Chapter 1 : Awakening
The beeping wouldn't stop.
High-pitched. Rhythmic. Somewhere to my left. I tried to turn my head and pain lanced through my skull like someone had driven a spike through my temple.
My eyes opened to fluorescent lights. White ceiling tiles. The sterile smell of antiseptic and recycled air.
Hospital.
I lifted my right hand to shield my eyes from the glare. The motion felt wrong—sluggish, like moving through molasses. And the hand itself... I stared at it. Calloused fingers. A faded scar across the knuckles I'd never seen before. Not my hand.
Not my hand.
The heart monitor beside me spiked. My heart monitor. Attached to my chest. My chest that felt broader than it should, stronger despite the obvious muscle atrophy, belonging to a body that wasn't—
I died.
The memory hit like a freight train. Tuesday evening. Walking home from the office. Headphones in, not paying attention. The truck ran the red light at forty miles an hour. I remember the headlights. The screech of brakes too late. Then nothing.
I should be dead. I was dead.
"Mr. Griffin? Oh my goodness, Mr. Griffin!"
A nurse burst through the door. Latina, mid-forties, kind eyes going wide. She dropped her clipboard and rushed to my bedside.
"You're awake! Doctor Chen! Doctor Chen, he's awake!"
Griffin. She called me Griffin.
My name is Harry Morgan. Was Harry Morgan. The man in this bed, the body I now inhabited—his name was Griffin.
"Mr. Griffin, can you hear me? Can you understand what I'm saying?" The nurse—Martinez, according to her name tag—leaned into my field of vision. Her hand found my wrist, checking pulse the old-fashioned way while machines did it automatically.
I opened my mouth. My throat felt like sandpaper wrapped in broken glass. "Water."
The word came out wrong. Deeper than my voice. A stranger's voice.
Martinez grabbed a plastic cup with a straw from the side table. "Small sips, Mr. Griffin. You've been out a long time. Small sips."
The water tasted like paradise. Cold and clean and real. I was alive. Somehow, impossibly, I was alive.
A man in a white coat appeared—Dr. Chen, presumably. Asian, fifties, tired eyes that sharpened as he assessed me. "Harrison? Can you tell me your name?"
Harrison. Harrison Griffin.
"Harry," I managed. Close enough. "Harry Griffin."
Chen nodded, exchanging a glance with Martinez. "Do you know where you are?"
I looked around the room. Standard hospital setup. IV drip. Monitors. Sunlight through blinds. A television mounted in the corner, currently off. No personal items. No flowers or cards. Whoever Harrison Griffin was, he didn't have visitors.
"Hospital," I said. "How long?"
"Central City General," Chen confirmed. "You've been in a coma for nine months, Mr. Griffin. Since the particle accelerator explosion."
Particle accelerator.
Central City.
The words detonated in my brain like a bomb. I knew those words. I knew what they meant. I'd watched the show, binged it during lonely weekends, discussed it on fan forums during boring conference calls.
The Flash. STAR Labs. Harrison Wells. Metahumans.
I was in the Arrowverse.
I was in a fictional universe.
My heart rate spiked again. The monitor screamed. Chen frowned and checked the readout.
"Try to stay calm, Mr. Griffin. Your body has been through significant trauma. The accelerator explosion—you were caught in the dark matter wave. Frankly, we're not sure how you survived."
Dark matter. Metahuman creation event. Nine months in a coma meant the timeline had already started. Barry Allen was already the Flash. The question was when in the timeline I'd landed.
"What's the date?" I asked.
"February 12th, 2015."
February 2015. Two months after Barry woke up. Season One was in full swing. Reverse-Flash was manipulating everyone. Gorilla Grodd lurked in the sewers. The pipeline was probably already filling with captured metahumans.
And I was here. In the middle of it.
A blue glow flickered at the edge of my vision.
I blinked. The glow remained—a translucent rectangle hovering in my peripheral sight like a floating notification. I turned my head to look at it directly.
[METAHUMAN COLLECTOR SYSTEM — ACTIVATED] [HOST COMPATIBLE] [DORMANT META-GENE DETECTED — BINDING COMPLETE]
The text pulsed once and faded, replaced by a new message.
[WELCOME, HOST. INITIATING TUTORIAL SEQUENCE.]
I nearly fell out of the bed.
"Mr. Griffin?" Martinez grabbed my shoulder. "Are you alright?"
She couldn't see it. The blue interface floated between us and she looked right through it.
"Fine." My voice came out steadier than I felt. "Just... dizzy. Sorry."
The system—because that's what this was, that's what it had to be—expanded into a fuller display. Stats appeared. Numbers and categories and progress bars.
[RANK: F] [LEVEL: 1] [POWER POINTS: 0] [POWERS STORED: 0/3]
I forced myself to breathe. To process. A system. Like a video game. In a superhero universe.
The interface scrolled to a new section, apparently sensing my confusion.
[CORE FUNCTION: POWER EXTRACTION] [HOST MAY EXTRACT ABILITIES FROM METAHUMANS THROUGH PHYSICAL CONTACT] [EXTRACTED POWERS ARE STORED IN SYSTEM INVENTORY] [HOST MAY EQUIP UP TO 3 STORED POWERS SIMULTANEOUSLY]
Power extraction. Stealing abilities from metahumans.
[DETECTION RANGE: 10 METERS] [EXTRACTION SUCCESS RATE: 15-35% (CURRENT RANK)] [POWER RETENTION: 40% OF ORIGINAL STRENGTH]
More details followed. Stats I could increase. Functions I could unlock. A progression path that would make me stronger with every power I acquired.
The implications crashed over me like a wave.
I could steal powers. From anyone. From everyone.
Barry Allen's speed. Caitlin Snow's ice. Cisco Ramon's vibes. All the villains and criminals and dangerous metahumans that would appear over the coming seasons—their abilities could become mine.
I could become something terrifying.
A new notification appeared.
[TUTORIAL QUEST ACTIVATED] [OBJECTIVE: COMPLETE FIRST EXTRACTION] [TIME LIMIT: 7 DAYS] [REWARD: 100 PP, SKILL UNLOCK: PASSIVE DETECTION] [FAILURE PENALTY: SYSTEM DEACTIVATION — HOST TERMINATION]
Seven days to steal someone's powers. Or die.
No pressure.
"Mr. Griffin, we'll need to run some tests now that you're conscious." Dr. Chen's voice pulled me back to reality. "Cognitive assessments, motor function evaluations. Given the length of your coma, we want to ensure there's no lasting damage."
"Of course." I pulled my attention away from the interface still floating in my peripheral vision. "Whatever you need, Doctor."
I had questions. Hundreds of them. About this body's previous owner—was Harrison Griffin still in here somewhere? About how I'd crossed into a fictional universe. About whether I was dreaming or dead or genuinely, impossibly alive.
But first I needed to survive the next seven days.
The nurse brought a tray of food while Dr. Chen made notes. Rubbery chicken breast. Instant mashed potatoes from a powder mix. Green jello that wobbled when I prodded it.
I ate every bite.
The chicken was terrible. The potatoes had no texture. The jello tasted like artificial lime and disappointment.
But I was eating. Breathing. Alive in a universe where people flew and ran faster than sound and shot fire from their hands. A universe I'd watched for entertainment, now spread out around me full of possibilities and dangers I'd only ever imagined.
Even bad food tasted like victory.
"Is there anything else you need, Mr. Griffin?" Martinez asked, collecting my empty tray.
"A phone," I said. "And my personal effects, if you have them. I need to... catch up."
"I'll see what we have in storage. Try to rest—you've got a long recovery ahead."
She left. Chen finished his notes and followed. And I was alone with the blue interface still hovering at the edge of my sight.
I closed my eyes and focused on it. The system responded instantly, expanding into a full display.
[TUTORIAL QUEST: FIRST EXTRACTION] [TIME REMAINING: 6 DAYS, 23 HOURS, 47 MINUTES] [CURRENT TARGET: NONE DETECTED] [SUGGESTION: LOCATE METAHUMAN WITHIN DETECTION RANGE AND INITIATE PHYSICAL CONTACT]
Six days, twenty-three hours to find a metahuman, touch them, and steal their power.
In a city full of powered criminals.
Where Barry Allen is already playing hero.
My hands—Harrison Griffin's hands—clenched the thin hospital blanket. The system wanted me to hunt. To become a predator. In a world where the greatest heroes in the multiverse were just getting started.
The tutorial quest blinked in my vision. Insistent. Counting down.
The game had already started.
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