"John! John, please wake up!" a woman's voice broke through the fog clouding his mind. Her hands were firm but gentle, cradling his head as she leaned closer, her breath coming in hurried puffs.
John's eyes snapped open, his heart pounding as he blinked against the harsh light. He felt the rough texture of the wooden floor beneath him, the distant crackle of a fire in the air. "Ahhh... Am I in heaven?" he mumbled, his voice raspy, every breath scraping against his throat like sandpaper.
The woman let out a shaky, relieved chuckle, her face coming into focus – thin, weathered, and lined with the marks of a hard life. Her dark eyes shone with a mix of fear and relief. "No, you are not," she replied, her hands trembling slightly as she adjusted his head.
"But... who are you?" John tried to push himself up, but his limbs felt foreign, weak, like they weren't his own. The room spun around him, shadows dancing against the flickering firelight. "What is... happening... to me?"
Before he could finish, a sharp, blinding pain crashed into his mind, ripping through his thoughts like a blade. He clutched his head, his fingers digging into his scalp as memories – alien, vivid, and impossibly real – flooded into him. Dirt roads, endless fields of rice, the weight of rough cloth against his skin, the ache of hunger gnawing at his gut. He saw masked figures moving like wraiths through dense forests, felt the sting of cold rain on his face, and heard the low, menacing whispers of a language he had never spoken – yet somehow understood.
The pain receded as quickly as it had come, leaving him gasping, his vision swimming. He looked down at his trembling hands – smaller, calloused, and dirt-streaked. His heart pounded as the truth crashed down on him, as sharp and undeniable as the blade of a katana. He was no longer the John he had once been. He had awakened in a world where shadows ruled, where power came at the edge of a blade, and the weak were crushed beneath the iron hand of the strong
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