Chapter 1: The Last Day of Normalcy
The wind, a ghost with cold fingers, whispered through the trees of the Beacon Hills Preserve. Adam pulled his hoodie tighter, the worn fabric offering little defense against the deepening chill of the evening. He could hear the crunch of leaves under his own sneakers, a sound so mundane it felt like a lie. Every step he took was a betrayal of the past, a deliberate march away from a reality of video games and online forums and into a world that, just yesterday, had been a fictional one.
His mind was a cluttered attic, filled with foreknowledge he wasn't supposed to have. The timeline of events, the characters' backstories, the major plot points—it was all there, a meticulously organized file he was desperate to ignore. He had been a bystander his whole life, an observer of stories. Now, he was walking into one, and the thought made a dry, cynical laugh bubble up in his throat.
"Seriously," he muttered, the sound swallowed by the rustling leaves. "A werewolf bite? This is what I get for trying to 'connect with nature'?"
He hadn't been trying to connect. He'd been running. Running from the dull ache of an unfulfilling life and the suffocating weight of an uncertain future. He'd hoped the familiar woods would offer a moment of clarity, but all they did was remind him of a story he was now inexplicably a part of. He'd seen Scott McCall's old beater parked near the trailhead, a small tremor of dread running through him. He knew what was coming. The dead body. The werewolf. The bite that would change everything.
A rustling sound off to his right pulled him from his thoughts. It was too clumsy to be an animal. He held his breath, the forest silence suddenly heavy and oppressive. He didn't have to wait long. Stiles Stilinski, a whirlwind of nervous energy and flailing limbs, burst from the undergrowth, his voice a frantic, breathless hiss.
"Scott! Scott, wait up!"
Scott McCall, lanky and athletic, jogged to a stop, his face a mask of exasperated confusion. Adam pulled back, slipping behind the thick trunk of an ancient oak, a silent, unseen audience. The two boys argued, their hushed tones carrying through the quiet woods. Stiles's words were a torrent of nervous babble, a mix of fear and sheer, unadulterated curiosity about the dead body the cops were supposedly looking for. Scott, the reluctant voice of reason, was trying to make sense of his friend's madness.
Adam's heart hammered against his ribs. This was it. The moment. He could walk away. He could pretend he hadn't seen them, hadn't heard them. He could let the timeline unfold as it was meant to. But the thought of Scott enduring this alone, of Stiles being dragged into a world of supernatural threats without a safety net… the thought was unbearable. He was a transmigrator, a ghost in a machine he didn't belong in. But he wasn't a monster. He couldn't just watch.
He stayed. He watched as they split up, Stiles making a beeline for his dad's search party and Scott heading deeper into the preserve. Adam followed, maintaining a distance, the shadows his ally. He felt a weird kinship with the awkward Scott and the manic Stiles. He was, in his own way, a weird outcast too. He was the kid who knew too much and felt like he was constantly faking his way through life.
He saw the moment it happened. A flash of movement, something too fast to be human, a growl that wasn't an animal's. Scott's pained cry echoed through the trees, a sharp, visceral sound that cut through the silence. Adam flinched, his stomach twisting into a knot. He saw Scott stumble, fall, and then get back up, a dark, primal energy seeming to pulse around him.
And then, it happened to him.
It wasn't a growl or a flash of claws. It was a cold, alien presence that settled in his mind, a sterile whisper that felt more like a computer than a living thing. It wasn't organic. It was a System.
The world seemed to blur at the edges, the familiar greens and browns of the forest replaced by a faint, shimmering, violet-blue light that seemed to pulse from within his own body. A crystalline chime, sharp and clear, rang in his head.
[SYSTEM: ACTIVATING. HOST ENERGY DETECTED. MIMICRY PROTOCOL: ENGAGED.]
The words weren't in his ears, but in his mind, a stark, unfeeling message. A stream of data, a cascade of unfamiliar symbols and glyphs, ran down the edges of his vision. He tried to blink it away, but it was a part of him now, a new layer of reality.
[SYSTEM: INITIALIZING MIMICRY ABILITY. TARGET: WEREWOLF (JUVENILE). PRIMARY ABILITY: ENHANCED STRENGTH. MIMICRY COMPLETE. DURATION: 24 HOURS.]
Adam stared at his hands, a faint, translucent violet glow emanating from his fingertips. The light shimmered, almost like heat haze, before fading back into nothingness. The world returned to normal, the forest quiet again, save for the distant sound of Stiles yelling for Scott.
He looked up. Scott was gone, a trail of broken underbrush marking his frantic escape. Adam stood alone, the air thick with the metallic scent of blood and something else, something wild and untamed. The glow on his hands was gone, but the feeling remained, a faint, tingling hum beneath his skin.
He felt the weight of it all settle in his chest, a crushing sense of inevitability. He was a transmigrator with a cheat code, a character with foreknowledge and a powerful, unknown ability. But he had no idea what he was doing. He was just a kid, thrust into a story he only knew from a screen. The System's voice was a cold comfort, an unfeeling guide in a world of monsters and hunters. He was a stranger in a strange land, and his last day of normalcy had just ended with a quiet chime and a faint, otherworldly glow.
He had no idea what to do next. But he knew, with a certainty that settled deep in his bones, that there was no turning back.