Sid Kagano had always been the sort of boy who could look at a perfectly harmless object and immediately calculate twelve different ways it could kill him. It wasn't fear—no, Sid wasn't the panicking type. It was simply how his mind worked. Numbers flowed through his head the way gossip flowed through bored aunties: constantly, involuntarily, and with alarming accuracy.
His classmates had nicknamed him "Walking Calculator", which might have been affectionate if it weren't for the fact they said it with the same tone people use for malfunctioning vending machines. Teachers liked him, but they also avoided calling on him because he tended to give answers with unnecessary precision. When asked to estimate something, Sid didn't estimate—he delivered a thesis.
His parents, meanwhile, were physically present but emotionally… outsourced. They weren't abusive, just cold. Mechanical. Like two professional actors playing the role of parents without reading the full script. They provided food, education, and shelter, but warmth? Interest? Acknowledgment? Those weren't included in Sid's household package.
And so Sid grew inward, not outward. He learned early that human emotions were messy things, illogical and inconsistent. Numbers were clean. Calculations were loyal. Logic never left you hanging. Somewhere between neglected birthdays and silent dinners, his personality had begun to twist—just a little. Not enough to be dangerous, but enough to make him prefer shadows over sunlight, solitude over crowds, and mischief over sincerity.
He wasn't a villain. He simply liked… efficiency. And silence. And watching others struggle with problems he solved three minutes ago.
Tonight he lay in his bed staring at the ceiling fan. He wasn't tired—Sid rarely slept early—but boredom had driven his brain to wander into strange territories. And today's strange territory was:
"What is the probability of dying from a ceiling fan falling on me?"
Most people would dismiss the thought. Sid did not.
His mind began running models with mathematical ease.
Fan weight… check.
Screw tension… check.
Rotational vibration… decently stable but old model… probability rises by 0.3%.
Room humidity weakening the metal? Mild.
Mother's tendency to forget maintenance? High. Very high.
Overall probability of fatality? Approximately 0.024%.
He nodded to himself, satisfied with the calculation. That was low enough. Statistically insignificant. A safe number.
The fan made a sound.
A short, sharp metallic clunk.
Sid blinked.
...Another clunk.
"...Eh?"
He re-calculated instantly.
Revised probability after sudden sound: 17.2%.
Another vibration.
Probability: 32%.
Another.
64%.
Sid slowly sat up in bed as the fan trembled overhead like it had just remembered it was held up by three screws older than his entire emotional trauma. His eyes narrowed, brain spinning through numbers, angles, possible escape positions.
If I roll left, survival chance: 73%.
If I jump off the bed, survival: 92%.
If I freeze like an idiot... survival: 0%—
He didn't get to finish.
The entire fan detached from the ceiling with the dramatic enthusiasm of a WWE wrestler entering the ring.
Sid had exactly half a second to glare at it with genuine betrayal before—
WHAM.
Silence.
Then darkness.
A long, floating sort of darkness. Like being suspended in ink.
Sid wasn't sure how long he drifted, or whether he even had a body anymore, when something suddenly flickered in front of him. A glowing blue rectangle snapped into existence like a pop-up ad in the void.
He squinted at it.
It wasn't a hallucination. It wasn't a dream. It wasn't math.
It was… a window. A digital, floating, transparent window.
And then words began to type themselves on it, as if an unseen presence was speaking through text.
[SYSTEM BOOTING…]
[USER IDENTIFIED: SID KAGANO]
[STATUS: DECEASED]
Sid stared.
His floating… whatever-he-was… stared.
The window brightened.
[TRANSFER TO NEW HOST BODY INITIATED]
[WARNING: SYSTEM CONSCIOUSNESS ONLINE]
[HELLO, SID. I HAVE BEEN WAITING.]
Sid's mind froze.
The window pulsed once, as if amused.
Then—
Everything went white.