Seconds bled into minutes, minutes into hours, hours into days. Days became weeks, weeks grew into months, and months stretched into years.
Time passed.
Sometimes slow, sometimes swift. Ethan—no, Eldric, as he had begun calling himself, since he so often forgot to respond to his new name—was now five years old.
Those years had been nothing short of eventful. To begin with, he was now decently fluent in Vernaculan, the tongue of this world. Oddly enough, after his encounter with Rayne the Brilliant, he had lost the sudden, uncanny fluency he once displayed.
But it was meeting the radiant Seraph that truly marked a turning point in his life. When she vanished into thin air, his mother held him close and unmoving, whispering what seemed to be prayers—or something of the sort.
In the days that followed, Eth—Eldric experienced more than a few… accidents. He would slip through his cradle, sometimes even through the second floor itself. Yet, without fail, his descent would always slow just before he struck the ground, as if gravity itself softened to cradle him.
The drunkards below were far too inebriated to question the phenomenon. They only found it amusing when the baby appeared among them out of nowhere.
There was even one time, where he fell into the very ground below the first floor, it was pure terror. He had been asleep, then awoke to suffocating darkness, deeper than night, without even a flicker of light.
He thrashed his tiny limbs in panic, but to no avail. The air was gone. He couldn't breathe.
After moments of frantic, useless struggling, he forced himself to calm down.
'Okay… Easy now. You can do this. Just… become un... Impermeable.'
This was the first time he had tried to consciously use his strange ability. Before, it had only ever flared by accident—often when he was asleep. And every time it did, he felt a drop in his blood pressure, lightheadedness, and then unconsciousness.
Eldric didn't exactly know how to use his ability, but he could feel it. Not unlike how one is aware of their ears, even though they can't move them.
He reached for that feeling, but came up short. Again, and again, he strained. Desperation gnawed at him as the void pressed in. He could feel it, undeniably—yet it refused to answer.
'For fuck's sake! Listen to me, damn it!'
Eldric's heart pounded, blood rushing. Then it struck him. 'Blood? Heart?'
Ever since the encounter with that grotesque bird, he had grown more aware of his body—particularly his circulation. It was as though something moved with his blood, his heart the source of it. He could almost will his pulse to quicken… or to slow.
So, in that suffocating darkness, he reached for it—whatever it was.
His infant face twisted in fierce concentration. Then, at last—there it was. A strange pulse, a current flowing inside him.
He seized it.
And in the next moment, Eldric was lying flat on the floor of Miss Hargette's inn, surrounded by the rowdy din of drunkards.
Relief washed through him. Then the familiar crash hit him, his blood pressure plummeted, the world tilting—before memory of the rest of that day slipped away into nothing.
---
After his strange "Awakening", Eldric had no further trouble holding on to his memories. If anything, they had become sharper, more precise.
Unfortunately, this meant he no longer had to fight to stay lucid. And for an infant, there was very, very little to do.
He tried to occupy himself—grasping the language, studying the strange writings scrawled on animal hides or etched into splintered planks that served as menus in Hargette's inn. But most of the time, all he could do was think.
Think about himself. Think about his wife. About the child he would never meet.
The truth weighed on him, he was far from home, if that home even existed at all. Sometimes he wondered if his past life had been the dream, and this reality the only truth.
Either way, there was nothing he could do—not as a toddler. If there was some way back to his family, he would only uncover it once he was older. For now, there was only one thing left to do.
Eldric's lips parted, his tiny voice breaking the silence.
"Live…"
The moonlight slipped through the wooden planks, washing the room in pale blue. Eldric forced his grief down, for now. There was still hope—dangerous, fragile hope. But it was all he had.
'Later..' he told himself. 'I'll think about it later.'
He closed his eyes, not to sleep, but to explore the changes within his body. True, there was not much to do as a normal infant, yet Eldric was anything but.
He was a twenty-five-year-old man trapped in a seven-month-old's body—and a Sigiled infant at that!
…Whatever that meant.
Since the day he fell through the earth, he had not been able to touch that power again. He still felt it coursing in him, strange and unresponsive, like a caged beast pacing beneath his skin.
So he reached for it—fruitlessly. It was a bizarre thing, to try and seize a power you didn't understand.
The room was hushed, disturbed only by his sister's soft, melodic breathing. The serenity was almost meditative, so much so that he nearly drifted to sleep. With a frown, he smacked the bedding with his fist.
"This isn't working!"
He startled at the sound of his own voice—thin, high-pitched, alien. He didn't speak often, and hearing his words emerge from such small vocal cords was unnerving.
'Focus!'
He replayed the moment he had successfully wielded his ability. What had been different then?
'I was trying to escape death... Is that it?'
The idea soured quickly. That Seraph—Rayne, or whatever her name was—had summoned blazing beams of light without danger pressing on her throat. She seemed to be completely relaxed, even while facing that morbid chicken...
Eldric shuddered. 'What a monster.'
He leaned against the railing of his cradle, deep in thought. Piece by piece, he put it together—until his eyes widened.
'Purpose! That's it!'
You don't just move your arms for no reason—there must be direction, intent, force. In hindsight, it was obvious.
But what purpose did he have right now? He certainly didn't want to fall through the floor again, cushioned descent or not.
Then it struck him. His heart. He could already will it to quicken or slow—a crude form of manipulating the essence flowing in him. What if he went further? What if he tried to command his blood itself?
A smirk tugged at his lips. 'Not a bad idea.'
He straightened his back, pressing his tiny palms to his thighs. The posture would have looked ridiculous on a seven-month-old—thankfully, his sister slept soundly, none the wiser.
He sank inward, feeling the rushing current of blood through his body. Rivers of crimson coursing through muscle, skin, bone, brain. Beneath it, hidden within the torrent, something other moved.
And he commanded it. "Surge."
In truth, it sounded quite cheesy.
At first, nothing. Then, just as his cheeks started turning red from embarrassment, it obeyed. His blood answered him, rushing at his command, as if a forgotten limb had suddenly returned to his control. Similar to how one can voluntarily obtain control of their blinking, or breathing.
He was Overwhelmed, Eldric felt everything. Muscles contracting, organs laboring, his stomach breaking down milk, his kidneys filtering, his lungs harvesting air. His body unfolded before him in intricate, unrelenting detail.
And he felt physically stronger. His muscles taut, his bones dense, his mind sharper.
He had an idea.
Clutching the railing, he let himself down onto his hands. Crawling was all his infant body had ever allowed—but now, maybe…
One foot stretched outward. He pivoted, then followed with the other. Slowly, carefully, he balanced, raising himself upright.
And then, impossibly—he stood. His posture was bit strange, but there he was, on two feet.
A maniacle grin spread across his face as he looked down at his slumbering sister.
"Looks like I—"
But the words died in his throat as his bloodstream faltered, the energy receding.
'Oh shit.'
The last thing he felt was his body collapsing before everything went black.
---
The sun blazed mercilessly over Sickle, beating down on the weary streets. The dry summer air did little to ease the misery of its inhabitants, and the heat clung to skin like a curse.
The shouts of hawkers and the rumble of carriages drowned out whatever sounds of nature might have lingered. Today, the city was especially busy.
In a dusty corner of the slums, a horse—its proud, horned counterpart, to be specific—had chosen this moment to relieve itself.
As the dung hit the ground, a cluster of children no older than five or six crowded far too close to the beast. Even the stallion seemed uneasy with their stares.
Among them was a pale girl, her pastel-brown hair darkened to the color of oak from the mud she had been rolling in only minutes before.
"It poops just like us… Isn't that weird?" said the boy standing nearest the horse.
The girl beside him scoffed. "Of course not, you idiot! Even the Aghorath poop!"
Elaine couldn't fathom why anyone would want to watch a Vizard defecate—or anything, for that matter. She sighed.
"I wish Elly were here…"
The words slipped out before she realized it. Her eyes went wide, and at once, the other children turned toward her with sour looks.
The same girl who had spoken earlier sneered. "That stupid bookworm can get eaten by an Aghorath for all I care!"
Elaine's pout deepened. "You're only saying that because he didn't want to marry you!"
The insult hit home. The girl's face twisted with fury, especially as the others began mocking Eldric too, piling on jeers and taunts.
After what felt like an endless argument, Elaine finally had enough. She spun on her heel and stomped away.
"I'm going to find Elly!" she declared.
She slowed, frowning. "…I don't know where he is. So I'll find Dravey first!"
She truly did love her twin brother—though she wished he weren't so strange.