It was a stormy night. Rain crashed through the jungle as a man in tattered clothes ran for his life, branches tearing at his skin and mud swallowing his steps. Thunder roared above, masking the sound of his ragged breathing.
Behind him came the mob.
Dozens of voices screamed in hatred, torches flickering like angry eyes in the darkness. They chased him with madness in their hearts, driven by pure disgust for his existence.
"Kill him!" Filth of life!" "Creator of abomination!"
The man stumbled, barely catching himself before falling. His heart pounded so violently it felt like it would burst.
"Why me?" he screamed into the rain. "Why me!?"
Not long ago, Lorence was an ordinary middle aged man. He had only stepped out to get a drink when pain crushed his chest and his world went black.
He should have died.
Instead, he woke up in another world.
Now he was called Simon, trapped in the body of someone universally hated. A chimera creator. A being said to defy death itself and trample upon the natural order of life. In this world, that title was enough to earn a death sentence.
Simon had done nothing wrong, yet the sins of the body he inherited clung to him like a curse.
Lightning split the sky as he burst through the trees and skidded to a halt. The ground vanished beneath his feet, replaced by a roaring abyss of white water. A waterfall plunged into darkness far below.
A shout rang out behind him.
The sharp whistle of an arrow tore through the rain.
With no time to think, Simon threw himself forward. The arrow grazed past where his head had been a heartbeat before as he vanished over the edge.
Cold swallowed him whole as he fell into the raging waters below.
If he survived, it would be as a chimera creator.