Chapter 1: Through the Lens of Madness
The shutter clicks.
Dexter Hale adjusts his camera lens in the fluorescent chaos of Pandemonium nightclub, muttering about ISO settings and depth of field. The strobing lights paint everything in violent neon, and bass pounds through the floor into his bones. He shouldn't be here—twenty-eight is too old for this scene, and his camera marks him as either a creep or paparazzi. But muscle memory from another life guides his finger to the shutter release, capturing moments he knows matter even if he can't explain why.
Three months ago, I died choking on my own blood in a hospital bed. Pancreatic cancer, stage four, nothing left but morphine and regret. I was nobody—just another photographer scraping by in Chicago, obsessed with a TV show called Shadowhunters. Watched every episode twice, read every wiki article, knew every character arc by heart.
Then I woke up here. New York, 2016, in a body that looks like mine but younger, healthier. No cancer. No death sentence. Just memories of a fictional world that turned out to be real, and a curse that makes me sound insane whenever I try to warn anyone.
The blonde girl in the corner catches his attention—not because she's beautiful, though she is, but because she's staring at three figures no one else can see. Clary Fray. He knows her face from publicity stills, knows what's about to happen to her life, knows he should run the other direction.
Instead, he raises his camera.
Through the viewfinder, he watches Jace Wayland materialize from glamour, seraph blade gleaming in his hand. The blue-haired boy—some mundane who picked the wrong club, wrong night—stumbles backward as something that looks human but isn't stalks him through the crowd.
Dexter's breath catches. The Ravener demon is exactly like the show depicted it: spider-like legs erupting from human torso, mandibles dripping with paralytic venom. Beautiful and wrong and absolutely real.
His finger moves without conscious thought. Click. Click. Click.
The seraph blade ignites with holy fire. "Michael," Jace whispers, and the weapon blazes brighter than the club's strobes. Demon ichor sprays across the dance floor as the Ravener shrieks and dissolves into ash. The mundanes keep dancing, seeing only a fight between teenagers that ended with one boy running away.
But Dexter's camera sees everything. The supernatural burns itself onto digital sensors, reality admitting its hidden truth to his lens. His hands shake as he lowers the camera, because this is the moment that changes everything—not just for Clary, but for him.
I'm not supposed to be here. This isn't my world, my story, my life. But I remember every episode, every plot twist, every character who dies. I know Clary's mother will be kidnapped tomorrow. I know Simon becomes a vampire. I know Valentine plans to commit genocide with the Soul Sword. I know, and I can't tell anyone because the universe won't let me.
Clary pushes through the crowd, chasing after Jace. She's maybe eighteen, all fierce determination and artistic curiosity, exactly like Katherine McNamara portrayed her. Except this isn't acting. This is real flesh and blood walking toward a destiny that will break her before it makes her stronger.
Dexter follows.
Outside, the night air tastes of exhaust and impending rain. Clary confronts the three Shadowhunters in an alley that reeks of garbage and something sharper—ozone from angelic weapons, the metallic tang of spilled ichor.
"I saw you kill someone," she says, voice steady despite the tremor in her hands.
Alec Lightwood emerges from shadows like he was born to them, bow already nocked. "She can see us."
"Most mundanes can't," Isabelle adds, her whip coiled at her hip like a sleeping snake. "Not even after we drop the glamour."
Dexter raises his camera again, capturing their faces in the dim streetlight. Jace's arrogant smirk, Alec's suspicious scowl, Isabelle's predatory curiosity. He knows these people, has watched their stories unfold, understands their motivations better than they do themselves.
He needs to warn Clary. About her mother. About what's coming. About the Circle and Valentine and—
"Life is like a box of chocolates, and yours is full of demons—TRUST NO ONE WHO SMELLS LIKE VANILLA!"
The words explode from his throat like vomit, mangled beyond recognition. Clary stares at him like he's insane. Simon Lewis—loyal, geeky Simon who doesn't deserve what's coming—grabs her arm.
"Come on, Clary. This guy's clearly high or something."
Dexter collapses against the brick wall, tasting copper on his tongue. His first attempt at changing fate, and the universe literally rewrote his words. Something warm drips from his nose—blood, he realizes. The curse extracts its price in pain.
Every time I try to reveal future knowledge directly, it scrambles my words into gibberish. I can hint around the edges, leave clues, but I can't just say 'Hey, Clary, your mom's going to be kidnapped by your evil father who's leading a supernatural hate group.' The universe has rules, and I'm bound by them.
The Shadowhunters disappear into the night, taking Clary's questions with them. She and Simon walk away, voices fading into urban noise. Dexter stands alone in the alley, wiping blood from his nose and staring at his camera's display screen.
The photographs are there. All of them. Jace's blade blazing with holy fire. The Ravener's death. Clary's face, caught in the moment she realized magic was real.
But something's wrong with the images. They flicker between normal and impossible, as if reality itself can't decide what they should show. In one frame, Jace appears to be swinging at empty air. In the next, the demon writhes in full detail. The photos are evidence and paradox, proof and impossibility.
[TEMPORAL INTERFERENCE BLOCKED.]
The words appear in translucent blue text floating before his eyes, visible only to him. His heart skips as more text scrolls past.
[TRANSMIGRATOR IDENTITY CONFIRMED.]
[DOWNWORLDER BOND SYSTEM ACTIVATED.]
[INITIALIZING USER INTERFACE...]
Here we go. The system I'd theorized about during those long nights in the cancer ward, wondering what would happen if someone from our world ended up in Shadowhunters with meta-knowledge. I never thought I'd find out personally.
The interface materializes around him—holographic menus that respond to his thoughts, displaying information only he can see. It's elegant in its simplicity, like a video game UI designed by someone who understood both function and form.
[WELCOME TO THE DOWNWORLDER BOND SYSTEM]
[PRIMARY FUNCTION: FORM CONTRACTS WITH SUPERNATURAL SPECIES TO GAIN ABILITIES]
[CURRENT BOND SLOTS: 0/4]
[SPECIES AFFINITIES:] [VAMPIRE: 30/100 (WARY)] [WEREWOLF: 30/100 (WARY)] [WARLOCK: 30/100 (WARY)] [FAE: 30/100 (WARY)]
The tutorial begins, walking him through mechanics with clinical precision. To survive in this world, he needs supernatural allies. The system allows him to form contracts with Downworlders—vampires, werewolves, warlocks, and fae—borrowing their abilities in exchange for services, loyalty, or blood.
It's elegant, really. Instead of randomly gaining powers, I have to earn them through relationships. Form bonds. Prove myself worthy. The system doesn't make me stronger—it makes me useful enough that others choose to share their strength.
But the system offers no explanations for his presence here, his transmigrator knowledge, or why his speech becomes scrambled when he tries to reveal the future. Those mysteries remain locked away, secrets within secrets.
[SPECIES ENERGY POOLS:] [VITALITY: 100/100] [LUNAR ESSENCE: 100/100] [MANA: 100/100] [GLAMOUR: 100/100]
[TRANSFORMATION GAUGE: 0/1000 TP]
[CONTRACT SHOP: LOCKED]
[CURRENT QUESTS:]
[PREVENT THE PREDICTABLE: SAVE SOMEONE FROM THEIR CANONICAL FATE WITHOUT REVEALING FUTURE KNOWLEDGE] [REWARD: SYSTEM SHOP UNLOCK] [PROGRESS: 0%]
Dexter's apartment is a photographer's organized chaos—developing chemicals, hanging prints, camera equipment worth more than his rent. But now it feels like a stage set for a mundane life he's only pretending to live. He spreads the evening's photographs across his desk, studying each frame with professional eyes.
The pictures tell a story only he can read. Clary's face in the moment before her world changed. Jace's warrior grace as he fought something that shouldn't exist. The exact expression of shock when Alec realized a mundane could see through their glamour.
Tomorrow, Clary's apartment burns. Her mother disappears. Her entire reality shatters. In the original timeline, she handles it alone except for Simon. But I'm here now, and I have advantages the show's characters never did—I know what's coming.
He pulls out a red marker and begins circling details that haven't happened yet. A woman's face surrounded by flames—Jocelyn Fray, kidnapped by Valentine. A cup glowing with holy light—the Mortal Cup, hidden in Dorothea's tarot deck. A boy with fangs and desperate eyes—Simon, after his transformation.
Each circle feels like a prayer. A promise. A vow that this time, armed with foreknowledge and whatever power the system might grant him, he'll save them.
I died once already. Lost to cancer, to helplessness, to watching my body betray me cell by cell. I won't be helpless again. I can't save everyone—the curse makes sure of that—but I can try to save some. Starting with Clary.
The system interface pulses softly in his peripheral vision, waiting. Patient as death, inevitable as sunrise. Tomorrow, he'll need to prove himself to beings who could kill him without effort, earn their trust despite speaking only in madness, and somehow prevent disasters while sounding like a ranting street preacher.
The photographs don't lie. Magic is real. Demons hunt in nightclubs. Angels walk among us wearing the faces of warriors. And I'm here, caught between worlds, armed with nothing but a camera and knowledge I can't share.
Time to find out if that's enough.
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