I never really liked sand.
It gets in your shoes, your pants, your soul. It's clingy. Desperate. Like that one friend from high school who still messages you every New Year's Eve even though you haven't replied since 2019.
And yet here I was—three days into this new... existence—sitting cross-legged on a Maine beach like some budget spiritual guru, watching the Atlantic glitter under a sun I wasn't sure I deserved.
It had been seventy-two hours since my reality took a nosedive into the Twilight Zone. Since a notebook rewrote the rules of the world and, apparently, made me rich. Not "I can finally afford a dishwasher" rich. More like "I have a guy who buys the dishwasher for me" rich.
Still not used to it.
Don't get me wrong, the beach was peaceful. Beautiful, even. But it was also weird. Not because of the view, but because none of this felt like mine.
The phone in my hand? Not mine. The designer hoodie? Not mine. The house behind me? Definitely not mine. Or, well... not before.
But now, according to the very expensive leather folio left on the marble kitchen counter, it technically was. Or at least, temporarily. A "vacation home." Because rich people don't just go on vacation. They own it.
I took a slow sip from the thermos—hazelnut coffee, somehow exactly how I like it—and stared at the waves. They rolled in, one after another, like nothing had changed. Like I hadn't slipped through the cracks of one universe into another, and landed feet first in someone else's success story.
But it was my story now.
That's what the notebook said, anyway.
And I the house behind me was going to hammer that point in a lot harder than the beach ever could.
So I stood.
Not with the grace of a man accustomed to wealth, but more like a toddler wearing roller skates for the first time—wobbly, confused, and slightly offended by gravity.
Sitting while thinking too much tend to do that on people. Maybe?
The house loomed behind me like a secret I hadn't earned. It was modern, all sleek angles and oversized windows, perched just enough above the shoreline to scream "look at me" without being tacky. Like a supermodel who also has a PhD. It didn't belong to me, not really. But the world said otherwise. And lately, the world had been weirdly accommodating.
The first time I stepped inside, I half expected an alarm to blare and armed guards to tackle me. Instead, the biometric lock recognized my fingerprint like it had been waiting for me. The lights turned on as I walked past. The fridge was already stocked with my favorite snacks. And not in a creepy "someone's been stalking you" way. More like a "you're the main character now, congratulations on the promotion" way.
Still creepy, though... But also narratively convenient.
Three days. That's all it took for the world to rearrange itself around the lie I wrote in that second notebook. Or truth, I guess. Because if everyone believes it, is it still a lie?
I pulled the notebook from the pocket of my hoodie, the real one, the indestructible one—the first volume. The one only I could write in. Its twin lay somewhere inside the house, nestled innocently on the coffee table between a copy of Forbes and an absurdly thick candle labeled [Coastal Forest Serenity.] (Smelled more like "rich people pretending they hike.")
Besides, there were questions now. What else could I do with this thing?
Could I make myself stronger? Smarter? Immortal? Could I fly? Could I turn into a damn dragon?
…Okay, maybe not that last one. Probably.
The problem was, the notebook didn't just do things. It required someone to believe them. Deeply. Truly. The old man in the tavern had believed I was a New Yorker, rich and orphaned, and the world folded itself to make that true. But I couldn't just hand the notebook to a rando and say, "Hey, read this bit where I say I can shoot lasers out of my eyes. No pressure."
They had to believe it. Genuinely. And that made everything trickier. Dangerous, even.
Because how do you make someone believe the impossible?
Especially when you're not even sure you believe it yourself?
I glanced down at my hands, half-expecting them to start glowing or levitating or bursting into flames. Nothing happened, of course. Still just flesh and bone and too-long nails I forgot to trim.
Still me.
Maybe.
I had spent the last three days testing this thing like it was some kind of cosmic cheat code. Spoiler alert: it wasn't that easy.
Turns out, rewriting reality has fine print.
Sure, I could create people—sort of. They didn't pop into the room like a magic trick. Instead, they appeared in my contacts, with full identities, jobs, social media profiles, the works. Like the universe retroactively decided they'd always been there. Creepy and convenient. Again.
Same with objects. A pair of limited-edition sunglasses? Boom. Suddenly they were waiting for me in a package at the front door. A watch worth more than my old apartment lease? Suddenly a gift from a grateful investor I'd 'helped' three years ago. Funny, I didn't remember being that generous.
But then came the limits. Seven, so far. Some obvious. Others annoying. All of them a pain.
Limitation one: the person reading the notebook had to be at least fourteen. Apparently, belief doesn't count if your frontal cortex isn't done cooking.
Limitation two: belief had to be genuine. No 'playing along', no half-assed skim. If the reader didn't really buy it, nothing happened or happened in halfway. I learned that the hard way trying to convince a drunk tourist that I could breathe underwater for thirty minutes. She laughed reading it, saying "people really write whatever they want in their dairy" and now I can only hold my breath for thirteen. Still impressive, just… disappointing.
Limitation three: timing mattered. If they read it while distracted, angry, or hungry? Forget it. The notebook might as well be toilet paper.
Limitation four: effects didn't stack infinitely. The richer people believed I was, the more the world shifted to reflect that. But after a while, even that stopped. I couldn't just keep getting richer forever. Reality—or whatever mechanism was behind this—had ceilings.
Limitation five: no duplicates. I tried to create a second copy of the first notebook. The words vanished the moment they hit the page. Nice try, me.
Limitation six: I couldn't erase something once it had been believed. Like permanent ink on the fabric of reality. So that time I accidentally wrote I had a mild fear of frog? Yeah. That's now canon. Forever.
Limitation seven: the notebook wouldn't work on the same person twice… unless the belief came for a completely new subject. No editing, no tweaks. Fresh faith or bust.
It made things harder. More strategic. Like a weird social puzzle with metaphysical consequences.
But I did have some successes. Four that stood out.
First: I wrote that I was a certified freediving expert. Someone believed it. Now I can dive deeper and stay underwater longer than most humans. Just not thirty minutes long.
Second: I claimed to be an antique appraiser. Random? Sure. But after leaving the notebook "accidentally" in a café near an estate sale, some older woman read it and believed it. Now I can walk into a dusty shop and tell you which vase is 18th century and which one's a cheap knockoff. Handy.
Third: I wrote that I had perfect pitch. Dropped the notebook near a music school in town. Bingo. I can now tell if someone's singing a B-flat or murdering a C-sharp.
Fourth: I said I was trained in Krav Maga. That one took effort—left the notebook in a gym, waited until someone curious picked it up between sets andbelieved it. Now I move like I've spent years breaking noses for fun.
Small wins. But they added up.
Of course, pulling it off was a logistical nightmare. You can't just throw a notebook at someone and scream "BELIEVE!" People don't work like that.
So I got creative.
Left it in waiting rooms. On coffee shop counters. Propped open in buses. I even dropped it in a dentist's office. Nobody touched it. Turns out, people are suspicious of free literature these days. Can't imagine why.
But when it worked, it really worked. The trick was to disappear. Make it look like fate. Like they found something they weren't supposed to—and thus, were more likely to believe it.
Bar Harbor was the perfect place to try. Touristy, full of curious minds and idle time. And I needed those idle minds.
Because if I was going to survive in this world—thrive in it—I couldn't stay normal for long.
I needed powers. Real ones.
And the sea, with all its secrets and ancient weight, gave me an idea.
Namor.
I didn't particularly like him. The winged feet were ridiculous, and he had the personality of a more arrogant Tony Stark than his superior form counterpart. But I remembered him from Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.
He wasn't just strong—he was something more : A myth with fists who became reality.
If I could get just a taste of that… not his powers exactly, but something inspired by them—something aquatic, ancient—I'd have a real shot.
Now all I had to do was figure out how.
How to make someone believe I'd always had that power.
And more importantly… how to make enough people believe it.
But power wasn't just about belief. It needed origin. A good story. Something ancient, something… plausible. Because if someone reads "this guy can breathe underwater" without a why, it sounds like fanfiction. But say "he was born with the blood of a forgotten civilization that worshipped sea gods"? Now that gets a conspiracy theorist nodding along.
So I needed a lore. A Myth. A backstory.
And where do you find people who practically breathe forgotten history? Archaeologists.
Which is how I ended up spending the rest of my afternoon holed up inside my beach house, scrolling through academic articles, expedition logs, and clickbait YouTube videos titled things like "Top 5 Ocean Mysteries Scientists Can't Explain (Number 4 Will Shock You)".
I took notes. Mental ones, mostly, because writing in that notebook by accident was now one of my biggest fears—right after frogs.
There were dozens of marine archaeologists, but most of them specialized in ancient trade routes, shipwrecks, or coral formations. Fascinating? Sure. Useful? Not really.
I wanted legends. Submerged temples. Whispers of gods below the waves.
And then, just as the sun began to dip below the horizon— Her name popped up: Lara Croft.
I blinked.
At first, I thought I was sleep-deprived or hallucinating from too much coffee. But no. There she was, in a paper published six months ago in collaboration with the British Museum: "Iconography of Atlantean Myths in Deep Sea Artifacts."
No way.
Was it a coincidence? A prank? A really elaborate crossover from some gamer trapped in academia?
But According to her credentials, Lara Croft was real. Doctorates in archaeology and anthropology, multiple expeditions to ancient sites, and—get this—a recent find near the Bermuda Triangle. Something she recovered from deep underwater trenches and was bringing to Washington D.C. next week to be analyzed and catalogued.
A relic from the ocean.
I felt a chill crawl up my spine, the good kind—the kind that whispers you're close.
It was almost too perfect.
I leaned back in the ridiculously expensive leather chair, tapping the armrest with a slow rhythm. My plan had a name now. A target. And maybe, just maybe, the beginnings of a real origin story.
If I could get Lara Croft to read the notebook…
If I could make her believe I'd always had a connection to whatever she found in the deep. Well...
That would be the start of something much, much bigger.
"I have week to make everything ready for or meeting. So let's make it count."