"Ughhh… my head. What the hell?"
My eyes crack open like a bad hangover scene, except there's no bed, no ceiling fan, just trees. Like, a lot of trees. Endless leafy wallpaper.
The last thing I remember? I was heading to the toilet to walk my cobra. Yeah, you heard that right. That's not a euphemism.
Then… blackout. Did I hit my head? Doesn't feel like it. No throbbing, no blood, and most importantly, no dramatic memory montage.
So why the hell am I in the middle of a forest like I got soft-isekai'd into a camping trip I did not sign up for?
If I'd passed out at home I'd at least expect carpet burn or a very concerned raccoon. Worst case, a hospital bed.
I sit up slowly, rubbing my temples, scanning the woods for either a bear or a plot twist.
Luckily, I see neither. No raccoon. No bear. Not even an edgy vampire brooding on a branch.
Just when I started to Google "early-onset schizophrenia," bam, I get slammed with the nastiest headache since the meteorite made the dinosaurs tap out.
Not just pain. Data. Information. Equations. Concepts. Vector fields. It's like someone dumped the whole physics department of MIT into my skull, blender style. And the weirdest part it kinda feels… right? My brain rewires itself like it's installing a new GPU upgrade mid crash.
Then it hits a warm surge from deep inside. Not metaphorically. Like literally in my gut, radiating out like I just drank liquid confidence.
I stand and I stretch. Staring at a nearby rock and immediately getting the sense I could casually suplex it into the stratosphere. Not an illusion, just the facts.
The boulder? Pfft. Please to be honest, I think only perhaps a mountain could give me a fair game, the feeling is truly novel to say the least.
Oh, and plot twist. I've been reincarnated.
Yup. Reincarnated. In Twilight, of all sparkly soap operas. Vampires that shine like they are covered in glitter and fall in love with high schoolers. Peak weird… but fun at least.
I would be freaking the fuck out if not for the previous info packet that came with that gruesome headache. Apparently I got what those Chinese novel authors call a "golden finger".
Still not sure why it's called that. Is it literal? Is it a divine finger? Is it gold plated? Do I shake hands with fate? Is it a "thousand years of death"? No, then it's four fingers .Confusing.
… Anyway, the point is, I got powers. REAL powers.
Vector Manipulation.
Yup. That one. Like Accelerator from "A Certain Magical Index and Its 12 Side Projects." Except now they're mine. And frankly I think I got the super deluxe version pack.
Also, my brain. Upgraded. Quantum math. Vector calculus. Newtonian mechanics in real-time. It's not that I'm thinking faster, it's like math's thinking for me.
Vectors, forces, velocity, trajectory, acceleration… I see it all. Its kinds like reality forgot to turn on privacy settings.
"But all this is just theoretical trash talk till I try it out" I mutter, eyes driftin back to the unfortunate rock I was side- eyeing earlier.
I tap the ground gently with my foot and that poor rock flies up at least a solid hundred meters into the air like it owes me money. It hangs there for a moment like Wile E. Coyote realizing gravity is real then it starts crashing down.
Mid air I use vectors to tweak its descent, reroute gravitational vectors making it crash into the ground with at least 10 times the force than if I just let it fall naturally.
The crash is… satisfying. Violent. A whole crater level satisfying. That singel rock splits into a dozen jagged shards, scattering like it just gave birth in high altitude labor.
"Aw, it reproduced. All it took was a hundred meter fall and catastrophic blunt force trauma. Beautiful."
But the humor fades slightly and a thread of unease creeps in.
"Where am I, really?"
And most importantly, where is the damn food?
I scan the area. Nothing but trees, bark, and an emotional void. If I was a squirrel, I'd be feasting. I lack the teeth or the moral flexibility to eat the bark of trees.
So naturally, I close my eyes, spin myself in a circle like a cursed compass, wait until I'm dizzy enough to regret my choices, and stop. My arm points forward.
"Than way captain" I mutter, staggering forward like a bootleg pirate on land.
As I walked I hummed a little tune. My brain drifts to the Twilight lore, eternal life, ridiculously attractive people, and that terrifying concept they call a mate bond. A love so strong it practically kidnaps your free will and wraps it in glitter.
"Maybe… I'll get a mate too," I think, for a second.
"Ha! Or maybe I'll just die of bark poisoning first:"
That's when it hits me.
It's silent… too much of it. It's like walking in a vacuum. Except for my humming, not even birds can be heard. Which heightens my vigilance till I remember. This verse is filled with sparkly disco balls with sharp teeth and I'm a manipulator of vectors nothings making waves here.
Then I feel contact.
A subtle, invisible ripple against my vector shield. Followed immediately by the sickening crunch of bone snapping like cheap chopsticks.
A low hiss. I turn.
Behind me, a man. Red eyes. Kneeling. His arm is bent in a way that arms really shouldn't be.
And me? I just stand there, blinking at him like I accidentally broke a mannequin at a store.
I mean what do you even do in this situation? I'm a modern dude. I've barely finished growing my chest hair.
Never seen a man hiss through fangs with a broken arm because he tried to tackle me.
He looks up. Eyes blood- red, furious, confused, and definitely in pain.
"What… was that?" he hisses.
I blink. Point to myself.
"You talkin' to me?"
He stares.
"WHO else is here?!".
Fair. That's fair.
"You got a point."
Then I tilt my head.
"Wait… did you just attack me?"
He gives me the kind of deadpan look that makes me feel personally stupid. I feel a little offended.
So I kick him in the chest.
Now, I meant to just shove him back a little. But my foot, apparently, has a personal vendetta today, and with vector enhanced force, he blasts backwards through multiple trees like a Twilight-themed pinball.
Crashes. Cracking. Dirt flies up as he finally skids to a halt somewhere in another zip code.
I sigh and start walking toward him. Calm. Collected. But to him, every step must sound like the grim reaper's playlist on shuffle.
He's lying in the dirt. Still disheveled. Still vaguely murderous. But mostly… very confused. And very broken.
I stop beside him and aks, causal as brunch,
"So. You a vampire?"
He groans and nods.
"Thought so."
I stare down at him for a second. Then ask the most obvious question in the universe.
"Sooo… you were attacking me?"
The vampire groans again, clutching his chest like he's trying to remember how lungs work.
"I-listen," he rasps, "this was… a misunderstanding"
I blink
"You tried to rip my head off."
"I thought you were prey!" Said the vampire.
I crouch beside him, elbows on my knees, tilting my head like I'm observing a particularly clumsy raccoon.
"And what gave you that idea? Was it the humming? The casual strut? The lack of screaming?"
The vampire opens his mouth, then closes it. His fangs retracted a little, like they're embarrassed.
"Look, man," he says, "let's not do anything rash, alright? We can talk this out. You clearly have… talents." He continues.
"Talents," I repeat, deadpan. "My guy, you bounced off my passive defence like a rubber duck in a particle accelerator." I say
He winces. "Okay, fine. Powers. Abilities. Whatever. No need to go full anime boss fight on me."
I stand up slowly, dusting imaginary dust off my hoodie. "You're stalling. I can respect that. I'd probably stall too if I broke half my bones trying to sneak- attack a walking vector field."
He tries to laugh. It turns into a wheeze. "You're… not wrong."
I start pacing around him, fingers twitching slightly, not out of anxiety, but calculation. The air around me shifts. Invisible math begins to hum in the space.
"Alright. Hypothesis time."
I snap my fingers and summon a glowing equation into the dirt with my toe like I'm chalking a murder board.
F=ma
Δp/Δt = Force
0=direction
r̂ =unit of suffering
The vampire stares at the glowing scrawl forming around him.
"Wait… are you doing math right now?"
"Correct," I nod. "You are now the test subject of Sebastian's Applied Physics 101. Today's topic: What happens to a vampire when you reverse every internal vector in their body at once?"
"WAIT…" He yells.
Too late.
I flick my finger.
Reality hiccups.
His body jerks, not violently, not yet. It's subtle. Muscles seize. Bones rattle. His internal velocity vectors, every direction of blood flow, nerve impulse, kinetic motion. All invert.
He starts screaming before he even understands why.
I crouch beside him again, watching with academic curiosity.
"So fun fact, turns out blood doesn't like going backwards at Mach 2. Also, your spine is doing a neat little S-shape I didn't even plan. Neat."
He's panting, still conscious, still twitching.
"I-I-WHAT ARE YOU?" He shouts.
"Just a guy who took high school physics way too seriously," I shrug. "And now I'm hungry. So, unless you have snacks, I might test centripetal trauma next."
"You're insane." He says.
"Nah," I grin, "Just curious."
The vampire's still twitching. Not in a cool, regenerative way either, more like a dying insect someone poured battery acid on.
I crouch beside him again, tilting my head.
"Still breathing, huh? Give credit where it's due. You vampires are tenacious little bastards."
He tries to say something, but all that comes out is a wet gurgle that sounds like a dying espresso machine.
I sigh. " You know… this would've been a lot more fun if you hadn't opened with a murder attempt. Could've had a nice chat. You tell me where civilization is, I don't explode your nervous system. Win-win."
He twitches again. I take that as a no.
"Right. Well, science demands a conclusion."
I step back and raise my hand lazily, flicking my wrist like I'm turning off a light switch.
"Vector:Outward. Direction:Yes. Magnitude:Enough."
The air distorts around the vampire's chest, like someone lit a firecracker inside a balloon.
Boom.
Not an anime boom. Not a fireball. Just a silent, awful implosion that ends in one messy, fleshy splat.
All that's left is a shallow crater, some mist, and a pair of jeans that somehow survived the process.
I stare at the mess for a second.
"Damn. I liked those jeans."
Then I turn around, shake the dirt off my clothes, and start walking again.
The forest is quiet. Oppressively so. I glance up at the sun's position and squint.
"Alright, Captain Compass. Let's hope this direction leads to something with running water and a vending machine."
I hum again. Something stupid. Something bouncy.
A body just exploded behind me and I'm humming a tune from a kid's show.
"God I hope there's pizza in this world."
END OF CHAPTER 1