1 Start of a dream
"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====
