I walked into the convenience store out of the freak thunderstorm on this late June afternoon here in my very rural Florida town. I’d come to town for a few things and I’d always stop and grab some jerky on the way back. Today was gonna be no different, storm be damned.

My town was tiny; our biggest attraction was the blinking caution light that most people just blazed through, which I could see right now because it was outside our only gas station.

The old man who ran the store tossed an obligatory “Hey JD” then paid me no mind. He was a good guy but for a guy who ran a store, he sure didn’t like to be bothered, it is what it is I guess.

My names actually John Denver Tillman, I hated being named after a musician. I would rather be named after someone in the family or even a random name, but a famous name, it got you weird looks at the best of times. So I insisted on going by JD.

I’d been here plenty of times before and the owner knew me well enough to know I wouldn’t cause trouble. Plus he went to school with my granddad so, yea I really don’t wanna poke that bear.

Walking down the aisles to find my target food, teriyaki jerky, I couldn’t get enough of the stuff, it was one of my guilty pleasures. I also like reading Ise’kai novels online, I was a pretty avid gamer at one time and these novels, well they scratch an itch I didn’t know I had.

Lightning struck nearby. Close enough to light up the whole parking lot, all five spots. I swear I saw a figure standing out in the rain, staring at the store, or more accurately straight at me. (Maybe I’ve been readin too many of those books) I thought and shook it off as just the willies of the unusually dark day and went on my way. I mean it was basically night out right now and it was barely three.

Having secured my prized snack I proceeded to grab a drink, just water, and check out. Heading to my car the lighting struck again, no guy though, so it was just the willies.

Driving down the old farm road to my dads place was nice even in this weather, It was only five years ago we’d finally gotten the city council to pave it. I was 15 at the time and I remember driving the old tractor down it before, it definitely needed the paving. Sure the city did a half assed job, lowest bidder and all that, but it was better than the hole ridden washed out dirt trail of a road it used to be.

Lost in my thoughts about random things like roads and cheap ass construction, I didn’t notice the random guy standing in that road until it was almost too late. I swerved hard, barely missed him and heard a loud pop from my old farm truck.

“Crazy son of a…that was probably not a good pop.” I slowed down and pulled over to both clam myself down and inspect the damage, in the pouring rain of course. “What crazy asshole just walks in the middle of the road!” I shouted in the direction that guy was, I couldn’t see him now. He’d likely run off, freaked out by almost becoming a pancake. “Heh, I almost became Truck kun.” I joked as I inspected the old girl.

Sure enough the front passenger tire slipped its bead when I swerved hard to that side. It’s an easy fix, just not on the side of the road. Ill need a proper air tank to reseat it. “Spare it is then.” I said grabbing the tools from behind the seat and the spare, which we just sat in the bed, strapped with a bungee cord of course, safety first.

One quick tire change and I was almost ready to go, but as I was putting the old tire in the bed I saw that sorry sack of shit walking up to me in the rain. “Hey, real nice of ya to show up after I’m done! Ya piece of…” (Calm JD, like Pa said, the devil fears a calm man.) I took a deep breath before continuing "If y’er here to apologize, don’t sweat it, no real harm done.” I shouted above the storm as I tossed the tire in the back and walked to the cab. I was soaked by now and in no mood to deal with some drunkard, or worse a meth head. He was all hooded up in some cloak or blanket or something, I couldn’t see any part of him. A raspy voice, almost inhuman caused me to freeze as it said. “It is you, it must be you.”

I looked over my shoulder at the figure, he seemed off, and in a more unusual way than most meth-heads I’d seen. “Hey old timer, I don’t know what y’er on about, but just get on home, it’s a nasty storm right now. I assure you I don’t got what y’er lookin for.” Assuming he’s probably drugged out of his ever-loving mind now. It’s best to be gone as fast as possible; no good ever comes from associating with these addicts. My mother was proof enough of that.

He just stood there, staring at me; finally he raised his hand and pointed straight at me, his damn hand was just bone, no skin no muscle just bone. “Man, what did you do to yourself to end up like that? I ask if you need a doctor but… fella I think it might be to late.” His only response was “Youuuu.”

On a dark country road, in the middle of nowhere, lightning rapidly and repeatedly struck a figure, with a ghastly being cackling maniacally while pointing at him.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

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I awoke to a rather strange sensation, my mind was foggy, like id been in a dream for a couple days, or years even. When things finally started clicking together I was in the body of a four or five year old boy. No I was five I knew that, why did I know that?

Looking around I saw a strange yet familiar sight. I was in a bedroom, my bedroom, with two adults and a maid? Yes a maid. They surrounded me looking rather worried.

“Maxintus, are you ok my son?” Asked one of the adults, the non-maid female, no she was my mother. This was all really jarring. It didn’t sound like English she spoke, yet I understood it just fine. This was all rather confusing because I knew that I was Maxintus, but I was also JD Tillman. I hadn’t taken over his body or anything, we were the same person, I don’t know how I knew but I did.

“Maxintus, you are frightening me…” my mother said, due to my lack or response most likely.

“Ma, I'm fine, just a bit confused right now, how'd I get here?” I said, apparently speaking this other language just fine. My father raised an eyebrow at my response. (did I do something weird?)

A stern authoritative voice responded. Ah he is my father, not to different from pa attitude wise it seems. “ You fell. Hit your head.” Yeap, short n’ sweet just like pa was.

“I’m just a lil’ dizzy, I’ll be fine in a bit, Mother, Father, Marinea.” I replied, to each in turn, the young boys memories becoming more in tune now that I’ve had a moment to recover. “If I could have a moment to collect my thoughts I believe I will recover.” My father nodded, grasping my mother who seemed to want to stay, the maid bowed deeply then followed after. (Seems 5 year old me is already pretty well spoken.)

“Ok, lets take stock here.” I mumbled. “First, I’m not in Kansas anymore, well Florida, that much is obvious.” I said as I paced and counted on my now much smaller fingers. “Second, I seem to have been reincarnated as this young man, I think I was always here, just dormant, maybe?” I nodded. I’d done more then my share of reading those online novels and so I’ve got the gist of what’s happening. “So if I “was” dormant, maybe the hit to the head woke me up?” Nodding some more to myself I continued to speculate. “ Maybe I was meant to integrate slowly and the hit sped it up? Who knows, honestly, not important. What’s important is we’re here now, what do we do?” I meandered over to my bed and plopped into it.

“I wonder if I got a system or something like they do in those novels? Lets see, how did they activate them again?” I started out by trying some various command words from light novels and seeing if anything clicked. “System, Status, Menu, Screen, Stats, Command, Sheet, Character...” Nothing worked. (Wait I said all of that in English didn’t I? What if it’s got to be this world’s word?) So I tried again and “Status” in this worlds tongue got me something.

Status:

Name: Maxintus Delventier

Age: 5

Race: Vampire

B 9

M 13

S 20

L 90

Skills

Mana drain

True Blood (Passive)

Reincarnator (Passive) (Hidden)

“Interesting, I don’t really know what B,M,S, and L are but I assume those are like my stats. Plus I’ve got a Reincarnator skill, so I guess that proves it.” I tried tapping on the screen for more info, nothing happened. Focusing really hard on a part on it only made my face red. It was mentally requesting more knowledge like asking myself a question that got me the info I needed.

B stood for Body and it was basically all the physical stats rolled into one. Higher body meant I would be stronger faster and more durable all in one. That sounded good an all but it removed any possibility of min maxing. (I guess I also can’t screw up and have an unbalanced build either, so not all bad.) M was the same as B but for mental stats. S stood for Soul, which even after looking into it for a while I really didn’t get it. I did know mine was abnormally high for a five year old. Finally L was Life, it was a direct numerical representation of how long I would live. Basically if my L was 90 and my age reached 91, I’d just stop living, instantly, Happy Birthday!

My “Reincarnator” skill was trash, it was purely informational and provided no bonus to anything, the note just said, “Once there now here”, or some esoteric bullshit. I honestly felt jipped, but it was what it was and I wasn’t gonna change it to I’d just move on. At least it was hidden, meaning it couldn’t be scanned or something.

The good thing was I was a Vampire, and no I was not sparkly nor did I stalk the night. Vampire’s here fed off mana, hence the skill I got called mana drain. Basically from what I can tell I have no level, I gain strength from feeding and that strength is permanent, but also slow going. Like If I kill a level 1 mob and drain it I might get 1 stat point every 3-4 mobs, and those stats depend on what I’m killing. Bonus is Life is also increased this way. It appears I can continually grow as long as I feed. I have very limited knowledge here, so I’m going off what 5 year old me was taught and has overheard, also a bit of speculation.

I’m not some squeamish guy but was I ever glad to find out I was not the blood drinking type of vamp. I don’t think I’d have enjoyed that all that much.

Oh by the way my True blood passive, it just means I was born a vamp not turned into one, also seems to affect my absorption rate for mana drain. Pretty cool huh?

Finally I’ve oriented myself to this new world, my old one, well I’ll miss it sure but Pa always taught me to roll with the punches and I’ll do just that. I’m aware enough to know I’m likely not going back, and now that I’m here, moping will fix nothing. So I’ll face what’s for me now and bottle up the past for some dark lonely night for future me to deal with.

Exiting my room I walked the now more familiar palace, yea it was a palace, and I was basically Vampire royalty, well as much as we had that anyway. Vampires respected power, because power showed work, a Vampire did not just stumble into power. Power always came at the end of a hard fought battle. Well for most anyway. Some were hand fed it, rather than fight themselves. Those though got very little respect regardless of how high the number got.

Also on a side note it seemed Vampires could not absorb the mana of other vamps, something to do with the similar mana clashing or causing a backlash. Either was if it was tried you would take in but be unable to absorb the mana, resulting in a rather violent boom. It seems one cannot just kill their way up the latter, probably for the best, I doubt very much if we could do so we would have lasted long as a species. It only takes one super asshole after all.

I walked the halls as more and more of my knowledge integrated, I learned, or rather remembered how to use the system, and that it was not an Ise’kai bonus, everyone had it. I also remembered that I was to start in home school soon, beyond what mother had already taught me. My ma back home, well lets just say she chose a different, more crystalline path and chose that dragon chase over me n pa. So it was real nice to have a mother who cared to teach me and, she doted on me quite a bit.

While jarring at the start, my merging seems to be going smooth. I am starting to think of myself as Max, the names a bit long to be honest. I don’t think I’ll have to worry about blending in or anything. After all I’m five, a child down a bit after a scare should be seen as normal.

Now, what to do? I stopped and stared out the window at a large hedge maze type garden as I thought it over. A screeching sound of “Young Master!” interrupted my musing. Turning I saw the maid from before rushing toward me. “Young Master, You mustn’t wander off, the Lady is quite worried about you, come come.” She said, hurrying me along. And so my first day in my new life went. With many more to come.