Orion opened his eyes to silence.
He was quite certain that something about the world was wrong.
At first, he thought he was still dead.
There was no pain. No sound.
His thoughts felt distant, as if they belonged to someone else, only now settling back into place.
He tried to inhale.
His chest moved, but slower than he intended.
That alone felt wrong.
When he focused, he realized he could feel the ground beneath him. Cold stone pressed against his back, uneven and cracked.
The air brushed against his skin differently. Heavier. Denser. It carried a faint pressure he had no words for.
Orion didn't panic. Panic required urgency, and whatever state he was in didn't allow for it. Instead, he waited, letting the unfamiliar sensations settle while his mind worked through the situation with steady, growing precision.
He was breathing.He was lying down.And this was not his body.
The realization came without drama. It wasn't logic, but instinct. He knew his original body, and this one felt wrong.
His limbs were slightly off, their proportions unfamiliar enough to notice when he tried to move his fingers. He accepted that fact and moved on, searching for other inconsistencies.
When his vision finally sharpened, things didn't improve.
The world above him made no effort to welcome him.
The sky was darker than it should have been, scattered with unfamiliar stars. Two pale moons hung overhead, and something about them was deeply wrong.
One was far larger than it should have been, close enough to feel oppressive. The other lingered beside it at an unnatural angle. As Orion stared at them, a wave of nausea rolled through his stomach.
It wasn't fear.
It was the instinctive revulsion of seeing something familiar arranged in a way it never should have been.
As if the sky itself was watching him.
Orion stared at the moons in silence and understood one thing immediately.
He didn't need to search any further.
No place on Earth had ever looked like this.
And almost just as clearly, he understood something else.
Whatever this place was, it wasn't meant for humans to survive.