Time.
Space.
Reality.
It is more than just a linear path.
It is a prism of endless possibility, where a single choice can branch out into infinite realities, creating alternate worlds from the ones you know.
I am a transmigrator, and I will lead you to witness a world of new possibilities.
***
January 2007.
Queens, New York.
Shane Grintel stood by the second-floor office window of “Shane’s Tires,” looking down at the desolate street below.
The glass reflected a twenty-two-year-old face, one that possessed an academic air but could not hide its sheer exhaustion.
This face belonged to him, yet it didn’t entirely.
Three days ago, he had been an ordinary drone engineer on Earth.
Everything had gone black while he was pulling overtime to rush a project.
When he woke up, he had become this unlucky soul in the Marvel world—an orphan clinging to an ancestral tire shop on the brink of bankruptcy.
The moment their memories merged, he saw the original owner’s final moments: a top student from Princeton University majoring in Electronic Mechanical Engineering, obsessed with his father’s dying wish to “open tire chains across America.” In just four months, he had run the last remaining shop into the ground.
Last night, the original Shane had downed half a bottle of whiskey while staring at the ledgers.
His heart stopped.
Then, he arrived.
“The Marvel Universe…” Shane murmured to himself, his gaze drifting to the pristine copy of *Time* magazine on the coffee table.
Tony Stark smiled with arrogant flamboyance on the cover.
If this were ten years ago, Shane would have jumped for joy at the prospect of being in Marvel.
Superheroes!
High tech!
Infinite possibilities!
But now?
In his previous life, after *Avengers: Endgame*, the gates to the cinematic multiverse had been kicked wide open by *Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness*.
Then the *What If…?* series came along, depicting every possible hellscape—the Zombie Universe, the Age of Ultron, Dark Strange…
if he bumped into any of those, a background character like him wouldn’t even leave a ripple when he died.
“Stay calm.”
Shane forced himself to take a deep breath and walked back to his desk.
The numbers on the ledger were staggering: two months of rent in arrears, overdue supplier payments, and a bank loan due next week.
All employees had been laid off yesterday.
If he didn’t act immediately, in two weeks he wouldn’t just be bankrupt; he’d be out on the streets, another victim of the city’s unforgiving grind.
The good news, however, was that after three days of cautious information gathering, he was certain of one thing: the person frozen in ice in 1945 was Captain America, Steve Rogers, not Peggy Carter.
This was most likely the “standard” MCU timeline, not one of those godforsaken *What If…?* universes.
The bad news was that even the “safest” MCU was fraught with peril for an ordinary person.
The future Battle of New York, the fall of Sokovia, Thanos’s snap…
any one of those events could be fatal.
“The cheat…”
Shane rubbed his temples.
Every transmigrator was supposed to have a standard-issue “Golden Finger.” Where was his?
Over the past three days, he had only discovered that his memory had become exceptionally good—but only for technical knowledge.
Every bit of engineering, electronics, and materials science the original owner had studied at Princeton was now etched into his brain with crystalline clarity.
As for the trivialities of daily life?
He forgot those as easily as anyone else.
“Pseudo-eidetic memory”?
In a world where alien invasions and dimensional demons were common occurrences, what use was remembering a few textbooks?
But Shane could feel that this wasn’t everything.
Something was gestating deep in his mind, waiting for a catalyst—or perhaps a bit of “pressure.”
“Survive first.”
He grabbed the folder on his desk.
Inside were the title deeds for the shop and the apartment, asset appraisal reports, and a sale agreement drafted by his lawyer.
The tire shop had to be sold, and so did the apartment.
In this world, you couldn’t move an inch without capital.
The original owner had been obsessed with his father’s “tire dream,” but Shane wasn’t.
He was going to take a different path.
A more dangerous path, but a freer one.
His phone rang just then.
Shane checked the caller ID—it was the bank’s account manager.
He pressed the answer button, his voice calm.
“Good afternoon, Mr.
Thompson.
Yes, I’ve made my decision.
Sell it all.
Yes, as quickly as possible.
I want the transaction completed within a week.”
After hanging up, Shane walked over to the floor-length mirror and took one last look at himself.
Young, pale, with a soul from another world hidden deep in his eyes, alongside a desperate, ruthless determination.
“Starting today,” he whispered to the mirror and to this strange world, “Shane Grintel is going to live differently.”
He picked up the folder and walked down the stairs without looking back.
The dilapidated wooden steps creaked beneath his feet, sounding like a funeral march for the end of an era.
In the shop downstairs, the smell of rubber and dust lingered.
The shelves were half-empty, and the cash register was coated in a thin layer of grit.
Shane crossed the deserted lobby and pushed open the glass door.
The winter wind rushed in immediately, swirling dead leaves at the street corner.
He didn’t look back.