The last thing I saw in my first life was a spreadsheet.
It was Row 14,092, Column G. A fiscal projection for a company that sold overpriced toaster ovens. I had been staring at it for fourteen hours straight. My back felt like it had been welded into the shape of my ergonomic office chair, and my eyes felt like they were filled with sand.
I was twenty-seven years old. I had a degree I didn't use, an apartment I barely slept in, and a boss named Greg who breathed through his mouth.
"Just finish the Q3 projections, Val," I muttered to myself, reaching for my fourth Red Bull of the night. My hand trembled.
I took a sip. My heart did a weird, fluttering skip—like a fish flopping on a deck. Then, a sledgehammer hit me in the chest.
It wasn't cinematic. There was no life flashing before my eyes, no weeping family members. Just a sharp, electric snap in my chest, the smell of cheap energy drink, and then my face hitting the keyboard.
W, A, S, D. My forehead probably typed out a gamer move as I died.
Finally, I thought, as the darkness swallowed me. No more spreadsheets. No more boredom.
I hoped for nothingness. Maybe a long nap.
Instead, I got a reboot.
1993 - New York CityWaking up is hard. Waking up when your brain is twenty-seven but your body is seven pounds is a nightmare.
Everything was too loud. The lights were blinding. My skin felt too tight. I tried to scream, "What the hell is going on?"but it came out as a high-pitched, pathetic wail.
"It's a boy, Ms. Castellan. A big one."
Castellan? The name pinged something in my hazy, developing memory. A movie? A book? I couldn't place it.
I felt myself being passed into warmer arms. I forced my sticky, blurry eyes open.
The woman holding me was beautiful. Not office-beautiful, but magazine beautiful. High cheekbones, dark cascading hair, and eyes that looked tired but fierce. She looked like those actresses from the 90s movies I used to watch when I should have been working.
"Valerius," she whispered, her voice smoky. "My little storm."
Valerius. Okay. Better than Greg. I could work with Valerius.
I looked up at the ceiling of the hospital room. The fluorescent lights flickered. Outside the window, thunder cracked—so loud it shook the glass.
My mother flinched, pulling me closer. "He's angry," she whispered to the nurse, sounding terrified. "He knows."
I didn't know who "he" was. And quite frankly, I was too tired to care. I fell asleep, hoping that when I woke up, I'd be back in my apartment.
I wasn't.
Six Years Later (1999)The problem with being reincarnated is that you have to sit through the tutorial levels again.
Being a toddler was humiliating. Being a kindergartner was boring. But being a six-year-old with the mind of a grown man and the strength of a hydraulic press? That was dangerous.
I figured out the rules of this new world quickly.
Rule 1: I was in New York, but not my New York. The news was different. The vibe was different. And occasionally, I'd see things that shouldn't exist. Once, I saw a pigeon with rat teeth scurry into a sewer. I blamed it on pollution.
Rule 2: I was strong. Absurdly strong. When I was four, I threw a tantrum because my mom, Elena, wouldn't buy me a specific action figure. I grabbed the metal railing of the subway stairs and squeezed. The steel crumpled like wet cardboard. My mom had turned pale, grabbed my hand, and ran us out of the station before anyone saw.
Rule 3: I was always hungry. That was the downside. If I used my strength, I felt like I was starving to death. I ate four times what a normal kid ate. My mom, a struggling off-Broadway actress, worked double shifts just to keep my stomach full.
But the biggest revelation came on a rainy Tuesday.
I was sitting in the living room of our tiny Queens apartment, watching TV. A movie was playing on cable. Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief.
Wait. No. That wasn't right. The movie hadn't come out in 1999.
I blinked, shaking my head. The TV was actually showing a news report about a freak storm over the Atlantic, but my brain overlaid it with memories of that movie I'd seen on Netflix years ago. The one with Logan Lerman.
Greek Gods, I thought, the realization hitting me harder than the heart attack. Zeus. Poseidon. The Camp with the Capture the Flag game.
I looked down at my hands. I thought about the subway railing I'd crushed. I thought about the thunder that always seemed to rumble when I was angry.
"No way," I whispered, a grin spreading across my face. "I'm in the movie."
I stood up, rushing to the mirror in the hallway. I looked at myself. I was tall for six, with jet-black hair and eyes that were a startling, electric blue. I was already developing muscle definition that no first grader should have.
"I'm a demigod," I said to my reflection. "And not just any demigod. I'm the son of... Zeus?"
It made sense. The lightning. The storms.
Excitement bubbled up in my chest. In my old life, I filed taxes. In this life? I was going to fight Minotaurs. I was going to steal the lightning bolt. I was going to have fun.
I remembered the movie vaguely. Percy needed to find three pearls, right? And there was a Hydra in a museum? And he used an iPod to kill Medusa?
"Easy," I scoffed. "I know the plot. I'm going to be the strongest hero this world has ever seen. I'll clear this game in no time."
I flexed my arm. A tiny spark of blue electricity jumped from my fingertip to the mirror frame. The glass cracked down the middle.
"Oops."
Age 12 - The DiscoveryBy the time I turned twelve, I was a problem.
I was already five-foot-nine, towering over the other kids in my middle school. I had the build of a varsity swimmer and the appetite of a linebacker.
My mom, Elena, tried to keep me sheltered. She moved us around a lot. She burned incense that smelled terrible. She refused to let me have a cell phone.
"It signals them, Val," she would say, her eyes darting to the windows. "The bad things."
"The monsters?" I asked, bored. I was doing pushups on the living room floor. I was currently on number three hundred. "Let them come. I'm bored, Mom. I want to test this."
I gestured to my body. I knew I was strong, but I hadn't fought anything real yet. I wanted to see if I could punch a Cyclops into orbit.
"Don't say that!" she hissed.
But the universe, I learned, loves to listen when you challenge it.
It happened on a field trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. My class was looking at Greek and Roman statues. I was yawning, leaning against a pillar.
"And here we have a depiction of Hercules," the teacher, Mr. Brunner, was saying. He was a guy in a wheelchair. I eyed him suspiciously. In the movie, the teacher was the centaur, right? Pierce Brosnan? This guy looked nothing like Pierce Brosnan. He looked like a scruffy middle-aged professor.
Must be a different character, I reasoned. Or the movie casting was way off.
There was another kid there, too. Scrawny. Messy black hair. Looked like he hadn't slept in a week. He was drooling slightly as he stared at a stele.
Percy Jackson, I realized. He looked... disappointing. In the movie, he was cooler. This kid looked like he tripped over his own shoelaces.
I decided to ignore him. I wasn't here to babysit the protagonist. I was here to be the star.
I wandered away from the group, heading toward the bathroom. I pushed the door open—and stopped.
Standing by the sinks wasn't a teacher. It was a woman with leather wings, brass claws, and hair made of snakes.
She hissed when she saw me. "A godling. I smell the ozone on you."
My heart didn't hammer with fear. It hammered with glee.
"Finally," I said, cracking my knuckles. "Something to hit."
The Fury—I assumed it was a Fury—screeched and lunged. She moved fast, faster than any human.
But I was faster.
I didn't dodge. I stepped in. I visualized the move I'd seen in an action movie once. I planted my feet, engaged my hips, and threw a right hook directly at her ugly face.
BOOM.
It sounded like a gunshot.
My fist connected. There was a sickening crunch of bone (or whatever monsters were made of). The Fury didn't just fly back; she exploded into golden dust.
I stood there, blinking. Golden powder coated my favorite jacket.
"That's it?" I asked the empty bathroom. "One punch?"
I looked at my hand. My knuckles weren't even bruised. I felt a sudden, massive drain on my energy, like I'd just run a marathon in two seconds. My stomach roared with hunger.
"Okay," I muttered, digging a squashed Snickers bar out of my pocket and devouring it in one bite. "Note to self: Bring more snacks."
I wiped the monster dust off my shirt.
I walked back out to the exhibit. Percy was getting yelled at by a math teacher in a leather jacket. I leaned against a wall, watching.
I just one-shot a Fury, I thought, a grin tugging at the corner of my mouth. I'm going to rule this world.
I didn't know then that the Fury was the easy part. I didn't know that my "movie knowledge" was about to get me almost killed a dozen times. I didn't know that being a son of Zeus meant I wasn't just a hero—I was a target for every ancient grudge in the book.
But looking at the scrawny Percy Jackson, I made a silent vow.
You can save the world, kid. I'm just here to own it.