Kai Reyes had never been religious, but in the last moments of his life—when metal screamed and glass shattered—he whispered a prayer.
Then… nothing.
Until breath returned.
When he woke, the air tasted of sea salt and smoke. His head throbbed, but the pain was real—alive. Birds cried overhead, and sunlight pressed down from a sky too blue to be artificial.
He lay on a beach, half-buried in sand. His clothes were rough—woven fibers, not synthetic fabric. His body felt different too. Leaner. Barefoot. Tanned skin. Callused palms.
Kai sat up slowly.
What he saw stunned him.
The shore curved into a distant jungle, smoke rising from a nearby fishing village. Canoes rested along the tide line, and people—brown-skinned, tattooed, and dressed in wraparound cloths—moved about, speaking in an Austronesian tongue he somehow understood.
"Dayaw na adlaw," one man greeted a neighbor. Good day.
This isn't a dream.
He stood shakily and approached a small group gutting fish. They noticed him, startled, but didn't raise weapons.
"Who are you?" a young man asked, wary.
"I… I don't know," Kai replied honestly.
They brought him to their chieftain, Datu Paiburong, one of the leaders of a coastal settlement in Panay. The datu sat beneath a wooden shelter surrounded by elders and warriors.
"You came from the sea?" the datu asked. "Where is your boat? Your clan?"
Kai had no answers.
He gave the only name he could remember: "Kai."
Whispers followed—a stranger with no tribe, no kin, and no past. In a world where lineage meant survival, this made him suspect at best—and dangerous at worst.
But something about his posture, his clarity, and his odd accent stirred interest instead of fear.
Paiburong stroked his beard. "Then you will work. And if you survive among us, we will decide what you are."
That evening, Kai was led to a small hut near the edge of the village. He watched the people—children gathering firewood, women weaving baskets, men repairing sails. Everything was built by hand. Nothing wasted. Nothing unnecessary.
He was in precolonial Visayas. The era of Madja-as. The time of the Ten Datus.
He remembered bits from history class. The barter of Panay. The flight from Borneo. The fragile peace with the Atis.
He hadn't just woken in the past—he had woken in a moment before history began writing itself.
And now, he had to survive it.