Noah crouched behind his father, heart hammering, as the silhouette in the mist shifted. The four-legged creature moved with unnatural grace, its pulse vibrating faintly with the same strange energy that threaded through the valley. Every step it took made the ground hum underfoot.
"Stay behind me," his father whispered. His hand went to the small hunting knife at his belt. Noah watched, tense. Then, almost imperceptibly, the blade began to glow. Threads of light spread along the metal, widening, stretching, until in his father's hands it became a luminous sword, humming with raw energy drawn from the Universal Key.
Noah's breath caught. The Key pulsed stronger here, alive, responsive, almost sentient. His father raised the blade with calm precision, and in a single, fluid motion, he swung. The creature shrieked, caught in the radiant arc, and split cleanly in two. Its blood hissed against the mist, leaving faint scorch marks where light had passed.
Noah stared, frozen, a mixture of awe and terror washing over him. His father wiped the edge on a nearby tree, returning the sword to its original form a simple, small hunting blade. "The Key doesn't fight for you," he said quietly. "It obeys the one who listens."
Noah swallowed hard. His small chest ached with adrenaline, but also with the quiet weight of comprehension. This was no playground. This power came with responsibility, with danger, and with consequences.
They continued training in the clearing, his father guiding him through sensing the energy, moving in rhythm with its pulses, letting the Universal Key flow through their movements instead of forcing it. Noah mimicked him as best he could, though his tiny form barely stirred the mist around him. Still, he could feel the hum now, faint but steady, like the pulse of the valley itself.
Hours passed. Sunlight faded behind the cliffs, and the mist thickened once again, curling through the roots and the soil. His father studied him silently. "You have potential, but you must remember the Key is not a tool, not a weapon by itself. It is a living force. Respect it, or it will consume you."
Noah nodded, tired but determined. Every heartbeat reminded him of how fragile this new body was, how sharp the line between survival and death had become.
At last, they turned back toward the village. The path was soft with damp soil, shadows stretching long across the valley floor. Noah walked beside his father, listening to the hum of the Key beneath his feet, letting it settle into the rhythm of his breathing.
By the time they reached the small hut, the fires in the village had burned low. Smoke curled lazily from chimneys, and the distant cries of the hunters had faded. Noah's small hands trembled faintly, not from fear, but from the weight of what he had seen and felt.
Inside, the scent of damp straw and cooked porridge welcomed them. Noah dropped to his knees beside his bed, still tasting the iron tang of blood in his memory, still hearing the faint pulse of the Key beneath his skin.
He lay down, staring at the wooden planks above,
His body still ached from the day's training. The rough hands of his new father. The chill of the forest. The hum of the Universal Key still echoed faintly beneath his skin, like a heartbeat that didn't belong to him.
He turned on his side, curling his knees toward his chest. The air smelled of woodsmoke and earth and something else, something alive and ancient. It should have comforted him, but it didn't. It only reminded him that he was a stranger here.
The world he had known his apartment, the hum of engines, the warmth of his lover's hand all of it had vanished in a breath of fire and wind. He could still hear the metal scream of the Cessna tearing apart, still feel the weightlessness before the ground took him.
He remembered his friends. Their faces blurred together now, fragments of laughter and light. His family his mother's voice calling his name as a boy, his father's steady hands, the smell of coffee on slow mornings. All gone. Not buried, not distant erased.
He pressed his palm to his chest, as if trying to hold on to something that wasn't there anymore. The small heart beneath it beat too quickly, too fragile. He hated that sound. It wasn't his.
The room was silent except for the occasional pop from the dying fire. His new family slept in the next room breathing softly, unaware that the child in their home carried another man's soul. A ghost wearing their son's face.
He thought of the guardian Elaris, that amused, distant being who had spun his fate like a game of chance. The wheel, the laughter, the blinding light. He had been given a second life, yes but not mercy. Just another test. Another sky to fall from.
His throat tightened. He turned his face into the pillow, biting back the sob that rose unbidden. It had been years since he had cried, but now the tears came quietly, soaking into the coarse straw beneath him.
"Why?" he whispered into the dark. "Why me again?"
The silence offered no answer. Only the soft hum of the Key, pulsing faintly through the walls, as if the world itself were breathing beside him.
He thought of his lover's voice the last time she had said his name, her eyes wide as he left for that flight. He had promised her he'd be back before sunset. He hadn't even said goodbye properly.
A soft breeze slipped through the gaps in the wall, brushing against his face. It smelled faintly of the cliffs sharp, cold, alive. The same wind that had once lifted his plane, that had carried him toward death.
And somehow, he felt that it recognized him.
He closed his eyes and let the tears fall until exhaustion blurred everything the pain, the memory, the sound of the breathing world.
As he drifted toward sleep, a faint light pulsed at the edge of his vision a shimmer of blue weaving through the mist that leaked beneath the door. It brushed against his fingertips like a heartbeat, gentle but steady.
He blinked. "Wait…" he whispered to the dark. "My ability the one Elaris gave me."
The Clone Ability.
He sat up, heart quickening. "How do I use it?" he murmured, fumbling for words.
"Arise from my shadow?"
Nothing.
"Come forth?"
Still nothing.
The silence almost mocked him. Then his father's words returned to him, calm and unyielding: key is a living force it must be respected or else it will consume you.
He exhaled slowly and crossed his legs on the cold floor, the boards faintly vibrating with the hum of the valley. Closing his eyes, he focused on that rhythm on the quiet thrum of the Key, on the strange thread that tied his soul to this world.
There a flicker. Not far away, but within. A light just out of reach, like a heartbeat beneath another heartbeat. He didn't force it. He simply reached inward, inviting it closer.
The air thickened. The floor shivered. And then from the center of his chest something began to form. A hand, pale and translucent, pushed through light. Then another. Then the outline of a face, the same as his own.
Noah stared as the figure pulled itself free and stood before him. The clone opened its eyes his eyes and for a heartbeat, the room seemed to hold its breath.
It looked at him, then smiled softly, a faint curve of recognition of shared existence. Noah reached out, and the clone mirrored him. Their hands met warm, solid, real.
It wasn't just a reflection. It breathed. It lived.
For the first time since awakening in this new world, Noah felt the silence inside him break. The weight of isolation that had crushed his chest loosened.
He wasn't alone anymore.