"Chance encounters, companions, and enemies..."
"A perfect story. That's how it should be. Everything happens naturally..."
"Shame, though." Andrew flexed his wrist and looked over the manuscript he had just finished. "The grammar and vocabulary still aren't quite right. Otherwise, I wouldn't have had to resort to this..."
He looked back to make sure no one else was in the cramped room, then snapped his fingers. The stone he used as a paperweight slid onto the manuscript, and the closed window opened to just the right angle.
Perfect.
He silently congratulated himself. So far, everything was going according to plan.
It had been three months since he had arrived here—or, more precisely, since he had woken after falling asleep following an overtime shift and found himself in the body of a boy who had died because of a stupid bet. In those three months, he had familiarized himself with the boy's memories, sorted out his relationships, secured a steady income and a room of his own, and learned to control the ability he had named "Telekinesis."
He still missed his old life, but he was keeping the promise he had made back then: he would live on, and live well.
"Though my life's taken a strange turn..."
Andrew looked at the manuscript and shook his head with a gravity that didn't suit his age. The friend who had once jumped into the water with him to save someone would probably have asked to read it, but an eleven-year-old writing this sort of thing was still a little absurd.
What choice did he have?
Using what he already knew to make money required the least capital and carried the least risk. In ancient times, he could have used his mathematical skills to earn his first bit of money. Somewhere that spoke his native language, he could have made a living telling stories. But in an orphanage in England in 1991, every reasonably reliable opportunity he could remember was more than a decade away...
That left his education. The method was simple, blunt, and effective: find a biography and a phone book, then get some paper, ink, and a pen. That was enough.
He copied people from the biography, picked a male or female lead, filled out the cast with names adapted from the phone book, and put them in different situations to drive the story forward. Then he added carefully described scenes that made readers less likely to mind the grammar and vocabulary, gave it a sensational title and a flashy pen name, found a suitable tabloid or magazine, and sent it in.
If his imagination failed him, he could even consult a few books in the same genre. It was that simple—and, best of all, it wasn't illegal in England.
Thanks to the vast amount he had read in the age of web fiction, and all he had learned about satisfying payoffs and sharp contrasts, the little biographies he cobbled together proved more popular than he had expected. After three months of work, Andrew had made a name for his pen name. In return for donating seventy percent of his writing fees to help cover the orphanage's daily expenses, he had gained a room of his own, slightly better meals, privacy about his writing, and plenty of free time.
That would have been enough. If he hadn't discovered Telekinesis, Andrew's plan would have been to save up for tuition, attend a good university, and start a new life.
Of course, if his submissions kept doing well, he wouldn't mind writing a long-running story for a big payday—or even going legitimate. That would be hard, though. He was making money now because his niche wasn't too crowded, and readers of this particular material were far less demanding.
But ever since he had discovered "Telekinesis" and gained some basic control over it, he had been setting aside time to develop it. It wasn't as powerful as he had imagined, but it was still useful.
After all, he wasn't in some world full of danger, and there weren't superpowered people everywhere. Neither the biographies nor the fairy tales he had read showed any sign of superpowers existing on a significant scale. He had checked carefully before rewriting them.
"Too bad I have to keep it secret until I'm stronger. And I need to be careful about the risks... Otherwise, I could get used to using it in everyday life."
Andrew had tested it cautiously. He had tried levitating feathers, wads of paper, books, and stones. For now, the heaviest object he could control weighed around thirty pounds. Anything heavier failed.
As for duration, keeping that maximum weight afloat for about half an hour left him tired, after which the weight he could control dropped rapidly.
He couldn't divide his attention yet, either. He had to concentrate fully to maintain Telekinesis; if his mind wandered, it weakened considerably or failed outright.
For everything else, he worked down a list, testing possible uses of Telekinesis one by one.
He had tried using "Telekinesis" to protect one object while passing it through another. His best result so far was pushing a wooden stick through a stone. Doing something similar around thirty times left him tired. He was still testing how different materials affected the effort required.
He had tried repairing damaged objects with Telekinesis. So far, he could mend several visible cracks, but water still seeped through a broken cup, showing that the repair was incomplete. He could repair at most five cups before tiring.
He had tried using Telekinesis to heal an injured mouse. The mouse had died from blood loss because he couldn't stop the bleeding. Encouragingly, though, the wound had shown signs of healing.
He had even conducted a dangerous experiment on his own body. With the help of "Telekinesis," he had made his hair grow two inches, forcing him to change his hairstyle to hide it.
"I've read too much about too many things. That's why I can't pin down what this is..."
As Andrew thought, he used Telekinesis to flick several exceptionally sharp iron nails through the air. His "Telekinesis" seemed capable of so much that he genuinely had no idea what kind of ability it was.
He had named it Telekinesis because he suspected it was tied to the heightened mental activity brought on by crossing into this world.
His mind really was more active now. He needed only about four hours of sleep a day to feel full of energy. Even after overusing "Telekinesis," an hour's nap restored him. He had also tried sitting with his eyes closed and his mind blank to recover, as if meditating, but he couldn't stop thinking...
He had a reasonably steady way to make money, a superpower that wasn't especially strong but was clearly growing, a fairly stable home, and a decent public school to attend, thanks to the orphanage's recommendation after he had contributed enough in writing fees. He was satisfied with how things were going.
"Next, I need to find things that might help Telekinesis grow and improve my control..."
That was Andrew's plan.
But life had a way of springing small surprises. Footsteps approached, and someone knocked on his door.
"Sorry to disturb you, Andrew. Mrs. Camille would like to see you—"
The matron paused. "Did you apply to some school? Mrs. Camille received a letter from a woman named Minerva McGonagall. She wants to speak with Mrs. Camille tomorrow about the school you'll be attending."
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