As air rushes in hard enough to sting, his chest spasms before he can stop it, breath scraping down his throat like the reflex you get when you inhale mid-laugh, and your body immediately regrets it. He tries to get up from where he is lying, blinking and disoriented, already waiting for the familiar pressure in his arms, the weight of restraints, and the inability to move.
Instead, his head slams into something he can't yet see as he jerks up, one hand moving to his throat while the other presses into dirt. Actual dirt. He then tries to move his hand to hold his forehead to soothe the throbbing pain he inflicted on himself, and only succeeds in smearing the dirt across his face. Because why the hell not? By now, he might as well commit to it and roll around a bit, considering he isn't wearing anything from the waist up and has mud stuck all over his back like he's trying to grow roots or something. How long was he here?
His constitutionally dust-on-the-shelf level of calm existence didn't help with the scene he had just created. He looks like someone who woke up from a bad dream. Well—this is probably worse. But still. Very unsightly. He could do better.
He looks up to check what hit him and sees planks right above him, connected to crooked, smoke-stained wooden ceiling beams fitted together by someone who valued function over pride. But the plank extending directly over his head makes absolutely no sense unless whoever built it wanted him to crack his skull and have a good laugh. Firelight flickers from somewhere off to the side, throwing shadows that shift just enough to be irritating. This is not how he planned to spend his time dying.
He exhales slowly.
Sitting up a little and testing the movement, he shifts away from the plank just enough that he won't hit his head again. He mentally registers that his body responds easily. There is no resistance, no dead weight—only a dull ache in his arms and legs as he adjusts into a more comfortable position.
That's when he notices his hands. Small hands. Or… smaller? Still on the large side, but definitely not the hands from when he was—alive. Not sure what's what yet. He has more urgent things to deal with than his hand situational.
He looks down at himself. He has smooth, unblemished skin. It's soft in a way that suggests it has never met real work or cold weather. His arms are slender, shoulders narrow—good for etiquette, terrible for anything requiring leverage. His chest is flat but well-fed, not like kids who spend summers working fast-food jobs; the body probably never even lifted a tray without whining. And His long legs, tucked under a piece of towel, look untested.
And yet, the body is eerily familiar. The kind of familiarity that comes from something you grew up with. It feels like it's his own—or maybe it's the residual sense of the boy he just took over. He shakes his head. He doesn't have the luxury to think about the medical or psychological foundations of transmigration, assuming that's even what this is. He isn't sure this isn't one of those vivid, once-in-a-lifetime dreams people talk about. Though dreaming while dying would be inconveniently ironic.
What he knows for sure is that this is a young boy's body. Male. Fifteen, probably. A body that has never known real struggle, never bled, never earned a scar—which, in high insight, might make his estimate slightly off, but he's fairly confident he won't miss by much.
Apart from all that, there's something else. A subtle charge he doesn't quite understand—something like the air resisting him just enough to affirm his movements, giving even the smallest action a sense of weight and assurance. Like a crunch beneath a step. He exhales. And Adds it to the pile of new weird things.
Is this an afterlife? Did he go back in time? Is this his own body from some alternate reality, or just a borrowed one? And why is he here half-naked, with the barest cover possible, lying in dirt? Where even is here?
Too many questions. No one to answer them.
He mentally pats himself down out of habit. "No phone. No watch. No weapon." The thought is automatic—and obviously ridiculous, considering he's barely clothed.
He takes a minute to gather his wits. Then he grips the plank above him for leverage and tries to stand, silently hoping it doesn't collapse and turn him into a spectacle for whoever is watching. By now, he's certain someone is watching. His innate gut feeling, honed by a lifetime of experience as a full-time ethically flexible entrepreneur, has never failed him. But what can he do about it now? He needs to reorganize himself before doing anything to anyone. And plus, he is not feeling danger from them, so for now he ignores the feeling and keeps doing what he is doing, hoping they didn't notice that he noticed.
Finally, his feet meet the ground. His balance wobbles for half a second, then corrects itself—like the body is relieved someone competent has shown up. At least that earns it a point.
Tucking the blanket around his waist, he looks around, taking in the scene he has woken up to. He is in a small, dimly lit room that smells faintly of smoke and damp wood. The low ceiling is blackened with streaks, crooked planks crisscrossing overhead in a way that looks accidental. A dirt floor all over and A dimly lit fireplace sits off to one side. The walls are patched together, one section reinforced with a metal plate. A pile of blankets lies folded nearby, just neat enough to suggest comfort was attempted.
There's no furniture worth noting except a rickety chair with one leg shorter than the others, leaning against the wall. I short. Everything here speaks of neglect—yet it's livable. Barely.
Morgan steps closer to the metal plate and tries to study the surface reflecting his face. He stands frozen, mind blank for at least minutes, staring at the image. In the dim light and warped metal, he can make out a lightly tanned, young, good-looking boy with sharp features and green eyes.
What freezes him, though, isn't the very long hair or the emptiness behind the eyes. It's recognition. He knows this face. It's his. A younger version. Fuller. But unmistakably his.
"Well," he says, "at least the kid can still be blamed for everything."
He studies the reflection again, checking for differences. As far as he can tell, there are none. Not from his old body. Not from—
The thought cuts off, not because of the name that surfaced in his mind without resistance, but because of the name that didn't—and yet is closer to his existence than his own.
Elliot.
The memory arrives cleanly, without warning. No swell of emotion but a fact pressing against the inside of his ribs, firm and immovable. His hand clenches, knuckles whitening. His body reacts with discomfort long before his mind assigns emotion to it.
He waits.
For pain.
For a voice.
For something dramatic enough to justify the effort this clearly took.
Elliot used to complain about stories that skipped explanations. Said it felt like cheating.
Nothing happens.
The silence stretches.
Morgan frowns.
Then he notices something—not a sound, not a feeling. More like realizing a room has gained a second door while he wasn't looking. Information settles into his awareness without introduction or concern for consent.
A name that isn't his.
An age that doesn't match his previous life.
A sequence of numbers that make sense—thanks to Elliot insisting on listening to these kinds of stories before bed.
System message
Welcome!
Your system integration is initiated early due to the unusual signals detected in your body
Entity identification
Name: Auriel Vireth
Soul signature: Pending
Race: Human
Class:N/A
Level: N/A
Rank: F
Core Attributes
Strength: 8
Agility: 9
Endurance: 8
Vitality: 9
Cognition: 3
Perception: 25
Will: 3
Luck: 7s
Morgan closes his eyes.
"…You'd love this," he says quietly, already imagining Elliot's excitement, the questions, the way he would pretend not to be scared in the craziest of circumstances
He stands there, lost remembering his son with none of the urgency where the best survival instincts usually has. This is how he began losing his life on Earth. He needs to get a handle on it soon, or die again. Although he doesn't particularly mind.
He opens his eyes.
Again the translucent, light-blue window materializes in front of him, lines of text stacking neatly into place.
Entity Identified: Aurieeeiiiiardkavdhebwhadhehs
Jwjhdjejsha
Jsjsnana______ morshjdjsjs ______________
Morgan Whitlock
Soul Signature: confirmed with additional marking
Mark Identification: Transmigration
Transmigration Type: A
Transmigration Status: Stable
Race: Human
Class:N/A
Level: N/A
Rank : F
— Core Attributes —
Strength: 8
Agility: 9
Endurance: 8
Vitality: 9
Cognition: 25
Perception: 25
Will: 2
Luck: ???
Titles: N/A
Warning: existential disengagement due to insufficient will
Initializing System automatic solution...
PoI status: E upgraded to D
System analysis
System analysis completed
Additional information provided
Dormant Contract: Divine Accord (Locked)
Bloodline: Locked
Titles: Advanced cognition (upgradable), selective empathic model (upgradable)
Initializing Recalibration.
Recalibration Failed.
Initializing Deep analysis
Then a splitting headache hit him with the ferocity of a hungry bear pouncing. He had never felt anything like this before in his life. It was as if his brain were on fire, and someone was poking it with a stick to keep it burning. But even in his pain, he could see snippets of moments from his life racing past him like race cars on a track. Minutes went by as he was subjected to the most uncomfortable walk down memory lane. Suddenly, it all froze, showing one specific scene—more like a picture than the videos that had passed before it. It was him, reading a paper. A letter from Elliot before he died. The one thing that held any value to him. Then the scene was gone, replaced by the window.
PoI status: D upgraded to C
Analysis Complete
Requirements for further action met
Note: you are given a unique quest
Quest status: Unique
Quest type: Existential
Quest reward: unknown
Would you like to accept your Existential Quest:
Y/N
Warning: Not accepting the quest may lead to undesirable outcome.
What the fuck?