Chapter 1 - Reborn

Carl's eyelids fluttered open, his vision blurry and his mind a disorienting haze. The ceiling above him was stark white, lined with fluorescent lights humming softly. It took him a moment to realize where he was: a classroom.

Rows of desks stretched before him, filled with teenagers clad in familiar high school uniforms. The teacher at the front of the room, a stern-faced man with thin-rimmed glasses, droned on about something—something strange.

Carl blinked again, the fog in his head slowly lifting. A gnawing sense of displacement gnawed at him. This wasn't his world. His last memory was of a sterile laboratory, holographic screens glowing with complex equations, and the hum of quantum servers running simulations. He remembered being at the forefront of human progress, a scientist standing on the edge of discovery in a future where humanity had conquered planets and bent the laws of nature. And now…

He was in high school?

A sudden, sharp pain shot through his head. It wasn't just confusion—his mind was flooding with memories, not his own but those of the boy whose body he now inhabited. In a matter of seconds, Carl pieced together fragments of this new life: a teenager named Carl as well, living in a world both similar to and horrifyingly different from his own.

Before he could process it all, a cold voice echoed inside his mind.

"Initializing environmental analysis… Quantum Chip active."

Carl's heart skipped a beat.

He knew that voice. It belonged to the advanced quantum chip implanted in the minds of top-tier scientists in his previous world—a cutting-edge technology designed to detect, analyze, and calculate countless possibilities in real-time. It was a tool of precision and intellect, a silent partner in every groundbreaking discovery he'd ever made.

But how was it here?

His fingers twitched, a reflexive reaction to the flood of data now scrolling across his mental interface. The chip was scanning his surroundings—the composition of the air, the molecular structure of the desk, the electromagnetic pulses radiating from the fluorescent lights—everything. It was like having a supercomputer embedded in his brain.

He barely had time to marvel at this impossible stroke of luck before the teacher's voice cut through the data stream.

"Remember," the teacher said, his tone deadly serious, "Strangeness only kills when the rules are triggered. If you encounter any strangeness, your first instinct should be to decode its rules and escape its influence immediately."

Carl's breath hitched.

The word struck a chord deep within the borrowed memories now swirling in his mind: Strangeness.

In this world, danger didn't always come in the form of knives or guns. It came in the form of inexplicable, supernatural phenomena governed by strict, often arbitrary rules. They called them Strangeness.

A pair of walking shoes that would kill anyone who stopped moving within a 100-meter radius. A mirror that would drag you into an alternate, twisted reality if you stared into it for more than two seconds. A music box that would cause you to bleed from every orifice if you heard its melody twice.

The rules varied, but the outcome was always the same—death.

Carl's quantum chip buzzed softly as if in response to his racing thoughts, offering a cold, calculated analysis of these anomalies. Unknown energy signatures detected. Probability of non-physical causation: 97%. Suggest further observation.

He gripped the edge of his desk, knuckles whitening.

The boy whose body he now possessed had clearly known about these threats, but the memories were disjointed, incomplete. Yet Carl's scientific mind—sharp, methodical, and relentless—was already working. If these Strangeness events followed rules, that meant they could be studied, understood, and perhaps even manipulated.

Rules meant patterns.

Patterns meant predictability.

And predictability meant control.

Carl's lips curled into a faint smile. This world might be terrifying, but it was still a system—a system he could learn to navigate, just like he had done with quantum fields and cosmic algorithms in his past life.

The teacher continued, oblivious to Carl's mental revelation. "For your next assignment, you will each receive a list of known Strangeness incidents reported within the city. Your task is to analyze the rules and propose countermeasures. Remember, one mistake can be fatal. Class dismissed."

As the students gathered their belongings, Carl remained seated, his mind racing faster than ever. The quantum chip's interface lingered at the edge of his consciousness, its silent hum a comforting reminder that despite everything, a part of his old world had followed him here.

And with it, he would crack the code of this world's deadly mysteries.

Strangeness might kill by rules.

But rules could be broken.