John's boots pounded the wet asphalt as he sprinted across the street. The shriek of tires on slick pavement cut through the night. A pair of headlights bore down on the woman in the crosswalk – she was frozen, eyes wide, caught in the oncoming truck's blinding glare.
With a burst of speed born of instinct, John threw himself forward. Years of Special Forces training honed his reflexes to a razor's edge. Move! The silent command roared through his mind. He tackled the woman around the waist, wrenching her out of the truck's deadly path.
A scream – hers or the truck driver's – rang in John's ears as he heaved the woman onto the sidewalk. In that split second, the world slowed. He felt the heat of the truck's headlights on his back. The growl of the engine was a thunder in his skull.
Then impact.
Metal met flesh and bone with a sickening force. Pain exploded through John's body. The truck slammed into him and he was dimly aware of being lifted, tossed like a rag doll. His shoulder cracked against the windshield before he was flung aside. The world spun end over end – a whirl of streetlights and rain – then came a crushing weight and darkness.
For a moment, he was aware of nothing at all. No pain, no sound. Only void. The agony that had exploded through him a moment ago was simply… gone.
Am I dead? The thought flickered like a dying ember. John tried to breathe but found no air. His consciousness drifted, untethered in an endless night. He had saved the woman – he remembered the terror in her face and then the relief as she flew clear of danger. That single success was a small light in the darkness closing in.
Memories fluttered at the edges of his mind: the dusty training fields at dawn, his comrades' laughter, the flag draped on a coffin, the reasons he had lived and fought. All of it seemed distant now, as if belonging to someone else.
A faint sound pierced the void – a low hum, rising in pitch and power. It resonated through the emptiness surrounding him. John's awareness stirred. The hum became a rushing noise, like wind through a tunnel. Light, faint at first, glimmered ahead. What's happening?
The glimmer grew to a radiant glow, enveloping him. It wasn't the harsh white of headlights or hospital fluorescents – it was a warm, golden luminance, like sunrise after the longest night. It beckoned.
John felt a pull, as though some unseen current had seized his drifting soul. The light drew closer, or he was moving toward it – he could not tell which. All the while, the hum deepened into a chorus of whispers at the edge of hearing. Words in no language he knew, yet strangely melodic. Is this a dream? he wondered, or perhaps the afterlife coming to claim him.
Suddenly, sensation flooded back. Not pain – something else. A tingling warmth coursed through his limbs, his chest, his face. He realized with a shock that he could feel his body again – or a body. But it felt… different. Heavy silken fabric brushed against his skin, far from the shredded clothes and broken bones he last remembered. A rich scent filled his nostrils – a mix of exotic spices, incense, and fragrant oils, utterly unlike the blood and gasoline he expected from a crash site.
John's eyes snapped open, expecting to see shattered glass and city lights. Instead, he found himself staring at a canopy of embroidered silk overhead, illuminated by a gentle golden glow. His heart thundered in his ears as confusion and awe washed over him.
The city street was gone. The truck, the rain, the night – all vanished. In their place loomed impossibly tall walls of polished marble veined with gold, draped in shimmering tapestries. The golden glow came from crystal orbs mounted on the walls – glowing stones that shone like captured starlight. They cast dancing patterns on pillars carved with strange symbols that glinted as if alive with inner fire.
John inhaled sharply. Every muscle tensed, his instincts reeling from the sudden change. He was lying on a vast bed piled high with embroidered cushions. The sheets beneath him were softer than anything he'd felt, and the bed itself could have held a dozen men.
He sat up slowly, each movement careful and controlled despite the adrenaline spiking through him. His soldier's mind screamed this was wrong, dangerous, unknown. But years of discipline kept him outwardly calm. He scanned the room, taking in details with trained precision – searching for threats, exits, anything familiar.
Rich furnishings filled the chamber: carved wooden screens inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a low table bearing fruit and a silver carafe, tall glass doors partially hidden by gauzy curtains gently billowing. Beyond them a hint of predawn sky glowed. He caught a waft of cool air carrying the scent of jasmine from outside.
It was a scene from a dream or a movie set – not any reality he knew. John's pulse pounded. Was he hallucinating in his final moments? Did the impact scramble his brain? Or had he truly… moved somewhere else?
He looked down at himself. The body beneath the silk coverlet felt strong and whole. Gingerly, he lifted his hands before his face. In the dim crystal-light he saw unfamiliar hands – broader, darker, with calloused palms and old scars crossing the knuckles. These were a warrior's hands, but not the hands he knew.
His breath caught. The hands trembled ever so slightly as he turned them, flexing fingers. He raised one to his face and felt a short, neatly trimmed beard on a squared jaw that was not his own.
John swung his legs over the side of the bed and planted his feet on cool marble. The body moved fluidly, powerfully, without the stabbing agony he expected from being hit by a truck. It responded to his will, but its motions and balance were subtly foreign. He felt heavier, taller.
A mirror – there, on the far wall above an ornate dresser. He pushed himself upright. The sudden motion made his head swim; he steadied himself on a bedpost carved with intricate runes glowing softly gold. The tingling warmth in his limbs hadn't faded, as if some residual energy yet coursed through him.
Step by step, John approached the mirror, heart in throat. A man came into view in the polished bronze surface. John stared. The face that looked back was stern, striking – perhaps in his late twenties or early thirties. Skin sun-bronzed, high cheekbones, eyes a piercing shade of green-gold that practically glowed in the reflection's low light. His hair was thick, black, and brushed back from a proud brow, a few locks falling artfully to frame his face. He wore an open, embroidered robe of deep crimson over a bare chest crisscrossed with faded battle scars. Around his neck hung a heavy pendant etched with symbols like those on the bedpost runes.
John raised a hand; the stranger in the mirror did the same. The breath he hadn't realized he was holding rushed out. That's me… or rather, this is the body I'm in. The face was vaguely familiar in a way John couldn't place – like a name on the tip of his tongue. But he knew he had never seen this man before.
His mind raced for answers. He remembered the accident – saving the woman, the truck, the darkness… and then waking here. Wherever here was, it was far from home.
A surge of emotion welled in his chest – confusion, fear, a curious wonder. John closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, calling on every ounce of discipline to steady himself. Panicking would accomplish nothing. He'd survived ambushes and night raids by keeping his wits; he would survive this, too, whatever "this" was.
Observe. Assess. Plan. The mantra of his training surfaced automatically. He would treat this like any other dangerous, unknown operation: gather intelligence first. He needed information – about this place, about whose body he inhabited – and he needed to avoid tipping off anyone that something was amiss until he had the facts.
John glanced once more at the imposing yet unfamiliar figure in the mirror and squared his (new) shoulders. The man in the reflection wore the expression John often saw in himself before a mission – determined, alert, unreadable. That was good. He could work with that.
Unbidden, a troubling thought arose: what of the real Arslan, the man whose body this was? Had his soul been cast out at the very moment John arrived? The idea was unsettling, but John forced it aside; he had no answers, only the present reality to deal with.
Behind him, through the haze of gauzy curtains, the first light of dawn began to filter in, heralding a new day in this impossible new world.