1 Unpleasant Awakening

"I feel like shit," I complained as I threw off my sheets and sat up in bed, my head pounding away.

"Note to self, never drink again!" I told myself before attempting to open my eyes.

The light of the morning sun was peering through my window at just the right angle where it was immediately in my face as I opened them. I muttered another expletive as I recoiled from the harsh light. My hangover didn't help with this.

'Ugh! I wish this feeling would go away.' I thought as I took a deep breath, readying myself for another attempt at opening my eyes.

The second I thought that, the pain and sickly feeling left me, but I was so groggy from waking up like this that I didn't notice immediately. I spritely threw myself up from off my bed and landed on the hardwood floor with a thud, squinting open my eyes in an attempt to keep as much of the harsh light out of them as possible. It was then that I noticed the light was much more gentle than before.

'Thank god for that.' I stated as I made my way back towards the bed and began tidying it up nicely and neatly.

'If mom comes home today, I don't want to give her another reason to hit me.' I thought before stopping dead in my tracks. 'What the hell am I thinking that for? My mom's never hit me!' I thought while taking a moment to look around.

I was in my room, just like always, except it wasn't my room. I'd never slept in a room like this before, though I had years' worth of memories of doing that. The confusion was giving me a dire headache. I brought my hand to my forehead to try to massage off some of the pressure but stopped halfway.

My hand was too small, no wait, everything was too small! I looked down at my body, only to realize I was stuck possessing the body of what looked like a ten-year-old. Thoughts and memories began to race through my mind at lightning speeds. I began to recall two lives. One life was that of an unemployed 19-year-old high school dropout. The other was of a ten-year-old boy whose father had died a hero, a firefighter, and his loving mother who turned abusive after her husband's death and one too many nights drowning her sorrows in bottles of cheap whiskey.

I felt woozy at the prospect. In my previous life, I was a big fan of all things otaku and nerd culture. I'd watched anime and occasionally read western comic books, though I preferred western animated movies and the MCU for my entertainment as opposed to hardcover comics. There really wasn't much to do in my previous life.

To be completely honest, I was a fat and ugly slob with no real motivation to do anything. After getting bullied during my first two years of high school, I decided to quit after a local jock knocked out one of my teeth and broke my nose the one time I tried standing up for myself. That wasn't what broke me though, it was that the teachers saw it and didn't help. Even when my family went to the principal, the jock got off with only a slap on the wrist after he scored the winning touchdown to win our team the regional championships.

I shook my head to clear away all of the bad memories of that time. In the corner of my room, there was a small closet, which I knew contained a mirror I could use to view myself with. I slowly walked over to the closet with a bit of difficulty. Walking on legs much shorter than what I was used to was a bit disorienting, but I guess the muscle memory of this body kept me from falling over, even if I felt a bit drunk while walking.

Once I reached the door, I swung it open and turned to see my face. If I was going to be reincarnated (?) then I'd at least want to be reincarnated into a body that wasn't ugly like last time. When I saw my face, I was shocked. I looked half-again and half-Caucasian. I had lighter skin than east-Asians but a facial structure similar to that of Asian kids.

'I wish I knew what I'd look like when I got older. Looks like I won't be too bad though.' I thought. While I was thinking this, I felt like I saw a hologram of myself when I was older. An extremely handsome face with black eyes and dark hair which gradually gave way to light brown bangs greeted me. I was stunned into silence by this image but when I blinked again, it was gone.

'What was that? Was whatever entity that dropped me here giving me a sneak peek of what's to come as a free service or something?' I asked myself.

*Knock Knock*

"Honey, are you up yet?" A soft voice came from the other side of the door.

My body reflexively tensed before I could process it. "Y-yes, mom! I'm up." I called back, stunned at how my body reacted when just answering her.

"That's good. School starts in an hour. Don't be late." She said as I listened to her steps walk away.

I gave a tired exhale, narrowly avoiding direct interaction with the woman. From my current body's recollection, it seemed that the woman was nice and sweet when she was sober, but when she began drinking , she turned into a total abusive bitch who'd throw things at me and even once kicked me at full force when I was walking past her in her inebriated state.

'Life sucks.' I lamented my fate of being reincarnated like I always wanted, but still being in a bad situation regardless.

I got dressed for the day in a bright blue superman t-shirt with some greyish cargo pants. I wasn't exactly thrilled that I was going back to school as a 5th Grader, but school would actually be a halfway decent place to review the history of this world. I was under no assumption that I lived in a world where SOMETHING was strange or unique. For all I knew, I could be in the Nasuverse or DxD. Finding out where I was reborn was of paramount importance, as it could dictate my entire future endeavors.

As I walked down the stairs in apprehension, I saw my mother splayed out over the couch, clicking through TV channels. What stood out to me first was that the Television was an older model RCA TV. That was good, actually. It mean that if I WAS reincarnated into my old world, then this dated me sometime between the 1990s and the early 2000s. If it was the latter, then I could take advantage of some profitable ventures, such as getting in on the ground floor at Amazon or buying Bitcoin before it was worth much.

My attention, however, was drawn back to what was actually playing on the TV when the news woman read off the next title of the story.

"In other news, Billionaire Playboy Tony Stark has signed a new $400 Million research and development pact with industry leader Lex Luthor in the fields of robotics and artificial intelligence systems. The announcement of the deal signing came earlier this morning despite concerns about the liquidity of Stark Industries after a similar deal was rejected by Bruce Wayne of Wayne Enterprises.

Although Wayne Industries COO Lucius Fox, claimed the deal was canceled due to a liquidity crisis, rumors that it was ACTUALLY due to Tony Stark's inappropriate behavior at Wayne Manor have yet to be confirmed."

I nearly fainted after hearing that report. It seems I was in some sort of weird DC/Marvel hybrid universe. Depending on who I was and if I had the mutant or Meta Gene, I could be either a great hero or a useless nobody snapped away by Thanos or killed in a planetary invasion.

'It's also possible I'm in the Marvel 'Ruins' timeline too, so the world is just totally f*cked!' I thought as I shakily made my way to the door.

"Have a good day at school tomorrow! Tell Peter I said hi!" She waved at me.

"O-ok mom." I replied as I exited the door.

"Wait a second... Peter?" I asked myself out loud.