Silence.
That was the first thing I noticed—not light, not pain, just the thick, unmoving silence of a room forgotten by the world.
I wasn't cold. I wasn't hurting. But something felt… off.
My eyes opened to shadowed stone above me. Dust clung to the air like it hadn't moved in years. I lay on something hard—stone, not a bed. No sound. No voices. No heartbeat echoing in my ears.
I breathed.
I waited.
Then I realized—I shouldn't be awake.
---
I pushed myself up, slowly. My arms trembled. Not from weakness… more like disuse. Like I hadn't moved in a long time.
But I wasn't injured.
There was no blood on me. No wounds. No pain. Just a dull weight in my head, like someone had pressed two lives into one skull and told me to figure it out.
I looked down at my clothes. Black fabric, noble trim, a crest I didn't recognize. Gold lines etched in faded patterns across the sleeves. Formal. Stiff.
Noble-born?
The name came before I could question it.
Cael Valeon.
It felt right… and wrong at the same time. Like trying on a jacket that fit perfectly—but wasn't yours.
Then the voice came.
"Core loading… Unknown host signature. Rebooting manual protocol…"
It wasn't from outside. It rang inside my mind. Flat. Robotic. Cold.
Before I could move, a screen shimmered in front of me, floating in the air like an illusion.
---
> [ SYSTEM INITIALIZING… ]
User Detected: Cael Valeon (?)
Script Conflict Detected
Talent: UNRECOGNIZED
Affinity: Mind ( logic) (telekinesis)
Status: Classification: Suppressed
Override Mode: Dormant
"Do you remember?"
---
Then it vanished.
Do I remember what?
I closed my eyes—and a thousand fragments hit me at once.
Blueprints. Steel. Circuits. Equations.
Engines. Calculations. A world of logic and electricity.
And none of it belonged here.
I was an engineer.
On Earth.
But I wasn't there anymore.
---
The stone beneath me groaned. Footsteps echoed from above—slow, steady, approaching.
Voices.
"Still asleep?" a woman asked, her tone dry. "He doesn't move unless the stars change."
"The Baron says he mumbles sometimes," a man replied. "Talks in his sleep. Wild things—like machines and sparks."
"No Affinity. No flame. Just silence and shame. What a waste."
---
I didn't move. I barely breathed.
They were talking about me.
Who was Cael Valeon really? Why did my heart feel split between two worlds? Why was there a system inside me that felt like it belonged to another universe entirely?
Then another voice slipped through the silence—not theirs.
This one came from inside me again. But not mechanical.
Older.
"They don't know what you are."
"But you will."
---
I should've been afraid. I wasn't.
Because deep down, something told me this was only the beginning.
And I wasn't the one waking up.
The world was.i