Carolus Rex Chapter 1 - A Sudden Death

Charlie still remembered the day he died.

He had stood in the trench, the soles of his boots grabbed by the inescapable mud. At the thought of his many problems, most without solution, his brows furrowed. Yet, he remained optimistic. There was no other choice, for too many people depended on his success.

That morning, he had still been in the little chapel at the barracks, and prayed to God for a path beyond his plight. More than anything, he hoped to end all foes and pacify the lands before he had to leave them to his sister. In the end, he had decided to solve his problems one at a time, until God would end his suffering.

With renewed energy, he had inspected the progress in the trenches all day, with no regard for his burning legs, nor his noble status.

Yet once more, his efforts would not be rewarded, as the last of his luck had run out that very moment. A hit to his temple had thrown him to the ground. The suction sound of the boots as they were releases by the earth had been the last thing he had remembered.

That had been three centuries ago, not that he remembered any of the time in between.

"Charlie! Hey, Charlie! Rexy!"

"What is it?" An annoyed Charlie looked up at the face of his coworker and long-time friend. He hated when others called him ‘Rexy’. Though it was his own fault they did, so he had no right to Complain. Thus, he accepted his fate as usual and returned only a stoic stare.

Though his friend was his friend, of course. He would know that Charlie wasn’t happy with his nickname.

"Sorry, Charlie,” he thus apologized for the address, “but you never answer otherwise.”

"You're right. I should have listened. I apologize,” Charlie admitted. Yet his friend looked unhappy with his gracious answer.

“Polite as always,” he said, and showed a troubled smile.

“I was just... Thinking about things,” an awkward Charlie explained. He himself knew best that his behavior had been strange these past few years, yet going into detail would only calreate friction. That much had been proven long ago. Thus, he simply decided to brush past it. At least in that regard, his friend agreed with him.

“Also as always,” he simply commented and moves on. “Anyways, wanna hang out after work? The guys are going to that new bar to hang out.”

“What?” Charlie was confused again, until his eye caught the time display in the corner of his computer screen. “Wait, we’re off work already?”

A confused Charlie was looking for a window in their dystopian open space office. Only now did he realize that the artificial shine of the office lighting had masked the darkness outside.

“Yeah, time to go home,” his friend commented, before he asked: “Got a lot done today?”

“You know me, I work as much as I'm paid,” Charlie returned, half in jest and half in earnest.

“At least in that regard, you're reasonable,” the friend replied with a smile. His previous worry seemed to have disappeared. Yet just as Charlie thought he had successfully switched topics, his friend added: “So, are you in on our bar dive?”

Damn.

Charlie had really hoped that he wouldn't ask that again.

"Ah, he started awkwardly, "Ah, sorry, I still have something to do today."

"And Rexy does it once again.” In an overly dramatic gesture, the office worker threw his hands in the air, before he bowed deeply. “Very well your majesty. Your servants will stay among themselves and will not bother your leisure time."

Charlie searched his colleague's face to find out if he was annoyed or trying to make a joke, but he really couldn't tell. In the end, he just had to say something before the silence became too awkward.

"Maybe some other day," he finally repeated the pale excuse he had repeated many times before. Halfway through his excuse he had already turned around to clean up his work space.

“Anyways, see you Monday,” he heard an exasperated voice from behind.

After a mumbled "yeah," Charlie kept busy with nothing, until he heard the sound of his friend’s footsteps disappear into the distance. A muffled sigh sighed the end of Charlie’s day, as he made his way to the elevator, alone.

As usual, he thought.

It wasn't like he didn't want to hang out with his colleagues, and it wasn't that he didn't know how his distant character made his workplace experience worse. Most sorry he felt for his friend, who always tried to include him, yet always hit a brick wall. However, he didn't have a choice. This was simply something he was compelled to do.

Thus, he took his car and made his way into the city center by himself. This would be another lonely night of hard work. If only he had never had those dreams, or at least if he hadn't acted on them. The, everything would have been different.

Though of course, the dreams were oh so tempting. In his real life, he was a mere pawn, one of many cogs in a machine, fated to turn and turn and then give out after a government mandated number of years, or however long his cardiovascular system would play along.

But in his dreams! Oh, in his dreams he was a great man, one great enough to change the course of history. And although the life in his dreams was tragic and short, it still felt like a life worth living.
Compared to his drone-like job, which he was pretty sure was redundant anyways, in this giant, industrialized machine, he would much rather help the self in the dreams achieve his goals, even if it was no more than a fantasy. Thus, just like he had done on so many days since the dreams had started, he entered the library.

Not many people still entered places like this, even at the best of times, let alone on a Friday evening. Still, it was an excellent place to deepen his research. Often, there would also be people here to help him find what he needed. Human contact was healthy, at least Charlie thought so. Online research only got one so far, that was something he had already learned in college, though back then the dreams hadn't started yet.

Today, the library was even quieter than usual. He didn't even see anyone at the front desk. Still, the lights were on and the front was unlocked, so he simply walked in. He had been here so many times that he didn't need the help anyway. Rather, he was glad to have some quiet time for himself, enough to clear his head and order his thoughts.

As Charlie strode through the rows of bookshelves, he remembered the first time he had dreamed of the past. He remembered how profoundly these dreams had impacted him, particularly the man in their center.

Though, to be fair, he still wasn't entirely sure if the man in the dream wasn't just Charlie himself. In the dreams, he was the strange man, rather than a passive observer. It was so lifelike every time, as if they were his own feelings, his own thoughts. At first he had been afraid, but by now he had accepted these peculiarities as natural.

As he sank more into the repeating dreams, they began to influence his real life. First, he had done some cursory research and discovered that his dream-self had indeed been a real person, sla famous king who had lived some three hundred years ago.

Though as his research progressed, a creepy feeling began to set in. His dreams contained accurate historical details that he had never known before. After all, he had never been a history buff. Even so, an extensive search in disbelief had confirmed every single detail, no matter how minute. Though of course, there were always many things that weren't in the books at all.

Familiar steps led Charlie back to the library’s history section, where he had spent countless hours on his research. He wasn't always in this section, of course. Sometimes he was in engineering, politics, economics or just about any other section. Sometimes he wasn't at the library at all. Instead, he'd spend his limited time and even more limited money to learn all kinds of practical skills. He would join tours of old steel plants to find out how they worked, or sit in on various courses at the local university.

At first, Charlie had thought that he could influence the dreams in this way. If only he knew more, his dream-self could do better and prevent his tragic fate this time around.

Later however, he had realized that nothing helped. Even though he felt in full control during the dreams, he was never more than an observer. No matter how much he knew the future course, or ways to change it, in the end, he could change nothing. And yet, he still felt compelled to continue his studies. If nothing else, it was a decent hobby of constant self-improvement. And at least, he could always fantasize about the history that could have been.
Thus, every weekend, he would learn something new, something that was at best helpful on a quiz show in modern times, but would have been life-changing in the year 1702.

However, that wasn't his goal today. By now, he had amassed so much knowledge that he had begun to run out of new topics. Even more, his self-imposed social isolation had put him in a bad mood, so he really wasn't in the mood for any more research on old medical or farming methods. He himself didn't know why he had invested so much time in a fantasy.
At this point, he knew enough already anyways. If he could ever influence his dreams, then changing their outcome would be a breeze. Instead of more work, today’s goal was mere nostalgia, to calm his confused mind.

Finally, he came to the goal of today’s trip, the first book he had ever checked out here. It had been pretty easy to find, even at first. After all, Charlie's name was the same as his dream-self’s.

Later, he had even found that they were distant relatives, though of course he was no direct descendant. That much was impossible, as the dream-self died young and childless.

Still, being related tohis dream-self had been a huge shock. As he had sunk deeper and deeper into his dreams, he had lost his sense of self a bit. That was when he had first believed to be the ancient king’s reincarnation. Even now, he stillbsometimes thought so. It was an explanation as good as any other for his inexplicable dreams.

Though telling others about his theory was an obvious fool’s move. At the time, he wanted to show how special he was, how non-ordinary, so he had lost his caution a bit. In the end l, it had only earned him, malicious comments, rumors about his mental health, and the Rexy nickname, of course.

Yet, even though Charlie should hate his dream-self for the deterioration of his everyday life, he did not. Anyone else would have found it strange, but Charlie never really questioned his closeness to a dead, swedish monarch. After all the dreams, they felt so close, like two halves of the same being. In the face of his dream’s great tragedies, a lonely evening was nothing. Rather than annoyance over his isolation, he was more concerned by the sight in front of him.

What joker didn't put the book back the right way? he thought. The old biography about himself was still on the right shelf, yet someone had put it two rows too high, and left it hanging precariously over the edge.
With furrowed brows, Charlie stretched up to the book before it could fall and take damage. Once more, he never questioned that he didn't reach for the step-ladder behind him when his hands couldn't quite reach. Instead, he climbed up on the shelf until he hung off it like a novice rock climber. At least he finally got a finger on the book. Yet that would prove the last of his luck.

A smile turned into panic as the shelf began to shift under the uneven weight. Before he could react, the hapless dreamer was buried under a hill of paper and steel. As he landed, the sharp edge of a shelf hit Charlie's left temple and ended his life in an instant. When the panicked librarian returned from her coffee break minutes later, a single book lay atop the bloody pile, it's name readable to any witness of the crime. Yet no one would ever know its connection to the one buried underneath, nor his obsession with the man whose name the book shared:

Carolus Rex.

Author's Notes: Yes, this is supposed to be an alt history kingdom builder from the perspective of Sweden, circa 1700. I'm frankly shocked that no one has done this yet, it feels like a perfect setup. Anyways, this is the setup for the story.

Please excuse any mistakes, since I'm unused to editing on a phone.