Chapter 1: The Uninvited Guest
The pain wasn't an explosion, but a white-hot, suffocating blanket that pressed in from every direction. One second, Adam Stiels was an anonymous cog in the machine, a statistic in a world of eight billion souls, and the next, he was… gone. The sound was the last thing to go, a cacophony of screeching metal and the primal scream of a hundred panicked voices, all culminating in a final, visceral thump that felt less like a sound and more like the end of all things. He remembered the smell of burnt rubber and stale coffee, the cold, greasy asphalt beneath his cheek. Then, nothing. Just a vast, quiet blackness.
He was floating, adrift in an ocean of nonexistence. There was no up, no down, no sound, no sensation. For an eternity, he was a silent, unblinking observer of the void, a single point of consciousness in an infinite sea of nothingness. Then, the pinprick of light. It was a faint, almost imperceptible glow in the distance, a flicker of something real in the unreal. It grew, slowly at first, then with an accelerating fury, becoming a blinding, all-consuming light that tore the blackness apart.
Adam's body—no, his body, he realized with a jolt—was back. But it wasn't the same. He felt different, denser, like his bones had been replaced with something heavier, more substantial. He was lying on a sidewalk, the rough concrete digging into his back, and the sounds of a bustling city street assaulted his ears. Taxis honked, people chattered, and the distant wail of a siren cut through the noise. It was New York, but not his New York. This one felt… cleaner, older, somehow. The clothes on his back were different, too; a plain grey t-shirt and dark jeans he didn't recognize. A quick pat-down confirmed his wallet and phone were gone.
"Okay, this is… not great," he thought, the words a silent echo in his mind. He pushed himself up, his limbs feeling strangely light and uncoordinated. He was still Adam, but the body was a new, unfamiliar skin. He looked around, trying to make sense of the organized chaos. A newspaper stand caught his eye, and the date printed on the front sent a jolt of pure, unadulterated terror through him. December 15, 2009. He had been dead for… a while. A very long while.
But the date wasn't the only thing that was wrong. The headlines were a mix of familiar and alien. "Obama's First Year: A Mixed Bag," was a banner headline. Okay, normal enough. But right next to it, in smaller, bolder print: "Mutant Rights Debate Heats Up in Congress." And another: "Stark Industries' Latest Weaponry." A chill ran down his spine. Mutants? Stark Industries? He knew those names. He just never expected them to be real.
"Okay, hold on. Let me get this straight," he thought, his internal monologue taking on a familiar, sarcastic cadence, a defense mechanism he hadn't realized he'd missed. "I died. In a car crash or whatever. And now I'm here. In a different body. And I'm pretty sure I just transmigrated into the Marvel universe. Specifically, the X-Men one. Because 'mutant rights' and 'Stark Industries' don't exactly go hand-in-hand with my old reality. This is insane. This is… a comic book. A movie. This is not my life."
The disorientation was a thick fog, but a strange, digital interface was starting to pierce through it. It wasn't in front of his eyes, but in his mind, a glowing, cyan-blue screen that only he could see. It was minimalist and sleek, almost like a piece of high-end sci-fi tech. It had a single, bold title at the top: [MUTANT GENE DOMAIN SYSTEM]. Beneath that were a few lines of text: [STATUS: OFFLINE], [LEVEL: 1], [DOMAIN RADIUS: 10m], and a series of blank slots labeled [PERMANENT X-GENES: 0/3].
He tried to dismiss it, to wave it away like a pesky mosquito, but it was anchored in his mind, a permanent fixture. He could make it bigger or smaller with a thought. It was just… there. And a new line of text, almost as if in response to his panicked mental state, flickered into existence: [SYSTEM MESSAGE: WELCOME, ADAM STIELS. INITIATING CORE FUNCTIONS. STANDBY].
"Oh, great. The classic 'System' trope. The cherry on top of my existential horror sundae," he thought, rubbing his temples with a sigh. He felt a weird, humming energy build up in his core, a sensation like a thousand tiny needles prickling his skin. The system interface flashed wildly, the word [OFFLINE] replaced by [ACTIVE].
[SYSTEM MESSAGE: DOMAIN ACTIVATED. DETECTING MUTANT X-GENES WITHIN RADIUS.]
The humming intensified, and he could suddenly feel the genetic makeup of the people around him. It was a bizarre, sixth-sense kind of awareness, a faint, ethereal signature that emanated from every person. Most were blank, a static hum of normal human genetics. But a few, a very few, were different. They were like bright, vibrant colors in a world of grey. He could sense their unique genetic codes, their potential, their power. It was like looking at the source code of a program he didn't understand, but could somehow read on a fundamental level.
A woman with a briefcase hurried past him, talking on her phone. He could feel her signature, a soft, almost imperceptible warmth. As she entered his 10-meter domain, the system's text changed, showing her basic, unremarkable genetic code. But then, it shifted, a single line of text appearing: [DETECTING: MINOR THERMOREGULATION X-GENE. ABILITY: MILD HEAT RESISTANCE.] It was an insignificant power, barely even worth a mention, but the system had found it.
Adam, still in a state of shock, let his concentration slip for a second. The humming in his core flared, a chaotic, unthinking surge of power. The woman suddenly stumbled, her face contorting in confusion. The system's text flashed: [WARNING: UNCONTROLLED DOMAIN USAGE. ACCIDENTAL X-GENE MANIPULATION DETECTED.] The line describing her thermoregulation ability flickered, then vanished. The woman, with a confused look on her face, shivered violently, despite the warm day. She wrapped her arms around herself, mumbling something about a sudden cold snap, and hurried away.
The humming in Adam's core subsided. He felt a strange emptiness, a hollow space where the energy had been. The system interface returned to its dormant state, the word [OFFLINE] blinking reassuringly. He was left alone with his thoughts and the surreal, terrifying reality of his new situation.
"Well, that was… a thing. I just… took someone's power? Accidentally? She's shivering. Was it cold fatigue? The system doc said something about that. Did I give her a cold? Is that how this works? Oh god, I'm a walking, talking, power-stealing virus. This is so much worse than being dead. At least when I was dead, I couldn't give people the sniffles with my mind."
He stood there for a long time, trying to piece together his thoughts, his new reality, and the bizarre, terrifying power that resided within him. The system's interface remained silent, a blank canvas of potential and danger. He had no choice but to figure it out. He was an uninvited guest in a world he only knew from movies, armed with a power that could change everything, and a sarcastic inner voice that was going to be his only companion for the foreseeable future.