The Legend of Levi Gottman
To travel to a far destination, you and I might take a car ride to the train station, take the train to the airport, take a bus into the city, then get a taxi from the bus stop. Levi Gottman traveled the multiverse easier than you or I walk through a door, well atleast in some ways
He didn’t know that this was what was going on for many years. Levi's stream of consciousness experienced the illusion of the passage of time just like anyone else, only whenever he would travel from universe to universe his conscious thoughts were something like "OH WOW! I LITERALLY DODGED A BULLET THAT TIME!" or "SHIT! that was a close one." or one of my personal favorites "Did I really just tickle a grizzly bear into submission?".
He had these thoughts because, well, he was dying, repeatedly. The instant his body would die, his mind and memory would travel to another universe and inhabit the body of the Levi Gottman of that world.
These events are always accompanied by unpredictable, sudden, and sometimes radical changes. Levi wouldn’t always notice these changes, and seems to be the only one who noticed them at all. He learned not to react to them, as to not end up in the mental care facility again.
When Levi was only a little older than six years old he died when he ran out into the street chasing a ball. He was grabbed up by his father barely a second before a large blue pickup truck barreled past, and given a long talk about safety and not leaving the yard without an adult. After the talk Levi was running around in the yard again when he noticed there was only one sun in the sky now. When he tried to tell his dad that the other suns were gone, his father just chalked it up to Levi's growing imagination.
A few months later, while his parents were at the movies, Levi fell down the stairs. when Jerry, the babysitter, ran over to see if he was okay, she was drastically shorter than before, and her hair was now brown and a little curly at the ends. Naturally, Levi thought this was a completely different person, and began crying even louder than he already was. Jerry called Mr. and Mrs. Gottman immediately followed by 911.
when the Gottmans got home, Jerry was in the kitchen sobbing with a paramedic trying to console her. In the living room, two paramedics were talking with Levi while he played with one of their stethoscopes. they told the Gottmans that he was fine, not a bruise, break, or sign of internal bleeding. He had calmed down a bit by then, but as soon as Jerry stepped back in the room, he screamed, ran, and hid behind his dad. His parents were completely oblivious of the obvious implication of abuse, and assumed he had a crush on her.
later that night after everyone had left and it was time for bed, Levi almost fell down the stairs again, but his dad caught him just as he started tipping backward. That time he traveled to a universe where earthworms had arms and legs. He never noticed this change because he never saw an earthworm until his parents took him camping for the first time when he was six. when he tried to put one on his hook, it quickly scaled up his arm.
The next time Jerry came over to babysit, Levi chased her out of the house with a kitchen knife. the police were called and Levi had to start seeing a therapist. That only lasted for about a year though. One day Levi was climbing high in a tree When a squirrel jumped on his face. He fell thirty four feet and two inches to the ground, hitting several branches on the way down. The squirrel had a heart attack and died halfway down the tree, whereas Levi practically bounced off of the ground he got back up so fast. when he got home and started complaining that he didn’t need therapy, his mom was confused. She claimed she never new anyone named Jerry, and sent him to get washed up for dinner.
Levi wasn’t the first person to live this way. It’s a numbers game really. you’ve probably heard of some of the other people ;Shiva, Alexander the great, Ayar Manco and Genghis Khan to name a few. Most people with this ability throughout history became known as conquerors, heroes, and gods. Levi too would perform seemingly impossible feats, and gain the collective eye of many worlds, though it would be anything but easy.
When Levi was eleven years old the neighbor kid, Reggie McFaine, got a bow and arrow for his birthday. One day when Reggie was shooting at a target in his backyard, Levi, Emma Oakridge, Willis Daniels, and Anna thena were walking by when Anna started singing “Reggie the veggie has a potato belly”.
Emma came up with the nickname, reggie the veggie, one day when she was standing behind Reggie in the lunchline. She had a crush on him and was going to add that she wanted to eat him up, but another girl, Tina kowalski, chimed in that he looked like a potato. To both Emma and Reggie’s horror, all the kids started teasing him and almost instantly the limerick was formed. Reggie ran to the bathroom and didn’t come out until after lunch.
When Anna started singing, Reggie yelled at her to stop, but when she wouldn’t stop he aimed an arrow at her, and said he would shoot if she didn’t shut up. She thought he was bluffing, and kept teasing him. Reggie let the arrow fly, but it missed Anne and hit Levi square in the chest.
Levi woke up in a hospital bed with his mom, Anna, and Willis in the room watching TV. When she saw that he was awake, Anna ran over and hugged him saying how happy she was that he took an arrow for her. She gave him a peck on the cheek and declared that he was now her boyfriend before his mom, worried about the tubes coming from his arms, could pry her off. Willis gave him a box of chocolates that said wish you well, and Levi gave everyone a piece.
After a few minutes Levi asked where his dad was. The smile on his mom’s face faded to worry as she told him that his father died about five years ago when he saved Levi from getting hit by a truck. He worried about something like this happening ever since Jerry disappeared, but that didn’t make him anymore ready for it. He started crying and both his mom and Anna rushed over to comfort him.
When the doctor came in, he said Levi was lucky it was a blunted practice arrow. The arrow wedged itself into his sternum, breaking it in two. They had to repair the sternum with a few titanium plates. He said they wanted to keep him for a couple weeks to monitor his wound, but all signs point to a full recovery within the year
Levi had died hundreds of times during his stay at the hospital, so of course a lot of things were different by the time he got to go home. First of all his mom had a completely different car than before, they lived in a whole new neighborhood, and He now had a brother and a sister, both younger than him. He mostly ignored them. they were just two strange kids that appeared one day after one of the nurses gave him the wrong medicine on accident. He threw up the pills before they digested and was given the correct ones to take. As he was throwing up, he saw these two kids start begging his mom for vending machine money, and then they were just there all the time after that.
Levi was fifteen and was watching a meteor shower from his backyard, when He felt a pebble thump him on the forehead. He bent down and found a meteorite lying on the ground. Seconds beforehand, a couple meteors collided causing one of them to ricochet off of an airplane, slowing it down significantly. It then hit not two, but three birds causing it to slow down to the point that it barely left a mark on Levi’s forehead.
when Levi went back into the house, his dad was sitting on the couch watching television. Without hesitation Levi lunged at his father for a hug. “Woah ho ho, Lee, everything alright?” his father asked. “I just missed you, Dad” Levi answered. “You walked right by me on your way out the door ten minutes ago. Let me see your eyes, are you stoned?” his dad half joked. He was so happy he just said ”I’m sorry Dad. I’ll never just walk by again.