John Frost awoke in a cold, sterile room. The flickering fluorescent lights above did little to warm the air that hung heavy with the scent of antiseptic. His head throbbed, and his vision was blurry as he tried to make sense of his surroundings. His pulse quickened.
He wasn't supposed to be here. But where was he? The memories from before he woke in this strange place were hazy. There had been... an accident? A car crash? Or had he been kidnapped? The fragments of his thoughts slipped through his fingers, like sand in the wind.
He struggled to his feet, the heavy metallic door in front of him giving way with little more than a nudge. His steps echoed in the empty corridor as he moved forward, but his instinct told him to stay quiet. He didn't know why.
John paused. Luck. He had always believed in it—though, sometimes, it felt as if luck was more than just chance. It was as if it was following him, guiding him through a world of chaos. Like this place. He had barely touched the door, and it had opened. Was this the work of some strange coincidence? Or was something more at play? He felt... different. As though the rules didn't apply to him.
The hallways of the facility stretched on, clinical and cold. Shadows crept along the walls, an ominous reminder of the emptiness surrounding him. But it wasn't the eerie silence that caught John's attention. No, it was the strange feeling that something—or someone—was watching him.
---
Meanwhile...
In the distant recesses of the multiverse, The Watcher observed. It always had a penchant for watching things unfold—human behaviors, the intricacies of decision-making, and most of all, how fragile the concepts of fate and luck really were.
John Frost was... different. He had been plucked from a reality that didn't belong here—an anomaly, a stray thread in the grand weave of existence. The Watcher had taken notice of him the moment it realized that John was no ordinary individual. No, he was something else—a being with the protagonist template. His every move, every choice, seemed to lead him toward outcomes that, to others, might seem impossible or purely coincidental.
But to The Watcher, it was a pattern. A puzzle.
John had been transported to this new universe without understanding the forces at play. He had no idea that his every step was being studied, evaluated, and nudged by something far beyond his comprehension. The Watcher didn't directly influence him—no, that would be too easy. Instead, it manipulated his environment, guided events from the shadows, and ensured that John's story unfolded exactly as it should. The more The Watcher watched, the more intrigued it became.
But John was not the only thing in this universe that caught its eye. There were others—far more dangerous and complex forces in play.