They came flooding back suddenly, like a bursting dam. Other people's memories, feelings, emotions. I'm John Thompson. An orphan. A student at the New York College of Art. And I'm head over heels in love with a red-haired girl in my class. The same one I caught just yesterday with another guy. A rich guy who came to pick her up in a shiny Audi, worth several times more than this rented studio apartment. The realization hit John so hard that he couldn't resist spending his last money on cheap whiskey. He decided to drown his sorrows in alcohol. And, apparently, he drowned himself.
No! No! NO! I am Alexander Cole! A thirty-eight-year-old bachelor, freelancer, a bit of a jack of all trades, who's spent the last ten years living in my hometown, rebuilding the ruins of a private house inherited from my parents. No stupid teenage crushes on red-haired brats, no bohemian art colleges, and certainly no act of senseless, suicidal alcoholism, which probably ended the suffering of that damned John Thompson!
"I am me, albeit with the memories of an inexperienced idiot from the USA!" I declared firmly and clearly into the void, reinforcing this important fact first and foremost for myself.
It's one thing to simply be aware, still tangled in your own thoughts, trying to separate the wheat from the chaff—but another to firmly know that your identity is the dominant one. I am Alexander, somehow trapped in this boy's body.
And for a moment, it washed over me. Not panic, no. A dull, black, hopeless melancholy. Home. My home. Ten years of life poured into every brick, every board. The tart smell of fresh pine shavings as I planed the boards for the porch came flooding back. The familiar heaviness of my favorite hammer in my hand—the old one passed down from my father, and he from his. The view of the crimson sunset from the porch I'd finished just a month ago. All my work, all my plans... it was all simply erased. As if I'd never existed. What happened to my body? Did it simply die in its sleep? Is it lying there now, cooling in the house that, in the absence of heirs, will go to the state? These thoughts brought a heavy lump to my throat and a treacherous sting to my eyes.
All I could do was… accept it.
An essence, a law of the universe, or simply a cruel joke—whatever lay behind my migration, it was beyond my comprehension. My options were limited: either jump off the roof, ending this absurd story, or… just live.
Living was exactly what I planned to do. The memories of the "carcass" had finally settled, forming a more or less coherent picture, and now I could separate them from my main personality. They were... dim, like an old, faded photograph. Mentally running through John Thompson's biography, I realized that the guy I'd gotten was extremely ordinary, nondescript, and unremarkable.
At the age of seven, he lost his parents in a car accident. He lived in an orphanage until he was twelve. Then he moved to a foster family, which was essentially little more than an orphanage, as there were twelve other children like him there. Apparently, his enterprising guardians were living off substantial social security contributions from the New York City government. John felt no warmth toward them, fully aware that, for them, he was simply a business project. So, as soon as he turned eighteen, he set out on his own.
As an orphan, he received a social loan to study at the College of Arts to become a theater actor. For a year now, he'd been eking out a miserable existence as a penniless student, surviving on odd jobs, social benefits, and the constant torment of his student loan, which he'd have to repay after graduation.
And it seemed like life was just life, especially by American standards. He didn't get stoned, didn't go to jail, even tried to study. But when one specific name surfaced in the flood of memories, I realized what a cosmic mess fate had landed me in.
Mary Jane Watson.
A red-haired straight-A student, a beauty, an activist, and every college boy's dream—the one John yearned for so unrequitedly. Such coincidences don't happen. And then there's the Devil of Hell's Kitchen. And the Stark Industries tower, piercing the sky in Midtown Manhattan. And the Daily Bugle, with its outrageous and city-famous editor-in-chief, J. Jonah Jameson. Not enough? What about the news of the mysterious nation of Latveria? Or the upcoming space expedition that was all over the news—an expedition led by a certain Reed Richards. The icing on this cake of madness was Spider-Woman—a masked heroine who'd recently arrived in town but had already become beloved by the townspeople, and whom that same mustachioed troublemaker from the Bugle fiercely disliked.
I'm in the Marvel world.
A world where mutants fight on equal terms with Asgardian gods. A world where a passing cosmic entity can wipe out not just a planet, but half a galaxy with a snap of its fingers. A world where the concept of the Multiverse is so basic that there are literally an infinite number of them. The main thing is to avoid ending up in the cluster slated for destruction by the whim of the Phoenix or the decree of the Living Tribunal.
"Hmm… my life is hard, my wretched existence, my bitter fate…" I muttered my mother's favorite saying, may she rest in peace, staring blankly at the wall.
Existential dread washed over me like an icy wave, threatening to paralyze my will. Seeking some distraction, I went to the window. The view opened onto the blank brick wall of the neighboring building and a narrow, trash-strewn alley. Echoes of a drunken argument drifted from below, and a siren wailed somewhere in the distance. Hell's Kitchen in all its glory.
So what should you do in such a situation?
My gaze fell again on the drying puddle of vomit. I was wide awake. Instead of burdening my mind with heavy thoughts that were unlikely to lead anywhere, I decided to do the least I could: clean up.
Finding something vaguely resembling clean clothes in the closet, I filled the bathroom with water and set to work. I scrubbed the floor with fervor, scrubbing away the ingrained dirt, and this simple physical labor helped me organize my thoughts. Along the way, I dusted, washed a mountain of dirty dishes in the sink, and bagged all the trash—but I didn't dare take it out into the streets of New York City's most dangerous neighborhood at night.
Having reached no concrete conclusions, I sat down at my desk, where an old, scratched laptop lay. Opening the lid and automatically entering the password from John's memory, I was about to begin searching for information on the current state of affairs in the world, but fate—or whoever handles logistics for time travelers—decided this was the perfect moment for a surprise.
Without any fanfare, a modest translucent blue plate flashed before my eyes:
[Heavenly Forge System Activated!]
Oops... what a twist. And how, I wonder, did I deserve such an honor? Maybe a complete assimilation of my memories occurred? Or did I acquire enough information about the world and realize what a mess I'm in? Or maybe I'm overcomplicating things, and it's just been eight hours since I first woke up? Ah, who cares! The main thing is that this is a System. And a System is a chance. A chance not just to survive, but perhaps to achieve something in this crazy world.