I don't remember dying.
I just remember falling. Not through air, but through... something else. Something deep and wrong, like tearing through the seams of the world. Colors that shouldn't exist burned past. Sounds that weren't sounds screamed in my head.
Then, nothing.
Until I open my eyes.
The light is all wrong. Everything is. The air—I can taste the air. It's thick with damp earth and something sharp, something electric that scours my new lungs. My lungs? Above me, a wooden ceiling, carved with symbols I somehow know. Silver threads of light pulse in the gaps, keeping time with a heartbeat I'm not used to. Or maybe it's the other way around.
A face swims into view. Exhausted. Overwhelmed. Loving. Sweat makes her dark hair cling to her face. She's speaking, the words a foreign music that I, terrifyingly, understand.
"My son. My beautiful son."
Son. The word hits me like a physical blow. This woman... Miren. My mother. The name is just there, in my head, like it's always been. But it hasn't. I know it hasn't. There was another mother, another face... God, it's already fading, dissolving like smoke every second I'm in this place.
Panic tries to claw its way up, but this tiny, new body can't handle it. It just... fizzes. All that terror, all that "what the hell is happening" shrinks down into a pathetic little whimper. The sound shocks me. I'm so small. So utterly helpless. That should be the most terrifying part, but something else is grabbing my attention.
The air is humming.
Not a sound, really. It's a vibration, deep in my bones. Those silver threads from the ceiling? They're everywhere. Now that I'm really looking, they're all I can see. A spiderweb of living light, woven through the walls, tracing patterns on my mother's skin, flowing like rivers through the room.
Ley lines.
The word just pops into my brain. No thought, just... knowing. Conduits of pure magic. And I can see them. Not just see, I can feel their shape, their flow, the raw power thrumming inside.
Another face. A man, strong-jawed, with eyes that are somehow both steel and soft. Toren. My father. His big, rough hand touches my cheek, and the contact sends a fresh jolt through my system.
"He's perfect," he whispers, his voice thick. "Miren, look at his eyes."
She leans in, and I see my reflection. My eyes. Wide open, too alert. Far too aware for a newborn. I'm watching them, and I see the exact moment my mother's joy gets a cold splash of... something else. Wonder? Maybe fear.
I want to tell her it's okay. I want to explain that I'm lost, that I don't understand, that I'm from somewhere else. But all I have is this useless mouth and limbs that won't obey.
My gaze snaps back to the energy. My hand—did I move it, or did it just happen?—closes around something. A warm, smooth stone in my blankets. It's pulsing. The second I touch it, all hell breaks loose.
The silver threads ignite. The whole room is flooded with blinding, ethereal light. The carved symbols on the walls flare, glowing gold. My mother screams. My father's hand flies to his belt, to a weapon that isn't there.
But it's not an attack. It's... a welcome. The energy is singing, and it's singing to me. Through me. And God help me, I understand the song.
Flashes. Concrete. Steel. The glow of a computer screen. Coffee and car exhaust. The click-clack of a keyboard. A whole life, a whole world, where magic was a joke, where power came from silicon and steel.
Gone. I'm gone from there.
This is Terra Solaris. The name surfaces, just like the others. A world built on magic. And I've been born into it. But I didn't come empty-handed. The memories are fading, but I kept something.
This isn't just a new brain. It's my old mind—analytical, pattern-seeking—slammed into a body that can touch the world's magic. The ability to see the systems, the patterns... the skill to learn, to adapt, faster than anyone else. It's an infinite potential.
And right behind it, coiled deep in my gut, I feel something else. Something cold. A shadow. A hunger. An ancient, sleeping curse just waiting to wake up.
Outside, the forest—I know it's a forest—comes alive. Birds are calling, and their cries sound too much like words. The wind smells of things I can't name, wild and dangerous. Something in the distance, something huge, just turned its head. It felt the flare. It felt me.
My mother clutches me to her chest. I can feel her heart thudding, a steady, grounding beat. My father's hand rests on us both, a shield. They have no idea. They just see their son. They don't see the refugee from another reality, the freak, the soul trying to figure out how to work a body that still smells like the womb.
An old woman, the midwife, steps into my view. Her eyes are old as stone, and she's looking at me with a mix of awe and pure terror.
"The lines," she whispers, her voice shaking. "They sing for him. I've never... This child. He is... marked."
Marked. Not "destiny." "Marked." I like that less. In my old life, I didn't buy destiny. I bought choices, chaos, and physics. Here? Here, with magic humming in my blood and ancient things stirring in the woods, "marked" feels horribly, terribly real.
The light fades. The silver threads dim. The room is just a room again. My parents are breathing again, mostly. My father's eyes are still sweeping the shadows.
Ren Amaki. That's my name. The old one is already gone, lost in the fall. This is me now. A child of two worlds. A mind with a monstrous new skill. A soul with a shadow tangled up inside it.
The exhaustion finally hits, a wave of lead. My new eyelids are impossibly heavy. Sleep. Despite the questions, despite the sheer, mind-breaking impossibility of it all, I'm falling asleep. I feel my mother's kiss, hear my father's gruff promise of protection, and feel the ley lines, my new companions, dancing just outside my sight.
This is a second chance. I won't waste it. I don't care about destiny, or curses, or things in the dark.
I will learn. I will control this. I will live.
The very last thing I feel before the blackness takes me is a pinprick of awareness, cold and vast, watching from a very, very long way away.
My journey is just beginning.