The first thing Alex noticed was the smell.
Mildew. Stale cigarette smoke from the neighbors. Something that might've been rotting food somewhere in the building. His nose wrinkled before his eyes even opened.
'What the hell?'
His head pounded like someone had taken a sledgehammer to his skull. Alex groaned and forced his eyes open, immediately regretting it when harsh sunlight stabbed through a grimy window. He blinked, trying to clear his vision, and stared at a ceiling he'd never seen before.
Water-stained. Cracked plaster. A single naked bulb hanging from a frayed wire.
"Where am I?"
His voice came out rough, scratchy. Wrong. Alex sat up too fast and the room spun. He grabbed the edge of what turned out to be a lumpy mattress on a rusty bed frame, breathing hard until the dizziness passed.
This wasn't his room.
This wasn't his *bed*.
Alex looked around slowly, his heart starting to hammer against his ribs. Dingy apartment. Peeling wallpaper. A kitchenette that looked like it hadn't been cleaned in months. Secondhand furniture that probably came from the curb. Everything screamed poverty in a way that made his chest tight.
'Okay. Okay, think. What's the last thing I remember?'
He'd been gaming. Call of Duty, late night session because he couldn't sleep. The match was intense, his team pushing for the win, and then—
Sparks. A sharp crack. His entire body seizing up.
His gaming setup had electrocuted him.
"I died," Alex whispered. The words felt surreal even as he said them. "I actually died."
But if he died, then where was he now? Heaven? Hell? Some weird in-between?
His hands trembled as he stood up, legs shaky like a newborn deer. There was a mirror on the wall—cracked, naturally—and Alex stumbled toward it with growing dread.
The face staring back wasn't his.
Blonde hair instead of his dark brown. Blue eyes instead of hazel. The bone structure was different, sharper, the kind of handsome that should've come with confidence. Except this guy looked like he'd been through hell. Malnourished. Sunken cheeks. Skin too pale. The body underneath the ratty t-shirt was skinny in the unhealthy way, all visible ribs and zero muscle.
"What the *fuck*?"
Alex touched his face—this stranger's face—and the reflection copied him. This was real. This was actually happening.
Transmigration.
The word popped into his head from all those web novels he'd read when he should've been studying. Regular person dies, wakes up in another body, usually with some kind of cheat power or system to help them survive.
'Please tell me I got something. Please tell me this isn't just a straight-up body-swap nightmare.'
He waited. Counted to thirty in his head. Tried thinking "system" really hard.
Nothing.
No floating screens. No mysterious voice in his head. No sudden download of kung fu knowledge or magic powers.
Just him, in a stranger's body, in what looked like the worst apartment in whatever city this was.
Alex's breathing got faster. The panic was creeping in, cold fingers wrapping around his lungs and squeezing. He forced himself to sit down on the edge of the bed before he passed out.
'Calm down. Think. There has to be something here. Some clue about what's going on.'
As if responding to his desperation, something shifted in his head. Not painful, but strange. Like a door opening that had been closed. Memories that weren't his started trickling in, slow and disjointed.
Alex Carter. That was this body's name. Sixteen years old. Orphan.
The same name as his original body. That couldn't be a coincidence.
More memories surfaced, fitting together like puzzle pieces. Parents dead in a car crash when he was eight. Bounced around foster care until he aged out. Barely scraping by in this dump of an apartment while finishing high school. Working part-time at a warehouse to cover rent and food.
Alone. Completely, utterly alone.
Alex's throat got tight. This kid—this version of him—had lived a hard life. Way harder than his original one had been.
He was still trying to process everything when someone knocked on the door. Three sharp raps that made him jump.
"Carter? You in there?"
Female voice. Young, maybe early twenties. Alex stood up, his new body moving on autopilot as those borrowed memories guided him to the door.
The girl on the other side was pretty in a girl-next-door way. Dark hair pulled back, jeans and a tank top, arms crossed like she was already annoyed. Her expression went from irritated to surprised when she saw him.
"Wow, you look like death. You sick or something?"
"I—" Alex's voice cracked. He cleared his throat. "Just woke up. What's up?"
"Rent notice." She pulled a paper from her back pocket and held it out. "Dad's raising it again. Two hundred more, starting next month. Payment's due in three days."
Alex took the paper with numb fingers. The numbers swam in his vision for a second before coming into focus.
Two. Hundred. Dollars.
More.
"Three days?" The words came out strangled.
The girl—her name was Sarah, the memories supplied—shifted uncomfortably. "Look, I know it sucks. I told him it was too much, but he won't listen. Times are tough all over, you know?"
Alex nodded mechanically. "Yeah. Sure. I'll... I'll figure it out."
"You gonna be okay? You really don't look good."
"I'm fine." The lie tasted bitter. "Thanks for letting me know."
Sarah hesitated, like she wanted to say something else, but finally just shrugged and left. Alex closed the door and stared at the rent notice.
His hands started shaking again.
'Okay. Okay, how bad is this? Check the bank account. See what we're working with.'
He found his phone—old model, cracked screen—and opened the banking app with fingers that barely worked. The numbers loaded.
$347.50
That was it. That was everything.
"No. No no no no no."
Alex's job paid every two weeks. Payday was in three days, right when rent was due. He pulled up his last pay stub, doing the math even though his gut already knew the answer.
After taxes, he'd make about $380. Add that to current balance, and he'd have roughly $727.
Rent was $1,250 now. With the increase, it would be $1,450.
He'd be seven hundred and twenty-three dollars short.
The panic attack hit like a freight train. His vision tunneled. His chest felt like someone was standing on it. Alex collapsed onto the bed, gasping for air, the phone falling from his fingers.
'How? How is this possible? How does anyone live like this?'
More memories pushed through, answering his desperate questions. The previous Alex—the original owner of this body—had been in a bad place. Desperate. Scared. Trying so hard to make ends meet that he'd done something stupid.
Really, *really* stupid.
He'd taken his savings. His scholarship money for community college. Everything he'd managed to scrape together over months of brutal work and careful budgeting.
And he'd bet it all on sports.
Not once. Multiple times. Chasing losses, convinced the next bet would fix everything. That one big win would solve all his problems.
He'd lost it all. Every cent.
The despair had been crushing. The shame of throwing away his future. The terror of being homeless. It all piled up until his body just... gave out.
Heart attack at sixteen. Died alone in this crappy apartment, surrounded by betting slips and empty ramen cups.
Alex felt tears burning in his eyes. This kid. This other version of him. He'd just been trying to survive and the world had chewed him up and spit him out.
'And now it's my problem. Lucky me.'
He lay there for a long time, staring at that water-stained ceiling, trying to breathe through the crushing weight of his new reality.
No powers. No system. No cheat abilities.
Just debt, poverty, and three days to figure out how to survive in a world that clearly didn't care if he lived or died.
'Okay,' Alex thought, forcing himself to sit up again. 'Okay. Panic time is over. Time to think. I died and woke up here for a reason. There has to be something I can do.'
He grabbed his phone again, fingers steadier now, and started searching.
His new life wasn't going to save itself.
Read advanved chapters days ahead of webnovel updates on www.patreon.com/marvelstark