Jason's eyes fluttered open, his body heavy and aching as if he'd been hit by a truck. He blinked, struggling to make sense of his surroundings. The familiar creak of his old apartment, the scent of stale air—none of it was there. Instead, he found himself staring at a white ceiling, clean and unfamiliar. His head throbbed, but not with the sharp pain that had knocked him out. This was dull, more like a lingering fog.
Slowly, he sat up, his breath catching in his throat. The room around him was small and plain—a bed, a desk, and a tiny window that let in pale sunlight. The sheets beneath him were soft, freshly laundered, and the air smelled faintly of lavender. It was nothing like the dingy, cramped apartment he had left behind.
"Where… am I?" Jason muttered, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. He glanced down, and his heart skipped a beat. His hands—his body—looked different. Younger. Fresher. He scrambled to his feet, crossing the room to a mirror mounted on the wall.
The reflection staring back at him wasn't his own. It wasn't the face of a 27-year-old man beaten down by years of failure. It was someone else entirely—a boy, maybe 18 at most, with smooth skin, dark hair, and wide brown eyes.
Jason's heart raced as panic clawed at his chest. This wasn't possible. He touched his face, fingers trembling as they traced the unfamiliar features. His mind spun with confusion, memories of collapsing in his apartment, the unbearable pain, and then… nothing. Now, he was here, in a body that wasn't his.
He stumbled back from the mirror, his hands clutching the edge of the desk for support. Papers lay scattered across its surface, along with an old, worn-out wallet. Jason grabbed it, flipping it open to find an ID card tucked inside. The name on the card read "Ethan Parker", and the face on the card was the same one he had just seen in the mirror.
Ethan Parker? The name meant nothing to him. Jason stared at the ID, his mind racing as he tried to piece together what had happened. Was this some kind of dream? A hallucination? He pressed the ID card back into the wallet, feeling the faint thrum of anxiety rise in his chest.
Slowly, he sank back onto the bed, trying to catch his breath. His mind flashed back to that last moment in his apartment—the world going dark, the searing pain in his skull. And then this.
"This can't be real…" he whispered to himself. But the feeling of the bed beneath him, the weight of the wallet in his hand—it all felt too real to be a dream.
Jason—or rather, Ethan—took a deep breath and stood up again. If this was real—if somehow, he had been transported into another body, another life—he needed to figure out where he was. His first steps were unsteady, but determination forced him to move forward.
He walked over to the small window, pulling back the curtains to reveal a quiet street outside. The buildings were familiar, but something about the atmosphere felt… different. There was a sense of something off, something not quite like the world he had left behind.
He turned away from the window and started searching the room for clues. He found a small phone on the desk—a cheap, basic model—and powered it on. The screen flickered to life, and he swiped through a few notifications, none of them helpful. But when he checked the date, his breath caught in his throat.
This wasn't the same world. The phone displayed a year several decades earlier than when he had collapsed. Jason sat down heavily on the bed, his mind spinning.
"I'm… in the past?" he whispered. "No… this isn't the past. It can't be." Everything seemed normal outside, but there was a subtle disconnect. The phone's interface was familiar but outdated. The technology here seemed a step behind, but the date didn't match any timeline he knew.
Jason—now Ethan—shook his head, trying to focus. Wherever he was, whatever had happened, he was in a new world. And in this world, he had no identity. No family. No money. No fame.
But as the panic began to subside, a thought crept into his mind. This could be a second chance. He had spent years in his old life, fighting for a break that never came. Now, here he was, in a young body, with time ahead of him. This world might be different, but if there was an entertainment industry here, he had knowledge that no one else did.
This world had given him a new face, a new name, and maybe—just maybe—a chance to do things differently.
Jason stood up and began pacing the room. If he had learned anything from years of failure, it was that opportunities didn't come often. But when they did, you had to be ready.
He searched through the wallet again, finding a few crumpled bills inside. Not much, but enough to get by for a day or two. His mind worked quickly. If the entertainment industry existed here, he would have to find out what state it was in. If it was underdeveloped, as everything else seemed to be, then he had an advantage. He knew how things worked in his world, and he could use that knowledge to rise faster.
The only question was where to start.
Jason took a deep breath and grabbed the phone from the desk, his fingers flying over the screen as he searched for any information about this world's entertainment industry. After a few minutes of browsing, the pieces began to fall into place. It wasn't like his old world—the industry here was small, fragmented. Actors and musicians were ranked by a star system, ranging from S to F, with most people falling into the lower tiers. And globally, the rankings stretched even further.
It was a competitive system, but the infrastructure seemed underdeveloped, full of gaps and inefficiencies. Jason—Ethan—smiled to himself. In his old life, he had been stuck at the bottom, fighting for scraps. But here? Here he knew how things could be done better.
His eyes flickered with a spark of determination. He would find a way in. He would use everything he knew to rise to the top, and this time, nothing would hold him back.
He didn't have a name in this world yet. He didn't have fame. But he had one thing no one else did: knowledge.
And that was enough.