The last thing he remembered was a food truck.
Not the impact. Not the screaming. Just the faded yellow paint on the side of it, and the thought that he hadn't finished his ramen.
That felt like the real tragedy.
He'd always had weird priorities.
Then nothing.
Then warmth.
Total and pressing, from every direction at once. Not the warmth of a blanket or a room — something deeper. Something that came from outside and surrounded him completely.
Then a heartbeat.
Not his. Someone else's. Steady. Enormous. Marking time around him like a clock he hadn't wound and couldn't stop.
His mind started coming back in pieces.
Name first. Then his face — the slightly asymmetrical one he'd always meant to feel better about. Then everything else, arriving in a tide, each piece finding its place.
Films. Books. Years of obsessively tracking the entertainment industry. Not because it was his job. Just because he loved it.
He was the kind of person who watched a film and then immediately watched three documentaries about how it was made. Who followed box office numbers like other people followed sports scores. Who could tell you which directors were about to break through, which stars were about to fade, which projects would define their decade.
All of it still there. Complete. Intact. His.
He'd been deeply average in his previous life. Insurance job by day. Obsessive industry-watcher by night. He'd never done anything with the knowledge except accumulate it and occasionally win arguments online.
Then a food truck.
Classic, he thought. Absolutely classic.
He didn't panic. There was nothing to push against — just the dark and the warmth and the borrowed heartbeat. So he lay there, wherever there was, and tried to work out what was happening.
He'd read enough web novels to have a working theory.
Which was either very lucky or very embarrassing. Probably both.
Okay, he thought. So. Rebirth. In the dark. Can't move. Can't speak.
He stayed with that for a moment.
Right. And I'm apparently going to get a shot at the thing I spent my whole life watching other people do.
That landed differently than he expected. Not excitement exactly. Something quieter. Something that felt more like — oh. So that's what this is.
He was still sitting with it when the system appeared.
No sound. No light. It just arrived. Edges. Weight. The distinct sensation of something external pressing into his awareness.
≪ SYSTEM INITIALIZED ≫
Welcome, Host.
Pre-birth integration — COMPLETE
Photographic memory — ACTIVE
Knowledge base transfer — COMPLETE
2 skill slots available.
Selected skills initialized at MAXIMUM proficiency.
Fan thresholds in active skills unlock additional slots.
Select now.
He read it. Then read it again.
Maximum proficiency. Any skill. Two slots.
He stayed with that for a moment longer than the first thing.
Any skill, he thought. Maximum. From the start.
He thought about what he knew. About how the entertainment industry actually worked — not theoretically, but the real mechanics. How careers were built. What separated the people who made it from the people who didn't.
He'd spent years watching. He knew.
Acting. First slot. No debate. If you wanted to be in this industry — really in it, not adjacent — you needed to perform. Everything else built on top of that.
Second slot took longer. He turned it over properly.
Music. He loved music. Had always loved it. And he understood that entertainers who crossed between film and music weren't just more famous — they were more resilient. Multiple ways in. Multiple audiences. Multiple ways to stay relevant when one lane got crowded.
It felt right. Not calculated. Just — right.
He confirmed both.
≪ SKILLS CONFIRMED ≫
Acting — MAXIMUM
Music — MAXIMUM
Fan Tracker — ACTIVE
Acting Fans: 0 / 10,000,000
Music Fans: 0 / 5,000,000
He looked at the numbers.
Zero and zero.
Long road, he thought. Then, almost immediately: I can't wait.
Which surprised him a little. In his previous life he'd watched from the outside for so long that he'd stopped noticing how much he wanted to be on the inside. The wanting had just become background noise — constant and ignored, like traffic.
Now it wasn't background anymore.
He settled back into the dark and the warmth and tried to be patient.
He'd always been terrible at waiting.
He was going to have to work on that.
The world arrived all at once and it was completely overwhelming.
Light first — aggressive and white, no consideration for the fact that his eyes had never processed anything before.
Then sound with no filter. Every frequency at the same volume. His own cry somewhere in it, which he hadn't planned but couldn't stop.
His body had extremely strong opinions about being born and none of them involved consulting the mind inside it.
He couldn't focus his eyes. Newborns couldn't. It took weeks. But knowing something and being inside it were completely different experiences. The world was shapes and light and movement, none of it holding still.
His mind, perfectly intact and completely helpless, sat inside a body that didn't work and couldn't be reasoned with.
Deeply undignified, he thought. Absolutely worth it.
Hands found him. Warm. Practiced. Calm.
Voices — a man's voice, low and focused, the doctor probably. A woman's alongside it, professional. Equipment sounds. The organised chaos of a delivery room.
And then, cutting through all of it — a woman crying.
Not in pain. Relief. The sound of someone who had been frightened for a long time and suddenly, completely, wasn't anymore.
A face came close. Blurred. Large.
"Hi baby."
Soft. Unsteady with feeling. British — London specifically, not softened by years away yet.
"Hi. I'm your mum."
Mum. Not mom.
He couldn't respond. Couldn't do anything except exist in the fact of having just arrived.
But the voice helped. Fixed point. He held onto it. His breathing steadied. The crying eased.
The hands didn't let go.
Okay, he thought, somewhere through all of it. Good start.
The days after blurred together.
His body ran entirely on its own schedule. Sleep arrived without warning. Hunger was constant and urgent. Communication happened exclusively through crying — imprecise and undignified, but the only option available.
He bore it.
His father appeared at the edges. Tall. Dark hair. A quality of careful steadiness about him that was immediately apparent. He held Ethan on the first night with the deliberate attention of a man who had decided this was something he was going to get right.
He touched Ethan's hand with one finger and said "hi" quietly.
One word.
Ethan couldn't respond.
But he thought: I like this one.
His mother barely put him down. She talked constantly — what she was doing, what the nurse had said, what the weather looked like outside. She talked to him like he was a person worth talking to.
She wasn't wrong.
In the gaps between talking she sang — old songs, British songs, things that had been in the air around her childhood.
He liked all of them.
On the third day, the television in the corner showed the news.
He caught the date.
March 1981.
He stared at the ceiling. White tiles. Fluorescent light. A water stain in the shape of nothing in particular.
Los Angeles.
Something warm moved through him. Not strategy. Not calculation.
Just — oh. This is real. This is actually happening.
He felt it land properly for the first time.
He closed his eyes.
His mother was singing again somewhere nearby.
He listened to it.
Long road, he thought. Can't wait.
And meant it.
≪ SYSTEM UPDATE ≫
Host status: Day 3. Physical development on track.
Acting Fans: 0 / 10,000,000
Music Fans: 0 / 5,000,000
Zero and zero.
He looked at the numbers in the grey hospital light.
His mother stirred in the chair beside him. Said something soft and indistinct.
He looked at her. Then at the ceiling.
Long road, he thought again.
Then he went to sleep, because the body was pulling him under and fighting it was pointless.
The road could wait until morning.