One Bad Day That Got Worse #1

Author's note: and here it folks, the new story! Enjoy and don't forget to share your opinion in the comment section.

And so without further ado; oh shit here we go again...

....

I sighed as I exited the liquor store, trying to light up a cigarette and failing as the lighter produced no flame because of the rain.

"Fucking great..."

I couldn't help but curse as I threw away the lighter.

I shook my head and made my way towards my car, only to stop a distance away, my eyes twitching at the sight of an officer leaving a ticket on my windshield.

"For fuck's sake, I've only been there for a couple of minutes," I exclaimed as I stamped my way towards the officer, who merely gave me a dismissive look and moved on, saying nothing.

"One of those days..." I muttered as I watched the officer walk away.

I walked to my car, took the ticket, and grudgingly stuffed it into my pocket without bothering to give it a look. Then I opened the door and sat down in the driver's seat, taking out my spare lighter.

However, in my haste to alleviate my nicotine addiction, I didn't close the door, and a sedan suddenly sped over a water puddle, splashing murky water all over me.

"FUCK!" I exclaimed at the top of my lungs as I got off the car. "Could this fucking day get any worse?!" I vented, unmindful of the passerbys and the strange looks they sent me as if I were mentally challenged.

As if waiting for those exact words, a loud whistling sound came from above, so I looked up, and what do you know?

I froze, the wet cigarette falling off my wide opened mouth matched by my eyes.

"Oh.."

An orange hue shone over my face, accompanied by searing heat, as I stood rooted in place, torn between laughing and crying at the sheer ridiculousness of the situation.

"My..."

My mind went into overdrive as survival instinct took over me, but it wouldn't change anything. It couldn't change anything.

"God..."

I got the answer to the question, I should have never asked. The day could and would get worse, and the answer in the form of a fucking flaming meteorite out of all things, speeding right towards my car, and by extension me.

With no realistic path to survival, I could do nothing but bitterly smile as my life flashed before me.

My childhood, my ever awkward adolescence, working my ass off to put food on the table as your typical corporate drone. It all flashed before me for what felt like an eternity, but it ended far too quickly if you ask me.

'Out of all the ways I thought I'd die... a fucking meteorite was never on the list...'

And that was the last thought in my mind as I embraced my death, both literally and figuratively, as I spread my arms apart as if to beckon for the flaming sphere of demise and destruction to get over with quickly.

If I'm going to die anyway, I might as well do it in style.

...

"What the..."

I opened my eyes, but my vision was blurry, and I felt utterly disoriented. My entire body ached, and the first thought going through my mind was that whatever after-life this is, it sucked.

My nose scrunched in disgust as a foul odor slithered into my nostrils. My hands unconsciously reached to inspect the softness below me to compensate for my blurry vision, and the wet slimy sensation only made my expression all the more disgusted.

My first instinct was to rub the blurriness out of my eyes, but I refrained as I rubbed my fingers together and remembered the disgusting slimy substance on my hands. Blurry vision beats no vision at all, thank you very much.

I grunted in a show of effort as I shakily stood up to gather my bearing. I almost fell right back into what I only assumed was a heap of trash. I flailed my arms and luckily managed to hold something to lean on and stop myself from falling.

My vision slowly returned, and the first thing I noticed were the bruises all over my hand. I slowly inspected the area, confirming I was in what could be the filthiest, dingiest, and smelliest dark ally in the world. And I was apparently taking a nap on top of a pile of trash bags for whatever reason.

I bitterly chuckled, wondering what the hell was going on. One moment I was staring at a meteor at almost point-blank range, and the next, I was here.

'Did I have too many drinks and started seeing hallucinations or something...?'

I mused as I looked around. But I didn't have to wonder too long as a skull-splitting headache came over me, flooding my brain with foreign memories.

Gods. Demons. Heroes. Villains. Aliens. Mad scientists. Magicians. I was in a fictional world with all of that and then some. And to make things worse, I was in the most crime-infested, low-life crawling hellhole of a city in said fictional world.

So to put things into perspective, I had the worst day ever. A meteor fell on my head. I died. And now I'm in Gotham City inside some variation of DC comics or the other.

'Well, shit...'

I didn't even need to sort through the new memories; they imprinted into my brain as if they were always there.

My breath hitched as realization dawned on me, brought about by the terrible pain all over my body. I wasn't hallucinating, and I wasn't dreaming either.

And worst of all, I didn't know much about DC other than some surface knowledge.

I was just about ready to lose my shit and start panicking when a transparent window suddenly appeared in the corner of my vision.

[Bonding complete]

I slowly blinked and shook my head, but the window remained in its place even as I closed my eyes.

[Scanning host's vitals... extensive damage detected; internal bleeding, multiple fractured bones, damaged organs, and severe bruising]

'Holy shit, holy shit, holyshitholyshitholyshit.'

I had already figured out what was happening, but the rational part inside me denied it. It couldn't admit it, wouldn't accept it.

[Initiating emergency procedures to repair the damage...]

I winced as an itchy sensation overcame my body, and I looked down to see the bruises on my hands fade away, the dizziness and pain fading along with them as the itch intensified.

[Host restored to optimal condition... performing a secondary scan]

I sighed in relief as the itch disappeared, leaving me feeling light and refreshed as I stretched my limbs.

[Scan complete]

Name: Grayson Whitlock

Race: Human

Gender: Male

Age: 17

Class: None

....

Stats:

Body: 10

Mind: 10

Spirit: Locked

.....

Skills: None

....

Perks:

[Dormant Metahuman: you have the Metagene, the source for all Metahumans' powers. However, it lies dormant for now]

...

Inventory: Locked

...

Quests: None

...

Reading through my stats proved to be nothing but a momentary distraction from the hellhole I found myself in, especially considering what was waiting at the only refuge I had available.

The former owner of this body, Grayson Whitlock, was an unfortunate soul, to put it mildly. The poor bastard died on top of a heap of garbage bags in a dingy alley, for god's sake, beaten to death at that. What more do I need to say?

The system once more comes to the rescue before I can start panicking again.

[New quest initiated! Find Shelter]

Find Shelter:

The streets of Gotham City are treacherous, especially at night, what with thugs, masked psychopaths, and other assorted shades of crazies roaming about the city's dark underbelly as soon as the sun sets.

Objective: find a relatively safe place to spend the night.

Rewards: starter class.

Note: failure may cause death and or disfiguration.

'Peachy.' I couldn't help but muse, my eyes twitching in annoyance at the wording of the quest. Still, I really needed to get out of here. Gotham's East End was the breeding ground for the city's worst specimens, and I had already died once today, and I was not in the mood for seconds.

And so, determined not to be the first person to die twice on the same day, I took a deep breath and exited the alley, hoping that whatever awaited at the end of the proverbial tunnel would be better, despite knowing better.

And it was to no one's surprise that what I saw was only slightly less disappointing than the dark alley itself.

The streets were laden with thick grime, the smell of garbage permeating the air as pedestrians roamed the streets, doing their best to avoid making eye contact with anything that moved in their haste to go back to the comfort and the relative safety of their homes.

I couldn't help but stop for a minute to take the sights, the unique architecture, and the dark theme coloring the cityscape. It looked colorless, bleak, and dreary.

I stood there, trying to burn the image into my mind, unmindful of passersby as they gave me a wide berth, likely assuming I was about to turn psycho or due to my garbage-slime-covered back. Whatever the case, I didn't care and only moved once I convinced myself that this was now my reality, my world.

I would make it my own, one way or the other.