Rain pounded the taxi's windows, turning the world outside into a blurry swirl of headlights and neon signs bleeding through the storm. Ethan Carter hunched over his battered laptop, its faint blue glow casting shadows across his haggard face. His fingers hammered the keys, each stroke fueled by desperation. The document open before him was Eidolon: The Sovereign's Path, his fantasy novel, his one shot at proving he wasn't a failure. Months of sleepless nights, empty coffee cups, and gnawing doubt had led to this moment, and it still wasn't enough.
This was supposed to be his masterpiece. A sprawling epic where Lucien Ashford, a nobody with raw talent, rises to dominate the Arcanium, the world's greatest magical academy, and claims his destiny as Eidolon's Sovereign. The ultimate underdog story, the kind readers would devour. But no matter how many times Ethan rewrote the scenes, the words felt hollow. The story wasn't clicking, and the deadline was suffocating him.
"Damn it," Ethan muttered, deleting another clunky paragraph. His eyes burned, his body screaming for rest. Sleep was a distant memory, replaced by caffeine and stubborn spite. He couldn't stop. Not now. Not when everything was riding on this.
His phone buzzed on the seat beside him, the screen flashing with a text from his editor. "Ethan, where are you? Deadline's TODAY. One hour. Don't blow this."
His stomach twisted. "I know, I know," he grumbled, swiping the message away. The taxi was trapped in a sea of brake lights, the rain making traffic a nightmare. He couldn't just sit here, useless, while his chance slipped away.
"Hey, can you go faster?" Ethan snapped, leaning toward the driver.
The man snorted, not even glancing back. "What, you want me to ram through? We're stuck, buddy."
Ethan clenched his jaw, swallowing a curse. His fingers twitched toward his laptop, the cursor blinking like it was mocking him. He was stuck on the final battle, the moment Lucien Ashford crushes Darius Wycliffe, the arrogant noble who exists only to make the hero look good. It was a pivotal scene, meant to show Lucien's brilliance, but it felt flat. Forced. Ethan had rewritten it a dozen times, and it still wasn't right. Like trying to fix a broken engine with duct tape.
"Screw it," he growled, slamming the laptop shut. He had to get to the office. If he could just make it there, he could shove this mess of a manuscript in his editor's face and beg for a chance.
"Forget this. I'm walking."
The driver raised an eyebrow. "In this storm? Good luck, man."
Ethan didn't care. He tossed a wad of crumpled bills onto the front seat, slung his laptop bag over his shoulder, and pushed the door open. Rain hit him like a fist, soaking his clothes and hair in seconds. He didn't flinch. He ran, dodging pedestrians on the crowded sidewalk, his heart pounding with every step.
His phone buzzed again. Another text. "Thirty minutes, Ethan. That's it."
He glanced at the glowing sign of Seventh Star Publishing, its glass tower looming through the rain. So close. He could already see himself storming in, slapping his manuscript on the desk, and pleading for them to see the potential he'd poured his soul into. This time, he'd make them believe in him.
Another buzz. "Five minutes, Ethan. Miss this, and you're done."
"Five minutes?" he gasped, his legs burning from the sprint. The clock was against him, every second slipping away.
Panic took over. Ethan bolted across the street, feet splashing through puddles, horns blaring as he ignored the crosswalk. He didn't look. He didn't think.
Then he heard it. The roar of an engine. The screech of tires on wet pavement. A horn's frantic wail.
He turned his head, eyes wide. A truck barreled toward him, headlights cutting through the rain like a predator's gaze.
There was no time to move. No time to scream. Just a heartbeat of raw terror.
Pain exploded through him. Then darkness swallowed everything.
Ethan's eyes fluttered open.
His head throbbed like someone had driven a spike through it. His body felt wrong, too light, too fragile. He tried to groan, but the sound wasn't his. It was soft, smooth, like it belonged to someone else.
Was this a hospital? It had to be. Getting hit by a truck should've killed him, but if he was awake, maybe he'd survived. Maybe he could still make the deadline—
"Oh no, the deadline!" he gasped, the unfamiliar voice jarring him. Panic surged as he struggled to sit up, his limbs weak and unsteady, like they belonged to a stranger.
That's when it hit him. Something was deeply wrong. His arms were thin, pale, not his own. His hands looked delicate, almost frail, like they'd never seen a day of hard work.
He blinked, forcing his vision to clear. No sterile hospital room. No beeping monitors. Instead, stone walls surrounded him, etched with faint carvings. A narrow window let in pale morning light, and a wooden desk sat cluttered with parchment and ink. The bed beneath him was simple, draped in dark blue fabric. The air smelled of old books and faint herbs, like something out of a fantasy novel.
"What the hell?" Ethan whispered, his heart racing. This wasn't a hospital. This was a dorm, straight out of a medieval story. His clothes were wrong too: a stiff, navy-blue robe with silver trim, embroidered with a golden crest of a winged lion circled by strange symbols.
"Am I in some kind of cosplay fever dream?" he muttered, his voice still foreign, too polished for his liking.
He swung his legs off the bed, wincing as the cold floor bit at his bare feet. His body felt like it was made of glass, ready to snap under the slightest pressure. Had he always been this weak?
The room felt too real. The rough stone under his fingers, the creak of the floorboards, the faint draft from the window. Dreams didn't have this kind of detail. This kind of weight.
His gaze caught on a small mirror on the wall. He stumbled toward it, dread pooling in his gut. The face staring back wasn't his. Sharp cheekbones, pale skin, dark hair, and cold blue eyes that burned with an intensity he didn't recognize. A teenager, maybe sixteen, with the kind of haughty look that screamed privilege.
Ethan staggered back, his shoulder hitting the wall. The pain was sharp, grounding. "This is insane," he breathed, his chest tight with panic. "Am I in a game? A VR sim? Did that truck knock me into some sci-fi experiment?"
He slapped his cheek, hard. The sting was real, and the room didn't fade. He was still here, still in this stranger's body.
"Calm down," he told himself, forcing slow breaths. His eyes darted to the desk, where parchment lay scattered. He grabbed one, scanning the elegant handwriting.
"The Arcanium. First-Year Spellcraft Examination."
"Darius Wycliffe."
The names hit him like a punch. The Arcanium. Darius Wycliffe. Pieces of a puzzle he didn't want to solve.
"No," he said, shaking his head. "No way. This isn't happening."
But it was. The truth clawed its way into his mind, undeniable. He wasn't Ethan Carter, the washed-up author of Eidolon: The Sovereign's Path. He was Darius Wycliffe, the smug, talentless noble he'd written as a punching bag for his hero, Lucien Ashford. The guy meant to be humiliated, crushed, and forgotten to make Lucien shine.
"Oh God," Ethan whispered, his legs buckling. He sank to the floor, fingers digging into the cold stone as his breath came in ragged gasps. He was trapped in his own story. Not as the hero. Not even as a sidekick. But as the villain. The loser. The guy doomed to die.
And if his memory was right, that death was coming sooner than he'd like.