[Saturday, September 3, 2013 ~ Location: NYC, Brooklyn ~ Universe-619999690-1216]
{1st person POV}
I slowly opened my eyes, feeling the weight of drowsiness that didn't seem to go away. I fully opened my eyes, looking at the ceiling, made of wooden planks, old and worn but solid. I lay in the bed with the blanket still on me, thinking about what was going on. My mind was blank, not a thought about anything in the noggin right now. I had a feeling that something was wrong here, not only with me but also with where I was and this world, but I couldn't put a finger on it, not that I could put a finger on it, it's a feel-ing, not a feel-thing.
So, I tossed the blanket off me and sat up on the bed, as my legs touched the wooden floor, which creaked beneath me. The sheets smelled like a detergent I hadn't used before, and the mattress was stiff as hell. I sleep on a semi-soft mattress because my back was always sore, but not anymore, as my back isn't sore anymore. I was trying to ground myself in reality, or whatever this was, I had woken up in, burying my face in my hands.
I felt out of body, or outside of my body, don't know the term used for this, but somebody gets the point. I dragged my hands down my face and rested them on my knees. I looked at the side drawer, and on it were a wallet, keys, a watch, and a digital alarm clock. The time was 6:59 AM. And as the clock turned 7, the alarm went off, I reached over and hit the button above the clock to stop it.
Eventually, I stood up from the bed with slightly shaky legs, stretched my arms above my head with a sigh, put them down, and shuffled to the door. As I opened the door, it creaked, announcing my presence to the place, as if I were part of the royal family. As I stood in the middle of the hall, it was dimly lit, with a soft orange hue from a nearby lamp. I then looked to my left, and there were two rooms; to my right, the living room had a room next to the couch, with a kitchen attached. This would make it my apartment, I think.
The bathroom was just a few steps down the hall, and I closed it behind me, the clicking echoing loud in the silence. I looked in the mirror and saw myself looking back, but not myself, but younger, innocent, and with no scars on my body. I looked about eighteen, my face youthful, no beard, no lines, no shadows under my eyes from overtime or binge-watching. I had the same bone structure, the little scar on my left eyebrow, my hair was thicker, my jaw was sharp, and my eyes, the same grey eyes, but they hadn't lived through the things that I had, at least not yet anyway.
I leaned closer to the mirror, staring at my face. I don't remember falling asleep with this face, and it was like a memory seeing myself this young again. I reached out and touched my reflection on the glass, and it was cold, solid, and real. "Okay... what the hell?" I whispered, my heart beginning to beat faster in my chest. "What is going on here?"
I didn't feel panic; I only felt confusion, heavy like fog had rolled in. I touched my face, my jaw, combed my hair with my fingers, wondering if the mirror was honest or it was false, but a mirror can't be false, so that train of thought just stopped, but still everything felt real to me. I placed my hand on my chest, expecting something to be wrong, but nothing was.
'Was this really happening? Had I… died and been reborn? Reincarnation?' My thoughts echoed in my head because I didn't know. This felt like something from stories, novels, and fictions. A person from one world wakes up in another, or the same with different settings, often with special abilities or a helpful system. But this wasn't a novel or a story. There was no system. No power-up. Just me. My reflection. My heartbeat. Myself in this strange world that felt familiar somehow.
I held onto the sink tightly until my knuckles turned white. The porcelain or marble sink helped me focus, just a little. My heart raced faster, beating louder in my ears with each second that passed, like someone playing heavy metal.
This wasn't a dream.
I turned the tap on and splashed some cold water on my face, hoping that maybe the shock would jolt something, anything. But all it did was make the reflection clearer. My was staring back at me, eyes full of questions I didn't know the answers to.
I stepped back from the mirror and caught sight of my clothes. A plain gray T-shirt, dark trousers, both slightly oversized, like I'd borrowed them from someone else. I didn't recognize them. I didn't recognize the room I'd just woken up in either. My heart skipped.
'Where the hell am I?'
I opened the bathroom door slowly and looked out. The hallway was quiet and dim like a haunted house. The morning light came through the other end of the hall. The whole place felt strange, like time had just stopped everything, and I was the only one still moving, somehow.
I made my way back to the bedroom I had just left, which I think was mine, not sure, hoping to discover some hints about what had happened, like I'm in Blue's Clues. The door was still slightly open, so I pushed through and entered. Inside, the bed was disheveled and looked as if someone had just slept in it. There were posters on the walls, one of a man in a suit that was kind of like a soldier, and an American flag came together, also of a man in a suit with half his face showing, and the other half covered by some helmet with a gold faceplate, and I could tell he would be a pain in the ass. There was also a poster of a team, seven people dressed like, well, there is only one word to describe them: Heroes.
I also had a bookshelf with items such as a few unfinished projects, some awards, and books on physics, chemistry, engineering, and programming or software, so I was probably in college or high school. In the corner, a small desk with a pc was covered with notebooks and pens. I moved toward it slowly and carefully, as if it might disappear if I rushed. I went over and looked at the desk as I sat down in the chair.
On the table were a few books that were open and notes for exam preparation, and an ID for the Midtown High School. Then I opened the bottom drawer, inside the drawer were receipts, school notes, a stack of crumpled papers—class schedules, detention slips, printouts about Stark Industries internship, and Baxter Building intership. Underneath them, I spotted an old leather-type journal, so I reached and picked it up.
I flipped the journal open. Notes. My handwriting. The words written were about how yesterday went, but at a speed, borderline frantic, like someone suffering from ADHD on caffeine. I kept turning the page; the notes were still feverish, but they were depicted as if someone had added espresso to the caffeine. In the journal, the writing kept going until the previous day, the last entry. My fingers trembled slightly as I turned the page.
In the upper corner, someone had scrawled a date: September 2, 2006— which was yesterday. 'I have been having panic attacks for the last few weeks, and it shows no sign of stopping, only getting worse by the day. Mom is worried; she's been working overtime ever since the second week, so I don't know how to tell her to stop worrying about me before she drives herself to the ground from overworking. There's also something I didn't tell mom about. I also had dreams that I couldn't explain or make sense of, because they felt like they didn't exist, but at the same time, they felt like they did.
These dreams take place in another life where I was older, experienced, brutal, and served with the special forces military. I was a man who believed I had to work hard to do things all on my own, never letting anyone in fully, only halfway. My only companions were comics, movies, and shows. I was always away because I had no one in that world, just me. Then the battle happened, the taliban had set up an ambush for my team, and we lost the skirmish. I was executed right there with my team, and that's all I remember.'
I stared at the words, unable to breathe for a moment, like someone had cut off life support for one second. And that's all that was written in the last entry of the journal. The rest of the journal was blank, and I think I took over this version of me, and I don't know how to feel about it. What the hell kind of situation was I in? I looked towards the bed, and I saw something under it. On the floor, underneath the bed, rest a few boxes.
I moved carefully toward it. The creaking floorboards reminded me how strange this place felt. I knelt by the boxes and opened one. Inside were a few clothes, a heavy, worn-out black wallet, and a small key chain attached to the wallet. The keychain had a bunch of coordinates: 37.7749° N, 122.4194° W. I found old Polaroid pictures of a man and a little boy who looked about two to three years old—us. Behind one of the polaroids were two names: Matthew Greyson Todd and Jason G Matthew. I took the wallet from the box and flipped it open. It had a few 10-dollar bills, 2 credit cards, and an ID.
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Name:Matthew G Todd.
DOB:July 4, 1947.
Address:Manhattan, New York.
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The name surfaced without prompting. Matthew G Jason. My father, I think. I felt it. Not as a memory, but as something deeper, something in my gut. Something this body remembered, even if I didn't.
I began digging through the other boxes. Old photographs—faded, scratched. A woman smiling beside my father and a young boy—him, presumably. Letters from a lawyer. A folder stamped with the seal of the New York State Office. He died 8 years ago; technically, his body was never found, and the details surrounding the incident were vague.
His father was dead. A recent reincarnator, dumped into the life of a version of myself I didn't know… yet. The apartment was quiet. Too quiet. The kind of silence that settles over a place, when no one's sure what to say, and no one's left to say it.
I stood in the middle of the bedroom, staring down at the boxes like they were radioactive. Maybe it was. I sat on the edge of the bed and tried to breathe, rubbing the heel of my palm into my chest where the weight settled. My father—this version's—was dead. Recently, I think, my Father left long ago. I didn't know how. I didn't even know if I cared, and that made me feel like a monster.
But I had to accept the facts: I was Jason G Matthew, seventeen years old, living with my mother in Brooklyn. My father, Matthew G Todd, had left me with an anonymous key with a set of coordinates. And for whatever reason, I had ended up in his son's body, with no idea what world I was walking into.
My hands went cold. Jason Matthew. That was me. My name. And I didn't know how to feel about it. So I had a choice to make. To be Jason. Keep my head down. Try to blend in. Or—Start digging. Figure out who I was here. What the hell did it all mean?
As Jason sat at his desk, contemplating the coordinates and the mysterious key connected to it, a sudden sensation washed over him—a tingling at the base of his skull, as if a current had passed through his brain. His vision blurred momentarily, ...then I passed out, my face dropping on the desk.
[8:13 AM]
I woke up groggy, blinking my eyes while sitting up, not knowing what had happened. My head felt heavy and was throbbing, like I'd been knocked out for hours, but when I glanced at the digital clock, only an hour had passed. I blinked a few times, trying to think. The room was lit by the rising sun from the window covered by the curtains.
But then it clicked in my brain, 'I remember the memories of this body.' Then my eyes went wide, about where I am, in what universe I was in." Holy Mother of God. I'm in an amalgam universe of DC and Marvel." I kept staring blankly at the wall for I don't know how long, but I couldn't think about anything other than how am I gonna survive here? Because surviving 1 of those worlds is bad enough, but both at the same time? Then you can kiss your life goodbye.
[9:28 AM]
He was lying on his bed for an hour, and he didn't know what he would do now, as this world would kill him just from existing. And also, he didn't want to worry his mother or the mother of this version of himself. She was a nurse, and he didn't know how he would act in front of her because he was an orphan in his previous life, but now he had a family, and he would not lose the only family he would ever have. But one thing was certain.
He wasn't going to let this life be wasted.
[Half-Hour Later ~ 10:33 AM]
The hot water didn't clear his mind of the thoughts of the world he was in.
Jason stood under the thin stream of the shower, steam curling from his body and making the condensation appear on the curtain and the mirror above the sink. The apartment's plumbing rattled like it was coughing. He let the water wash over him, grounding himself in the mundane.
Just a seventeen-year-old kid—alone, tired, confused, and the weight of the truth in his mind. After he toweled off, he wiped the fog from the bathroom mirror.
The face that looked back wasn't quite familiar yet. Same storm-grey eyes, same messy hair, but the nose was different. His skin had a pale complexion, and his frame was scrawnier than he remembered being in his past life.
Jason Matthew.
He wrapped the towel around his waist and went to his room to his closet. He found a clean white T-shirt and some cargo pants from the closet, put them on, and stepped out of his room and went into the kitchen. He found a note attached to the fridge with a magnet that said: 'I'll be home later, probably by 9. So, don't overexert yourself, ok? Love you, MOM. xoxo'
He smiled at the note and took it, folded it, and put it in his pocket, and opened the fridge and found half a carton of milk, eggs, a half loaf of bread, a bottle of mustard and ketchup, some leftover spaghetti from last night, and vegetables and fruits in the bottom compartment, some beer and sodas in the door compartment. He took the milk and the cereal from the pantry, took a bowl from the cupboard above the sink, sat down at the counter, put in the cereal, then poured milk, and began eating.
After eating and washing the bowl and spoon clean, putting them on the rack, I went to the living room and sat on the couch, found my laptop, and decided to research this world for everything I could.
[2:39 PM]
I spent the next 5 hours scrolling through this universe's timeline—not fan wikis, but real news clippings, online videos, and social media. And can only say one thing:
WHAT. THE. FUCK.
The world that I'm in is insane. There are so many heroes, so many villains, and Earth itself is literally bigger than the one I came from. I guess that makes sense, more cities, more countries, and a whole bunch of locations that didn't even exist in my old universe. Well, I did manage to get some information on the current affairs.
The Avengers are active, and so is the Justice League.
Apparently, they all came together (not like that) as a massive alien invasion started happening, there were blurry images of the invasion, and I can make out from the images that Loki was still leading the invasion, but there were also images of alien soldiers that look like chitauri, and also some that kind of looked like para-demons from the DCAU films. And that would lead to some Questionable things that I don't want to know about, but back on track, they worked together at first repelling the invasion, but then things went sideways when the government (mainly the World Council) tried to nuke the alien threat, but as always, Stark took the nuke into the portal and came out later unconscious. The Justice League dipped after that, deciding that they weren't about to work with people who throw a nuke like it's baseball, and there the pitcher. The Avengers, meanwhile, don't work for the government, but they do cooperate with them from time to time.
Also, people here know about mutants, aliens, and metahumans. Like... It's public knowledge; there are even laws and news reports about them. Magneto is active, and I couldn't find anything about the X-Men. Nothing official. No sightings or rumors. Probably haven't formed yet or are underground.
There are so many news reports on the street level, as they have at least 4 months of archived stories on the 'Spider-Menaces', Spider-Man, and not just one but multiple Spider-people. But then there's also Daredevil, Punisher, some old images on Wildcat, and. Also saw something about White Tiger, also in the images, he's a guy. So, Ava Ayala hasn't become White Tiger yet.
Black Lightning is also active, along with his daughters, Thunder and Lightning. The Fantastic Four are a thing. So is Nightwing, Red Hood, Robin (probably Damian, judging by the reports, he carries a sword), and Shazam.
And all the reports on everyone else, Superman since 1991, Batman since 1985, and the Flash since 1998. Also, Wonder Woman and her team, helping Captain America in the war, but don't know about mutants, but definitely see Hugh Jackman, Logan, and his brother Victor in the old picture with them. Then there are the companies, Oscorp had its own corporate site with its military contracts. The Baxter Building was also named after their internship by the Fantastic Four, who had been active since 2004. The name "Stark Industries" popped up with other major companies like Wayne Industries, Lex-Corp, Roxxon, and many more.
It was subtle, but it was all there. This Universe isn't just fiction anymore. It's real now, and it was his home. And he would do something about it.
[Sunday, September 3, 2006 ~ 5:39 PM]
He spent the remainder of the afternoon walking the neighborhood, as he didn't want to take the 1970 Charger RT/SE that was his father's; now it was his. He walked around and noted the quiet things: the old woman who fed pigeons outside the bodega, the bartender on the corner who lit a cigarette every day at around 5:50 PM, the broken traffic light that no one bothered to fix, the trash chute that echoed louder than it should, the fire hydrant that hissed steam every few minutes, and the man in the tan coat who lingered by the mailboxes but never checked any.
Details like that are what make the world. The life that we all live with problems and worry. The things that matter, even the bad things.
[Sunday, September 3, 2006 ~ 8:13 PM]
That night, he arrived home at 8, washed up, and took the leftover spaghetti, heating it in the microwave as he waited for his mother to return from her shift at the hospital. He sat on the fire escape outside his window, the iron rails warm from the day's sun, knees pulled up to his chest, staring at the sky.
The city hummed around him—sirens in the distance, someone yelling in Spanish, a car alarm echoing off the buildings. It was loud, messy, and somehow perfect.
It was real. He didn't know who had brought him here, or why. But he was here for better or worse. And he'd make it count because this was his new start.
[Sunday, September 3, 2006 ~ 9:35 PM]
The metal of the fire escape groaned beneath Jason's legs as he sat with his back against the metal steps, watching the city ahead of him. The sun was already dipping low when he heard the familiar rattle of keys at the apartment door.
"Jason?" his mother called as the door opened.
"I'm out here," he said, leaning forward so she could see him through the window.
Caroline stepped inside, nudging the door shut with her foot. She dropped her bag and jacket by the door with a tired sigh. "You always manage to find the highest, most uncomfortable place to sit. Don't know what to do with you."
Jason shrugged. "It's quiet out here. I enjoy it."
She smiled softly and walked over, resting her arms on the window frame. "How was your day, sweetheart? Do anything special?"
"It was ok, nothing special," he said. "I walked around the neighborhood all afternoon. Checked the park, the old bookstore, the deli on Fifth. Nothing exciting, but it killed time."
Caroline nodded, listening closely, the way she always did. "Did you eat yet?"
"Yeah. I warmed up the leftover spaghetti. There's still plenty," he added quickly. "You should eat."
Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. "You heated it yourself?"
"Didn't burn it or anything, and you know I can cook," he said, a hint of pride in his voice.
"Well then," she said, straightening up, "I guess I'd better try this famous spaghetti. And you don't know how to cook better than an amateur."
She moved to the small kitchen table with a plate while Jason climbed in from the fire escape and sat across from her. The temperature dropped fast after dark. The old building held heat like a sieve. He rubbed his arms and padded across the creaky floor to the kitchen table. She ate slowly, clearly exhausted, while he talked—about a stray cat he'd seen, about the man who played guitar on the corner, about how the sky looked different just before sunset. Things that happen in life.
Caroline listened between bites, smiling, occasionally reaching across the table to squeeze his hand. "I'm glad you had a good day," she said quietly. "It makes mine feel lighter."
When she finished, Jason stood and gathered the plate. "I've got the dishes."
"You don't have to—"
"I know," he said. "But I want to."
She watched him rinse and stack the dishes, the sound of running water filling the room. When he was done, he wiped his hands on a towel and turned to her.
The clock above the fridge read 9:53 PM.
"Goodnight, Mom. Love you."
"Goodnight, Jason, love you too," she said, her voice warm. "Sleep well."
He nodded, gave her a small smile, and disappeared into his room, leaving Caroline alone at the table—tired, full, and quietly grateful.
He grabbed an old hoodie from the door hook and made his way into the bedroom. The bed wasn't made, just a semi-soft mattress covered with dark blue sheets and thick blankets. A single photo sat on the nightstand: his mother, Caroline, smiling in front of Central Park, arms wrapped around a younger version of him.
He picked it up and stared for a long time. He set the photo down carefully.
After brushing his teeth in the dim bathroom light and changing into a worn pair of sweatpants, he collapsed onto the bed. The springs creaked, the blanket itched, and the pillow smelled faintly like lavender and dust.
Still, it was better than the silence that came before this life. And here, now, he would do anything to keep his mother safe, and figure out what to do.
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A/N: Sup, here's the first rewritten chapter, hope you like it. And didn't know what ot do with the conversation between Caroline and Jason, but still, it is something. OK, that's it, and HAPPY NEW YEAR!