At last, he held the world in his palms. His power was so monstrous it made him truly free- free from bowing his head to anyone he didn't like, free from hunger, disease, and even the ravages of time. Free from every human frailty, even from the chains of fate.
A young man on a plane was reading a novel on his phone.
The young man, Levi, sighed and pocketed his mobile.
The novel's MC resonated with him on a deep level as stupid as it was, some of the events that shaped Mc's character happened to him in real life.
Reading the novel's ending made him remember again.
A little kid clawed at the door, crying as the summer sun beat down on. Slowly the cries were replaced by muffled sobs as he laid down on the terrace, hungry and dehydrated, left alone to battle the elements for three whole days.
He shook his head, coming out of the memory, and stood up as the alarm blared, signaling the skydivers to jump.
Reading and extreme sports were his favorite hobbies, he picked up reading first and became addicted to exploring new worlds- sometimes quite different and sometimes the same as Earth.
As he became older the rush of extreme sports captivated him, making it his favorite hobby, successfully edging out reading from its position.
Levi looked out of the plane he had ridden multiple times before. This time he was going solo instead of with his friend group.
The plane soared through the sky carrying half a dozen divers like him.
It was sunny, the perfect weather for a dive.
He jumped without any hesitation as the plane became empty. Reducing the area of contact with air, he picked up speed and left his co-passengers behind.
He didn't want other people in his view to disturb his moment.
Extreme Sports spoke to Levi. Only with his life in danger, he could leave the world behind, forgetting the weary eyes of his grandfather, filled with regret as he lay on his bed unable to move, or the cold detachment he sees in his absentee mother's eyes whenever she comes to check up on her bed-ridden father.
His mother didn't care much for him or her father. His grandfather was the one who raised him though Levi can't say he knew the man well as the definition of love was different in his grandfather's time.
And him being nearly bedridden for the last decade didn't help him much in knowing the guy well.
But Levi's life wasn't all bad. At a very young age, he had a job that paid loads of money compared to the small amount he started with, thanks to his meticulous plans and efforts.
But the fact that his mother's name helped him get his foot in the door for the job always soured the happiness he felt for his job.
And the people he met doing extreme sports became his tight friends. Only in front of death will a person's true, core, personality comes to light, and the comradery of sharing an adrenaline-pumping experience made people thick friends in the blink of an eye.
And thick friends they are.
Levi grinned as he approached the ground with blurring speed. He was going to exceed the safe deployment altitude for the parachute in a couple of minutes.
Normal Skydivers would have already deployed their chutes, but not Levi.
He instead, enjoyed the blood pumping in his body, the air tousling his hair and just as he was about to go out of the safe range, he pulled the deployment handle.
But, nothing happened, the parachute didn't deploy, so he pulled on it again.
Nothing.
As his heart thumped in his chest, he pulled on his reserve parachute.
Again nothing.
Again, and again, and again he pulled the handles with no result.
Both of his parachutes weren't working.
As the ground approached a mad grin nearly split Levi's face as his life flashed before his eyes.
And then darkness took over.
...
A black-haired boy leaned against a tree; his deep black eyes were filled with tiredness.
Leon as the matrons called him, was reading a book as the other children of the orphanage were playing, fully taking advantage of the perfect Sunday unlike him.
The book was about applied mathematics. He always had the feeling of familiarity when doing certain tasks. The feeling let him advance explosively in those tasks, math was just a part of it.
From time to time, he cast a forlorn look at the children happily playing with each other, giggling and shouting in joy.
However, the said shouts of joy didn't quite reach him as he chose a remote corner on purpose.
He winced as two children came near him, chasing and shouting at each other.
Rubbing his forehead, he ran into the orphanage's kitchen.
"Need any help?" He asked the matron who was supervising the cooking.
He, Leon or Leo, was a good-looking child with sharp features and a hint of baby fat on his face, though the ever-present grimace on his face and his tired eyes made people think he was sick.
"The usual, Leo," The matron said gesturing towards vegetables and a knife, giving him a look full of pity as he turned.
Leo took some vegetables and went to a corner of the kitchen before starting to cut them.
The night fell, Leon ate his food before the other children and locked himself in his room- a converted broom closet- away from the rambunctious noise of the tweens and teens.
He furiously massaged his forehead, thinking of the weird dreams he was having lately. He dreamt of a pocket-sized computer that lets you call people, watch people for a couple of seconds, and many more weird things.
Leon doesn't remember everything that he dreams but some odd things stuck out like the small computer.
After silence and darkness swallowed the orphanage for a time, dawn broke.
Sunrays shone on the Cottonwell orphanage. Its young inhabitants slept peacefully, except for one boy, while the matrons bustled around, preparing for the day.
The boy, Leo, was trembling and moaning in pain. His bed was in total disarray, his pillow was on the floor, along with a majority of his blanket.
The room, as expected from a broom closet, lacked any windows, and was dark and congested, with a table and a bed taking up most of its space.
Suddenly, an ethereal pulse originated from the deep underground of a huge white building somewhere in Central London, a long distance from the orphanage, undetectable even to the building's special inhabitants.
Leon suddenly opened his eyes, taking deep breaths he tried to look around, only to be greeted by darkness.
'Need a torch,' he thought, and he began searching for something at the top of his bed, running his hands on the bed's frame. Something cold and cylindrical touched his hands, hanging from his bed's frame.
'Got it.' He thought and switched on the torch, illuminating walls with faded paint.
Suddenly a feeling of dissonance assaulted him.
'Where am I? How did I know there was a torch there?' he wondered, feeling confused.
The mystery didn't last long as he got felt an additional decade's worth of memories.
The memories belonged to an Orphan boy who always suffered from a headache.
Pain was the boy's constant companion, present even in his earliest memory.
The matrons of the orphanage had him checked, multiple times, but the doctors couldn't find the root of his problem.
The headache became more severe as he approached his 14th birthday.
It became severe enough that he started crying out in pain while he slept.
After his roommates informed him about his outbursts, he convinced the matrons and converted a closet into his room.
The matrons easily agreed as he was a quiet but helpful child.
'Am I Levi or Leon?' he wondered absent-mindedly rubbing his forehead.
'I am Levi. No that feels wrong, I am Leon too.'
He sat on his bed as memories that were both familiar and unfamiliar ran through his head, blurring the lines between the new and old memories. Finally, he concluded that Leon somehow awoke memories of Levi.
Leon's constant headaches and dreams of Levi's life supported his theory.
And now he was a mix of both Leon and Levi, with the psyche of Levi influencing his active thoughts more but he was still Leon.
'Hrgh! Whatever let's be Leon for now,' he thought, nodding to himself.
'Wait! My headache is gone,' he exclaimed noticing the absence of the ever-present throbbing pain in his head.
He sat on his bed, for some time, confused at how he was happy to lose the headache he never experienced before.
The boy didn't panic at the thought of transmigration(reincarnation?) as he was as much Leon from the orphanage as he was Levi from the future Earth. And Levi- had some screws loose in his brain- being pragmatic sort helped too.
As Leon sat on his bed playing with his torch, his door cracked open, startling him.
"Come out now, Leo. You got a letter." A matron informed him with a concerned look.
Leon assured the matron that he was fine as he followed her towards a window.
As he generally woke up early and helped in the kitchen instead of playing with his torch alone in the darkness, the matron was rightfully worried.
They walked away from his room which was situated in a corner far from the windows or any proper light source. A perfect place for him, away from the lively sounds of the orphanage.
He leaned against a window and looked at the letter the matron gave him.
It was addressed to Leon Cottonwell(Astraeus), The Closet in the Corner, Cottonwell Orphanage, London.
Leon opened the letter with shaking hands, ignoring the last name in brackets. The way the letter addressed his room, coupled with him knowing he was in the late 1900s rang some warning bells in his head.
....
HOGWARTS SCHOOL of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDRY
Headmaster: Albus Dumbledore
(Order of Merlin, First Class, Grand Sorc., CHF. Warlock, Supreme Mugwump, International Confed. of Wizards)
Dear Mr. Astraeus,
...
...…..
...…
A professor will meet you to explain everything to you and your guardians. Please expect the professor at your address tomorrow.
Well, wishes,
Deputy Headmistress McGonagall
…..
A high-pitched scream rang through the orphanage, though it stopped abruptly….. and no Leon didn't scream.
He was too mature to scream like a little girl, even when the childhood wishes of millions, including him, were suddenly fulfilled.
'God Damn! I am in Harry Potter world. I mean I did see Leon.. my previous self-displaying accidental bouts of magic whenever the headache became too much, but the pain made those memories blurry at best and I am 14 years old, not 11. I can't fault the previous me on not following up on his magic accidents as most of the time they happened when he was on the verge of passing out due to his headache.'
"Cool! Cool!" he murmured, brimming with excitement he ran back to his room.
And he was not going to back to his room to play with his torch, he was going to do some experiments.
Leon assumed a lotus position in his room, eager to do some magic.
He was trying to feel the magic, hoping the lack of magic in his previous life would help him spot any new addition to his body or the air, just like the MCs of various manga and fanfic he read.
Various thoughts ran in his head, distracting him, though the one about the suspicious nature of his death made him contemplate a bit, distracting him.
'I don't have anyone who wants me dead enough to sabotage my skydiving equipment,' he thought, if someone wanted him dead, they had many opportunities to mess with him that would make his death look like an accident due to his penchant for extreme sports.
The sabotaging of the parachute was too on the nose as any sabotage to the chutes was liable to get caught.
'It doesn't matter now. I think I was just unlucky.' He shook his head and tried to act as a Xinxia mc for more than 1 hour by properly sitting on his butt.
It yielded no results.
Sighing, he tried a different method.
He tried to imitate the emotions he felt as both of his parachutes malfunctioned. And willed the torch to move.
But nothing happened, it was like there was a little disconnection to his past life experiences- emotion-wise. 'Maybe the psyche mixing is the reason.' Sighing, he moved on to other methods.
He tried everything from glaring at the torch like he was constipated, to praying and even begging it to move.
He repeated the same things after replacing the torch with a paper but was met with failure. No matter how much angry or irritated he got there were no results.
As Leon hung his head, dejected, the paper fluttered in the wind as if mocking his earlier attempts.
Leon glared at the paper before shaking his head. After messing with the water glass in his room, he ran into the orphanage's playground and started running like crazy.
Just when he was feeling like he was on the verge of fainting, he trudged back to his room and sprawled on the floor, his hand extended towards the glass of water that had threads hanging off it.
He decorated the glass like that to not miss even a little vibration.
Leon willed the glass to move, channeling his thirst and his need for water. Stray thoughts didn't even enter his mind owing to the exhaustion he felt.
It was a good plan.
But nothing happened and as if the world was mocking him again soft wind entered his room from the door, making the threads sway.
He let his head hit the floor and waited to recover his energy before crawling towards the glass and gulping the water down.
He spent the whole day trying different methods to do some accidental magic, well in his case controlled magical outbursts.
But nothing he did was working.
Exhaustion from the day finally caught up to him, lulling him into deep sleep.
The next morning, he woke up and opened the door to his room. The paper he willed to move yesterday fluttered like it was mocking him again, reminding him of his fruitless attempts.
"I didn't want to try it, but I have no other option left," Leon murmured before walking towards the stairs, leaving behind the arrogant fluttering paper.
He stared at the bottom floor standing on the top step. His heart slowly began to race as he gauged the distance to the bottom step.
As he was hesitating, a memory flashed in his mind. He remembered the pain caused by his dried tongue and burning stomach as he lay near the door, helpless.
The memory ruthlessly crushed his hesitation.
'This is my chance not to feel powerless ever again.'
Leon firmed his will and jumped.
....
A/N: Hello! Thanks for giving this fic a chance. And our Mc isn't the type to be reckless, just for the sake of it. Well, Levi was, but the new Leon isn't.
Anywhoo~ In the first week, a chapter for each day will be released.