to hit the ground and it was easy to tell immediately that it was broken. Things just got a lot harder.

“ARE YOU OK?” The boy yelled down to Liam with a shaky voice.

“WE’RE OK DON’T WORRY. MY LEG IS BROKEN THOUGH”

“WHAT SHOULD I DO? I’M STUCK UP HERE”

“I’LL FIND A WAY BACK UP I’LL BE RIGHT BACK”

There was a side door not to far from where Liam fell with the girl so he crawled to that door with the girl. He managed to open the door after a struggle to stand up and carried her outside and set her a decent distance from the building and started heading back to the house.

BOOM

“NOOOOOOO”

The house burst into flames an explosive manner and practically evaporated from existence. It was over, he failed to save two of the people in the house. He managed to save the youngest but he began crying out that he failed.

“WHY COULDN’T I JUST DO SOMETHING RIGHT”

It hurt so badly. This family needed help and he thought he could actually do something useful for once in his life but failed miserably.

The sound of sirens grew louder and louder but when he finally saw the lights from the fire trucks he began losing consciousness. The shock from the incident hid the excruciating pain he felt from breaking his leg and cutting his arm inside. Not to mention all the smoke he inhaled as well.

Just as he began to lose consciousness he heard a voice from a woman.

“You really did try your hardest to save those people even though you’re powerless and you’ve never met them. How would you like to try again?”

“What? Am I hearing things”

“My name is Celestia, a Goddess that has been watching over you for a little while now. Things never quite go your way because you don’t push yourself, but this time you pushed yourself beyond the limit. I can give you a little power to try again, but it’ll give you the most gruesome and painful death you could possible imagine.”

“What are you talking about? You mean like reverse time?”

“Something like that, what do you say?”

“And I’ll die?”

“What do you get out of it?”

The Goddess just smiled at this question with a quick reply “I’ll tell you after you die again”

“Again? You mean I died?”

“Oh yes, you’re very much dead. Now when I reverse time you can choose to try to save this family again or you can choose to carry on with your life as if nothing ever happened”

“I’ll do it. I saw their pain, I heard their screams. I want to save all of them, even if I have to die in order to make that happen.”

“Very well then”

***

‘What? I’m actually in my car again. That wasn’t a dream?’

Liam looked at the clock, his eyes opened wide.

‘The time really went back before I saw the fire, I can make it in time.’

Liam sped to the house as fast as he could, the house was already on fire but he could do this. He ran up to the front door and was going to turn for the potted plant again but something felt different. He felt something in his body like he was stronger somehow, he twisted the door handle and….

SHATTER

“WHAT?!” 

The door knob and the insides of the mechanism shattered to pieces like they were nothing but glass. He barely even took any time to question what just happened and sprinted full speed up the stairs again. This time they didn’t collapse though, he was making good time.

“HELP US PLEASE”

He heard the woman again and ran to the back room. The same scenario in every single way was unfolding but 5 minutes sooner. That was really a Goddess and she actually turned back the clock. Liam was surprised but didn’t ponder on it too long. He lifted the dresser up with ease and lifted up the mother who was severely injured.

“Can you carry your sister?” He asked the young boy.

“Yes, thank you.”

As they were leaving Liam thought back to what the Goddess said about the pain he would feel and realized his arms were starting to hurt extremely badly. He picked up the pace and started down the stairs.

CRASH

The stairs collapsed again as he was going down but luckily he half expected this so he was able to land relatively safely. However the boy and his sister were still at the top floor.

“I’ll be right back stay there, I’ll bring your mom outside and come right back.”

He quickly brought the mother to a safe place and ran back to the building full speed. He could tell his body was quickly giving out.

‘This is what she meant’

Liam found a cabinet alongside the wall in the dining room and dragged it over near the stair case. It wasn’t tall enough for the boy to climb down to but Liam could pull himself up to the top floor easily.

He continued to help boy reach the cabinet carefully.

“I’m gonna hand your sister to you now OK? 

The boy shook his head and grabbed his sister. He climbed down from the stand and got ready to head out but before he did.

CRASH

The whole floor beneath Liam just collapsed and he fell down to the first floor.

“Sir are you alright?!”

“I’ll be fine get out of here with your sister!”

“But I…”

“NOW GO”

The boy ran out of the building with his sister crying because he couldn’t help the man who just saved his family.

Almost immediately after the boy left the building it was engulfed in the flames as it practically exploded the same exact way as the last time. This time however Liam was left inside while the other three made it out alive with very few injuries.

“You crazy kid, you actually pulled that off. I guess now it’s time to put that deal on the table if you’re still interested.”

Liam didn’t see the Goddess the first time they spoke and luckily he didn’t because he was completely shocked at how beautiful she was. His jaw almost fell to the floor. The Goddess chuckled at him and just continued with what she was saying.

“So are you still interested?”

“Yeah let’s talk about this deal you mentioned.”