A writer with a boundless imagination—someone who lived in worlds that existed only in his mind—experienced an accident that should have ended everything. Yet when consciousness returned, he felt neither pain… nor darkness.
Instead, he awoke in a void.
No ground, no sky. He floated as if in the depths of a sea without a surface. The silence was so dense that even his own breathing felt foreign.
Yet, amid the emptiness, something caught his attention: a small scrap of light, flickering weakly like a candle about to die out.
Without knowing why, he reached for it. The light turned out not to be light—but a thin crack in the empty space, like a tiny fissure in the wall of the world. He pressed his palm against it, and the void trembled.
He tore it open.
In an instant, gravity—never before present—suddenly pulled him downward. He fell, through dark clouds that shrouded a world he did not recognize. During the fall, he saw something that made his chest tighten: the shadow of his own body, translucent, like a spirit that had yet to find its place.
He no longer had the strength to ask what was happening. As he surrendered to the destruction, the weightless form passed through something—the conscious mind of a boy whose identity he did not know.
In that mental space, a world formed from soft light and shapeless darkness colliding. In its center stood a luminous being, vaguely human, made of moonlit glow. The creature stared into the empty sky with a gaze that could only be described as… despair.
The writer stepped closer, lost and bewildered. He touched the creature's shoulder, hoping for an answer.
The being turned.
Its radiant gaze pierced the writer's chest, making him feel as if every thought of his had been exposed.
"Can you… continue my bleak life?" it whispered. The voice did not pass through the air—it spoke directly into his heart.
The writer froze, finding no words. He wasn't even sure if he was alive or dead. But before he could form a reply, the creature lifted its hand and touched his shoulder in return.
"No need to speak," it said softly. "Your conscience has already answered."
As their hands met, the world shattered.
Not with a sound, nor a blinding light—but with a force that cracked the mental space like glass hitting the floor. Fragments of light scattered, and the writer was flung outward.
Consciousness returned in the body of a small, ragged child—light, fragile, and marked with exhaustion that was not his own. Confusion gripped him even before he could take a deep breath. He tried to stand, but as his dirty fingers touched the dusty floor, waves of foreign memory crashed into him.
The fragments of the boy's life pierced his mind like thin knives. Fear, hunger, long nights spent resisting the cold—everything hit at once. His knees gave way. He fell again.
The small body trembled, not just from hunger, but from the burden of memories forced into its new vessel. The world spun. His vision blurred. Several seconds passed before he surfaced again, gasping as if from deep water.
The dizziness hadn't gone, but he forced himself to crawl. His dirty fingers pressed against the dusty floor as he dragged his body toward a cracked mirror attached to the wall. In the faint reflection, he saw a thin boy with eyes carrying years of pain.
His lips quivered.
"…Noah… Lawrence, right?"
Hunger dragged him out of the empty house. The small body wavered as he stepped onto the yard, but he forced his feet forward. Outside, the golden light of dawn sliced through the thin morning mist, bathing the small town in a beauty that seemed almost unreal.
He paused.
Brick buildings, cobblestone streets, the scent of warm bread from afar—everything felt like a piece of a world he had imagined before, a world that had existed only between the pages of novels he had read: the Victorian era, full of charm and darkness alike.
But that wonder was quickly swallowed by the hunger clawing at his stomach. He checked the pockets of his tattered clothing, hoping… for anything. A coin. Some leftover food. A small miracle.
Empty.
Despair hadn't even finished its visit when the wave of memories struck again.
A sharp pain tore through his head as if claws scraped the inside of his skull. The memory… was not just recollection. It was more like a brutal set of instructions for survival.
"Steal… right?" he muttered, his voice barely audible.
He resisted in his heart. But what choice did a starving ten-year-old have?
Reluctantly, he grabbed the ragged cloak hanging in the corner, pulling it over his small face, and walked toward the market.
The crowd was full of unfamiliar sounds and smells. People haggled, merchants shouted, wheels creaked along the crowded paths. In the chaos, he moved slowly, his small hands slipping like shadows.
One bread. An apple. A bit of dried meat.
Each item he managed to take made his heart pound faster. But his luck did not last long.
A large man noticed his small movements.
The gaze pierced him, then the man shouted and lunged.
Noah turned and ran through the crowd. His breath was short, his eyes teary, the shouts growing closer. His feet slipped on the cobblestones; he fell to the ground.
He looked up, trembling. "P-please… don't…"
The man grabbed his cloak roughly. In a swift motion, the cloak was pulled aside, revealing the small boy's dark hair and pale face.
The man's eyes widened.
"T-This… this damn Lawrence!"
The crowd froze for a moment, then dozens of pairs of eyes turned toward him, full of hatred he could not understand.
Noah didn't wait.
He got up and ran, crawling between the adults' legs. His small heart pounded so hard he could barely hear the shouts behind him. He pushed through the stalls, running aimlessly, until he found a large tent that appeared empty.
Without thinking, he pulled aside the flap and entered.
Silence.
But before he could take a relieved breath, a voice came from the shadows inside the tent.
"Hey… kid. What are you doing here?"