"Shit... Shit... Shit..." With even the hairs on my ass completely standing on end, hot blood streaming down my forehead, and my heart pounding in my chest as hard as a jackhammer, I curse in the most sincere way I've ever done in my life.
Sitting in the passenger seat of a VW Golf, or what's left of it after crashing head-on into a tree, the only other human present is the completely knocked out and possibly seriously injured driver next to me.
And notice, I said "the only other human"... Outside the car, looking through the remaining half of the rear view mirror, is a humanoid figure with gray skin and semi-transparent body. A bloody haunting worthy of a horror movie, only totally real.
Oh shit, how did I get to this?
.
..
...
--- Sao Paulo (Brazil), January 1, 2023, around midnight...
*Sounds of Vomit*
In one of the bathroom stalls of a university club whose walls vibrate with each beat of the almost deafening electronic music during the height of the party, a slender young latin with lightly tanned skin, short curly hair and decent features is kneeling over the toilet, letting his stomach for out everything he'd ingested tonight and then some.
Yeah, unfortunately, that guy right there is me.
*coughs* "Dude, I'm not okay..." How many beers did I have? ten? Fifteen? I don't remember exactly, but they were enough to put me in my current state.
Realizing I couldn't throw up any more, I brace my hands on the toilet and do my best to use what little sense of bodily balance I have left to stay upright. Propping one of my shoulders against one of the white walls of the booth, I pull myself up after a few unsuccessful attempts. But my struggle to leave the bathroom has only just begun.
"Oh shit, why the hell are there four locks on this door?" Obviously there weren't four locks, but my borderline drunk vision tricks me into making three more appear in my vision, as if that wasn't difficult enough to reach and unlock one with my current motor ability.
*Click* "Yes! Thank God!-!!!" My intoxicated self again overcomes adversity, succeeding in opening the door. However, when I try to take my first step out of the booth, my dominant foot slips on what is probably the piss of some other drunk bastard even stoner than I am, causing me to slip.
With a dull thud I feel the back of my neck collide with the toilet bowl and my already clouded consciousness is completely blacked out.
.
..
...
--- Jericho - California (United States of America), October 20, 2005, 01:00 AM...
My head pulsates like it's about to break. As one of the symptoms of a hangover, the sudden contact with the bright environment stings the back of my eyeballs, causing me to cover my face with one hand.
As my eyes get used to the light enough, I get my first sense of where I am; in front of me is a classic white toilet with a roll of toilet paper next to it, a plunger on the floor and a closed shower stall with a bathtub at the back. A typical American home bathroom.
"Seriously, I have to stop drinking so much..." Despite not recognizing this bathroom, I am quite calm.
It's not my first time drinking beyond my limit and waking up in a strange corner that my drunk self "found it convenient" to fall over and pass out. Every university student has been through this situation once or twice.
Simply shaking my head a little, checking how heavy my hangover is, I direct one hand to the floor, bracing myself ready to get up.
But at that moment I feel a strange tingling in my spine when I put my palm on the cold tile, which makes me look in his direction and have a minimally unusual sight.
"What?" I rubbed the back of my remaining hand against my eyes.
"A folder?" Just above the tile to which I have my hand resting, I see a floating icon similar to a file folder that we see on computers and cell phones.
Staring at the icon in a stupor, my interest serves as a trigger, opening a small window:
[Green tile]
-A square piece of ceramic fired with enamel, giving it a greenish tint.
--Files:---
-[Material details]
Size: 0.92 MB
-[Manufacturing process]
Size: 1.1MB
Total Folder Size: 2.02MB
Current download speed: 1.0 MB/s
-- Start Download from Folder? --
[Yes No]
I first suspected that I had put some VR glasses on myself while I was unconscious, but my previous eye rub quickly ruled that out. I don't feel under the effect of drugs either, I think I would if I had, I don't know, I've never used anything other than alcohol... Anyway, I laugh to myself watching that.
"My God, I've gone mad for good..." As an avid consumer of works of fantasy, the trope of the protagonist suddenly gaining a system is all too familiar to me.
But that's it, it's just the trope of a story that usually happens to Japanese, Koreans and occasionally Americans. It can't happen in real life, especially with a random Brazilian university student like me. Is not?
However, no matter how much I deny this ridiculous idea or how much I stare at the open window before my eyes, it doesn't go away.
With my heart starting to beat faster and my brown eyes taking on a small gleam of anticipation, I take a deep breath and decide to try to interact with it at once.
I swallow. 'Okay, I'll do this.' I think and take my hand off the tile slowly. The window doesn't disappear upon breaking physical contact, so I extend my index finger, entering and clicking the [Yes] option at the bottom of the panel.
*Click* With the same sound as a mouse click on an old computer, the [Yes] button flashes when pressed and the tile information tab closes, giving way to a progress bar.
48%...
❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙-----------------------------------
88%...
❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘----
100%
❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘❙❙❚
-- Congratulations, the download of files from the folder: [Green tile] has been 100% completed! --
As soon as the completion message appears, my skull feels as if it is cracking open, opening a fissure through which a fresh rush of new knowledge penetrates my brains. In no time flashes, visions, realistic sensations of the entire practical process of creating the tile, such as the extraction of raw material from nature and being molded and heated in that format, and also of the theoretical, the chemical reactions of the ceramic itself and the glaze green that was painted on it.
The absorption of that batch of knowledge is painless, but the previously completely unfamiliar feeling of having something outside invade my brain startles me enough to jump up off the floor. In such a hurried motion and my current hungover condition, I'm far from perfect balance, taking a few awkward steps backwards and banging my head against the wooden door in my stuff, producing a loud banging noise.
"Fuck!.." I quickly touch the part of my head that was still sore from what I remember as a fall in the public restroom.
"Hey! Is everything alright? Hurry up man, there are people who need it too!" An unfamiliar male voice speaks in fluent English from the other side of the door.
(A/N: The official language in Brazil is Portuguese.)
Only after hearing the voice of this other person do my senses come back completely, I can hear loud music and see some colored light passing through the cracks in the door.
'Did I end up at the exchange students' New Year's party?' Like most, my college has an exchange system and receives foreign students, the most logical thing to think about is that I'm at the party organized by a group of them.
Well, whatever. I flush the toilet just so I don't look awkward coming out and turn the handle, opening the door.
Leaving the bathroom, I'm greeted by nostalgic American rock from the early 2000s, which would be quite welcome if it weren't at a volume that punches my eardrums with no mercy towards my hungover brain.
"Finally! Get out of the way!" The same voice speaking English as before, only more hurriedly, as he pushes me out of the way.
It's a guy almost a head shorter than me, walking into the bathroom accompanied by a hot blonde girl, slamming the door in the same time.
Not nice of him, but having just woken up at an unfamiliar party, I decide to let it go.
"Okay then... Have fun..." I say before turning my attention back to what possibly was the best thing that ever happened to me or a delirium resulting from some brain damage I suffered.
A new window was open in front of me.
[Troy Squire]
- An irresponsible young man who has a certain alcohol addiction and tendencies to cheat on his girlfriend.
--Files:---
-[American English (Fluent)]
Size: 79.6MB
-[Driving Skills(Average)]
Size: 20.4MB
-[Flirting Skills(Basic)]
Size:1.5MB
-[Slightly above average physical attributes]
Size:18.3MB
Total folder Size: 119.8MB
Current download speed: 1.1MB/s
-- Start Folder Download? --
[Yes No]
This is probably the file folder of the guy who just pushed me.
'Troy... Isn't that the same name as the protagonist of High School Musical?' I think to myself, reading the name at the top of the window and feeling a very slight familiarity with it.
'This is different...' The files found in the tile folder were mainly information about the object, its composition and processing to be created, but the system seems to have a different approach towards people, focusing mainly on their useful skills.
Wanting to once again test this system out, I swallow with a hint of excitement and hit the [Yes] option.
1%...
❚---------------------------------------------------------------
Feeling as anxious as a poor child who suddenly lands a winning ticket that makes him heir to the biggest candy factory in the world, I spend almost two full minutes standing in silence in front of the bathroom, my eyes glued to the progress bar.
99... 100%.
❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚❙❘❙❚❙❘❙❙❚ ❙❘❙❙❚
*crack*
With the same opening feeling in my skull as before, I feel the waves of knowledge flowing into my brain, along with a warm energy spreading throughout my body, making my lean muscles of someone who doesn't exercise regularly swell up a bit. A volume increase.
As it passes, I notice a change in the music playing, I begin to fully understand all the words screamed in English by the vocalist as if it were my own mother tongue.
Astonished, I now look down at one of my hands, clench and unclench the fist, feeling my grip firmer than it used to be, and also tug at the sleeves of my shirt, finding a bicep bigger than I remember having.
It's real, this system that came out of nowhere is 100% real.
"Holy shit.... HOLY SHIT!"
I yell, startling a few other people who were in the bathroom hall.
Completely ecstatic I run down the hall, almost skipping the stairs back to the first floor of the house where the party was taking place, not giving a damn about my hangover or anything, I grab a bottle of whatever was sitting on the center table in the room and take a big drink.
"The future is top! The future is FUCKING top! This year 2023 is going to be a fucking one, my friends!"
Then I forcefully return the bottle to the table and finally look around at the rest of the party. Most don't mind the act of some random guy looking as stoned as I am, but the few looking at me are laughing or have a slightly confused expression on their faces.
As I look closer, I can see that many of them are holding cell phones with buttons in their hands, the girls are wearing low-waisted jeans and several guys are wearing spiky hair, which was the fashion when I was a kid.
"What's up my people, it looks like I..."
My eyes find a wall calendar, its first page: October 2005.
"I went back in time..."
====END OF CHAPTER====
01/09 Att: I reviewed and corrected the most grotesque errors to make reading a little more comfortable.
"I went back in time..."
*Thump* I can hear my heart pounding in my chest, everything in my field of vision goes into slow motion with an adrenaline rush through my veins and suddenly everything starts to make sense.
The people speaking in English, the music from more than 15 years ago, the clothing style, the hair, the cell phones and finally the calendar that was my trigger to realize it... I'm not in the new year of 2023 or even in Brazil anymore .
'Oh, no, no, no, really not...' Unable to believe the reality I'm witnessing for the second time in the same night, still half in shock, I move towards the person closest to me.
"Hey! What's up man?!" The man accompanied by a friend complains as he almost turns the drink over himself when my hands fall on his shoulders.
"What is today's date and what country and city are we in?" With wide eyes and an expression making look like I'm on some drug, I ask quickly.
"What? What's your…" I cut him off. "What day is it and where are we?!" My hands squeezing a little too hard on his shoulders and my face too close.
Definitely intimidated by this posture coming from someone my size, the man swallows hard and begins to respond with clear discomfort: "today is October 20, 2005... Jericho, California... America?.."
'Holy Shit...'
My hands fall from the man's shoulders and my legs weaken too, leaving me sitting there on the floor right next to the coffee table in the living room of whatever American house this party is taking place.
"What a strange guy..." His guy and friend, with good reason, walk away from where I am.
"October 2005..." I think aloud, my right hand slowly rising over my head, my fingers piercing through my hair. "California, United States..." I am completely in shock.
'How could I forget something like that? In the stories one almost never gains a system alone, it is always accompanied by some kind of transmigration to some strange or fictional world... And holy shit, I definitely transmigrated.'
Spending a few seconds assimilating this information, my mouth curves in a slightly desperate smile, giving way to a little laughter at the situation. "Haha... It's obvious that something this good wouldn't come for free..."
Suppressing a desperate laugh, I pull myself up from the floor and cover my face with my hands.
*Breathe* The air enters through my nostrils and fills my lungs to the limit, then is slowly expelled, bringing back a modicum of calm to my mind.
My hands leave my face and I let out a sigh with my eyes upturned. "Please, just don't be Marvel or DC."
It's my only request to heaven.
...
--- Same night, three hours later.
My eyes meet theirs, all of us sitting at the table in complete silence. All trying to keep expressions as neutral as possible, pretending not to feel the almost tangible tension between us.
Much is at stake here, and my next action will decide everything...
"And..." I drop the three cards I have in my hands, enacting the sentence. "Royal Straight flush! Baby!"
"Uuoooooh!" I jump out of my chair in celebration, squeezing the last few dollars out of my fellow players, which adds up to a profit of just over $200 tonight.
During the last three hours I talked, I did my best to mingle with the local people and get more information about exactly where I am.
Noticable by my great humor, whether it's batman, Spyder-man, aliens, giant monsters, Greek deities or anything else I could think of asking, everything is completely fictional here.
Nothing abnormal or different in this world from my original world.
'Yeah, maybe it's just a trip to the past with system, there are also some plots like that.' My logically optimistic thinking.
"Dude, how do you keep doing this?"
And briefly snapping me out of this internal monologue, a guy's hand pushes my shoulder in a friendly way. Being a head shorter than me, the well-known character of the protagonist of High school musical, Troy Squire. He even has hair a bit like Zac efron.
After 'relieving himself' with the girl in the bathroom, he turned out to be a surprisingly nice guy, he even apologized and all. Anyway, we became kind of friends.
"You know, a magician never reveals his secrets, Troy." I speak confidently, tapping my friend's shoulder twice with one hand and closing the notes earned in the other.
"Dude, and you really had me wrong when you said it was your first time playing poker..." Troy comments, remembering earlier when I asked the group to explain the rules of poker to me.
"And it really was." My amused smile at him… It really was.
On that subject, throughout the process of befriending the party crowd, I've been exploring my new cheat system a bit.
it seems the condition for being able to open the folder and download the files of a person or object is to perform physical contact, either directly or over clothing.
The files within the folders have different sizes, apparently Depending on rarity and usefulness of the file, more Bigger or minor is the size. I can choose which files I want to download or not.
My download speed seems to increase as I download more files, it's currently at 3.2Mbps.
Duplicate files (which I already own) are not displayed unless they are an improved version of mine, then it is possible for me to download and replace the old file.
And finally, what made me so good at poker... By downloading two files with a certain level of compatibility like:
[Poker Mastery (Basic)] and [Deck knowledge (Advanced)], which I obtained by touching one of the other players and the deck he used in the game, respectively... The system notifies me of the possibility of merging the files to generate one better.
[Poker Mastery(Expert)] That's what came out of this merger, allowing me to go from a total beginner to the level of a professional player.
'Man, I really won the lottery this time.' I think with great joy of the endless possibilities for a bright future for me with this system.
"Okay, everybody!" I raise my hand holding the money won in the game. "To not say I'm not nice, the next bottles are on me!"
"Woohoo!"
"There you go, man!"
Everyone brightens quickly, and I turn to my friend Troy. "You're from this city, right? What's the nearest 24-hour store?"
"If I floor it, in my car, I should be back in an hour and a half." He speaks after thinking about it for a while, reminding me that he was now in the relatively small town of Jericho, no longer in São Paulo, the fourth largest metropolis in the world.
I flick back to our fellow partygoers, wanting so badly to cancel the idea of going out to buy more drinks, but who knew the puppy dog stare of some inebriated big men would be so moving? At least for my current super good-natured and slightly tipsy self.
*sigh* "Okay, let's go..."
Leaving through the front door of the house where the Party it's happening, I feel the cold night breeze hitting my face as I see the large lawn in front of the house, where there are some cars parked. It is a somewhat away house in the middle of the woods, with a paved road visible a little further away.
I take a deep breath, the air of a small town is really different, this is the first view outside since the beginning of the night. Once again gave me a small reality check.
'I really am a long way from home.'
"Everything okay there, man?" Troy asks as he sees me standing there, walking through the door a little after me and down the steps of the house, heading towards one of the cars there.
"I am... I am." I responds a little slow, following him.
Troy's car is a navy blue Volkswagen Golf that looks like it's from the nineties due to its rather dated design. He unlocks the door, getting in on the driver's side and I on the passenger side, out of habit putting on my seatbelt as soon as I sit down.
Troy gives me a little weird look for putting on his seat belt, like I'm doubting his driving skills. "What? Safety first."
apparently being on the anti-seatbelt 'team', Troy shakes his head before starting the engine and putting the car in drive.
...
The conversations between us don't last long during the first 20 minutes of the journey, after the small shock I had when I left the house, I'm taking my time looking at the road through the window thinking that at best, avoiding any kind of paradox, I'd just I will be able to see my family and friends again in eighteen years.
'Yeah... I think I'm alone for a while.'
Just as my eyes looking a little wetter, I feel Troy tap my shoulder, calling out to me.
"Hey, did something happen to her car?"
he asks as he points to the figure of a woman on the side of the road. She has a beautiful figure, dark hair and is wearing a white dress. Something in the back of my mind says it's weird.
"I don't see any cars... Go straight by." I speak to him.
"Dude? What if she's lost or something?" Troy expresses indignation.
"Seriously, I don't think so... Isn't it kind of bizarre for a woman to stop alone on the side of the road in the middle of the night?" I insist.
"Bizarre is that you want to leave a woman alone who is possibly in need of help." He counter argues.
There really is some logic in what troy says, I wouldn't want to abandon someone in need of help either, but this time there's something wrong... I feel like it is.
But it's too late to stop him, at the end of our little dialogue, Troy has already slowed down and stopped the car next to where the woman is.
'And be what God wants.'
The woman takes a few steps towards us. Looking up close, her features are really pretty, her tanned skin tone and white dress highlighting her curves well, a definitely attractive woman.
"Did something happen to the car?"
Troy asks, tilting his head toward the open window in the car.
"Take me home."
She just says that and Troy instantly agrees.
"Come in."
The woman in white opens one of the backseat doors, gets into the car and closes it. Me the whole time following her movements in the rear view mirror. Our eyes meet for a second when she looks straight ahead and I have the impression that for an instant her figure flickered like some kind of bug in reality... I quickly untouch the eye contact and look back at the window.
'Hey, hey, what's happening all of a sudden?'
The car goes back to normal. A full three minutes pass since the woman joins us, me occasionally glancing at her in the rearview mirror, no longer seeing anything unusual... Actually, the 'V' neckline of the dress is quite attractive.
'Okay, I'm just blown away by the whole transmigration thing and I had the impression to see that due to that and all the alcohol I had. It's just a beautiful woman lost.'
This is it, this has to be it. I take a deep breath through my nostrils and take one last look at the woman.
'Yeah, there's nothing wrong with her. '
I exhale through my mouth, then feel another light tap from Troy on my shoulder.
"Stop staring at her like that, man... Let me show you how it's done." Clearly completely misinterpreting why I was watching the girl, Troy tells me and raises his head a little, to also look at the girl behind us in the rearview mirror.
"Hey? Were you at a Halloween party?.. You shouldn't be walking around alone..." I can clearly see which parts of her body he is looking at through the reflection as he says this. Probably her too.
'Shame on you man...' Worthy of low flirting skills. 'Nothing like that will ever work with a woman.'
"... I'm with you." The beautiful woman responds a little later, moving her torso forward a little and moving her neck, giving her cleavage some prominence.
'No fuck it worked!' I almost say it out loud.
Continuing with the seduction, the woman puts her hands on the skirt of the white dress and begins to slowly pull it up, exposing her knees.
Troy bites his lip at the sight and I open my eyes wide.
"It's not possible..." I, in disbelief, finally begin to understand...Remember why this all seems strange.
"That's right, buddy..." Troy responds, Confusing the meaning of what I've said and tilting his head back.
The woman in the seat directly behind him leans forward and runs her hands up the back of the driver's seat, gently catching Troy's shoulders, before moving up to warmly caress his neck and face.
With that, I take action to remedy once and for all the little doubt I have left about this situation. I move my trembling fingers through the air and just touch one of the hands of the woman who is stroking Troy.
Its Window opens:
[Constance Welch]
- The ghost of a woman who in 1981 became insane upon discovering her husband's betrayal, killing her two children and committing suicide shortly afterwards.
From time to time she appears by the side of a certain highway, seducing and killing unfaithful men.
--Files:---
-[Ability to move through the veil(Average)]
Size: 3.5GB
-[Telekinesis(Average)]
Size: 4.GB
-[Teleportation(Basic)]
Size: 2.9GB
-[Body change (Basic)]
Size:900MB
-[Overhuman attributes(Basic)]
Size:1.6GB
Total folder Size: 12.9GB
Current download speed: 3.2MB/s
-- Start Folder Download? --
[Yes No]
====End of Chapter===
Attention: In the previous version of the first chapter I had mentioned a pickup truck, as that was what I remembered as Troy's car, but when I rewatched the first episode of the series I realized that it was actually a WV Golf, so I changed this and the first chapter.
Thanks for listening!
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