Pain was my first welcome back to the world.
It wasn't a normal hurt. It felt like my brain was being twisted inside my skull. My nerves were live wires, screaming. I couldn't see, couldn't think. All I could do was feel this awful, stretching agony.
My heart hammered against my ribs, wild and scared.
I tried to speak. "What... is happening...?"
The voice that came out was a dry, raspy thing. It wasn't mine. It was too young, too weak.
Time meant nothing. A second felt like an hour. An hour felt like a second.
Then, suddenly, it stopped.
The pain vanished so completely it left me reeling. I collapsed, a puppet with its strings cut. Darkness took me, and I was grateful.
---
The second time I woke up, it was because of thirst.
My throat was on fire. My tongue was a swollen lump of sandpaper. My lips were cracked.
Water. I needed water.
I pushed myself up, my arms shaking like leaves. The world was a blurry mess. I blinked, hard, until the room slowly came into focus.
A bedside table. A pitcher of water. A glass.
I didn't even think. I lunged for it, my body clumsy and weak. I fumbled with the pitcher, water sloshing over my hands. I didn't bother with the glass. I drank straight from the pitcher.
The water was so cold it hurt. And it was the best thing I'd ever tasted. It was life itself pouring down my throat.
My stomach cramped violently, and I stumbled back to the bed, clutching my middle.
That's when I finally saw the room.
White. Everything was a stark, sterile white. The ceiling. The walls. The sheets. The light was too bright, too clean.
This... this wasn't my room.
A cold knot tightened in my stomach. My eyes darted around, taking in the details.
In the corner, a high-tech medical pod sat silent and gleaming. A panel with soft blue lights blinked quietly next to me, matching the rhythm of my own heartbeat.
And by the window... a gaming rig that looked like it came from the future. A sleek visor, a floating holo-ring, gloves made of light.
This was impossible. This wasn't my world.
I moved, and the blanket slid off my legs.
I froze.
My legs... they were sticks. Pale and thin. I held up my hands. My wrists were so small I could circle them with my thumb and finger. My skin was stretched tight over bone, dotted with faint, yellow bruises.
This wasn't my body.
This wasn't the body of a man who went to the gym. This was the body of a child. A starving, neglected child.
My breath hitched.
This wasn't my room.
This wasn't my world.
This wasn't my body.
And then the memories hit.
---
First life. The crushing silence of an empty apartment. The smell of dust and loneliness. The gym was my only escape, the weight in my hands the only thing that felt real. I lost myself in books about cultivation and magic, dreaming of worlds where the lonely could become powerful. I was a ghost in my own life. Then, a faulty wire, a stupid mistake, a bright flash... and nothing.
Second life. Waking up small and cold. The stench of garbage and decay. Hunger, a constant, gnawing beast in my belly. Digging through trash with raw fingers. Running messages for thugs, my body aching, my spirit breaking. The cold fear of being noticed. Seeing a murder in a dark alley. The killer's eyes, flat and deadly, locking onto mine.
The chase. My heart pounding in my ears. My bare feet slapping on wet stone. My lungs burning. The terror.
Then, slamming into someone solid.
I looked up.
A man. Tall, with black hair. And his eyes... a shocking, deep red.
In that moment of pure terror, I didn't see a stranger. I saw a reflection. I saw... me.
His arm caught me as I fell. His voice was a low rumble, a sound of safety. The world faded away.
---
I gasped, jolting back to the present. I was on the cold floor, shivering.
I looked up.
There was a mirror on the wall.
A boy stared back at me.
He was painfully thin, with hollow cheeks and messy black hair. His eyes were wide with fear and confusion.
Red eyes.
My eyes.
I crawled forward until I was right in front of the glass. I reached out a trembling hand. The boy in the mirror did the same.
"This is me," I whispered. The truth was a heavy weight.
It all made a terrible kind of sense. Reborn into a life of suffering, only to be saved at the last moment by a man who shared my face.
Why?
Why me? My first life was lonely. My second was pure hell. What was the point? Was this some kind of cosmic joke?
My hands clenched into fists. The ache in my chest was worse than hunger. It was loneliness, doubled. It was a desperate, silent scream for a reason.
I dragged myself back to the bed, my body exhausted. This room, with all its impossible comforts, felt like a dream. Magic was real here. Systems were real. But all I knew was hunger and fear.
The fight drained out of me. I was just too tired.
I lay down and curled into a ball, feeling small and lost.
"This is too much," I mumbled into the pillow. "I don't get it."
My eyes grew heavy. The panic slowly faded, leaving behind a numb emptiness.
Whatever was coming next, it would have to wait.
For now, I slept. The boy in the mirror had been through enough. He deserved a little rest.