Author Note- So sorry for missing the release date by a day still no data on my phone but ill try to release at least weekly. Also ill space the tect out later, i did before but for some reason its like that I got no clue why.
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The door shot open in front of me, louder than usual. That sharp air sending a gust into my empty home. I leaned against a wall for a second, letting the buzz from champagne and compliments settle in my bones. The afterparty had been an avalanche of praise—critics, agents, producers. All of them clinging to me like planets to a rising star. The apex predator of the red carpet.
I crossed the penthouse with the strut of someone who knew exactly how high he'd climbed. Every inch of the place screamed that I made it. Glossy black counters, floor-to-ceiling windows. The air smelled like polished everything and power.
Entering the living room, I walked sloppily towards the unusually soft looking couch
I picked up the wine bottle I left earlier half-full, just like the life I'd spent filling it. A single magazine sat beside it on the table, my face grinning on the cover. "Top 50 Actors of the Decade." Damn right.
I plopped onto the leather couch and propped my feet on the coffee table.
"All of it," I whispered, lifting the bottle. "Mine."
The wine hit my tongue like liquid velvet. I closed my eyes for several minutes simmering down. I finally made it. 17 years old and I'm a hair away from the top then my stomach grumbled.
Getting up immediately like a switch activated me I headed towards my kitchen, and opened up my high tech metal cabinets, catching myself within the reflection. A sharp, impossibly handsome face blurring by me as I reached for my raw honey bottle in the front and letting it collapse softly onto my tongue.
Heading back onto the couch for a victory rest I sat down with the bottle on honey in toe and placed in onto the fancy shaped glass table. yawning I grabbed one more swig of wine while laying my body down.
'it had been a long day.'
Then pain.
It punched me square in the chest, like someone had reached in and squeezed my heart with ice-cold fingers. The bottle slipped from my grip and shattered on the floor, red wine bleeding into the carpet like a spilled sacrifice. I gasped, my hand clutching at my chest as my knees buckled. I staggered, reached out, missed. Crashed to the floor.
My mouth opened, but no sound came out.
I couldn't move.
I couldn't scream.
Only watch.
I saw the ceiling blur, the chandelier above me spinning slowly. My fingers twitched. My body didn't listen.
Paralyzed.
I was trapped in my own corpse.....
You ever wonder what it's like to be, totally aware, while your body rots?
I have.
Days passed. Then weeks.
I heard nothing but the silence. Saw nothing but the same view: ceiling, light, shadows lengthening as time forgot me.
No one came. No assistant. No girlfriend. No agent.
And still, my phones socials posted without me old drafts from weeks before flooding my page. "Feeling grateful 💫." "New project coming soon! Stay tuned!"
And the comments rolled in.
"You inspire me.""You're a legend.""Drop the skincare routine, King!"
No one knew the King had already fallen off his throne, headfirst, face down in a puddle of his own success.
Then, finally, nothing.
Not blackness.
Just nothing.
⸻
I awoke to the loud hum of some ancient desktop towers standing before me and the rhythmic pounding of keys surrounding me. Looking around still dazed I saw lines of Gray cubicles stretched around me, cold and uniform.
What the hell?
My body jolted upright in a cheap rolling chair. My hands were pale. My sleeves—khaki, wrinkled, lifeless. I turned to the side to see a guy leaning over the cubicle wall, eyebrows raised.
"You okay, man?"
I blinked. "Uh yeah, just need to use the restroom."
He didn't question it. Just shrugged and went back to typing like the soul dead drone he probably was.
I stumbled down the hallway like a newborn deer on stilts. My hands touched every surface just to make sure they were real. I spotted a sign: MEN'S ROOM.
The mirror stopped me.
I staggered in front of it, gripped the sink, and turned on the water. Splashed my face. Cold. Real.
Then I looked up.
That wasn't my face.
"Jesus Christ," I muttered at the repulsive figure that reached my retinas.
A pale-skinned teenager stared back at me. Bowl cut. Beady eyes. Cheeks hollow like he'd lost a war with puberty. I recoiled from the glass like it had punched me.
Who the hell was this?
I checked my chest, there it was, a plastic nametag clipped to the shirt.
Luther Morningstar. 03/04/1990
17, but the wrong birth year.
I almost laughed. Almost.
I was no longer the Luther Morningstar the world worshipped. But looking back did they really. I wasn't no to sulk, I needed to figure out my situation fast.
Instead, I reached into my pocket, fished out an ancient phone—one of those budget things with the fake chrome trim. Slow as hell. I tapped into the browser and typed: "Top 50 actors."
Results showed a 2007 listing of the most recent famous actors otherwise, Nothing.
Then I searched my own name 'Luther Morningstar'
No results. No rankings. No articles.
I frowned. My fingers trembled as I changed the query. Back to something related to the top 50 only to accidentally hit the link to 'Top Upcoming Producers'.
Huh, wrong link, but thinking about it maybe I could find one my employers on here.
But it wasn't how I'd expected, Scrolling down on the list I hadn't found anyone yet only to stumble on a eerily familiar name.
"Chris McLean."
I hit enter on the hyperlink.
The face popped up instantly.
It was him.
But real.
The maniac host of Total Drama stood in front of a studio backdrop, arms crossed, cocky grin plastered across his face. The article called him a rising star in Canadian reality TV.
I backed up until my spine hit the wall. My breath hitched.
No.
No way.
I'm in the Total Drama universe.
I stared at the screen like it would change if I blinked. But it didn't. My mind clawed for explanations. Time travel? Alternate universe? Death and reincarnation?
No, why was I thinking about this, it was obvious something had happened when i appeared in someone elses body, None of it mattered. Only one thing did.
I've seen this world before.
And now I'm inside it.
⸻
Walking out of the bathroom I headed to the exit to check the outside world.
"Morningstar!"
The shout echoed down the hallway like a whipcrack. Some pudgy guy with a red face and a mustard-stained clip tie stomped toward me.
"Office. Now."
I looked at him. Really looked at him.
And for the first time in this body, I laughed. Some inferior person ordering around me could only be seen as a joke.
"Shove it," I said, tugging off the nametag and flicking it to the floor.
His eyes bulged. "You're fired!"
"I was already on my way out." I said, already through the front door.
I hit the second door with a confidence unsuiting of the body I was in.
Outside, the sky was too blue. The air smelled too clean. Pedestrians moved past me, oblivious. They had no idea what was walking among them.
I took a deep breath and laughed to myself.
I'm Luther Morningstar.
And I'm back.
Different face. Different shell.
Even if I lost everything I'd earned it didn't matter. This new world was my oyster
I have the script. And with it I shall build a better world than I had lived previously
This time? When my body lays on the floor, people will rush to stop a speck of dust from touching my existence.
Enough playing the game.
I'm rewriting it.