The room wasn't big. The curtains were pulled tight, blocking out the afternoon sun, so the inside was dim. A ceiling fan hung above, its blades turning slow, moving the thick air around but not really cooling anything. In the corner by the window, there was one of those hanging chairs on a metal stand. It wasn't moving. Just sitting there still. A boy was sitting in it.
He looked about sixteen. Black hair fell across his face, which was handsome in a way, the kind of face that would catch your attention on the street. But now it was slack. His head tilted back, mouth open a little, eyes closed. His arms hung loose at his sides. On the low table in front of him, beer bottles stood in a row, most of them empty, some knocked over on their sides. An ashtray was piled high with cigarette butts, more spilled on the table around it. The whole room smelled bad. Stale smoke and sour beer, the kind of smell that gets into the walls and stays. If someone walked in right then, they'd look at that table, then look at the boy in the chair, and they'd know immediately. They'd think he was dead.
Then the boy's eyes opened.
They opened wide, staring straight up at the ceiling. At the thin cracks running through the old paint, the way they branched out like rivers on a map. His fingers, pale and thin, gripped the edges of the chair. He didn't move for a long moment. Just breathed. His chest going up and down, fast and shallow, like he'd forgotten how to do it properly. Then he spoke. His voice came out dry, barely above a whisper in the quiet room.
"Did I really transmigrate?"
He looked around the room slowly, taking his time with everything. The fan turning overhead, creaking a little with each rotation. The wooden wardrobe against the wall, paint chipping off the edges, one door hanging slightly crooked. The window with its floral curtain, cheap fabric with a pattern that had faded from too much sun.This was not what he expected. He had expected mountains, mist, ancient peaks. Old temples built into cliffs. That was the world he knew from the web novels he read, the ones he stayed up late to finish on his phone. The cultivation world. Where a guy could start from nothing and train until he could fly, until he could move mountains with his hand. He'd imagined waking up there, in some young master's body, ready to begin.
But this room. The fan was electric. The curtain was the kind you bought at the market for a few dollars. Too modern.This wasn't right at all.
He pushed himself up from the chair, his legs shaky underneath him like they didn't want to hold his weight. He stood there for a moment, getting used to being upright. Then his eyes went to the table. The bottles, green glass, most of them empty. The ashtray overflowing with butts, some of them long, some of them smoked down to the filter. The mess of it all. The smell came at him again, stronger now that he was standing over it. Stale beer and old smoke. He wrinkled his nose without meaning to.
He thought to himself, The one who lived in this body before me, he must have been addicted to these things. Drinking every day. Smoking pack after pack. And now he's gone, and I'm here.
The thought sat in his mind. He didn't know the person whose body he was in. Didn't know why he drank so much, why he smoked so much, why he ended up passed out in a chair in a dim room. But looking at the mess on the table, he could guess. Some people just let themselves go.
He walked across the room. His steps were uncertain, like a child learning to walk again. One foot, then the other. He stopped in front of a small mirror hanging on the wall, the kind with a plastic frame, screwed in crooked so it tilted slightly to the left.
He looked at his face.
It was the same face. The one he remembered from before.Sharp features, dark eyes.He stared at himself, and himself stared back. He was still looking, still thinking about what this meant, when the pain came.
The pain came sharp, like someone had taken a knife and pushed it into his skull from the inside. He grunted. A low sound, not quite human, more like an animal caught in a trap. His knees hit the floor. Hard. He didn't feel it. His hands flew up and gripped his head, fingers digging into his hair, squeezing tight, like he was trying to keep his skull from splitting open.
But the pain wasn't just pain. It was something else. Pictures flashing behind his eyes. Sounds in his ears. Feelings in his chest. All of it forcing its way in at once, like too many people trying to push through a narrow door. A lifetime of moments crammed into seconds.
He saw a boy. Young. Standing alone in a place with high walls and metal beds. An orphanage. The same boy, older now, arms deep in soapy water washing dishes in a restaurant kitchen. Stacking shelves in a grocery store at night when everyone else was asleep. Counting money, small bills, saving bit by bit. He saw him excited, booking something on a computer. A trip. Driving a rented car down a long road. The car shaking, pulling to one side. A flat tyre. A dusty town with a strange name. Puente Antiguo. He saw him in this room. This exact room. Drinking. Bottle after bottle. Alone. Until his heart couldn't take it anymore and just stopped.
Then the pain was gone.
Just like that. Vanished. He stayed on his knees for a while, head bowed low, breathing hard. His t-shirt was sticking to his back, wet with sweat. He could feel it cold against his skin. Slowly, he raised one hand and patted his head gently, carefully, like he was checking if it was still there, still in one piece. It was.
The memories were his now. He knew things he hadn't known before. The boy's name was Raj Singh. Same name as his. He knew he was an orphan, had been one his whole life. He knew he loved Iron Man. Not just the movies, but the real one, the hero who had shown himself to the world two years ago. He had posters. He had action figures packed away somewhere. He knew the year now too. 2011.
He lifted his head and looked up at the ceiling. The fan was still turning, slow and useless. He stared at it for a long moment, letting everything settle in his mind. Then he spoke to himself, quiet, just above a whisper.
"So I traveled to the Marvel universe. A dangerous one."
He stood up slow. Put his hands on his waist like an old man resting his back. Looked up at the crack in the ceiling, the same crack he'd been staring at since he woke up. He started thinking.
The Marvel comics. He'd read enough of them, back in his old world. He knew the stories. Loki. The Tesseract. The Chitauri army coming through a hole in the sky above New York. The Avengers, all of them fighting. He did the math in his head. The year was 2011. That meant one year. Maybe less. One year until an alien army rained down on a city, until buildings fell, until people died in the streets.
He stood there with his hands on his waist, looking at the ceiling, and thought about that. One year to prepare. One year to figure out what to do. He was nobody here. A dead orphan's body in a cheap room in a dusty town. What could he do against an alien army? Nothing. Probably nothing.
Then his thinking changed direction. Went somewhere else.
He thought about his father. His real father. In that other world, in that small apartment in Mumbai.He saw his father's face clearly again in his mind. The man would come home from work, tired, open the door to an empty house. No wife to greet him. No son in his room. Just empty rooms and quiet.
That thought sat in his chest. Heavy. Heavier than the pain in his head had been. He forgot about the crack in the ceiling. Forgot about Loki and the alien army for a moment. Just stood there, hands on his waist, thinking about his father
And then a sound came.
It wasn't from the room. The fan was still turning, still creaking. The street outside was quiet. This sound was different. It came from inside his head. Clear and sharp. Like a bell.
Ding!
He knew that sound. Every boy who grew up reading webnovels knew that sound. It was in every story, every transmigration novel, every system-based stories.The sound of arrival. The sound of something new beginning.
Before he could say anything, before he could even move, the sound came again. A voice. Flat. Polite. Like a customer service worker trained to sound friendly but not meaning it. It spoke inside his mind, not in his ears.
"Congratulations, host, for successfully transmigrating to the Marvel universe. Detecting host in perfect condition and from a supreme planet called Earth. Normal novice gift upgraded to supreme novice gift. Do you want to open it?"
A screen appeared in front of him. Just floated there in the air, glowing soft, not bright enough to hurt the eyes. English words and symbols on it. He could read them fine, understand them fine. That was strange, but after everything else, he didn't question it.
He looked at the screen. Glowing there in the dim room. And for the first time since waking up in this body, since finding himself in this dead boy's room, he felt something different. Not confusion. Not fear. Something else. Small. Flickering in his chest like a match trying to catch. Excitement. Curiosity. What was in this gift? What had he gotten himself into?
He didn't think about it long. Didn't weigh options or consider consequences. In his mind, simple and direct, he said yes.
The screen flashed. Light spilled out and then settled. The voice returned.
"Congratulations, host. You have obtained all the powers of Karna."
The words were still there, hanging in his mind, when the heat began.
It started deep inside. A warm feeling in his chest. Like drinking hot tea on a cold day, the kind that spreads slow and comfortable. But it didn't stay comfortable. It grew hotter. Spread through his veins like something alive. Flowed into his arms, his legs, his head. It wasn't painful, not exactly. But it was intense. A burning that filled every part of him until there was no room left for anything else.
He looked down at his hands. Saw something strange happening to his skin.
Black stuff was coming out of his pores. Seeping up from inside. Thick and sticky, like oil, like the mud after rain. It came from everywhere. His arms. His face. His neck. Covered his skin in a thin, dark layer. And it smelled. Bad. Like the beer bottles on the table.Like the room itself, but stronger, more concentrated. His body, weak from too much drinking and too little food, was pushing out all the poison. All the years of bad living, coming out through his skin.
He stood there. Didn't move. Let it happen.
Two minutes passed. Maybe less. Time was hard to measure when your whole body was burning and leaking black sludge. But eventually the heat faded. The burning stopped. He stood there, covered from head to toe in the stuff, and he felt different.
Stronger.
His legs, which had been shaky since he woke up, now felt solid beneath him. Like they could hold him forever. His arms felt heavy, but not with tiredness. Heavy with something else. Power. Like there was more inside them than there had been before.
He looked at the mirror across the room. Through the black coating on his face, he could see. Not just his reflection. He could see everything. The tiny scratches on the glass, the ones you never notice unless you're looking close. The dust on the frame, each particle visible. The cracks in the wall behind him, the way they branched and spread. Everything was sharp and clear. His eyesight had changed.
Then the screen glowed again. Brighter this time. And two objects floated out of it.
Small. Golden. Shaped like earrings. The kind you see in old paintings, old stories. Kundal, his mind told him. The divine earrings of Karna. They drifted through the air toward him, slow and gentle, like leaves falling from a tree. He wanted to move, to step back, to do something. But his body wouldn't listen. Before he could think, before he could even react, they attached themselves to his ears.
He felt nothing. No pain. Just a cool sensation, like a breeze on a hot day when you're standing in the shade. They settled into place and became part of him. Like they had always been there. Like his ears had been waiting for them his whole life.
He stood there for a moment. Covered in black sludge. Golden earrings hanging from his ears. The smell was still there, strong as ever, coming off his skin in waves. He couldn't bear it anymore. The filth, the stink, the weight of it. He needed to be clean.
He walked to the bathroom. Small. Tile floor. A showerhead sticking out of the wall. He pushed open the door, stepped inside, and turned the water on.
Cold. It hit his skin and he gasped, but it was good. Refreshing. He washed for a long time. Scrubbed at his arms, his face, his chest. Watched the black water swirl around his feet and down the drain. The sludge came off slowly at first, then faster, revealing clean skin underneath. He kept scrubbing until there was nothing left but the smell of soap and the sound of water.
Ten minutes passed. Maybe more. He lost track.
When he finally stepped out, wrapped a towel around his waist, and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror, his eyes went wide.
His hair. It had been black. Ordinary black, like every other Indian boy's hair. Now it was golden. Not yellow, not blonde. Gold. Like the sun. Like the earrings on his ears. It caught the light and seemed to glow.
He leaned closer to the mirror. Looked at his eyes. Still dark, the same dark they'd always been. But if you looked close, really close, you could see tiny flecks of gold floating in them. Like dust in sunlight.
He looked down at his body. The flat chest he'd seen earlier, the skinny arms, the soft stomach from too much drinking and too little food—all of it was gone. In its place was something else. Solid chest. Muscles where there had been none. A stomach with six packs, the kind you see in magazines, the kind you never think you'll have.
He looked at his face again. It had always been handsome. He knew that. But now it was something else entirely. Sharp. Defined. Like a hero from a painting.
He touched his own face and thought of Karna.He knew the story. Every Indian boy knew the story. It was one of those things you grew up with, like the taste of your mother's cooking or the sound of your father's voice. The Mahabharata. The great war. The heroes and the villains, though it was never that simple.
Karna. Born to Kunti before her marriage, before she was queen. Son of Surya, the sun god. Born with divine armour on his body and earrings of power in his ears. The armour and the earrings made him invincible. No one could kill him. Not unless he gave them away.
And he had given them away. To Indra, king of heaven, who came disguised as a beggar. Karna saw through the disguise but still gave. Because that was who he was. He could not refuse someone in need. Not even when he knew it would cost him his life.
But even without the armour, even without the earrings, Karna was still the greatest archer of his age. Skills that no one could match. Knowledge passed from god to man. A warrior who could fight anyone, defeat anyone, until his chariot wheel stuck in the mud and his own guru's curse came true.
Now Raj stood in front of the bathroom mirror and looked at his own reflection. The system had told him he now had Karna's powers. But power was one thing. Skill was another.
He closed his eyes and spoke inside his head. System.
The screen appeared again, hanging in the air of the small room. He didn't wait for it to explain anything. He just asked what he needed to know.
"System," he said. "You gave me Karna's powers. But Karna's real strength wasn't just his armour. It was what he could do with a bow. The way he could shoot, the things he knew about fighting. Where is all of that?
The system spoke. Its voice had no feeling in it, just words coming out one after another. "The power is in your hands now. But you cannot use it yet. It is locked away. Your body is not ready to carry all of it at once. You are still new to this, still changing. This is the last thing my program was set to tell you. From now on, you have to find your own way. Goodbye,Host."
Then the screen broke. It cracked like a window someone had thrown a rock through. For a second, the pieces just hung there in the air. Then they drifted apart and disappeared. Nothing was left. The system was gone.
Raj stood where he was, not moving. He watched the place where the screen had been. His mind felt slow, like it was trying to catch up to what just happened. The system had been his only connection to any of this. And now it was gone.
Then a thought came to him. A big one. Maybe the biggest one he could have.
How would he get back?
Back to his own world. Back to his father. The thought of his father's face, the worry that must be on it, made something tighten in his chest.
But the system was gone. There was no one left to ask.
He looked down at his hands. He turned them over, studying his palms, then the backs of his hands. And there, on the inside of his right hand, running with the veins under the skin, was a small mark. It was faint, easy to miss if you weren't looking for it. But it was there. A bow.
He touched it with his left finger, just to make sure he wasn't imagining things.
The moment his skin pressed against the mark, light flooded the room. It came from everywhere and nowhere at once.
A bow hung in the air before him. It was made of gold, or something that shone like gold, bright as the sun. The light hurt his eyes and he had to narrow them, but he kept looking. He could not turn away. The bow was beautiful. More beautiful than anything he had ever seen. While he stared at it, understanding pushed into his mind like water finding its level. He knew its name now. Sun Bow. And he knew a word that went with it, a sound that held power. Fire Arrow.
He stood there for a moment, unsure. He did not know what would happen if he touched it. But the bow was right there, and his hand was already reaching out before his mind finished deciding.
His fingers met the middle of the bow. The golden light softened at once, fading to a gentle glow. The bow became solid in his grip. He could feel its weight now, real and present. Heavy, but not too heavy. About the same as a baseball bat, he thought. He could hold it easily. He could swing it if he needed to.
The mantra of Fire Arrow came back to him. He thought about saying it, about seeing what would happen. But he stopped himself. He looked around at the small bathroom, at the sink and the toilet and the mirror. This was not the place to test what a weapon like this could do.
He stood there holding the bow, feeling its weight in his hand. His mind went to the earrings in his ears, the divine armour that was part of him now. Then he thought about Thanos, the giant who would come with his army. He thought about the battles that were supposed to happen. And a small smile appeared on his face. Not a proud smile, not a happy smile. Just a small one, a quiet one. With this bow, he thought, with this earrings on my body, maybe no one can hurt me. Maybe even Thanos will have to lower his head.
He carried the bow out of the bathroom and into the other room. He laid it carefully on the bed. The moment his fingers let go, something happened that he did not expect.
The bow did not just stay where he put it. It seemed to have its own will, its own way of being. It began to fade. Not like a light going out, but slowly, like sand running through fingers. Like mist when the sun comes up and burns it away. It flowed, almost like water, back toward him. Toward his right hand. And then it was gone, sinking into the mark on his palm.
He looked at his hand. The symbol was still there, faint but clear, waiting. The bow was inside it now. Ready to come out again when he needed it.