Hey, NG! @Jamriot is hosting the 2024 Writer's Jam, and I've included my entry below! The theme I chose was rebirth.

Couldn't sign up in time to be eligible for prizes (IRL has been hectic, hard to tell what's going to be happening more than a few days out!), but it's all good. Just getting the chance to take a little slice of time to try something new is always fun in itself. Hope you enjoy!

Heavy rainfall beat down on the dome, each drop cast to create a watery highway across the glass. A bolt of lightning aimed for it with all the resolve of ambition, but it was redirected by a metal rod. All of its strength, a gift from nature itself, was secured and subdued, channeled to power the stadium’s systems. For all of the planet’s bravado and exertion, the audience under the illusory screens only saw skies as serene as the ancient days when the Olympics were hosted on Earth.  

“And next,” a commentator announced with a voice made gravel over decades of wear, “is Idenya Cordeiro, wearing the green and blue stripes of New Obnils. Ever since he came onto the scene almost six-hundred years ago, his goal has been clear: winning the gold medal in four consecutive Olympic Games. With three to his name in his current streak, he can see his life’s work completed in the next few moments. Cordeiro has also remained committed throughout his career to taking the Dohrnii Recur immediately after his previous losses, and it remains to be seen if he’ll do it again should there be any setbacks this time.”

The champion, watched by spectators as close as the stands and far as the outer cosmos, lifted his javelin high. He gave the instrument a moment to revel in its traditional pride before he charged forward with a gait trained over years on end, and his body twisted. Rearing back, he side-stepped those last few feet before lobbing the javelin. It pulled the voice from his throat as he released it, and he let out a triumphant howl as the momentum threw him to the ground. 

Even as he plummeted onto the track, hands scraping along the rubber until they nearly touched the white line dividing his lane from the field, his eyes remained locked on the javelin in flight. Though the scoreboard was in his periphery, showing his name in the third spot, he paid it no mind. It was a jealous beast, so proud to proclaim the building and breaking of lives in fractions of an inch on the field. Such a thing rarely deserved more than minimal attention.

As the javelin soared, he watched all of his lifetime’s work glide through the air in a masterfully-constructed arc. From the ground, he was level with its destination. It began to plummet as gravity grew impatient, pulling it down faster and faster. 

It speared the grass.

The audience roared, and the officials  jogged onto the field to measure the distance. He stared ahead, watching the scoreboard only from the corner of his eye. He couldn’t risk it thinking he was too eager.

Then, it was updated. The muscles in his throat and chest constricted as his gaze snapped to the board. His final throw’s distance was 190.95 meters. It was progress, but progress wasn’t enough. 

His stare and movements parodied the grace of an obsolete machine. He rose slowly, following through with the deliberate weight of defeat as he accepted the silver around his neck. Only as he ambled back into the Olympic Village did voluntary motion return, starting with a twitch in his fingers.

After stepping into his room, the twitch turned to a reach. He took his phone, cracking the joints of one hand against the desk as he opened the first app in his dock. 

The Dohrnii logo popped up, accompanied by four pleasant wind chime notes. The slogan had hardly changed in almost five millennia: “Achieve your perfect life, no matter how many tries it takes.”

Moments later, his profile loaded in, and he aimlessly scrolled through the stats and charts. The average number of hours he slept every night. The protein in his diet each day since his most recent birth. How close he came to his perfect run each attempt since his original human birth, all those years ago. There was even the Perfect Run Descriptor: the record of the day he committed to his golden path - to those four brilliant medals - all those centuries prior.

He navigated to Previous Run Notes, finding words he had once left for his future self. It was as tactfully organized as an exceptional student’s notebook: highlighted, color-coded, and structured by curriculum’s white fence. His exceptional runs were green, filled with health and training tips, where red and yellow were cautionary tales. One briefly mentioned the mistakes that a young, full heart was all too eager to make, while another was a reminder that ‘assisted suicide’ was a forbidden term on the app. Though he remembered nothing of those moments, the regret was tangible enough, considering he wrote them just before stepping into the pod to end one life before beginning another. 

He scrolled to the bottom of the page, finding a red button labeled “Schedule a New Run”. As soon as he pressed it, the same popup as always appeared: “Warning: upon scheduling your clinic visit, your current run will be terminated. Your current stats will be saved to your account, and you will be reborn within 6-8 weeks. Your assigned sponsors will then pick you up at the clinic, and use their best judgment in raising you. Continue?” 

Hesitation gently nudged his finger away from the button. He chewed on his lip, and switched to the phone app. After a few more moments of deliberation, he pressed a familiar contact’s name, hunching forward with begrudging duty as he held the phone to his ear.

With each passing second, he was one ring closer to the answering machine. Just before he heard the tone, he let out a sigh of relief - one small win on a day of failure. “Hi. It’s me. I didn’t… Well, you can just watch the stream. I’m going to Dohrnii. If you want, I can have them send you the details-”

Click.

“Hello? Idenya?”

“...Hi, Maia.”

“I was watching the game. I’m so sorry. You’ll get it next time around, though. Oh, hang on…” Her voice was indecipherable for a few moments, and it was followed by a shuffling sound. “It’s Fausto, he wants to talk. Hang on.”

“Wait, you don’t need-”

“Idenya? It’s me.” The man cleared his throat before continuing gruffly, “I’m going to Dohrnii too. I might as well after this.”

Idenya shook his head. He curled his finger into his hair, pulling at it as he asked, “What? You can’t, what about Maia and the kids?”

“They’ll get shuffled off to someone else if she can’t handle it.”

“That’s not fair to her or them.”

“Don’t talk to me about ‘fair’. Okay? I’ve raised you twice now, and you let me down both times. You ruined my run right at the end of your last cycle, but I sacrificed all those years to give you a second chance. You didn’t even give me the decency of an accelerated growth cycle. That was more than thirty entire years.”

“Dohrnii will give you all the time you could ever want. Same for me. We’re both trying to achieve something here. It’ll be years until we can talk again-”

“-If we talk again-”

“Just give the phone back to Maia.”

“Fine.”

The phone was passed back in the time it took Idenya to let out a deep sigh. 

“I’m back, sweetheart. I’m sorry about him, I am, he’s just upset. But… he is right. He did sacrifice a lot to raise you again. He could’ve ended his last run at the same time you did. By doing it the way he did, he gave you exactly the same environment as the last time you were with us. He believed you would make it this time.”

“What does it matter to him if he’s wasting time that could go towards his perfect run?”

“Because, deep down, he knows you’re right. There is all the time in the universe for that perfect run. He has a very hard time admitting it, but he does care about everyone Dohrnii puts under his wing.”

“He’ll care about those four perfect kids the most, though.”

“Well,” she laughed. “Everyone who becomes a sponsor does it for a reason, and not because it’s easy! Everyone’s perfect run looks different. Yours is getting those four gold medals in a row, his is raising four children who attain their own perfect run… There was, oh, what’s her name? From the commercials? The violinist, she…”

“Lindel Akitani. Forty sold-out tours in a row. I’ve been to the clinic a thousand times, how could I forget it?”

“Are you going today?”

“I’m booking it right after this call.”

“And you’re going right back to the games? I know it means so much to you, but it wasn’t easy to see you giving up your childhood for it. I think you were three or four, and you were already obsessed. I don’t know how much of that is Dohrnii, and how much is just who you are. But you’re sure you don’t want to take a retirement life or two, just to see what the universe has to offer?”

“I’m not wasting another entire lifetime, I need to keep going.” 

“Okay.” She paused. “Do you want to talk to Fausto again?”

“No, it’s fine. We’ve said everything we need to.”

“I understand. Just… please, get back in contact, will you? I understand if you want to go for different sponsors next time. I just want to hear your voice again after this, whether it’s in this cycle or the next.”

“I will. Thank you. Goodbye.”

He hung up, and true to his word, he switched back to Dohrnii. His prior hesitation had gone with his sentimentality, and he confirmed the appointment. A new window appeared with the label, “You are now being connected to a Dohrnii representative to schedule your rebirth. We wish you luck in your next life!”

Within a few minutes, he was connected to a chipper young voice. “Hello! I see you’re calling from your verified device. Can you confirm your account number?”

“97-888-347-182-54.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cordeiro. I just have a few questions, and then we’ll be all set. First, are you fully aware of the consequences of ending this run?”

“Yes. I would just like to get this done.”

“I understand. Thank you for your patience. Have you confirmed with your current sponsors that you will be starting a new run?”

“Yes.”

“Would you like to request them again for your next run, or would you like to request a new set?”

“A new set.” He coughed, scratching at his tongue. It felt as though there was a hair in his throat, or perhaps a new cut. “Sorry. A new set.”

“Very good. Would you like to make any changes to your ‘Perfect Run Descriptor’, or to any of your birth traits?”

“No. Never.”

“I understand your dedication. We always ask - life can be full of surprises! One can never know when they’ll change their mind. Okay, it’ll just be a few moments.” 

While he waited, he opened another tab: Nearest Clinics. There was a notification showing that a new one had just opened near his sponsors, but that would do him little good from the edge of Andromeda. The trip to the clinic closest to him could take half a lightyear, even under good conditions. It would be time spent in cryo, and that was yet more time wasted. Even as those years were a commodity in abundance, every second lost after his defeat in the games was a reminder of the little he couldn’t control in any of his lives.

“Mr. Cordeiro?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry, but there’s been a critical error.”

“...What?”

“Your DNA strand on file has been corrupted. If you recall, we notified you that a data breach occurred several years ago, and bad actors corrupted some of our customer’s data.”

“But that can’t happen. What about the backups?”

“Unfortunately, the breach occurred during a mass data transfer from New Obnils. Some customers from that region were affected.”

“But…” His breathing hitched, and his lungs made the air their own security blanket - only clenching, rarely releasing. “This can’t be happening. I did - I’ve been doing everything right. I’ve been trying and trying to make the perfect run, and I almost had it. I was almost perfect. I just had this one shortcoming, this one time.”

“I’m so sorry. I wish I could help.”

“What does this mean? That I’m going to die? And I can’t come back? That’s it? I’m going to disappear forever? No. I’ll come in, you’ll take my DNA, that’ll be it.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Cordeiro. The DNA data is distorted upon rebirth. Only the original sample from your human birth can be used.”

“Take my DNA anyway. It’s fine. I’ll die, I’m going to die, that’s that. That’s fine. You can just bring me back when you’ve perfected the technology. You’ll figure out how to do it. I have faith. You’re all geniuses. So, yes. I’ll go over there, you take my sample, you bring me back when you figure out how to.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that. We’re highly selective with the rebirth DNA we can accept.”

He coughed again. “I’m a champion, I’m almost perfect! How am I not exceptional enough to be accepted?”

“I understand, but there are many people in your situation. We’ve learned from this, though, and we have more secure methods of storing our data in place now.”

“Lot of good that does me!”

The line was cut, and he slammed his fist into the desk with the force he used to cast the javelin that betrayed him. The sheer burden of imperfection crawled into his muscles and features, tugging at sinew. He closed his eyes, and the end pounded at his skull in a predator's rhythm. The comforting pod, always waiting after a short wrestle with disappointment, was no longer an option. In however many years from that moment, toxins, savagery, or age alone would come to claim him. Then, the dirt of his home planet. 

Idenya’s fingers quivered as he opened the app again, pressing a tab labeled “People”. It wouldn’t be the first time he searched for comfort in memories of others, whether that was in his current life or a time-worn shade. 

There were bank tellers. Store clerks. Trainers. Pilots. Repairmen. Beneath their names were additional facts, including what percentage of his life - both current and total - they spent with him.  

Neither Maia nor Fausto had the highest value, though they were close. He read their names over and over until the letters turned to figures, and he wept.