The first thing he felt was pain—sharp, dragging him out of the void. A jagged breath tore through his chest, ribs tightening as though he hadn't used his lungs in days. Or weeks. His throat burned like he'd swallowed dust and ash.
Then—the heartbeat. It was wild. Alien.
It wasn't his.
Panic spiked through him. His limbs twitched, weak and unfamiliar. His fingers scraped against stone—cold, rough, and lined with grooves that hummed faintly against his skin. The air was thick, stale, yet tingling with something more. Something wrong. His skin crawled with it. He recoiled, chest tightening—a scream caught in his throat, strangled by confusion.
Where am I?
His eyes snapped open.
A cramped chamber loomed around him, pressing down like a stone coffin. Symbols were carved into the walls—faintly glowing, flickering in unnatural patterns. Their pale light cast twitching shadows that danced across his trembling hands.
He tried to stand, but his legs buckled beneath him. He caught himself on his hands and knees, palms slamming onto the cold ground.
His breath came in ragged gasps. His chest rose and fell like a drowning man who had barely breached the surface.
But it wasn't the air that was wrong.
It was his body.
He could feel it—lighter, smaller, younger. His joints were loose, his muscles were unfamiliar. The very weight of his limbs was different. He stared at his hands, they were smaller, more calloused, and too thin.
These aren't my hands, he thought.
All of a sudden— "Arrgh," he grunted.
He saw flashes—fragmented, scattered.
He remembered a name—Ra'el.
Remembered the feeling of the biting cold of alley stones beneath his back.
Remembered furtive steps through crowded markets, fingers quick on unattended purses.
Remembered the ache of hunger gnawing deep, on some days.
Remembered the constant watchfulness—the need to survive.
His breath caught.
Ra'el.
The name echoed in his mind—familiar, yet foreign. It wasn't just a sound; it carried weight, history. It was this body's name.
But beneath it, something stirred—another name. His name.
Zephyr.
The collision was sudden, violent—two rivers crashing into each other, flooding his mind.
The memories of Ra'el, the street rat, scraping by on stolen coins and hard bread in the streets of a city worn with time, buildings leaning like tired men.
Ducking under market stalls, avoiding the gaze of guards.
The numbness of sleeping in the cold.
The memories of Zephyr, the student, cramming equations under fluorescent lights, dreaming of futures beyond textbook.
He remembered home. Earth.
The warmth of his mother's hug after he passed his physics finals.
Coffee-fueled all-nighters spent preparing for exams.
His father teaching him how to fix a leaky tap when he was twelve.
The thrill of solving his first kinematics problem in high school.
It was all coming back now... converging.
What happened?
Ah—
The crash.
He remembered tires screeching. Glass shattering. The feeling of weightlessness. The ground closing in. And then—
Silence.
His stomach twisted. His breath turned shallow.
Was that how I died?
The two lives wove together, blurring at the edges, until he could no longer tell where one ended and the other began.
Was he Ra'el? Was he Zephyr?
Was Earth real? Or was it just a dream?
What if this was the real world—and he had finally woken up?
His chest tightened—panic threatening to consume him—but he clung to those names.
Ra'el. Zephyr.
Different lives, but both felt real—too real to be just dreams. The details were too clear, too vivid to just ignore.
But what does that make me.
He did not have the answer to that. But he did know he could think.
Remembering a quote from earth, he muttered to himself, "I think, therefore I am."
"I am."
He pressed his palm to his chest, feeling the frantic beat beneath his ribs. His ribs.
The dissonance was fading.
The panic ebbed—replaced by something colder, sharper.
What happened to me here?
His eyes darted around the chamber once more. The runes still pulsed faintly. The stone walls were etched with precise symbols.
Ritual markings.
Magic.
The word should have been absurd. But it wasn't.
A faint warmth that he had never felt stirred beneath his fingertips—mana. He didn't know how he knew what it was, but he did.
Ra'el knew. And now, so did he.
He pressed his palm against the runes. The faint current hummed through him, like static under his skin.
This body had never felt mana before, but somehow, he just knew this was mana.
Tracing his finger across the rune, he thought to himself.
They tried to summon someone?
The knowledge came in pieces, fragmented, from when he was slipping in and out of consciousness.
"Yeah, some sort of ritual... A vessel."
He was the vessel.
But it failed.
Or did it?
He was breathing, wasn't he?
His heart was beating.
His mind—both minds—was whole.
Was this the failure?
A flicker of anger sparked beneath his ribs.
They abducted him. Used him for their rituals—their twisted experiments. Then discarded him.
Just another failed subject.
But now, he was more.
He pushed himself up—this time his legs held. Shaky, but firm.
He pressed his back against the stone wall, letting the coolness ground him.
His breath slowed. His heart eased its frantic rhythm.
He was real.
Earth wasn't a dream.
This world wasn't a dream.
Both were real.
He had lived.
And he still lived.
The laws of physics still wrapped around him like armor.
Gravity still pulled him down.
The air still pressed against his skin.
There were still rules here—unchanged, universal.
That was his anchor.
He closed his eyes and breathed.
He was Ra'el.
He was Zephyr.
And he would master this world.
He placed his hand on the stone wall one last time.
The feeling of mana beneath his fingers was getting fainter, like it was slipping away, but it still buzzed—like potential energy, waiting to be unleashed.
He didn't understand it.
Yet.
But he would.
He pushed off the wall and stepped forward into the darkness of the corridor ahead.
His legs were weak. His body frail.
But his mind burned.
He would survive.
Because he was real.
Because the rules were real.
And he would master them.