The droning voice of Mr. Henderson, a man whose passion for the Napoleonic Wars was matched only by his students' profound indifference, was the perfect soundtrack for an escape. John slumped in his chair, the plastic edge digging into his shoulder blades. The air in the classroom was thick and stale, a recycled mixture of chalk dust, floor polish, and the faint, sweet scent of teenage apathy. Outside the grimy window, the late spring sun beat down on the asphalt of the school parking lot, making the air shimmer with heat.
Just ten more minutes, he thought, his leg jiggling with a nervous energy that threatened to rattle his entire desk. Ten minutes until the bell, then another five to get out of the building. It felt like an eternity.
Beside him, Mark subtly slid his phone from under his history textbook. The screen glowed for a fraction of a second, illuminating a group chat aptly named "Mission: Endgame."
Leo's faking a stomach cramp in 2 mins, the message read. Be ready.
John's heart gave a theatrical lurch against his ribs. This was it. The plan was as simple as it was stupid: a staggered, three-pronged retreat to the nurse's office, followed by a coordinated bolt out the west-side exit, which was notoriously free of hall monitors. All for a movie. But it wasn't just any movie. It was the culmination of a decade, a cultural event he refused to experience through the tainted filter of second-hand spoilers. The risk of a week's detention felt laughably small in comparison.
He could feel the low-grade hum of the fluorescent lights above, a sound that usually faded into the background but now felt like a buzzing alarm. He chanced a glance at Sarah, two rows over. She caught his eye and gave a nearly imperceptible nod, her face a mask of serene calm that betrayed the frantic tapping of her foot beneath her desk.
As if on cue, a pained groan echoed from the back of the room. Leo was clutching his stomach, his face contorted in a performance worthy of the stage. Mr. Henderson stopped mid-sentence, his monologue on the Battle of Waterloo cut short. He sighed, the sound of a man who had seen this exact scene play out a thousand times.
"Nurse's office, Mr. Davies," he said, waving a dismissive hand.
One down.
The next few minutes were a blur of suppressed tension. John could feel the sweat prickling at his hairline. He focused on the texture of the wooden desk under his fingertips—smooth in some places, gouged with the bored graffiti of generations in others. Then it was his turn. He raised a trembling hand.
"Mr. Henderson? I think… I think I ate a bad sandwich at lunch."
The sudden blast of the theater's air conditioning was a welcome shock, chasing away the cloying humidity of the New York afternoon. The air inside was saturated with the intoxicating, artificial scent of buttered popcorn and syrupy soda. John's sneakers made a sticky sound against the floor as he, Mark, and Sarah found their seats, sinking into the plush red velvet with triumphant sighs.
The cavernous room was packed, a sea of silhouettes buzzing with a collective, electric anticipation. The low thrum of the pre-show advertisements vibrated through the floor, a physical promise of the spectacle to come. John ripped open a bag of sour gummies, the sharp, sugary scent cutting through the buttery air. This was it. This was worth it.
For the next three hours, the world outside ceased to exist. He was completely lost in the cosmic battles, the heart-wrenching sacrifices, the roar of the crowd in the theater becoming one with the on-screen action. The booming bass of explosions shook his bones, and the triumphant swell of the score raised goosebumps on his arms. When Captain America finally wielded Mjolnir, a raw, involuntary cheer was ripped from his throat, joining a chorus of hundreds.
They stumbled out of the theater in a daze, blinking against the sudden, aggressive brightness of the late afternoon sun. The epic sounds of battle were replaced by the familiar symphony of the city: the distant wail of a siren, the impatient honking of taxis, the murmur of the crowd on the sidewalk.
"I can't believe…" Mark started, his voice hoarse.
"Don't say it," Sarah warned, wiping at her eyes. "No spoilers. Not even for us."
John just shook his head, a goofy, satisfied grin plastered on his face. His mind was still replaying the final battle, a vibrant tapestry of energy blasts and heroic stands. He was so lost in thought, so utterly consumed by the fiction, that he stepped off the curb without looking.
The world didn't fade to black. It was erased by a sound and a light.
The sound was a deafening screech of rubber tearing against asphalt, a primal scream of tortured metal that ripped through the city's drone. The light was a blinding white glare from two massive headlights, expanding to fill his entire universe.
There was a moment of impossible, weightless suspension. Then came the impact—a horrific, final CRUNCH that felt less like a sound and more like a physical fact. It was the sound of his own body breaking. A supernova of pain erupted behind his eyes, sharp and absolute, and then, just as quickly, it was gone. The last thing he felt was the phantom vibration of the theater's sound system in his chest, a final, fading echo of a world that was no longer his.
Consciousness returned not as a gentle awakening, but as a sensory assault.
The first thing he registered was the heat. It was a dry, oppressive, suffocating heat that seemed to bake the very air he was trying to breathe, scorching his lungs with every inhale. The smell was just as overwhelming—acrid sulfur and superheated rock, like standing at the lip of a volcano.
John pushed himself up, his palms pressing against a surface that was sharp and jagged, like a field of shattered obsidian. It was uncomfortably warm. He opened his eyes.
He was in Hell. Or at least, a very convincing replica. He was on a broad, black plateau under a bruised, starless sky choked with swirling red embers. All around him, vast, silent rivers of molten rock flowed like glowing arteries, casting a terrifying, dancing orange light across the bleak landscape. The only sound was the incessant, hungry crackle and hiss of the lava.
Panic, cold and sharp, tried to claw its way up his throat, but it was suffocated by sheer, paralyzing disbelief.
"Ah, you're awake. Excellent."
The voice was calm, pleasant, and utterly out of place. John whipped his head around. Sitting not twenty feet away in a surprisingly plush-looking leather armchair was a man. He was dressed in a pristine, if slightly old-fashioned, tweed suit and was sipping from a delicate porcelain teacup. He had a kind, tired face and a neatly trimmed beard, and his expression was one of profound, weary apology.
"I am so, so sorry about this," the man said, setting his teacup down on a floating saucer. "Total clerical error, I assure you. The Fates had you down for another sixty-seven years, but my new intern—lovely girl, terrible with trans-dimensional charting—input the wrong spatial coordinates for a semi-sentient eighteen-wheeler. It was meant for a particularly nasty warlord in dimension 7-Sigma. Instead… well, you were there."
John stared, his mouth hanging open. The words weren't computing. "Who… what are you?" he finally managed, his voice a raw croak.
"You can call me Yam," the being said with a small, self-deprecating smile. "Think of me as a… freelance deity. Mid-level management in the Department of Karmic Readjustment. And unfortunately, the one who signed off on the paperwork that got you flattened."
Rage, hot and potent, finally burned through the shock. "You killed me!" John screamed, the sound swallowed by the vast, fiery emptiness. "For a typo?!"
"A rather catastrophic typo, yes," Yam conceded, nodding gravely. "And for that, I am prepared to offer you our standard appeasement package. It's the best I can do, I'm afraid. My hands are tied by celestial bureaucracy."
John just stared at him, his mind a maelstrom of grief and fury. His family. His friends. His entire life, snuffed out because some divine intern couldn't read a map.
"The deal is this," Yam continued, steepling his fingers. "Reincarnation. A new life, in a world of your choosing from a pre-selected list. You'll regain your memories on your fifteenth birthday. And, as a personal apology from me for the… inconvenience… you get a boon. One item. Any artifact, tool, or weapon you can name from anywhere in the multiverse. Within reason, of course. No Infinity Gauntlets with all the stones, that sort of thing. Causes far too much paperwork."
John's mind reeled. It was an insane, impossible offer, a cruel joke played out in the heart of a nightmare. A new world? An artifact? His brain, saturated with a lifetime of comics, manga, and movies, short-circuited. It couldn't process the grief, so it latched onto the fantasy. What would he pick? Excalibur? A Green Lantern ring? A lightsaber?
"So," Yam said, leaning forward expectantly. "What'll it be?"
The question hung in the sulfurous air. John didn't think. He didn't weigh his options. He just reacted, blurting out the name of the first, the greatest, the most versatile fictional device his nerdy heart could conjure. A name spoken with the desperate, subconscious instinct of a drowning man gasping for air.
"The Omnitrix."
Yam blinked, then a slow smile spread across his face. "An excellent choice. Versatile. Powerful. Surprisingly low on the cosmic disaster scale. Consider it done."
He snapped his fingers.
The world dissolved. John felt a sensation of being unspooled, of his very essence being pulled apart into a billion threads of light and memory. It was a dizzying, terrifying vertigo of nonexistence. The last thing he heard was Yam's calm, polite voice echoing through the chaos.
"And again, my sincerest apologies for the inconvenience."