He had expected nothing.
He was dead and that was it. The end. He always saw the people who was waiting happiness after death as delusional fools. And for a short while, that was exactly what he got.
The absence of sensations and being almost non-existent gave him a short relief. He was drifting toward an oblivion without worry or weight of his past, like a traveler dissolving into a nebula with no destination or responsibility.
Not a single thing would remain and he would vanish and be part of the universe.
Finally he was going to be free of all worries...
He got so close- but not truly died for some reason! Damn it..
At the exact moment he felt everything about to sever and he was going to be no more -something blocked that final break.
"..."
He would curse if he had a mouth. It was so close that he didn't want any other alternatives anymore. After going through many emotional stages, he had managed to accept the idea of death.
'No! Let me vanish...'
This was making him crazy. Like an inner itching that he could feel all over his existence but couldn't cure it. The only end for the itch was death but it never came.
Every time the same severing came close, a silver light blocked it and saved his being. After a while the severing moment vanished and he survived the total destruction, which was a big disappointment in his book.
He somehow escaped from death. And the proof was undeniable. He could still think which was suppose to be impossible.
Also, this was a really strange state and he couldn't feel or deduce anything to understand where he was.
His awareness had been compressed to a degree that would have been impossible for any ordinary human - crushed into a space so small it would compress or erase any human entirely. But he had held on. Even in that small and impossible silver margin, he had remained.
He understood soon enough that he wasn't going to disappear. So he waited. He waited, and waited so much more.
He couldn't know how much time passed. But he knew it was long enough that any ordinary human would have been broken once more. The mind wasn't built for this kind of insanely long isolation. A sliver of consciousness from the previous compression, even if a human survived that as a particle of their original self, they still wouldn't survive this second stage of madness.
Then suddenly the silver light began to grow. A crackling static built around him, like a radio signal clawing through dead frequency.
'There wasn't supposed to be an afterlife. They said...'
He considered briefly whether he had taken a spiritual journey and arrived to hell. He wished to have eyes. Even if it was dangerous, he would examine the scenery to satisfy his curiosity. And honestly, who wouldn't want to see if there was a heaven or a hell?
The static grew louder. And maybe, he thought for a moment that just maybe- his body hadn't been recycled and someone tried to revive him on Earth. His world's technology had very few true limits. Restoring a person whose brain-death hadn't finalized, or even reversing old people to a younger state was possible for the wealthy. He heard so much more, other insane treatments for the top tier people.
After a certain point Technology changed and almost became magical with few limits or ethical concerns. But that wasn't what happened. This wasn't a body reconstruction or health treatment for a dead body.
Nothing about what followed resembled anything he could have guessed in advance. The static faded. And without warning, he felt himself transferred somewhere new!
His awareness expanded and filled a shape he could only assume was a body. As if his consciousness had been dropped into an empty vessel and sealed there by a method he didn't recognize. It was too seamless and strangely without any resistance.
Then the pressure on his mind eased. His awareness shook one final time. Then he felt his own breathing.
'I died. How the hell am I breathing right now?' His chest rose and fell, slower than he intended, as if his body wasn't fully responding yet.
The air felt wrong but he couldn't name why. Thicker, maybe. Or is it heavier? It carried a taste he had no reference for. That alone told him this wasn't a hospital, a room or anywhere familiar.
Wind was brushing against his skin. Like, real wind...
And that was damn impossible!
He didn't panic even with strange sensations touched his everything at the same time. It felt weird but nothing about this situation would change if he screamed or cried. He wasn't certain he could do either but still he had no interest in testing variables to risk this- resurrection?
He was breathing. That had to count for something, right. He was also sitting in a chair - wood, by the feel of it. Whoever made this chair with real wood was wasting materials but he wasn't complaining. Maybe he did felt irritated by other peoples' extravagance. But wood was one of the most expensive thing and a big problem for his crafts for half of his life.
Just before he was dreaming of how good it would be to own a real tree, he felt the process ended.
'This isn't my body.'
This was the first thing came to his mind and he was quite certain by his finger movements.
His fingers, hand and even some inner organs were wrong. His limbs were definitely in different sizes with their new proportions. When he moved his fingers, the response was delayed in a way his own sensory systems had never felt before. That was enough to prove his point.
This was a new body!
…
When his vision finally sharpened, he was sitting in a wooden chair in front of a large window. His head had been turned outward. He saw the trees first.
He knew what trees were. Of course he did. But he had never seen a real one. He had believed only a few living specimens remained, preserved in museums for their historical value.
'I'm somewhere wealthy enough to have a private garden. With running water and direct surface sunlight. This place belongs to someone enormously powerful. Possibly a god.' Something was wrong here. He was certain of that. But before he could begin his analysis, a voice cut through from beside him.
"Every time mother tells you to read you just fall asleep, little sleepyhead. She's definitely going to scold you this time!"
The sharp voice snapped him back. He turned and found a girl, thirteen or fourteen years old, with coal-black hair and clear blue eyes. She was pretty in the way that things of obvious value were pretty. Back home, children like this - regardless of gender - were sold at auction. He had seen it on television.
He still didn't know where he was. His eyes moved to her clothes. The stitching. The material. As someone who had worked with his hands, the quality struck him as unexpectedly poor for someone standing in this kind of house.
'A servant, then. Or a laborer of some kind.'
He pulled his attention from her and focused on the room. Within seconds he had begun cataloguing and correcting several early assumptions. 'This can't be the world I came from. This must be an off-world colony.' There was no other explanation that fit the inconsistencies accumulating in front of him.
The girl hadn't stopped talking. "Hey, Gustave! Mother is calling you and if she finds out you didn't read she said you won't have chocolate cake for a week!" She threw a few more words at him and then ran out of the room. He noted, as she went, that she had been speaking in a language slightly different from what he was processing - and that he had understood it without effort.
'She mentioned a mother. Her own mother, or mine? And having a mother at all. Where exactly am I?'
When he stood, the reality of being in a child's body confirmed itself immediately. He had never been a child before. His previous household had taken him in because they needed help - someone quick, someone who didn't need instructions twice. A few years later they had traded him for something newer. It was a normal enough cycle. The husband would eventually order a young woman. The wife would eventually order a young man. First-marriage adjustments that neither party was meant to find uncomfortable.
He had never had a childhood. He wasn't sure he had ever been anything other than what he was.
It didn't matter. Finding out where he was mattered.
Nine minutes and ten seconds had passed since he opened his eyes. He was confident in the count.
He had examined everything in the room. Every object, every surface, every function. He had also picked up the storybook sitting on the windowsill and finished it in two and a half minutes. He couldn't understand why this body's original owner had struggled with it. It was a few illustrated pages about a child who learned to fly with the help of an angel descending from the sky.
He ran his fingers along the curtains, the glass, the underside of the chair. He licked a few surfaces. Bit into one. All of it had been assembled with the kind of primitive carelessness that told him something consistent - this civilization was pre-industrial. Dramatically so.
He moved to the mirror.
"I am Gustave."
The blue-eyed girl had used that name. He tried it again, slower.
Having a name. An actual name. He turned the sensation over without sentiment but it sat strangely. In his old life, a number had been sufficient. Some of the non-compliant ones gave themselves names anyway. Robin had been one of them - pulled from some old story about a rebel hero. Robin had talked about changing things.
Robin had joined the civil war. He had not.
"Fool." His mouth moved without resistance this time. He was ready to go test this new environment. Hopefully he would have a much better life this time which the first time was so bad that anything could overcome his expectations.
He said it one more time with a stronger and louder voice.
"I am Gustave!"
The pleasure of being able to speak again, even if it was in a new language was larger than he had anticipated. He allowed himself a few more sentences just to feel it. Talking was so addicting and stopping himself to go see that mother was hard. Then he opened the door and walked into a house with vibrant colors and full of random noises.
He walked around a second floor and saw few maids with beautiful bodies and colorful cloths. Their ages varied but most were young with hopeful faces. He was seeing so many young and happy people at the same place for the first time. It was almost surreal.
He found stair, still wood and speculated that they didn't think wood as a strategic recourse. It was used for too many things at this point.
When he found the main room, the same young and beautiful blue eyed girl waved at him. A beautiful woman with black hair sat in a large hall, her posture composed and a wide porcelain cup held in both hands. She also had blue eyes like the young girl. As she was drinking, she paused mid-sip and looked at him and he felt his borrowed heart accelerate without his permission.
"You finally came. Your sister said you fell asleep but I didn't believe her. My son never sleeps during reading time. Isn't that right, Gustave?"
"I read the book...m-" He nearly added the word 'mother' before deciding the risk wasn't worth it while his knowledge was still incomplete.
"Come tell me about it to mommy, then." She gestured to the space beside her.
When she used the word for mother, a pressure in his chest released that he hadn't registered was there. He had never had a family before and it felt kind of nice.
He stepped forward and before he reacted to sofa his skull filled with vertigo.
The world tilted...
Everything he had always been proud of - the speed of his thinking, the sharpness of his brain, his strong and resilient mind that even survived death and silver light - slid out from under his control entirely.
He caught one line in his vision before he fell to the floor.
[System Notification - First Quest for System Access (1/10)]
[Confirm to view Quest Details.]
He had no capacity to confirm anything. But his need to understand must have been strong enough. The voice took it as consent and displayed the detail screen to his shaking eyes.
(1/10) First Quest: Deal with the soul remaining in your new body.
Full Soul Absorption - 10/10
Positive Assimilation - 8/10
Symbiotic Bond - 5/10
Negative Assimilation - 2/10 *Fail
Soul Collapse or Death - 0/10 *Fail
He managed to read as far as the first part of the list and only saw the words of "Full Soul Absorption". The rating beside it was a perfect ten. He had just enough time to decide that sounded correct before the world tilted past any degree of recovery.
His skull hit the wall on the way down Above him screams erupted - many of them were coming closer with worrying voices.
Then nothing.
When awareness returned, it came in the form of eight years lived by someone else.
Images flooded through him. Smells. Textures. Voices and sensations.
The sound of a particular laugh or a bird's voice in the mornings. Sunshine over the head or big sister abuse when his mother wasn't at home.
He watched an entire small life play out and felt every second of it. He laughed at some of it. He cried at more than he expected. He spent the rest simply trying to understand what kind of world, family and effects made this child.
He learned how Gustave came out, his ideals ambitions, his naive personality or other deep problems.
The first surprise came from an unexpected angle.
For someone like him who had never been loved; absorbing the love of the small Gustave had felt for his father, mother and three sisters was something he had no preparation. Small kid got him at some these random moments with his conviction for his family. His feelings for the this home and his family was genuine.
If it was a normal human from Earth, they would feel some sympathy and let the kid had some awareness after affected by so many lovely memories. But he was different. He absorbed everything as himself and didn't give any room, consolation or any care for the boy.
It was just like the voice told him. A full soul absorption.
When he opened his eyes in a darkened room, two souls were finally became one, as 'he' who came from Earth was the sole benefiter of the exchange.
Old man from Earth stood up as Gustave von Wyrmgrave. Walked outside of his room to the main door of the villa and ran into the garden as if he was seeing a real garden for the first time.
The servants and many other people told the story of this day for years.
"The day the young lord hit his head," they would say, "was the day the young lord went crazy."