“You’re such a loser, if you ever tell anyone you’re my brother again I will lock you in the basement for a week!” This was a very common threat that was often followed up from Asher’s sister Cara.
This and the phrase, “Dad left because a brat like you was born” was a constant reminder of just how bad things were. Asher’s mother spent all her time working and couldn’t be bothered to listen to him about his sister’s harassment. On top of this the entire Ronan family was struggling for money to the point that they often only ate once a day. For Asher that was a gift, mostly because his mother would not leave him food or his sister would eat it on him. He often had to sift through the neighbors trash for something. When his neighbors caught him, which was often due to his bad luck, they would smack him with a broom to get away.
School life was not much better, when he actually was able to make it to the school building he managed to show up at the same time as his school’s most prevalent bullies. No matter what time he left home, early, late, or on time he seemed just unlucky enough to enter through the same entrance at the same time as Darren and his friends. This had resulted in him being stripped and left tied to the flagpole in the winter, tossed in the fish pond in the lunch courtyard, and even locked in to the back dumpster where he had been stuck until the garbage man emptied it in to the truck and carted him all the way to the dump.
Add on the fact that Cara went out of her way to put him in to bad situations against the seniors when he was only an almost sixteen year old sophomore, gave him the constant reason to leave school early. Besides the fact that somehow his homework would always get lost. Submit it online? His internet would crash. Bring a paper copy? The neighbors dog would literally eat it. Take an in class test? Well his teacher would misplace it or claim it hadn’t been turned in.
The only positive of the day was that for once his mother had taken an early day from work to walk him home from school and spend time with him. Today was his official sixteenth birthday. Normally his sister and mom would forget his birthday or mix up the days but this year she had remembered. Asher was able to put aside all the trauma from his day, with no friends to wish him happy birthday ever he was even more excited to see his mother. He had even used the school showers to wash his long dirty blond hair. He was barely over five feet tall and the lack of nourishment shown on his face.
With only a few bruises from his usual slips and falls in the shower due to left over soap or trash left around he wore his nicest clothes. His normal blue shirt always highlighted his green clover colored eyes. The basic black pants he had fished from the lost and found narrowly fit him but he wore them happily, seeing his mother waiting for him on the street his face lit up for the first time in years.
She was in her late forties with darker brown hair tied in a bun, she was taller and skinnier than Asher, and wore a very professional business suit. She always held a very stern face, no love or happiness, let alone other emotion ever seemed to show. The mirror image of his older sister Cara. But this did not deter Asher in the least, his whole life he had pushed away the terrible luck he had been dealt, today was the same but today he was lucky, he got to spend time with his mother on his birthday.
His mother barely greeted him as they walked. “You know Asher, your sister will be graduating in a few months. She gets good grades and should be able to get in to a good university.” Unsure of where this was going Asher stopped at the crosswalk they were on and looked back at his mother. “It will still cost a large sum of money, so today I took out an expensive life insurance policy. You need to do what’s best for the family Asher.” Still lost on what his mother meant he felt her hand on his back. With a hard push he was in the middle of the road, the bus didn’t even have time to stop.
“Ah why did I think my luck had changed just because it was my birthday.” Asher cursed himself just before the bus ran him in to paste on the ground. His bad luck had finally killed him. Now there was nothing but black.
The only thing that existed now was darkness. Glowing in the darkness was a small white flame. “So this soul finally came back. I know I messed up by giving you a negative luck value but hope you won’t blame me, a god has a lot of things to worry about. Well don’t worry I will be putting your soul back in to circulation, I rebuilt your world a bit…I don’t even know why I am bothering saying this you’re just a soul, you can’t even hear me. Hhuuuu, well off you go, good luck.” The small white flame faded leaving only the darkness.
“HUUURRRRYYYYYY UPPP!” Cara’s yell resounded through the house making Asher jump out of bed. He shot to the bathroom seeing that his clock said there was only half an hour before he needed to be at school.
Asher froze staring in the bathroom mirror, clock? He had never had a clock, wait he was sleeping in a bed? Why was he in bed? His face looked more full, the protruding cheek bones completely gone. He was wearing clean pajamas which he couldn’t recognize but for some reason knew were his. His head was a mix of memories, which ones were true which were false. Hadn’t his mother just pushed him in front of a bus? He stumbled out of the bathroom glancing out the window, his jaw dropped.
“Did someone just fly out of the neighbors house?!” he must have gone crazy, this was not normal, people don’t fly. Cara had walked out of her room seeing Asher stunned looking at the sky.
“Why are you being so weird today? You’ve seen Mrs. Wilson use her powers to fly to work every day since we moved here. Being weird like this is why you don’t have any friends.” Cara walked away with a snort but no death threats, or promises to lock him in the basement.
Asher returned to the room he knew was his but he had never slept in before. This was not the world he grew up in, this was different. Sifting through his memories he knew he had died, that was certain. But there were new memories, ones where his father was home working for a local law firm. His mother was a stay at home mom and his sister could actually…be nice to him. There were no bullies that waited for him in the locker rooms and he got average grades rarely forgetting his homework. He had died and ended up in another world, it was almost completely identical, almost. About eighty years ago science had a massive breakthrough when studying the brain. They discovered that humans had many genes and parts of their body that were dormant. Having found this they struggled to give humans conscious control over it. They succeeded.
From there research a vaccine was created, aptly named the evolution shot a.k.a evo shot. This was given to any child on their sixteenth birthday when their body had developed enough to handle the opening of such locked away genes. When unlocked they gave way to unique abilities. These super powered abilities could do anything, super strength? Telekinesis? Even Cara had the ability to enhance the sound she produced. His mother had super hearing and could hear a whisper from across the room. His father who he had never known but now had many memories of could remember anything he read, this made him one of the top lawyers in the city.
This history flooded his mind, he had only ever heard of someone being transmigrated to another world. It was the dream of shut in losers who were too afraid to pursue their own goals in society, but it had just happened to him. Not only that but his life was already many times better, his bad luck was gone, he was in a world of superpowers! Even more his birthday was today, he turned sixteen today. This was the day he got to get his evo shot and awaken his dormant genes. What power would they evaluate him to have? Having put his jumbled brain in order Asher ran out the door heading for school where he would get his evo shot to start his new happy life…in his underwear and pajamas top.