A headache.
His entire skull felt swollen, a heavy, dull pressure pushing inch by inch against the inner walls of his cranium.
Ryan Quinn opened his eyes.
A white ceiling.
Old fluorescent tubes were embedded in it, their ends blackened, flickering with an unstable frequency.
He stared at the ceiling for five seconds.
Then he closed his eyes again.
“Alex!” A sharp female voice pierced through.
Ryan Quinn reopened his eyes slowly, blinking twice before turning his neck, his entire demeanor suggesting a profound laziness.
Desks, plastic chairs, sloppy English formulas on the blackboard, and a bespectacled female teacher standing with hands on her hips, aiming a piece of chalk at him.
The whole class was looking his way.
“…Mm,” he responded with a nasal grunt.
“If you find my physics class so boring that you can sleep through it—” “It is actually quite boring.” His voice wasn’t loud, his tone casual.
Laughter erupted.
“Hahaha, Quinn is speaking his alien language again!” In the back row, a blonde powerhouse laughed so hard his chair tilted back.
Thompson.
Letterman jacket.
A faint scar on his chin.
Ryan Quinn glanced at him sideways, then turned back.
Uninterested.
He scanned the front left corner.
Peter Parker was huddled in his seat, clutching a thick textbook, his glasses thick to the point of exaggeration.
When their eyes met, Peter quickly lowered his head.
Ryan Quinn buried his face in the crook of his arm.
Ah, Marvel.
What a pain.
Something was wriggling in his veins—something hot, crawling slowly along his bones and muscles, gradually stretching out.
The Blacklight virus.
A blurred memory surfaced—the fan spinning in his rental room, a “Game Cleared” screen popping up, followed by a notification saying “Reward Dispatched.” He had assumed it was just a skin or an avatar frame.
It turned out to be the real thing.
What a pain.
Whatever.
He buried his face a little deeper into his arm.
The rest of the class drifted between dozing and observing.
Something was wrong with his body; the layer beneath his skin was becoming increasingly active.
As his forearm rested against the edge of the desk, he could count every single groove in the wood grain.
Occasionally, a flicker of black filament would flash beneath his fingernails, vanishing in the blink of an eye.
Peter Parker’s side was even less interesting.
Thin.
Weak.
A Star Wars badge pinned to his backpack.
His handwriting was impossibly neat.
A crumpled ball of paper flew from the back row, landing right on the back of Peter’s head.
He didn’t say a word, merely bending down to pick it up and toss it aside.
Spider-Man wasn’t Spider-Man yet.
The timeline seemed to be just at the beginning.
Ryan Quinn let out a yawn.
The bell rang.
Ryan Quinn picked up his bag and moved sluggishly toward the hallway.
He could barely be bothered to walk.
“Hey, yellow monkey!” Thompson’s voice exploded from behind him.
The students in the hallway automatically cleared a path.
Everyone wore expressions of indifference, as if this were a common sight.
Memory fragments of the body’s original owner surfaced—shoves and trips were daily occurrences; the worst time was a lunchbox being slammed directly onto his head, ketchup dripping down his forehead.
He had been bullied quite badly.
What a pain.
Ryan Quinn stopped and turned around.
He looked like he had just woken up.
“Something wrong?” Thompson strode forward, flanked by two lackeys.
“Had a good sleep in class?
Dreaming of going back to your hometown?” Thompson raised a hand and slapped it onto Ryan Quinn’s shoulder.
The force was significant, his knuckles digging into the collarbone.
Ryan Quinn looked down at the hand on his shoulder, then up at Thompson.
“Sleepy,” he said.
Thompson blinked, stunned.
“What?” “I said I’m sleepy,” Ryan Quinn repeated, his tone flat.
“Take your hand off.
I want to go to sleep.” The hallway went silent for two seconds.
Someone whispered, “He’s gone crazy.” Thompson’s face flushed red.
“You’ve grown some guts, haven’t you—” Instead of letting go, he increased the pressure, his five fingers digging into the muscles of Ryan Quinn’s shoulder.
Ryan Quinn sighed.
A very long sigh.
Then he grabbed Thompson’s wrist.
The movement wasn’t fast.
It was almost sluggish.
Yet, Thompson’s hand was pried off his shoulder, held immobile.
Thompson struggled, but he couldn’t break free.
The hallway erupted.
“Damn, did you guys see that?” “Quinn caught Flash?
Flash is the varsity starter—” Peter Parker stood at the edge of the crowd clutching his textbooks, his glasses sliding halfway down his nose, his mouth agape.
“L-Let go!” Thompson’s face turned the color of pig liver.
His bench press was top five in the entire grade, yet he was being held motionless by a single hand from a Chinese transfer student.
He swung his other fist, aiming straight for Ryan Quinn’s face.
Ryan Quinn tilted his head.
He didn’t dodge completely.
His body was still being remodeled by the virus, and his neural reflexes weren’t quite synchronized with his muscular movements.
The fist grazed his cheekbone, opening a small cut in the skin.
It didn’t hurt, but a drop of blood flew out—bright red, with nearly invisible black patterns swirling inside.
That drop of blood landed precisely on the back of Thompson’s right hand.
It didn’t run off.
It soaked directly into the pores.
Silent and invisible.
Ryan Quinn frowned.
Damn it.
He knew all too well how infectious the Blacklight virus was.
Although this strain in his body seemed to have mutated and might not be as contagious, he couldn’t take the risk.
Thompson noticed nothing; his hand itched for a second, but he didn’t care.
“You’re dead!
You think I won’t—” “Flash!” Principal Morita strode from the end of the hallway with a dark expression.
Beside him was a blonde girl.
Gwen Stacy.
She wore a deep blue hoodie, her hair tied in a high ponytail.
She was staring coldly at Thompson.
She was the one who had called the faculty.
Ryan Quinn let go.
He took half a step back, shifting his weight to his heels—his posture remained lazy.
“Fighting again?” Morita stepped between them.
“Thompson, do you want your father to come to the school again?” “He started it—” “Shut up.
Both of you, detention after school.” Thompson gave Ryan Quinn a fierce glare, then muttered curses as he shook off his lackeys and walked away.
Ryan Quinn didn’t look at Thompson.
His gaze fell on the back of Thompson’s right hand.
It was clean, without a single mark.
But the virus was already inside.
What a pain.
“Hey.” Gwen walked up to Ryan Quinn, looking up at the wound on his cheekbone and wrinkling her nose.
“Do you need to go to the nurse’s office?” “No need.” Ryan Quinn raised a hand to touch his cheekbone.
The cut was already healing, new skin crawling from the edges toward the center.
He lowered his hand and looked away.
“Thanks,” he said in a loose, relaxed tone.
“Sorry for the trouble of calling the teacher.” Gwen stared at Ryan Quinn for two seconds, her lips twitching as if she wanted to say something, but she finally just shrugged.
“Don’t mention it.
Next time don’t just stand there and take it.
People like Flash aren’t worth it.” She turned and left, her ponytail swaying.
Ryan Quinn stood there for a moment.
Beside him, someone stammered, “Um…” Ryan Quinn turned.
Peter Parker was standing two steps away, textbooks clutched to his chest, shoulders hunched.
He pushed up his glasses and spoke stutteringly: “That…
that was really cool just now.
I mean…
no one dares to stand up to Flash like that.
Never.” The boy who would eventually save New York countless times was currently shaking as he spoke.
“Peter, right?” “You know my name?” Peter’s eyes lit up instantly.
“We’ve sat in the same row for almost a month,” Ryan Quinn replied casually, recalling the original owner’s memories.
Peter blinked, then smiled.
“I guess…
most people don’t notice me.” Ryan Quinn patted Peter’s shoulder.
It was a loose, low-effort pat.
“Let’s go.
What’s the next class?” “Chemistry.
Are you sitting next to me?” “Yeah.” The two walked toward the classroom side by side.
Ryan Quinn shoved his hands into his pockets, slouching and walking with a slow, leisurely pace.
Peter’s pace slowed to match his.
Good.
This felt right.
In the chemistry classroom, Ryan Quinn sat down and closed his eyes.
The Blacklight virus’s perception expanded in the darkness.
He didn’t need eyes; he didn’t need ears.
There was a certain resonance between identical viruses that allowed him to capture each other’s movements across a distance.
Ryan Quinn sensed it.
Two hundred meters away, inside Thompson’s blood, the virus was replicating at a geometric rate.
Body temperature 38.2 degrees Celsius, heart rate 87, and climbing.
Typical symptoms of early-stage infection.
Ryan Quinn opened his eyes.
His fingers gripped the edge of the desk, his nails digging into the wood.
Such a pain.
Beside him, Peter was startled by his movement.
“What’s wrong?” “Nothing.” Ryan Quinn leaned back in his chair, tilting it onto its back legs.
His tone remained lazy.
“I’m just a bit sleepy.”