The years between three and six blurred together softly, a steady river of mostly ordinary days that drifted forward without drama. Tyler grew taller—slowly, awkwardly, like his bones were unsure how childhood was supposed to work the second time around—but his mind sharpened in ways his family could never detect.
He had learned to walk steadily now, His vocabulary had expanded enough that Melissa cried happy tears the day he strung together a full sentence. His mind-reading ability had grown alongside him, no longer a faint whisper but a steady hum that flickered whenever he locked eyes with someone.
Sometimes that was beautiful. More often—it was overwhelming.
But life in the Brown household continued with a rhythm he cherished.
Richard's graduation came first—an event filled with excitement and nervous anticipation. He returned home with a degree in hand and four job offers waiting by the end of summer.
Yet every time he read one, Tyler caught a new wave of dissatisfaction from him.
"…low pay… long hours… no growth…""…company culture feels toxic…""…this salary won't support the family…""…should I settle? Should I wait?"
Richard paced the living room many nights, staring at the letters like they were traps disguised as opportunities.
Silas sat with him often.
"You don't need to rush," Silas said gently. "Start where you feel right."
But Richard wasn't convinced.
Tyler watched him from the sofa, chin resting on his knees. Richard wasn't a man meant for cramped corporate rooms. In Tyler's previous life, Richard had indeed chosen his own path—one that led to opening a store, finding purpose, then losing it all when economic collapse swept the country.
But here, now, Tyler wondered if the timing would shift.
One evening, Richard exhaled deeply and folded the job letters.
"I think… I want to start something of my own."
Silas blinked. "A business?"
Richard nodded slowly. "A small general shop. Household items. Snacks. Cleaning products. Things we all use daily. The location is everything… and Midtown Street is growing."
Grandma clapped her hands. "About time someone in this house aimed for independence. You'll do well."
Melissa smiled gently. "If this makes your heart lighter, we'll support it."
Tyler heard their thoughts ripple.
"…I hope he chooses wisely…""…please let this work…""…he needs confidence, not another rejection…"
Richard looked at Tyler and gave him a warm grin. "What do you think, champ? Think your uncle can run a business?"
Tyler's internal voice almost laughed—he wanted to say so much. Instead, he nodded solemnly like a miniature adult.
Richard laughed. "See? Even Tyler believes in me."
Of course he believed in him.
Richard's downfall in the old timeline had broken him the most. Maybe this time… maybe he could stand longer.
Silas accompanied Richard to the bank the next week.
Tyler tagged along because Melissa assumed fresh air was good for him. Grandma insisted too.
Inside the bank, the adults filled forms. Richard's heart thudded with fear and excitement.
Tyler's eyes—behind his glasses—caught thoughts from all directions.
"…hope we qualify…""…please don't reject this…""…interest rates rising again…""…my first real chance…"
When the loan officer finally said, "Approved," Tyler felt Richard's breath release like a dam breaking.
Silas squeezed his brother's shoulder. "You did it."
Richard grinned wide. His thoughts burst like fireworks—
"…I'll work hard…""…I'll prove myself…""…I won't fail…"
Tyler felt the warmth of that ambition.
It reminded him of something he once lost in his first life: People striving, not surviving.
A month later, the store opened.
It wasn't big—just two rooms, bright shelves, freshly cleaned windows. The sign above the door read:
"MIDTOWN GENERAL STORE Everyday Needs • Fair Prices"
Steven helped paint the sign after work every evening. Grandma forced Richard to scrub the floor twice. Melissa knitted little cup holders for cold drinks. Silas brought cleaning supplies from the his store.
The family didn't say they were nervous. They didn't have to.
Tyler heard it all anyway.
On opening day, the store was crowded. Neighbors stopped by one after another.
Mr. Parker said aloud, "Proud of you, Richard!" while thinking—"…hope this doesn't fail like my cousin's shop…"
Mrs. Olsen praised the shelves—"…prices decent, but too many competitors around…"
Mrs. Nowak complained about the lack of discounts—"…he'll learn, first days are always messy…"
Despite the honest smiles, Tyler witnessed the delicate fragility beneath them—everyone excited, everyone doubtful.
Richard held himself tall through it all.
Steven even stood by the counter like a bodyguard, puffing his chest every time someone complimented his brother.
Tyler watched silently, gripping the edge of a shelf.
This store wasn't just a business. It was Richard's pride. His identity. His gamble.
A week after the store opened, neighborhood children gathered in the courtyard for their usual chaotic play.
Tyler stood near the fence, watching Elijah wave a stick in the air.
"Alright!" Elijah declared, "You all choose your sides! Ignaros heroes on this side! Veyra soldiers on the other!"
Tyler's chest tightened.
Even at age six and four, their world imitates adults.
Daniel shouted, "I Veyra!" Katherine whispered, "I Ignaros…" and hid behind Tyler.
A few children argued over which religion was "better."It wasn't malicious—just mimicry. But mimicry grows.
Tyler felt an old ache. His first life had seen this childhood play turn into riots.
He approached slowly.
A boy yelled, "Ignaros wins because fire is stronger!"Another yelled, "Veyra wins because discipline is stronger!"
Elijah rolled his eyes dramatically."You're both wrong! We're just playing! Nobody wins everything!"
Tyler blinked. Elijah stood between the groups, stick lowered, voice firm—a little leader calming a little war.
Tyler heard his thoughts.
"…why fight? Why do people always fight…?"
There it was. Elijah's heart the same one from Tyler's first life. Still soft. Still idealistic. Still vulnerable.
Tyler stepped closer.
Elijah spotted him and grinned."Tyler! You're Ignaros with me, okay?"
Tyler slowly nodded, though his mind swirled.
In his past life, Elijah had fought for Ignaros until the world twisted him into something unrecognizable. Here, he was just a boy with a wooden stick and a desire for peace.
Later that night, Tyler sat beside Richard at dinner. The adults spoke excitedly about the store's first week.
Richard pretended confidence."…steady flow… good signs… I'll add more stock later…"
But his thoughts betrayed him.
"…was it enough? Will it survive winter? What if customers disappear?"
Tyler reached out and tugged Richard's sleeve. Richard looked down with a tired smile.
"Yeah, buddy?"
Tyler didn't have the words to reassure him. So he simply leaned against his arm.
Richard's smile softened instantly. His thoughts quieted.
"…It'll work. I'll make it work… for all of us."
Tyler closed his eyes.
The world was getting bigger. School was approaching. His powers were growing. And expectations spoken and unspoken pressed gently against him.
Tyler stood near the low fence, hands tucked into his shorts, watching it all with that peculiar double vision—small body, old mind. The god-games were on again.
Elijah had decided to organize them. He loved organizing; it gave him a momentary certainty in a world that otherwise felt eccentrically large. Today's rules were simple: Ignaros heroes on one side, Veyra soldiers on the other. The kids argued for ten minutes about costume assignments—who would wear the red scarf, who would pretend to hold the torch—and then, satisfied with their very serious debate, they launched into motion.
"Remember the rules!" Elijah announced, holding a stick aloft like a commander. "No hitting for real. We pretend."
Tyler watched the children file into teams. Daniel stood in the Ignaros line, clutching a toy drum he'd taken from someone; Katherine hung back, fingers twisted in her mother's skirt as though the fabric tethered her to safety. A couple of older kids pushed for different roles; bravado flared. The way they split, small and ceremonial, looked precisely like the way adults would later split into committees and then parties and then violent alphabets of accusation.
He felt the first chill in his skull like a hand passing over a candle.
Thoughts unfurled around him in a raw, unfiltered chorus—simple for the kids, complex and layered for the older ones watching.
"…I'm the strongest.""…He cheated.""…Mine is better.""…She likes the torch more than me."
The noise of it threaded into his mind, and he knew, before it happened, that the argument would snap.
A boy tripped over his own shoelace. He fell on purpose, or maybe he fell for real; at that age the line between malice and accident was a wet smear. Another boy teased him, a shove, a pushed shoulder. The shove would have been nothing then—if no one had heard the words that followed.
"You always take the good parts!" a child shouted, and the sentence swelled with something animal and ugly that the children themselves could not entirely name.
Tyler heard the thoughts that made words unnecessary:
"…they think they own everything…""…I'll take it from them…""…I hate losing…"
Elijah moved before anyone else could. He stepped between the two boys, his little chest puffed out comically, stick lowered. The motion was so automatic he could have been older by decades.
"Stop," Elijah said, but not as a shout. It wasn't the loud, eager persuasion of a child seeking attention. It was the small, hard command of someone who expected to be obeyed—because he thought he should be, and because he had practiced saying that exact word to smaller arguments before.
Tyler read Elijah's thought like a pulse.
"…this is stupid. We're supposed to play. Why do they always turn things into fights? Why does it have to be a contest?"
Beneath that, something even starker:
"…if only someone would listen to me…"
It was the ember he knew, the dangerous little coal: leadership braided with loneliness and a hunger for order. He had seen its older shape before—long speeches, bigger crowds, thin exhaustion beneath a younger man's swagger. The ember was still warm and innocent and tragic all at once.
A small boy shoved again, harder. The argument leapt toward a scuffle, two little faces red, tears on the edge of their eyes. An adult might have stepped in; an adult had other things to do. The crowd of children condensed into a ring, excited by the danger.
Tyler felt the surge of everyone's thought press against his skull like wind. For a moment the noise was a roar—expectations, tiny jealousies, the taste of humiliation—and he felt, physically, the tug of his passive ability: to listen had become to be pulled.
He acted before he had the presence to reason.
His small fingers tightened on the fence. He focused on the child whose face was paling with fury—a kid named Arman who'd been bullied in the courtyard once before—and, with a childish, frightened steadiness, he pushed against whatever thin seam linked vision and mind.
A fragment of will, blunt and untrained, slid out of him like a pebble from a child's palm.
It landed.
Arman's face slackened. The fire in his eyes dimmed like a lamp blown between two hands. His shoulders eased; the shove halted mid-motion. He blinked, confused, then let go and started to cry not from pain but from a new, stupefied softness that broke whatever rage was building.
A hush fell. Conversation, which had been escalating into a cacophony, thinned like sudden fog.
Someone said aloud, "What the did he just stop?" and the sentence turned into thought, and then into whispered theories.
Tyler's blood fled his face. He hadn't meant to do that. He had wanted only to test only to see if that sliver of manipulation the priest had hinted at could be coaxed awake. He had never intended to touch another mind. He had never meant for a child's temper to be snuffed like a candle.
His chest hammered. He had felt the resistance, the way the pebble slipped—but then there was a recoil, a hot prick at the backs of his eyes, like salt in a wound. The silver specks in his pupils flared; his vision pinpricked with a sharp, blinding whiteness. Tears sprang up unbidden. The world blurred.
"Tyler?" Melissa's voice hovered—half question, half a mother's worry. She had been on the edge of the courtyard, hands on her hips.
"Hey, are you okay?" Steven asked. His thought threaded into Tyler's head: Did he see what just happened? His face was a mixture of pride and confusion pride because his nephew's presence had calmed a fight, confusion because no one explained calm like that.
Arman's mother scooped him up, her relief turning to suspicion.
"It's nothing," Grandma said aloud, but her thought landed in Tyler's mind the second before the words: He's always been a sensitive child. Her voice tried to smooth the small emergency as she shuffled forward.
Tyler pulled his hands away from the fence. His palms were slick with sweat. The sound of the courtyard resumed gradually like a tape finding its groove.
"He did something," Elijah whispered, awe and a hint of fear braided together. "Did you see that?"
Tyler had no voice to answer. He had no adult vocabulary to say, I didn't mean to, it just happened. Instead what came to him was a flash images of chains and a cat's paw slipped into a latch, a priest's voice and a bargain that sudden, obscene cathedral memory. He swallowed it down.
The children's game resumed, but the tenor had changed. No one spoke about the stop; no one wanted to ask questions. The park's sunlight seemed thinner somehow, as if someone had pulled a veil across it.
That night, Tyler lay in bed with the ceiling fan slicing circles above him, while the house breathed around him. The sound of Richard counting receipts in his head, of Steven planning tomorrow's shift, of Silas promising himself that he'd take on extra hours if needed all of it was a gentle, luminous throb now. He could feel it; he could name it because his brain, older and sharper than his body, forced labels on raw sensation.
He had touched someone's will without permission. His first intentional and unintentional use of manipulation had worked, and that reality unsettled him more than victory might have.
He thought of the priest's words in that candlelit chamber, of the purple-black chains, of the line about being immortal until he reached his goal. He had made bargains he barely remembered, traded pieces of himself for a set of tools; now the cost felt complicated and immediate.
He thought of Elijah, small and fierce, stepping between boys and organizing games that mimicked grown-up fights. He thought of Richard painting the sign for his shop with hands that smelled of paint and hope. He thought of Steven tucking a small train into a bag of cloth like it wouldn't break his heart to buy simple happiness. He thought of his mother's laugh and his father's quiet, steady presence.
The manipulation had been small. The effect was small. No flags unfurled in the sky; no alarms rang. But the scale of it—touching another's mind—resonated like a bell in a calm valley.
He resolved then, with a clarity that surprised him, that he would not be reckless. He would not be the kind of man who used a power because he could. He would be surgical, patient. He would learn the margins and the costs. He would not let a passing test become a habit that swallowed something essential.
He tried, in the dimness, to practice the coping methods he had begun to rely on—half-closing his eyes, fixing his gaze on a brown square of carpet instead of a face, breathing slowly. He repeated mantras in his head like a prayer that might be real: Listen only. Do not push. Close and breathe.
Outside, two houses away, someone cursed softly in the night because a pipe leaked. In another room a child made a small sound and was soothed. The world kept whispering.
He felt both huge and infinitesimally small.
Huge because a pebble from him had altered a temper. Infinitesimal because the pebble's effects were limited and clumsy and costly.
If he could learn to aim, he could stop things that mattered—a scuffle, a panic, a lie. If he failed to learn, he could become part of the rot, the very corruption that swallowed Elijah in the other life.
The stakes that had once seemed cosmic restructuring nations, unmasking corruption—folded into a simple, terrifying morning decision: whether to nudge a temper now, whether to let a child learn how cruelty felt so that he might grow stubborn and hard.
He breathed. He let the fan's rhythm set him. He allowed the house's tiny noises the clink of a cup, the soft muffled laugh from the kitchen to stitch him back into patience.
Tomorrow he would watch children play again. He would watch their tiny rules and their mimicry and the way adults mirrored them. He would practice keeping his eyes down more. He would weigh what it meant to be the kind of person who carried invisible power: guardian or tyrant.
He had been given a second dawn. He had made a small mistake in its light.
He would learn before he harmed. He had to.