Chapter 2: A World of Teeth
Aiden's second life began with cold.
Not the sterile, measured cold of hospitals or the crisp bite of winter mornings spent on subway platforms. This was raw, Earth-born cold, sharp and biting, air that scraped against his newborn lungs as if testing whether he deserved the breath at all.
He came into existence screaming, a sound jagged and raw, filling the space around him with a desperate need to live.
Hands caught him—large, calloused, warm in the way fire feels after frostbite. Something rough brushed across his skin, wiping away fluids with hurried tenderness, yet careful enough not to harm him.
"There he is," a woman whispered, voice soft but hoarse from labor. The language was strange to his ears, vowels bending oddly, yet her tone carried all the meaning he could understand: relief, wonder, pride. "He's got a set of lungs on him."
Aiden blinked against the blur of lamplight. A woman leaned over him, blurred features sharpening slowly, forming a tired smile. Dark hair plastered to her temples, warm brown eyes half-lidded with relief.
Lyssa, he later learned. His mother.
A shadow moved beside her—a larger figure, shoulders broad beneath a wool tunic. A man whose voice sounded like gravel rolled in a steady stream spoke quietly, almost reverent.
"Small lad," he murmured, though pride softened the words. "But he's breathing true. Look at him glare already."
His vision wavered, then steadied enough to see bearded features, a scar across the brow, hands steady and strong.
Joren. His father.
Aiden tried to lift an arm. It twitched, shaky, barely a gesture. His fingers flailed before closing around his father's thumb.
He froze. The hand was tiny. Weak.
I… really am a baby.
Memories flickered like distant lightning—the subway platform, the boy's terrified scream, the metal, the flash, the void.
Then that voice, cold and curious: Do you wish to continue?
Apparently, he had answered.
Aiden's chest tightened—not with fear, but with a strange mixture of grief and disbelief. He had died. There was no undoing that. Yet here he was, warm, small, fragile, held by strangers who were already beginning to love him.
A roar rolled across the outside world, deep and resonant, vibrating through the floorboards.
Lyssa stiffened. "Joren…"
"It's far," Joren murmured, hand hovering near the spear leaned against the wall. "Probably a marshback prowling the river line. Patrol's out tonight."
Beasts. Patrol. Wilds.
The words scratched at something ancient inside Aiden, danger sinking into his bones like a warning buried deep in memory.
And somewhere inside him, faint as the last echo of a far-off storm, a whisper flickered: The Beastbinder System… dormant.
The whisper faded before he could seize it.
Aiden cried again—not from pain, but from sheer shock of existence itself—and Lyssa held him close, skin against skin, heart steady beneath his ear.
The world was loud. The world was dangerous. The world was alive.
And he was in it again.
Years blurred the way they always do for children, but Aiden never forgot a single moment.
His body changed, but his mind held all his old memories: gaming strategies, lonely subway rides, cooking experiments, workplace boredom, and the quiet ache of being unnoticed.
At three, he toddled into Redmarsh Village for the first time, gripping a carved wooden fox Joren had made for him.
Redmarsh was a cluster of timber homes pressed close together, roofs draped in moss and smoke, fences crooked like tired spines. The earth was dark and wet, churned by rain and animal tracks. A crooked river bent through one side of the village, and beyond it, the forest rose like a wall of green shadow where sunlight rarely touched the ground.
Children played in the mud. Chickens darted between carts. Hunters returned with beasts slung across their backs.
And Aiden saw them up close.
Not deer. Not boars. Not wolves.
Beasts.
Creatures with bone plates glowing faint blue, eyes igniting in colors unnatural to Earth. Hunters carved shimmering stones—core stones—from their chests, lifting them carefully like fragile treasures.
Aiden watched in awe as the cores pulsed with faint inner light.
That's mana. Or magic. Or something else entirely.
Whatever it was, it defined this world.
And the System watched him watching it.
Sometimes, he felt the faintest stir, like a second heartbeat somewhere behind his eyes.
Never strong. Never active. Just observing, waiting.
At six, he learned what the forest hid.
It was a bright afternoon, sunlight spilling like honey over the grass. Older kids dared each other toward the palisade wall—wide logs sharpened at their tips, a flimsy hope against the beasts lurking beyond.
Aiden followed, clutching his wooden fox. He wasn't brave, but curiosity tugged harder than fear.
"Look through here," one kid whispered, pointing at a gap between the logs.
Aiden hesitated. Then looked.
Trees like skeletal giants stretched across the land, branches weaving together overhead, choking the sunlight. Mist coiled thick and unnatural around their trunks.
A shape moved between the foliage.
A hulking silhouette emerged—more shadow than creature—then stepped fully into view.
A marshback.
Its shoulders rose as tall as a wagon, bone ridges glowing blue, breath steaming in thick white clouds. Its eyes were pools of pale fire.
Aiden's blood ran cold.
The marshback's head lifted—sniffing. It could smell them.
A horn blared from the watchtower. Hunters rushed to the wall. Arrows streaked downward, glowing tips embedding in the beast's hide. A ballista bolt crackled with energy and slammed into its side.
The marshback roared, sound so deep Aiden felt it in his ribs. Then it fell.
He stumbled backward, trembling so hard his teeth chattered.
That night, the Beastbinder System stirred, watching, noting, preparing. Threat proximity logged. Survival behavior observed. Monitoring active.
He whispered into the dark, "You… again."
But the presence remained silent once more.
At nine, Aiden refused to be helpless.
He trained with a wooden staff in the yard, striking a straw dummy with awkward but determined swings. Sweat rolled down his temples. His arms burned.
He had no talent. No lineage. No gifts.
Just stubbornness.
A laugh drifted from the fence.
"You're supposed to hit the dummy, not the air," a voice said.
Aiden turned to see Myra Lynell perched on the rail, swinging her legs. Copper glints lit her dark hair in the afternoon sun. Her green eyes sparkled with mischief and something sharper—like she was always on the edge of pouncing at the world.
"How long were you watching?" he muttered.
"Long enough to see you almost smack yourself," she said, grinning as she hopped down. "Here, give me that."
She snatched the staff and rolled it effortlessly between her palms before shifting into a stance far steadier than Aiden's.
"My uncle taught me before he…," her voice stumbled, then smoothed. "Anyway. Watch."
The staff moved like water around her body, sweeping in arcs, dipping low, cutting high.
Aiden stared. "Show me that again."
Myra smirked. "Only if you stop glaring like you hate the air you're breathing."
They trained until the sky flushed orange. Aiden's muscles screamed, but inside, he felt alive.
That night, the Beastbinder System acknowledged his effort, noting persistence above baseline and beginning status activation in preparation.
Age ten. His first fight.
He and Myra wandered near the forest edge, baskets slung across their backs, gathering herbs. Sunlight ran thin under the trees.
A branch snapped. Aiden froze. Myra's breath hitched.
A ridgeback boar pushed from the brush—massive, hide lined with faintly glowing ridges, tusks long as daggers. Its eyes glowed dull blue.
Tier One. Dangerous. Fast. Deadly if it charged.
"Don't run," Aiden whispered. "Back away slowly."
Myra nodded, sling trembling in her hands.
The boar sniffed once, then thundered forward.
Aiden didn't think. He shoved Myra aside, planted his feet, snatched a stone, and threw.
The stone struck the glowing ridge. Light flashed. The boar shrieked, veering off course and smashing into a tree.
A spear whistled. A hunter stabbed the boar through the chest.
"Idiots," the hunter snapped. "You were past the marker line."
Aiden collapsed onto the dirt, breaths shaking. Myra grabbed his sleeve.
"Are you insane? You didn't run!"
"You weren't moving," he said quietly. "I—someone had to."
Anger warred with something else in her eyes.
The System hummed alive, observing, recording, and unlocking basic status. Light formed crisp text behind his eyes: Name, Race, Age, Class, Traits, Skills.
It wasn't luck. It was the System nudging him. Watching him. Preparing him.
The years from ten to fifteen passed with purpose.
Aiden hunted small game with Joren, learning to track quietly, read footprints, and tell when beasts were near by listening to the silence of birds.
He cooked with Lyssa, experimenting with beast meats, noting subtle changes: a slight clarity of mind one morning, better endurance another day.
Sometimes, faint messages drifted across his vision: minor buffs, short increases in focus and endurance.
He didn't brag. He didn't tell anyone. He simply took notes and grew.
Myra grew with him—loud, fiery, impossible to ignore. They sparred, argued, laughed, explored, carved their names into trees near the river. She talked constantly; he listened, adding quiet comments that made her grin or roll her eyes.
She dragged him into trouble. He pulled her out of danger. They balanced.
Rumors of Ironwake Beast Academy drifted through Redmarsh like the scent of distant fire. A place where ordinary youths became beast tamers, warriors, explorers. A place where the weak could rise—if they survived.
Not all who left returned. Those who did came back stronger, more dangerous, marked by the wilds.
Aiden wanted that—not glory, not fame, just survival.
In this world, ordinary meant dead.
On the eve of his sixteenth year, fate knocked.
The village crowded into the central hall, torches crackling, shadows dancing across old timber walls. Aiden stood with Myra and their families as the village elder unrolled a sealed parchment marked by an iron crest.
"Ironwake has opened its gates to new candidates from the outer villages," he announced. "Each settlement may send three youths to face the entrance trials."
A ripple of emotion swept the crowd—fear, excitement, dread.
"Trials?" someone whispered.
"Survival trials," another hissed. "In the outer forest."
Aiden's pulse hammered.
The elder continued, "The entrance test begins at dawn. Those who wish to be considered will gather at the east gate. Hunters will observe your performance."
He paused. The hall sank into stillness. "Three will be chosen."
Myra grabbed Aiden's wrist. "We're doing this."
He nodded, throat tight.
The System stirred, presenting a quest: Step beyond the gate. Present yourself at dawn and survive the selection trial. Reward: Academy consideration unknown. Failure: Path narrows, survival odds diminish.
Aiden looked toward the east gate, where the forest loomed black, endless, full of growls everyone pretended not to hear.
Dawn would decide his life.
For the first time since his rebirth, real fear pierced him—sharp and cold. But beneath it stirred something stronger: determination, hope, hunger.
The world outside the gate waited with open jaws.
And he was done living quietly inside them.