James Black had always considered his life ordinary, even painfully so. The 23rd of August 2024, his 19th birthday, should have been a day of celebration. Instead, it felt like an empty page—a hollow echo of something that once meant joy. The weight of his parents' deaths hung heavy on him, a reminder that birthdays were no longer family gatherings but solitary milestones.

He sat at the edge of his small, dimly lit room, the glow of his phone casting eerie shadows across the wall. A picture of his parents stared back at him—his father's wide grin and his mother's warm eyes captured in an eternal snapshot. It was a cruel contrast to the cold reality of their absence.

"Who am I, really?" James whispered to the photo. "Just a regular guy who misses his parents too much."

The clock ticked noisily, breaking the silence. James ran a hand through his dark, messy hair, sighing deeply. The day had started like any other, with no hint of what was about to unfold.

By mid-afternoon, James found himself standing in the queue at a local bank, clutching a thin folder of documents. Bills needed paying, and errands didn't wait for grief. The sterile air smelled faintly of disinfectant and worn leather, a mixture that always made him feel uneasy.

He was midway through his transaction when chaos erupted.

The glass doors slammed open, shattering the mundane rhythm of the bank. A group of masked men stormed inside, their shouts echoing off the marble walls.

"Nobody move!" one of them bellowed, brandishing a gun.

Panic swept through the room like wildfire. Customers dropped to the floor, and the tellers froze in terror. James' heart raced as he ducked behind a counter, clutching his folder like a lifeline.

For a moment, he thought he could stay hidden, but then he saw a child—no older than six—crying in the middle of the chaos. The boy's mother was pinned to the ground, her arms outstretched, pleading for her son to stay still.

James didn't think. He acted.

"Hey!" he shouted, stepping out from his hiding spot.

The masked men turned toward him, their weapons raised.

"What the hell are you doing?" one of them snarled.

James' legs felt like lead, but he forced himself to move closer. "Let the kid go. He's just a child."

The leader of the group tilted his head, seemingly amused. "And who are you supposed to be? A hero?"

James didn't answer. His eyes locked onto the child, silently willing him to run.

The gunshot was deafening. Pain exploded through James' chest, stealing his breath and sending him collapsing to the floor. The world blurred, his vision dimming as voices faded into the distance.

The Darkness

James drifted in and out of consciousness, the cold tile floor beneath him fading into nothingness. His thoughts were a jumbled mess, fragments of memories and regrets swirling together.

"Is this it?" he wondered, feeling the warmth of his blood pooling around him.

A voice broke through the haze. It was soft, almost tender—a girl's voice.

"Thank you," she whispered. "You tried to help."

James wanted to respond, to ask who she was, but the darkness pulled him under.

The Awakening

When James opened his eyes, he wasn't in the bank anymore. The sterile smell of antiseptic filled his nose, and he realized he was lying in a hospital bed. Machines beeped steadily around him, monitoring his vitals.

"Am I… alive?" he murmured, his throat dry and raspy.

A doctor appeared, clipboard in hand and a cautious smile on his face.

"Good to see you awake, Mr. Black," the man said. "You've had quite the accident."

"Accident?" James frowned, trying to sit up. Pain shot through his body, forcing him back down.

"You were in a car crash," the doctor explained. "It's a miracle you survived."

James shook his head, confusion clouding his thoughts. "That's not right. I wasn't in a crash. I was…" He stopped, the memory of the bank flooding back.

The doctor's expression turned concerned. "You might be experiencing some disorientation. That's normal after such trauma."

"No," James insisted, his voice rising. "I was in a bank. There was a robbery. I—"

The door opened, cutting him off. A woman entered, her face pale with worry.

"James!" she cried, rushing to his side.

James froze. It was his mother.

A New World

The next few days passed in a surreal blur. James learned that in this world, his father had died years ago in an accident, but his mother was very much alive. It was 1990, not 2024, and the life he remembered seemed like a distant dream—or a cruel joke.

The memories of this version of James began to seep into his consciousness. He was the heir to a massive fortune, his father having left behind a thriving hotel empire. Yet, despite the wealth and privilege, he felt like a stranger in his own life.

As he pieced together the fragments of this world, James couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. The laws of reality seemed… off. Shadows flickered where they shouldn't, and strange whispers filled the corners of his mind.

One name kept surfacing in his thoughts: Lena.

The Meeting

It wasn't long before James encountered Lena again, though she wasn't the same girl he'd seen in the bank. In this world, she was a physicist working on cutting-edge research into parallel dimensions.

"You don't belong here," she told him one evening, her tone calm but serious.

James stared at her, a chill running down his spine. "What do you mean?"

"You're… different," she said, choosing her words carefully. "I've been studying anomalies between dimensions, and you're one of them. You're not supposed to exist in this timeline."

"Then why am I here?" he demanded.

"That's what we need to figure out," Lena replied, her eyes narrowing. "But be warned—there are forces at play that won't take kindly to your presence."

Over the following weeks, James and Lena worked together, delving into the mysteries of his existence. They discovered that the robbery at the bank wasn't random; it was orchestrated by a group called The Veil, an organization manipulating timelines to serve their own agenda.

James' death in his original timeline was no accident—it was a deliberate attempt to remove him from the equation.

"Why me?" James asked one night, staring at the swirling patterns on a holographic map Lena had created.

"You're unique," Lena said simply. "Somehow, you can move between realities, even when you shouldn't be able to. That makes you dangerous."

As the pieces began to fall into place, James realized he couldn't stay hidden forever. If The Veil was targeting him, they wouldn't stop until they succeeded.

"We need to fight back," he told Lena, determination burning in his eyes.

"Do you even know what you're up against?" she countered, her voice laced with frustration.

"No," James admitted. "But I can't just sit here and do nothing."

Lena hesitated, then nodded.

"Fine. But if we're going to stand a chance, you'll need to learn to control your abilities. And fast."