2 It all went wrong
"I went back in time..."
*Thump* I can hear my heart pounding in my chest, everything in my field of vision goes into slow motion with an adrenaline rush through my veins and suddenly everything starts to make sense.
The people speaking in English, the music from more than 15 years ago, the clothing style, the hair, the cell phones and finally the calendar that was my trigger to realize it... I'm not in the new year of 2023 or even in Brazil anymore .
'Oh, no, no, no, really not...' Unable to believe the reality I'm witnessing for the second time in the same night, still half in shock, I move towards the person closest to me.
"Hey! What's up man?!" The man accompanied by a friend complains as he almost turns the drink over himself when my hands fall on his shoulders.
"What is today's date and what country and city are we in?" With wide eyes and an expression making look like I'm on some drug, I ask quickly.
"What? What's your…" I cut him off. "What day is it and where are we?!" My hands squeezing a little too hard on his shoulders and my face too close.
Definitely intimidated by this posture coming from someone my size, the man swallows hard and begins to respond with clear discomfort: "today is October 20, 2005... Jericho, California... America?.."
'Holy Shit...'
My hands fall from the man's shoulders and my legs weaken too, leaving me sitting there on the floor right next to the coffee table in the living room of whatever American house this party is taking place.
"What a strange guy..." His guy and friend, with good reason, walk away from where I am.
"October 2005..." I think aloud, my right hand slowly rising over my head, my fingers piercing through my hair. "California, United States..." I am completely in shock.
'How could I forget something like that? In the stories one almost never gains a system alone, it is always accompanied by some kind of transmigration to some strange or fictional world... And holy shit, I definitely transmigrated.'
Spending a few seconds assimilating this information, my mouth curves in a slightly desperate smile, giving way to a little laughter at the situation. "Haha... It's obvious that something this good wouldn't come for free..."
Suppressing a desperate laugh, I pull myself up from the floor and cover my face with my hands.
*Breathe* The air enters through my nostrils and fills my lungs to the limit, then is slowly expelled, bringing back a modicum of calm to my mind.
My hands leave my face and I let out a sigh with my eyes upturned. "Please, just don't be Marvel or DC."
It's my only request to heaven.
...
--- Same night, three hours later.
My eyes meet theirs, all of us sitting at the table in complete silence. All trying to keep expressions as neutral as possible, pretending not to feel the almost tangible tension between us.
Much is at stake here, and my next action will decide everything...
"And..." I drop the three cards I have in my hands, enacting the sentence. "Royal Straight flush! Baby!"
"Uuoooooh!" I jump out of my chair in celebration, squeezing the last few dollars out of my fellow players, which adds up to a profit of just over $200 tonight.
During the last three hours I talked, I did my best to mingle with the local people and get more information about exactly where I am.
Noticable by my great humor, whether it's batman, Spyder-man, aliens, giant monsters, Greek deities or anything else I could think of asking, everything is completely fictional here.
Nothing abnormal or different in this world from my original world.
'Yeah, maybe it's just a trip to the past with system, there are also some plots like that.' My logically optimistic thinking.
"Dude, how do you keep doing this?"
And briefly snapping me out of this internal monologue, a guy's hand pushes my shoulder in a friendly way. Being a head shorter than me, the well-known character of the protagonist of High school musical, Troy Squire. He even has hair a bit like Zac efron.
After 'relieving himself' with the girl in the bathroom, he turned out to be a surprisingly nice guy, he even apologized and all. Anyway, we became kind of friends.
"You know, a magician never reveals his secrets, Troy." I speak confidently, tapping my friend's shoulder twice with one hand and closing the notes earned in the other.
"Dude, and you really had me wrong when you said it was your first time playing poker..." Troy comments, remembering earlier when I asked the group to explain the rules of poker to me.
"And it really was." My amused smile at him… It really was.
On that subject, throughout the process of befriending the party crowd, I've been exploring my new cheat system a bit.
it seems the condition for being able to open the folder and download the files of a person or object is to perform physical contact, either directly or over clothing.
The files within the folders have different sizes, apparently Depending on rarity and usefulness of the file, more Bigger or minor is the size. I can choose which files I want to download or not.
My download speed seems to increase as I download more files, it's currently at 3.2Mbps.
Duplicate files (which I already own) are not displayed unless they are an improved version of mine, then it is possible for me to download and replace the old file.
And finally, what made me so good at poker... By downloading two files with a certain level of compatibility like:
[Poker Mastery (Basic)] and [Deck knowledge (Advanced)], which I obtained by touching one of the other players and the deck he used in the game, respectively... The system notifies me of the possibility of merging the files to generate one better.
[Poker Mastery(Expert)] That's what came out of this merger, allowing me to go from a total beginner to the level of a professional player.
'Man, I really won the lottery this time.' I think with great joy of the endless possibilities for a bright future for me with this system.
"Okay, everybody!" I raise my hand holding the money won in the game. "To not say I'm not nice, the next bottles are on me!"
"Woohoo!"
"There you go, man!"
Everyone brightens quickly, and I turn to my friend Troy. "You're from this city, right? What's the nearest 24-hour store?"
"If I floor it, in my car, I should be back in an hour and a half." He speaks after thinking about it for a while, reminding me that he was now in the relatively small town of Jericho, no longer in São Paulo, the fourth largest metropolis in the world.
I flick back to our fellow partygoers, wanting so badly to cancel the idea of going out to buy more drinks, but who knew the puppy dog stare of some inebriated big men would be so moving? At least for my current super good-natured and slightly tipsy self.
*sigh* "Okay, let's go..."
Leaving through the front door of the house where the Party it's happening, I feel the cold night breeze hitting my face as I see the large lawn in front of the house, where there are some cars parked. It is a somewhat away house in the middle of the woods, with a paved road visible a little further away.
I take a deep breath, the air of a small town is really different, this is the first view outside since the beginning of the night. Once again gave me a small reality check.
'I really am a long way from home.'
"Everything okay there, man?" Troy asks as he sees me standing there, walking through the door a little after me and down the steps of the house, heading towards one of the cars there.
"I am... I am." I responds a little slow, following him.
Troy's car is a navy blue Volkswagen Golf that looks like it's from the nineties due to its rather dated design. He unlocks the door, getting in on the driver's side and I on the passenger side, out of habit putting on my seatbelt as soon as I sit down.
Troy gives me a little weird look for putting on his seat belt, like I'm doubting his driving skills. "What? Safety first."
apparently being on the anti-seatbelt 'team', Troy shakes his head before starting the engine and putting the car in drive.
...
The conversations between us don't last long during the first 20 minutes of the journey, after the small shock I had when I left the house, I'm taking my time looking at the road through the window thinking that at best, avoiding any kind of paradox, I'd just I will be able to see my family and friends again in eighteen years.
'Yeah... I think I'm alone for a while.'
Just as my eyes looking a little wetter, I feel Troy tap my shoulder, calling out to me.
"Hey, did something happen to her car?"
he asks as he points to the figure of a woman on the side of the road. She has a beautiful figure, dark hair and is wearing a white dress. Something in the back of my mind says it's weird.
"I don't see any cars... Go straight by." I speak to him.
"Dude? What if she's lost or something?" Troy expresses indignation.
"Seriously, I don't think so... Isn't it kind of bizarre for a woman to stop alone on the side of the road in the middle of the night?" I insist.
"Bizarre is that you want to leave a woman alone who is possibly in need of help." He counter argues.
There really is some logic in what troy says, I wouldn't want to abandon someone in need of help either, but this time there's something wrong... I feel like it is.
But it's too late to stop him, at the end of our little dialogue, Troy has already slowed down and stopped the car next to where the woman is.
'And be what God wants.'
The woman takes a few steps towards us. Looking up close, her features are really pretty, her tanned skin tone and white dress highlighting her curves well, a definitely attractive woman.
"Did something happen to the car?"
Troy asks, tilting his head toward the open window in the car.
"Take me home."
She just says that and Troy instantly agrees.
"Come in."
The woman in white opens one of the backseat doors, gets into the car and closes it. Me the whole time following her movements in the rear view mirror. Our eyes meet for a second when she looks straight ahead and I have the impression that for an instant her figure flickered like some kind of bug in reality... I quickly untouch the eye contact and look back at the window.
'Hey, hey, what's happening all of a sudden?'
The car goes back to normal. A full three minutes pass since the woman joins us, me occasionally glancing at her in the rearview mirror, no longer seeing anything unusual... Actually, the 'V' neckline of the dress is quite attractive.
'Okay, I'm just blown away by the whole transmigration thing and I had the impression to see that due to that and all the alcohol I had. It's just a beautiful woman lost.'
This is it, this has to be it. I take a deep breath through my nostrils and take one last look at the woman.
'Yeah, there's nothing wrong with her. '
I exhale through my mouth, then feel another light tap from Troy on my shoulder.
"Stop staring at her like that, man... Let me show you how it's done." Clearly completely misinterpreting why I was watching the girl, Troy tells me and raises his head a little, to also look at the girl behind us in the rearview mirror.
"Hey? Were you at a Halloween party?.. You shouldn't be walking around alone..." I can clearly see which parts of her body he is looking at through the reflection as he says this. Probably her too.
'Shame on you man...' Worthy of low flirting skills. 'Nothing like that will ever work with a woman.'
"... I'm with you." The beautiful woman responds a little later, moving her torso forward a little and moving her neck, giving her cleavage some prominence.
'No fuck it worked!' I almost say it out loud.
Continuing with the seduction, the woman puts her hands on the skirt of the white dress and begins to slowly pull it up, exposing her knees.
Troy bites his lip at the sight and I open my eyes wide.
"It's not possible..." I, in disbelief, finally begin to understand...Remember why this all seems strange.
"That's right, buddy..." Troy responds, Confusing the meaning of what I've said and tilting his head back.
The woman in the seat directly behind him leans forward and runs her hands up the back of the driver's seat, gently catching Troy's shoulders, before moving up to warmly caress his neck and face.
With that, I take action to remedy once and for all the little doubt I have left about this situation. I move my trembling fingers through the air and just touch one of the hands of the woman who is stroking Troy.
Its Window opens:
[Constance Welch]
- The ghost of a woman who in 1981 became insane upon discovering her husband's betrayal, killing her two children and committing suicide shortly afterwards.
From time to time she appears by the side of a certain highway, seducing and killing unfaithful men.
--Files:---
-[Ability to move through the veil(Average)]
Size: 3.5GB
-[Telekinesis(Average)]
Size: 4.GB
-[Teleportation(Basic)]
Size: 2.9GB
-[Body change (Basic)]
Size:900MB
-[Overhuman attributes(Basic)]
Size:1.6GB
Total folder Size: 12.9GB
Current download speed: 3.2MB/s
-- Start Folder Download? --
[Yes No]
====End of Chapter===
Attention: In the previous version of the first chapter I had mentioned a pickup truck, as that was what I remembered as Troy's car, but when I rewatched the first episode of the series I realized that it was actually a WV Golf, so I changed this and the first chapter.
Thanks for listening!
