Jonas Reeve had never seen the world.
Not once.
Not the fading blue of a hospital ceiling. Not the sad smile of the nurse who read to him on Wednesdays. Not the glow of a screen or the sun slipping behind clouds. He could only imagine light as a pressure behind his eyelids—warm, distant, and meaningless.
But gods, he could smell.
He smelled the sharp sting of antiseptic and latex gloves. The sour crust of stale toast his roommate left uneaten. The perfumed exhaustion of his mother when she sat beside him, day after day, her hand wrapped around his, whispering stories into ears that worked just fine.
He tasted the air too—metal and dust and time. He could taste people when they walked in. Taste their fear, their guilt. The tang of loneliness hung over every hallway like mold.
He couldn't speak. Could barely move. But he felt everything.
Textures were his vision. The shape of fabric told him who entered. The callus on a nurse's knuckle told him she'd fought to get here. The way the IV tape pulled at his skin told him when he was being ignored.
And in his silence, he imagined.
He imagined a world where he could run. Where he could eat real food, not chalky paste. Where voices didn't sound strained with pity. Where he could touch someone, not with trembling fingers but with strength—with intent.
He imagined women. Soft skin. Laughter. He had never seen one, but his hormones didn't care. The idea of a woman's body filled him with a kind of electric ache. He dreamed not of love, but of contact. Crude, desperate, beautiful contact.
Jonas Reeve was not a saint.
He was a prisoner.
And then—he died.
The machine beeped once, then nothing.
He felt his mother's hand slip away.
And in the void that followed, he felt something pull at him. Not his soul, exactly, but something rawer—his senses. His touch cracked the barrier between flesh and something older. His smell reached into a place that stank of iron and earth and forgotten blood. His taste curled around a wordless scream.
Then came the sound.
It was like thunder in reverse—collapsing inward, dragging him with it.
Jonas didn't rise toward light. He was yanked downward—through scent, through pressure, through pain—and spit out the other side.
He woke up choking on dirt.
Not clean hospital sheets—dirt. Damp, cold, and real.
He gasped, and the taste hit first: iron and blood and ash. Someone had died nearby. Many someones.
Then the smells—sweet rot, wet leather, burning fat. His nose rebelled, flooded, overwhelmed.
His hands clawed the ground and—he moved. Not spasmed. Not twitched. His hands dug into earth. Fingers. Nails. Muscle.
He froze.
Then moved again. Bent his arm. Sat up. He sat up.
His chest heaved. The air scraped his throat like sand. His skin screamed with sensation—wind on his face, sweat between his legs, a stone digging into his lower back. Feeling. Real feeling.
He opened his eyes.
And the world… was there.
It blurred at first—shapes, movement, shadow. Then sharpness. Light through blackened trees. Smoke curling upward. Men on the ground—armor twisted, flesh opened like fruit. Ravens in the branches above.
Jonas Reeve began to shake.
His eyes worked. His hands worked. His body was whole. Not perfect—he felt bruised, weak, dizzy—but alive in ways he never imagined.
Then came the panic.
Who was he now?
Where was he?
What the hell had happened?
He clutched at his chest. No gown. No IVs. He wore thick, scratched leather armor. A sword lay near his side—bloodied. Not his blood.
Then, behind him—a groan.
He spun too fast, fell to one knee, then pushed himself up and turned.
A woman.
Armor-dented, blood on her brow, sprawled in the dirt. She groaned again, tried to rise, collapsed.
Her chestplate was cracked. Her hair was matted with blood. But Jonas—staring, unashamed—saw the curve of her form. Her strength. Her sheer, impossible realness.
He stared at her breasts a little too long.
Then guilt hit. And confusion. And a strange surge of protectiveness.
"Shit," he whispered. His first word in… ever.
He crawled toward her, hands trembling.
I can move. I can speak. I can see. I can touch.
And I don't know a single thing about this world.
But he knew one thing:
He wouldn't let her die here