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Chapter 1: A Bloody Awakening
The last thing i remembered was the beeping.
A steady, rhythmic pulse, like a dying clock counting down the seconds until his heart gave out. The hospital room had been cold—too cold—even beneath the thin, scratchy blanket they'd draped over him. His parents' voices had blurred together, their words dissolving into meaningless noise as the pain in his chest swallowed everything else.
Stage four.
The doctors had said it with pity in their eyes. Lymphoma. Aggressive. Untreatable.
He'd only been eleven.
Now, as consciousness clawed its way back into his mind, Lishen gasped—actually gasped—as if his lungs had forgotten how to breathe. His fingers dug into something rough and grainy. Dirt.Not the sterile sheets of a hospital bed.
His eyes flew open.
A thatched roof, woven tightly but fraying at the edges, stretched above him. Sunlight seeped through the gaps, casting thin golden lines across the packed-earth floor. The air smelled of smoke, hay, and something sour—like unwashed bodies and old sweat.
Where…?
A sharp, stabbing pain lanced through his skull.
Memories—not his—flooded in.
A boy. A village. A name.
Lishen, just like his previous life's name.
He clutched his head, fingers tangling in greasy, unwashed hair. His breath came in ragged bursts as images flickered behind his eyelids:
A worn-out woman with calloused hands, pressing a stale crust of bread into his palm. (Mother?)
A bony goat chewing on weeds outside a crumbling hut. (Their only livestock.)
A group of boys laughing as they hurled stones at him. ("Bastard child! No one wants you here!")
Lishen recoiled.
This isn't my life.
But the memories clung like cobwebs, settling into his mind as if they'd always been there.
He was still reeling when the screaming started.
At first, it was distant—a single, piercing shriek that cut through the morning air like a knife.
Lishen froze.
Then came the shouts. The thunder of running feet. The unmistakable clang of metal meeting metal.
His body moved before his mind could catch up. He scrambled to his knees, limbs trembling, and lurched toward the door. His muscles felt weak, unfamiliar, as if this body hadn't been fed properly in weeks.
Bandits.
The word rose from the depths of the boy's memories.
Blackwood Hamlet was poor—too poor for proper guards, too isolated for the kingdom's soldiers to bother protecting. Easy prey.
Lishen's fingers closed around the door's edge. He hesitated, then pulled it open just enough to peer outside.
Chaos.
Flames engulfed the nearest hut, its straw roof collapsing in a shower of sparks. Men—villagers—lay sprawled in the dirt, their bodies twisted in unnatural angles, dark stains spreading beneath them. A woman screamed as a rider on a scarred horse yanked her by the hair, dragging her toward a growing cluster of sobbing captives.
Lishen's stomach lurched.
This isn't a dream.
His breath came too fast. His vision swam.
I just got here. I can't die again.
A child's wail snapped his attention to the left.
A boy—maybe five or six—was crouched beside a fallen man, shaking his shoulder. "Papa! *Papa!*"
One of the raiders turned. A jagged grin split his bearded face.
Lishen didn't think.
He shoved the door open and stumbled forward. "Run!"
The bandit's head snapped toward him.
Pain exploded at the back of Lishen's skull.
His legs gave out.
The world tilted, blurred, then went black.
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