Author: Blood_drive27
Chapter 1 — The Room That Exploded
The last thing he noticed was the hum.
A low, familiar sound—the computer fan working harder than it should, the kind of background noise that fades into nothing after years of late nights. The screen glowed in the dim room, lines of light reflected faintly in his eyes as his fingers hovered over the keyboard.
Another game.
Another night.
The clock in the corner of the monitor read 2:41 a.m.
He leaned back in his chair, stretching his shoulders. Twenty-one years old. College postponed. Life paused somewhere between responsibility and avoidance. Not unhappy—just suspended, like a loading screen that never quite finished.
The room smelled faintly of instant noodles and dust.
Then the hum changed.
It wasn't loud at first. Just… wrong.
A sharp crack snapped through the air, followed by a flicker of light. The monitor blinked. The ceiling bulb dimmed, then flared unnaturally bright. His fingers froze mid-motion.
"Short circuit…?" he muttered.
He didn't have time to stand.
The gas line—old, poorly maintained, something the landlord had promised to "fix next month"—gave way at the exact wrong moment.
The explosion was not dramatic.
There was no slow motion.
No final monologue.
No last regret-filled thought.
Just heat.
Pressure.
And a sound so loud it erased everything else.
Darkness followed.
Not the comforting kind that comes with sleep—but a hollow, endless absence, where even the concept of time felt stripped away.
He should have been afraid.
Instead, there was only a strange neutrality, as if fear itself had burned away with the rest of him.
Then—
Pain.
Sharp, immediate, overwhelming.
His lungs convulsed as air forced its way in, burning like fire. His heart slammed against his ribs, beating far too fast, far too loud. Sensation rushed back all at once—weight, texture, temperature—too much, too suddenly.
He gasped.
His eyes flew open.
A ceiling—not his ceiling.
Smooth stone beams crossed overhead, etched with faint geometric lines that glimmered softly in pale light. The air smelled clean. Too clean. No smoke. No burnt plastic. No gas.
He choked, sucking in breath after breath, hands clawing at the fabric beneath him.
Fabric?
His body felt… smaller.
Lighter.
His arms—when he raised them—were slimmer than he remembered. The skin was unscarred, unburned, unblemished. He flexed his fingers, watching them move with a mix of disbelief and rising panic.
"This—this isn't—"
His voice cracked.
Younger.
Definitely younger.
He sat up abruptly, dizziness washing over him in a heavy wave. Memories—not his—spilled into his mind without warning.
A classroom filled with unfamiliar faces.
A quiet seat near the window.
Books stacked neatly, untouched.
A persistent ache in the chest.
Long nights of fever and weakness.
A name whispered by a woman's worried voice.
Aerin.
The pain intensified, then slowly receded, like a tide pulling back.
He pressed a hand against his chest, breathing hard.
"I'm… alive?"
The word felt wrong.
The memories settled—not fading, not overwhelming anymore, but integrating. He understood them instinctively, the way one understands how to walk without remembering when they learned.
This body's owner had been seventeen.
A student.
Unremarkable.
Quiet.
And sick.
Very sick.
The disease—whatever it had been—was gone. He could feel it, as surely as he could feel the steady strength in his limbs, the clarity in his thoughts.
Someone else's life had ended.
And his had begun again.
He swung his legs off the bed, bare feet touching a cool stone floor. The room was modest—neither poor nor luxurious. A desk. A shelf of books written in a script he somehow understood without effort. A small wardrobe. A window looking out over tiled rooftops and distant spires under a pale morning sky.
Morning.
He walked to the window slowly, as if afraid the world might shatter if he moved too fast.
Outside, the city breathed.
Wide streets paved with stone. People dressed in styles unfamiliar yet strangely logical—long coats, layered fabrics, subtle metallic accents. In the distance, a tower rose above the others, its upper half inscribed with glowing symbols that pulsed gently, like a heartbeat.
Magic.
The word surfaced naturally in his mind, carrying meaning, rules, and danger.
This wasn't Earth.
This was—
"Vallorae," he whispered.
The name felt old. Heavy. Like it carried centuries of unspoken history.
He leaned his forehead against the cool glass.
No system window appeared.
No divine voice spoke.
No sudden surge of power flooded his body.
There was only silence.
And the quiet understanding that whatever awaited him in this world—academies, awakenings, ruins, monsters—none of it would care that he had died once already.
He exhaled slowly.
"If I'm here," he said to the empty room, voice steadying, "then I'll live properly this time."
Outside, the city moved on, unaware.
And somewhere far beyond its walls, something ancient shifted—just slightly—as if responding to a presence it hadn't felt in a very long time.
But for now, Aerin Solvane was just a boy who had woken up too early.
And the echoes of his awakening had yet to begin.