"Hammerboy, go rest early today."
"Got it. Be careful driving, see you tomorrow." Marcus waved goodbye and, watching his colleague's car disappear from view, turned and headed to his apartment building.
The party had been a roaring success. He'd drunk quite a bit, then soloed karaoke for a long time, so now his legs were a little tangled, and his head pleasantly spun from the alcohol.
Back home, Marcus washed up and, lying down in bed, habitually picked up his phone.
It was a new smartphone, bought just recently. The manufacturer was the flagship of the domestic industry. Recent trade conflicts and persistent, if peculiar, mentions from one very well-known president had served as a kind of "advertising" for it. The company not only weathered a serious crisis but also demonstrated the true power of its technologies, attracting the world's attention. Seizing the moment, it quickly released this flagship phone with a completely new operating system. Barely hitting the shelves, it sold tens of millions of units, bringing fame and substantial profit to its creators.
Marcus had bought one of the first. Despite minor flaws, the phone was excellent in use and outperformed many foreign brands in performance.
His fingers slid across the screen: now flipping through an e-book, now browsing news, now opening funny videos, chuckling quietly and occasionally rolling over in bed like a lazy sea lion.
Unnoticed, intoxication and drowsiness crept up, and Marcus fell asleep without letting go of the phone.
In his sleep, he suddenly jerked his whole body. He reached out, but felt only emptiness, and when he rolled over, a sensation of falling gripped him.
"Damn, I'm gonna fall off the bed!" flashed a panicked thought.
Splash...
In the next second, Marcus felt himself crash into water. Streams rushed into his nose, causing agonizing coughs. As soon as he opened his mouth, water flooded his throat.
Suffocation yanked him from his half-doze. He thrashed his arms and legs convulsively, but his head throbbed as if cracked with a brick, and his whole body ached like he'd tumbled down a multi-story staircase.
"What's happening? I live on the twenty-third floor, how could I fall into water?"
Boundless terror seized him, but fortunately, Marcus knew how to swim, and swim excellently.
The thirst for life forced him to pry open his eyelids with effort. Under water was pitch darkness; nothing was visible. He desperately worked his arms and legs, groping his way upward.
Surfacing, Marcus found himself not far from shore.
With all his might, he swam to land and, expending his last scraps of energy, crawled onto the bank. Still waist-deep in water, he fell onto his back, spat out a good amount of murky river sludge, and gasped for air convulsively. He had no strength to rise.
"How good it is to be alive!" This was the only thought pounding in his mind. Only now did he somewhat come to his senses and think about what had happened.
Silence reigned around. The night was deep, with only a thin crescent moon hanging in the sky.
Moonlight piercing the clouds allowed him to vaguely make out that he'd climbed out of a wide river, and beneath him was an overgrown riverbank choked with weeds.
In the distance loomed the vague outlines of a city, flickering with sparse lights.
"Damn it, where am I?"
Marcus's head was in complete chaos, bewilderment in his eyes. He still thought he was dreaming.
A cool river breeze brushed him, and suddenly sharp pain pierced his nape. He raised his hand, touched his head — his palm was stained crimson with blood. Marcus winced in pain. So his head was wounded; no wonder it hurt so much.
Suddenly Marcus froze, staring at his right hand.
As a hardcore bachelor over thirty, Marcus certainly wouldn't mistake his "old lady": calluses on the hand, the winding life line on the palm, scar on the index finger from an old injury — all gone.
In the dim moonlight, the hand before him looked long and graceful, with calluses from long holding some object, but Marcus knew at first glance:
"This isn't my hand!"
In panic, he felt his wet body and immediately realized not just the hand, but the whole body was alien.
"I just fell asleep, how could I end up in another body?"
Before Marcus could make sense of it, a new flash of unbearable pain pierced his brain, as if split open with an axe and forcibly stuffed with chunks of alien fragments. These fragments were chaotic — like another person's life experiences intertwining with his own memories. His head became a boiling cauldron where two utterly different entities tried to forcibly merge.
"A-a-a..."
The horrific pain made him clutch his head and groan. Soon he couldn't take it and lost consciousness.
In the darkness, Marcus vaguely heard a quiet, insidious, oily whisper. The sound seemed to come from everywhere and directly in his ears. It was as if from the most vile and loathsome creature imaginable, inducing nausea, sometimes like the screech of sharp metal on glass — piercing, soul-chilling squeal awakening madness and primal rage. This indescribable whisper was like a call from the abyss.
He tried to plug his ears but couldn't find them — the sound pierced straight to his soul. Though Marcus didn't understand the words, after a few phrases he felt irresistibly drawn to them.
Consciousness plummeted like a stone into agonizing abyss, seeking the call's source.
Suddenly a shiver pierced him. Reason and intuition screamed: don't listen further!
"Ha-ha-ha-ha..."
The quiet whisper suddenly amplified manifold into mad laughter. The whole world shook, and from the vibration Marcus nearly went insane, teetering on madness's edge.
In the darkness arose myriads of monstrous maws spewing this laughter. Each malevolent maw bristled with saw-like fangs, oozing viscous black slime between them. The slime writhed and expanded rapidly into hundreds and thousands of oily tentacles surging toward him like an avalanche.
This nightmare seemed about to end in tragedy, but suddenly red light burst from somewhere. Eight petal-like beams whirled rapidly, forming a spherical cocoon around Marcus. This petal shield, seeming fragile, proved indestructible like a cliff defying furious black ocean waves — tiny but unyielding. It instantly repelled all attacking black tentacles.
The crimson light not only protected Marcus but severed the seductive whisper, easing the pain and mad thoughts.
Countless tentacles lashed the cocoon for an unknown time, emitting furious shrieks, and finally reluctantly retreated into darkness.
The eight petals contracted back into a single light clump. Looking closely, one could discern a tiny crimson flower of eight unequal petals. At its heart lurked golden light, making the figure resemble a shining sun — a highly abstract image.
"Something familiar about this symbol..." flashed in Marcus's mind as darkness suddenly receded like an ebbing tide. Bright light flooded everything, and he, awakening from prolonged oppressive nightmare, sat up abruptly and screamed:
"A-a-a!"
Blinding light hit his eyes. Marcus shielded them with his hand and lowered it only when his vision adjusted somewhat. Far on the horizon rose the golden sun disk, its rays dancing on the river's ripples.
"Dawn broke," he muttered and froze.
The phrase was in a language both familiar and alien. He'd never studied it, yet somehow spoke it fluently and knew it was "Auriensky" — the official language of the Auriens Empire — and that he had a slight "Longsandy" accent typical of Longsand Duchy residents.
A wave of memories crashed over him — chaotic, fragmentary, but fortunately no longer as painful as before losing consciousness.
Several minutes later, Marcus exhaled long.
Now he understood: inexplicably, he'd transferred to another world. This wasn't Earth!
He didn't know how it happened. An ordinary provincial library employee; salary modest but always on time, got along with colleagues, lived a quiet, measured life. Unmarried at thirty, a hardcore bachelor, but his own choice. Marriage? Why, when a good game beat any girlfriend? After work, he dove into games and hobbies, enjoying his small cozy life. And now — transmigration!
Marcus absolutely didn't want to transmigrate, especially to such a dangerous world.
From fragmentary memories, he gleaned jumbled info: this world's history was long and convoluted, productive forces quite advanced, similar to Earth's in some ways, surpassing in others.
But differences abounded.
The main one: supernatural phenomena and mighty individuals shaped civilization's development and direction. They were called Superhumans.
As the name implied, Superhumans possessed power beyond ordinary humans and formed the world's ruling class.
Few could become Superhumans. Commoners seeking to break class barriers could pay to enter a Superhumans academy, gaining a slim chance to develop supernatural abilities, but odds were low, tuition exorbitant.
The body he'd entered belonged to a youth named Reyn from the small town of Iglmarsh. Until recently, Reyn was a student at one such academy. After three years, he achieved nothing, remaining ordinary. With tuition too high, his father, Bad, refused further payment, hoping Reyn would return home and inherit the family grain mill. Reyn flatly refused. After a major quarrel, he returned alone to Longsand city, rented a cheap apartment near the academy, and tried finding decent work to save for tuition himself. But not even two weeks passed before disaster struck.
Most of Reyn's memories concerned life in Longsand.
What shocked Marcus most: gods here were real! Each deity had earthly churches, which in past and present played crucial roles, driving history, influencing not just state elites but everyday commoners' lives. Nearly everyone believed in some god or several. Nonbelievers were seen as depraved, persecuted by all.
As an atheist, Marcus didn't know what to do now.
He wanted to return to Earth but had no idea how. He didn't even know how he'd gotten here.
"Eh..." Marcus sighed, then another thought struck: if he'd transmigrated, taking over another's body, did that mean his Earth body was dead?
"Tomorrow morning, when they see I didn't come to work and don't answer calls, they'll probably find my body at home quick. At least no waiting for decomposition," he thought.
He recalled his parents, heart tightening with longing, eyes treacherously glistening. "Fortunately, I'm not the only child," he tried comforting himself. "Parents still have big sis and little bro."
It took time before Marcus calmed.
The sun rose higher, throat parched. Body still ached, but less; only nape throbbed dully. Gritting teeth, he stood, found shallower water, cupped some in hands, drank several gulps. Thirst receded. He washed up, perking somewhat.
Shaking water from face, he saw an unfamiliar reflection in clear river water and froze.
"Damn it!"
Examining the face, Marcus couldn't hold back a curse.
Its owner looked under twenty. Childishly naive features, short black hair, pale from blood loss, thick brows, big eyes, straight nose. Proportions harmonious: masculine yet refined. Sole flaw: vacant gaze, overall listlessness.
"What a hunk!" burst from Marcus, partly envious as all men are. Then his eyes gleamed, he straightened. "Turns out I'm such a hunk!" He smirked smugly.
He admired his new, more attractive face in the river mirror and nodded satisfied.
Though transmigration unwanted, landing in a hunk's body was luck in misfortune. Better than a woman or exotic alien. Reyn's memories held info on at least dozens of nonhuman races.
"From now on, I'm Reyn," he decided firmly.
"Back on Earth now, I could live off looks alone, heh-heh."
"Rich ladies showering gifts... Or if I don't wanna lose dignity, worst case stream, do dress-up videos online — promising too..."
"I even look a bit like that foreign actor Lee Pace, just slimmer and shorter. But he was gay, I think... Whatever."
Reyn indulged chaotic thoughts, seeking amusement in his plight, when a red spark flashed before his eyes. In the reflection, his eyes glowed red, abstract symbol in pupils.
The symbol: eight red petals forming a blooming flower, golden light clump at heart with tiny script.
Reyn's mind blurred briefly.
"That's the thing from the nightmare! Wasn't just a dream?"
The pupil symbol lasted seconds and vanished.
Then a semitransparent interface appeared before Reyn's eyes, utterly unreal. He freaked, thinking fatigue hallucination.
He waved hand before face, turned head, but interface seemed embedded in brain or retinas: couldn't close or shake; visible even eyes closed.
And crucially — this interface was painfully familiar.
"It's my phone's loading screen!"