A crow screamed.
From his very first breath, Kurapika could tell he was not where he was supposed to be. Dust and smoke clogged up his senses, forcing a series of painful coughs out of him. In a daze, he looked down on himself. His chest tightened. His hands were too small—no, his whole body was too small... too young. He was dressed in a pair of trousers and a shirt—both likely white underneath all the dirt. The worst part was... he could not remember anything about how he could have gotten here. He could not even figure out where he was in the first place. Was it a dream? A hallucination? Someone's nen ability?
Through the smoke in his eyes, he surveyed his surroundings. A wasteland—spreading as far as the eye could see. A strange assortment of trash scattered all around—to the point that the ground beneath was not even visible. Where the fuck was he?
A newspaper fluttered in the air, lying on top of a fridge door a few feet next to him. Kurapika scrambled forward, getting a hold of the newspaper before another dusty gust of wind could blow it away. Thankfully, the language was a common one he recognised. However, as soon as he began reading, his blood ran cold.
'EX-MAFIA LORD VIPER MAKES GENEROUS DONATION TO METEOR CITY ELDERS—PLANS TO REBUILD SECTOR F DISCUSSED IN COUNCIL MEETING'
Meteor City? Of all the places, he had woken up in meteor-fucking-city? His gaze travelled further up to the date in the corner... 19th of January, 1991. No way. The newspaper had to be old... really old—10 years old, to be precise. No way he could have travelled 10 years back and landed in Meteor City, right?
Kurapika shuddered. This was not happening.
[A/N: Real short chapter Ikk but it's like the prologue soo I have an excuse to make it this short meh. Inspired by the awesome but incomplete (probably abandoned ): ) fic by seiyuna. fr tho if you find this premise interesting do check their fic 'skeleton flower' out. Ik I need to focus on my main fic buut reading their fic gave me severe brain rot and I absolutely cannot move on from this whole Kurapika time travelling thing. I may have to make changes to the dates of events for the sake of my plot but I will try to keep it to a minimum. Anyways, bai!]