Chapter 1 ... definitely not doing that again

I was successful if you could call it that. Yeah, I managed to cross into an entirely different multiverse, but it man was it a dumb idea. Hell, I almost literally deleted myself from existence. What kind of person would even attempt such a thing. A madman, that's who… not even a mad scientist, because at least they followed the scientific process. Feeling exhausted from the horrifying ordeal, that I experienced not 2 hours ago, I collapse onto my new bed, falling asleep instantly

A few hours ago...

A 16-year-old boy by the name of Zach or Zachary Michaelson has boarded himself up in a basement. There appeared to be a lot of advanced technology in the basement, along with what seemed to be some kind of supercomputer and a glass tube with a door big enough for a human to fit inside, but it's clear that the lab is bootlegged.

He preferred people to call him almost any other iteration of his name, Zachariah, Zachattack, Zachisbak, Zacquarius...the list goes on, but it's not as if the media cared about that, or who he was as a person. None of his contributions to humanity mattered a bit. Not the cure for malignant cancers, nor the vaccines for multiple STDs including AIDS, and certainly not the humanitarian efforts he did to reduce the effects of poverty and raise the social and economic conditions for minorities across the world and the whole of Africa. His numerous contributions to the field of science and psychology in varying fields and his 7 Nobel Peace prizes were thrown out the window. No… they wanted to run the story on why Zachary John Michaelson snapped the bones of 15 attackers at his parents' funeral, making all 15 die of blunt force trauma and internal bleeding.

"Damn the media, damn every last one of those 500 greedy, power-hungry fools. Money? Influence? They mean nothing. Everybody dies, everybody suffers. No need to go out of your way to suppress others. They should just chillax on a nice chair and read a quality comic or nice novel.", Zach murmurs to himself as he rushes around the homemade lab. He flips switches,  and the entire lab hums with life. 

Zach:" Well, I've already given all my knowledge and technology to Cicada 101 to disseminate to the world along with the 500's identities and incriminating secrets. I've made a couple of backup plans in case they can't manage it. Now all that's left is to leave this boring world. Ahhhh… such is life." He goes over to the computer to check on his work one more time before he rips a hole through the laws of reality themselves. The screen displays a simulated universe and an absolute unit of data flashes on the right side of the screen before being merged with their designated objects and lifeforms in the simulated universe. Chemical formulas, personality matrices, scientific constants, the list goes on, and to top it off, several historical records compiled from different comics to assure that little to no randomness was present in the flow of time. 

Zach:" ok, the model's stable. It doesn't need to be perfect, in fact, it won't work if it is. It just needs to point me in the right direction and lessen the energy needed on my part to make the trip. The collective focus of millions of comic book fans should build the bridge to the marvel multiverse and I just have to squeeze my entire being, both body and soul through its membrane. Easy"

Zach finishes his preparations, activates a disk-shaped device, and steps into the cylinder. "First try, here we go"

Above his head, beams of photons are slowed down in bose-einstein condensate to form multi-photon clusters, then sped back up to ultimately collide with other streams made of protons, electrons, and a very healthy dose of neutrons. The ultimate product being a strange time crystal. A subatomic crystal made of strange matter in constant motion, even a 0 K. Quantumly entangled with itself, it is stable, too stable in fact, which is the whole point. It's one step away from being a singularity, but it contains none of the ridiculous gravity. The crystal brings the space around it down towards its own level of stability, to the very edge of the membrane that separates our universe from the web made of countless others. The A.I. in the computer beams the data and simulation that it's compiled at the crystal with its intent. Whatever kind of intent its creator thinks it has anyway.

Zach honestly doesn't know if his theorized crystal is there, but if it is, he knows it won't be there for long. Zach closes his eyes, focuses his intent on where he believes the crystal should be and goes over all the Marvel comics he's read, recollects every detail. His senses suddenly vanish. The hum of the lab, gone. The pounding of his heartbeat, gone. He realizes that he is actually in a black void. He knows where his limbs are, though he can move them or feel anything. And he can see one thing. One tiny spark of light. Though he doubts that that is what it actually is. He sees it growing, moving, moving towards him. It slams into him and he gets caught in the beam of light. He immediately becomes disoriented, spinning wildly and all of the sudden, he slams front first into a huge canvas of inky black fabric, streams of different colors swimming in it, pushing against its insides. Zach sees a small hole in the fabric, just wide enough to fit two fingers into if he could only move them.

He spends some time there attempting to move his body to stretch the fabric open, but he just can't seem to do it. 

Suddenly, the "light" on his back disappears and the empty void instantly takes its place. Zach can finally feel something, a tingling all across his body. 

Zach: [I don't think that's good]

(AN: using [ ] for thoughts right now)

The tingling develops to pain, a scalding pain, and Zach starts to panic. He attempts to use pure willpower to drag his arms to the whole. It's like swimming in molasses. Internally screaming from the pain caused by his body deteriorating into the void. Finally, he stretches the hole open wide enough to pull himself through. The other side feels...calming. 

Zach finally clamors through and his eyes are instantly blinded. A few minutes later, his eyes start to adjust.

"I'm in an alleyway?"

Stone brick apartment buildings line the alleyway. The sky is bright despite the numerous clouds.

"Ughhh, that was a bad idea. My arms feel...my arms.." grey cracks cover his entire body, slowly widening. An ash-like substance drifts slowly, disseminating into the air. 

"Shit, I'm being Thanos snapped in slow motion." 

Now that his eyes have completely adjusted to the light, Zach notices a young man, roughly the same age as him and lying in a pool of blood. Zach staggers over to check on him. He finds him on his last breaths with a large gash on his neck. He reaches down to touch him, maybe give him some consolation before his death, but the moment Zach touches the man's skin, he completely dissipates into ash.

…. :[I'll give you my body, but in exchange, I need you to take care of my little sister.]

Zach: [I'll accept that Deal, but I would've done it even if you didn't ask.]

The body on the ground starts to gradually repair itself, and its eyes begin to twitch. Zach opens his new eyes and lifts himself off the ground. The gash on his new neck is still there, but at least it's no longer bleeding. He stands up and limps out of the alleyway. 

"Let's see here...my new home should just be a couple of blocks from here," Zach says as he hobbles along, trying to avoid attention.

About 15 minutes later, Zach stables into an apartment and heads over to a room, ultimately collapsing onto the bed.

Present time

Waking up, every part of the boy's body is sore. [No, it's my body now]. I start to reminisce on the ingenious but untested idea that brought me here.

"Yeah, definitely not doing that again.."