Life doesn't start with a name. It starts with a cry.
Mine, specifically, echoed in a place that didn't even deserve to be called an orphanage: four peeling walls, the stench of mold and sour milk. The nuns baptized me as "Boy 1.618" — a label stuck to the crib like a prophecy of what was to come. Not that I cared. A name would've just been another chain, and I already wore too many.
At sixteen, I discovered synthetics.Not out of rebellion or some quest for meaning. It was the void. That emptiness hurt more than hunger, more than the beatings from the nuns when I stole bread. The synthetics filled the abyss with colors that didn't exist in reality: blues that burned like fire, voices whispering secrets of worlds where I wasn't just a number. Of course, the bill came. And I'm not talking about the debt collector.
His basement smelled of piss and rust.The only light came from a swinging bulb overhead, swaying like a pendulum above my head. Its hypnotic motion almost made me forget my fingers crushed by pliers.
— YOU ENJOYING THIS, 1.618? — The debt collector spat the number like a curse, though I could've sworn he knew my name. Nobody knew my name.
— GO FU— — Every word came through clenched teeth, mixed with blood from my bitten tongue.
He laughed. A wet sound, like his lungs were drowning in vodka.— You're fun. That's why I'll give you 48 more hours. — I winced as the blade of his machete touched my cheek. — Or should I charge you now?
My heart raced. 48 hours.Enough time to run, disappear, maybe jump off a bridge…But my lips betrayed me:
— OKAY! I... I CAN GET THE MONEY!
He leaned in, the hot stench of raw onion flooding my nostrils.— Liar. — The machete slid to my neck. — You don't even know why you're alive.
And then, the shot.
She came like the snap of a crooked finger — fast, vulgar.The debt collector didn't even flinch: the bullet entered through the back of his neck and exited his forehead, painting the concrete wall with my brain. I thought I'd finally understand why I was born nameless, destined for nothing but debts and cheap synthetics. But the universe is a son of a bitch.
That was the last thing I heard before I lived through death.
I woke up in a room that wasn't a hospital.It was worse.
The air reeked of incense and mold, like those abandoned churches I used to sleep in during the winter. The bed was hard, covered in rough sheets, and the walls… stone walls. Carved stone, like in old castle movies. I tried to sit up, but my body felt wrong: taller, muscular, with scars I'd never earned crossing my arms.
— Where… — My voice was deep, rough. A man's voice.
There was a mirror in the corner, framed in rotting wood.I dragged myself to it, legs trembling like they'd never been used. And then I saw.
The face in the reflection was a stranger's: amber eyes (mine were black), curly brown hair (I'd been bald since seventeen thanks to the chemicals), and a scratchy beard. I raised my right hand — the man in the mirror did the same. Left hand — he followed.
— No… no, no, NO! — I screamed, and the stranger screamed back.
My fist clenched. The punch hit the mirror hard enough to crack my knuckles.The glass shattered in slow motion, slicing the skin of the body that wasn't mine. Blood flowed — and the pain… the pain was real. As real as the truth:
I was in another world.
The room's door creaked open.A figure entered, cloaked in black robes, carrying a tray with bread and something that looked like wine.
— Lord Kael, you should already be dressed for the ceremony — said a voice, female and cold.
Kael.The name echoed in my skull like a blade.It wasn't mine. It would never be.
The woman looked young, but her eyes were ancient — violet pupils, the color of old scars. She didn't flinch at the broken mirror or my blood dripping onto the dirt floor. She just placed the tray on a table and raised her hand.
A symbol lit the air: golden runes forming like smoke.
— The healing spell, my lord. Do you remember? — she pressed, like I was a lazy student.
Instinctively, I extended my wounded hand.The runes danced around it, and the skin sealed shut like it had never been torn.The woman smiled, satisfied, and I... I nearly vomited.
Magic. She used magic.
— The God's pact ceremony is at sunset — she added, adjusting the necklaces around my neck — pretending I was him. Pretending I was Kael. — Do not fail again.
When she left, trailing the stench of sulfur behind her, I collapsed.
The fragments came like waking nightmares:
A silver-haired man calling me "brother."A sword encrusted with black gems piercing my chest.A voice whispering: "I will be reborn in you, Kael."
And worse — memories that weren't mine, but his.Kael, the heretic. Kael, the traitor.Kael, the chosen vessel for a Platonic God.
But who the hell was I?
The orphanage, the debt collector, the synthetics… all felt like a distant dream now.Or maybe this life was the dream.The line blurred completely when I found a diary hidden under the floorboards.On the pages, written in blood:
"They don't know I know.The pact isn't to beg for mercy from God…It's to devour my soul.They want my body empty, a vessel.But I found a spell…A spell to pull a spirit from another world.Someone nameless, someone without a past…Someone who won't be missed."
I vomited. I couldn't believe it.
The diary slipped from my hands.
I was that spirit. A discard dragged here to die in Kael's place.
They led me to a circle of black stones, where an altar of human bones awaited.The violet-eyed woman chanted spells in a language that burned my ears.The followers, hooded, beat staffs into the ground in unison.
— Kael, the Vessel! — someone shouted.
I wasn't Kael.I was a zombie of two lives, a cosmic mistake.
The ritual began.The sky darkened, and a presence slithered through the shadows — viscous and ancient.I felt it entering me, ripping through my chest, searching for Kael… and finding only the void of someone without a name.
God screamed.
Not in fear — in rage.
— Where is he? — it roared through me, its voice cracking the earth.
The followers recoiled.The violet-eyed woman shrieked something about "betrayal," but I was already running — not from the "God," not from them, but from existence itself.I sprinted to the nearest cliff and, without hesitation, jumped.
The fall was long.
The impact, brief.
And then...
I woke again.
Now in the body of a child.
Red hair. Green eyes.In a village on fire.A woman screamed my new name — Liran — before being impaled by a goblin's spear.
This time, I didn't break the mirror.
I broke the goblin.
And the next.
And the next.
As the blood flowed, I realized:Maybe I'll never know who I am.
But if fate insists on throwing me from body to body, from world to world…
Then I'll make them pay. Every single life will cost.