Chapter 1 - Reborn
Ugh..?
Light stabbed through my eyelids like a sudden, divine punishment. I blinked once, then twice, finding my eyelids heavy.
I tried to lift a hand to shield my face from the glare, but the object that entered my blurry field of vision was completely horrified. It was tiny, pale, chubby, and flailing helplessly above me like a flapping dumpling. My mouth hung open in absolute disbelief.
What in the world was this?
Then, the sensory realization hit me all at once. I felt a biting cold, a distinct wetness, and the heavy aroma of aged wood, raw iron, and something metallic, perhaps blood or sweat. My ears picked up muffled, strange voices speaking a series of soft, flowing syllables that were completely unfamiliar. It wasn't English, it wasn't Japanese, and it wasn't any language I recognized from Earth. They spoke the words rapidly yet gently, almost melodically but completely incomprehensibly to my ears.
Someone was actively holding me, cradling my body in a comforting warmth.
Why am I so incredibly small?
Then, my brain served up the cruelest, most absurd realization of my existence: Wait...I am a newborn baby.
I wanted to scream at the universe, to demand an explanation, to shout Are you kidding me?! at the top of my lungs. Instead, all my physical form could produce was a desperate, high-pitched wail: "UWAAAAHHHHHHHHH!"
The memories rushed back in a violent, icy torrent, completely uninvited. I remembered it all with terrifying clarity. The commercial flight to Australia, the shouting men in ski masks, the terrifying cold of a gun barrel pressed against my neck, and then my own reckless, desperate decision to do something right at last. I remembered the deafening cracks of gunfire, the explosive, burning heat tearing through my chest, and the absolute chaos of screaming passengers as my face hit the floor.
"UWAHHH!"
Another involuntary shriek burst from my tiny throat, fueled by the phantom pain of a shattered chest.
I died..!
The realization hit me like a physical blow, grounding my frantic crying into a temporary, suffocating halt. The unholy shrieks dissolved into ragged, hollow sobs that echoed pathetically inside the small, unfamiliar room.
My fragile new heart hammered against my ribs as my old mind conjured up my father's voice. I could still hear the faint, crackling audio of his last phone call, the words he spoke right before I finally bought my plane ticket: I miss you, Paul, and I am so, so sorry for leaving you behind.
He had sounded so old, so profoundly tired. After twenty-two years of wasting away as a ghost in a dark bedroom, I had finally gathered the courage to take a single step toward reconciliation, only to get shot down in mid-air.
I am so sorry, Dad, I wept internally, the grief burning hotter than the bullet wounds. I just wanted to see your face. I just wanted to see you one last time.
An overwhelming wave of frustration surged through me. I desperately wanted to grit my teeth to anchor myself against the emotional onslaught, but as I mashed my jaws together, there was nothing but soft flesh. My naked gums pressed against each other helplessly. I did not even possess a single tooth to grind. It was a terrifying, deeply humiliating reminder of my complete lack of physical agency.
Then came the thoughts of my mother, threatening to drown me in pure shame.
I envisioned her kind, supportive face, her beautiful brown hair, which had now white hair because of age, and the endless, quiet loyalty she had offered me through a closed bedroom door for over two decades. She had sustained my pathetic existence, paid my bills, and protected my isolation, only for her efforts to be rewarded with a tragedy. Someone would call her to report that terrorists had slaughtered her only surviving child on a hijacked plane.
The sheer weight of the guilt was intense. Although I received a clean slate, I abandoned her to carry the shattered pieces of my pathetic, meaningless end. Trapped in this pristine, newborn vessel, I still felt the agonizing shame of the pain and burden I had piled onto her shoulders, and it followed me into this new life, refusing to let me go.
"He-ugh... sniff.."
My vision swam as a fresh wave of helpless hiccups shook my fragile infant frame, the sheer weight of my grief proving entirely too immense for these primitive, unmapped nerves to handle. I was actively choking on my panic, spiraling deep into a dark void of my own regrets. I felt completely blind to the surrounding room, utterly isolated and trapped inside the heavy prison of my old memories.
Then, a voice broke through my internal trance. It was soft, husky, and almost songlike. The tone felt intimately maternal, even if the actual content was utterly foreign to me.
"Yul-tha... en velni, Kyro," the woman whispered.
I couldn't comprehend a single syllable, but the tender, prayer-like delivery slowed my tears. I tried to tilt my head toward the source of the sound, but my neck currently possessed the structural integrity of mashed potatoes. Still, my field of view shifted just enough for me to see her face.
She was a striking woman with golden hair tied up in a loose bun, her vibrant green eyes shimmering with profound emotion. Her arms were visibly muscular and marked with faint scars, yet she held me with a gentleness that cut straight through my panic. She was crying. Her skin was deeply tanned and weathered, indicative of a life spent braving outdoor.
Her physique was powerful and statuesque, reminding me of an Olympic athlete, but it was her expression that truly stunned me. Despite that, she has an hourglass body, I could already tell.
This woman loved me completely. I could read it instantly. Even if I had no idea who she was, I knew that much.
My gaze drifted slightly down to her chest. Wow, she has incredibly huge... tits. The sudden, crude thought was a defensive reflex from my adult mind, a desperate attempt to cling to the cynical person I used to be instead of drowning in this overwhelming reality.
You could say it's a coping mechanism.
"Fah, ghil suen-san ja, Reyna."
A large, imposing figure knelt beside her, breaking my brief distraction. He possessed a decent build. He also had short, ocean-blue hair and warm, rose-colored eyes. He spoke very little, simply resting a heavy, reassuring hand on her back while his other hand gently stroked my tiny head. His face bore the rugged lines of someone who had survived countless battles, yet his touch was lighter than a feather.
This had to be my new father.
A sudden movement behind them caught my eye. A young girl stood in the rustic wooden doorway, her arms crossed as she leaned against the frame with practiced ease.
She looked no older than nine or ten years old, with long, sky-blue hair flowing down her back and bright, golden-yellow eyes locked squarely onto me. Her gaze was curious, sharp, and highly assessing. She didn't smile, not exactly, but her lips curled into a confident smirk that suggested she wasn't easily impressed, though perhaps she was intrigued. She looked like she was already calculating how to boss me around for the rest of my days.
My new sister, I assumed.
The sight of her sent a cold shiver straight through my fragile chest. I never had a sibling in my past life. My biological mother on Earth had suffered a devastating miscarriage, a loss that eventually fractured my parents' marriage and tore our family apart. I grew up an only child, weighed down by a lingering sense of unearned guilt, forever haunted by the ghost of a sister I never got to meet. But here, in this unfamiliar body and this strange wooden home, the universe was forcing a sister right in front of me. I was no longer a single child, and the sheer psychological weight of it was terrifying.
The girl tilted her head slightly and spoke a brief phrase in an amused tone. "Shblat tayo nara?"
"Keirvon es ti, Laya," the mother replied, her voice growing slightly firmer as she pulled me closer.
The girl merely shrugged, her golden eyes never leaving my face, and added another remark. The way she gestured, pointing directly at me before wrinkling her nose in mock disgust, was a universal language. She was actively teasing me.
My adult pride flared, and consequently, so did my baby lungs. The toxic mixture of grief, historical trauma, and immediate irritation completely overrode my internal defenses.
"UWAAHHHHHHH!"
No, please, stop! Not again!
I was a grown man, forty-seven years old! Yet here I was, wrapped in cheap cloth, flailing around like a broken Roomba, and sobbing as if someone had stolen my identity and deleted my entire cloud save history. The absolute worst part was my utter lack of control. My mature mind was perfectly sharp, but my physical form was entirely helpless, governed entirely by primitive, newborn instincts that favored screaming over reason.
Eventually, I was cleaned, dried, and wrapped in fresh linen. The surrounding world swirled into a blur as I was laid gently against the woman's chest. Her spoken words faded into soothing background music, soft syllables whispered into my ear that meant absolutely nothing to my intellect but felt entirely like safety. I tried to articulate a proper response, to say anything to break the heavy tension and prove I wasn't just a mindless biological machine, but my mouth produced the dumbest sound ever recorded.
"Bweeh."
I officially hated this body already.
Over time, the exhaustion of the transition dulled my senses into a heavy throb, and my loud cries dissolved into small, pathetic hiccups. My breathing finally steadied as my vision adjusted to the environment. The ceiling above me was composed of thick wooden beams with absolutely no electrical wiring in sight. The lighting emanated from hanging metal lanterns housing flickering, live flames. The structural walls were a rugged blend of stone and timber, devoid of electronics, glowing screens, or medical monitors beeping in the background. There was only firelight, shifting shadows, and warm breath. This was definitely no modern hospital.
Where in the world am I?
I didn't have an answer. All I knew was that I was trapped inside the wooden interior of an unfamiliar house, surrounded by the scent of drying herbs, straw flooring, and a faint draft of crisp mountain air filtering through the wooden slats.
I had been reborn. The reality was undeniable.
In my past life, I had read countless light novels, manga, and comics where some unfortunate protagonist dies only to wake up in a magical kingdom. Back then, I dismissed it all as escapist trash tailored for lonely NEETs, an evaluation that felt highly ironic considering what I had become. Now, I was actively living the cliché, forced to face the exact fantasy nonsense I used to scoff at from the safety of my keyboard.
My head lolled helplessly to the side once more. I watched my father speak, his deep voice sounding incredibly low and resolute. Even without understanding the dialect, his tone carried an innate strength that assured me that I would survive, whether I wanted to or not.
From the doorway, my sister's voice cut through the room one final time: "Ja ven, ko-uh yobolta!"
Her tone was sharp and firm, a declaration to the world. I couldn't translate the vocabulary, but I felt the weight of it. Her golden eyes locked onto mine, her mouth curling into a fierce, proud expression. I could easily guess the underlying sentiment: I hope he grows up to be strong.
If that's truly what you meant, sis, then I agree completely. I have no intention of remaining a helpless crybaby forever.
***
The subsequent weeks rolled by in a quiet, repetitive rhythm, defined by warmth, softness, and absolute physical vulnerability.
I spent the vast majority of my time confined to a wooden crib, fashioned from timber so incredibly sturdy that I doubted my former adult self could have broken it—not that I had a heavy body, in fact I was completely skinny—let alone this helpless little potato of a body. It stood a few feet away from a modest stone fireplace, which served as the primary source of heat for the entire household. Wisps of smoke drifted lazily up an uneven stone chimney, leaving the comforting scent of burning pine in the air day and night. There were no gas lines, no heating vents, and no digital knobs. Cooking was accomplished by stacking raw firewood and underneath, setting a highly flammable tinder ablaze. It was primitive, but at least it was effective.
The main living space featured an uneven cobblestone floor that clicked softly under every footstep, providing me with an auditory map of the house. The furniture, including the chairs, shelving, and cabinets, was entirely hand-carved, slightly lopsided, and rough around the edges, yet entirely functional. The walls and overhead beams were pure timber. Through the fleeting moments when the heavy wooden doors were left ajar, I managed to map out the staircase leading to the second story, where the bedrooms were located.
My crib was positioned next to a small, square window frame. It lacked glass entirely, relying on a heavy cloth curtain to keep out the elements during severe storms. From my vantage point, the ground was invisible. I could only gaze up at the vast expanse of blue sky, occasionally punctuated by lazy clouds drifting by like silent, curious giants. It was a beautiful, isolated existence.
Every morning, natural sunlight filtered through the woven curtain, bathing my small form in a golden glow. Tummy time was an absolute, humiliating struggle, but my olfactory senses worked perfectly. The air inside the cottage felt vibrantly alive, carrying notes of harvested wheat, wood dust, morning dew, and the intoxicating aroma of freshly baked bread. My stomach would gurgle instantly whenever that scent neared, signaling that sustenance was on the way.
Sure enough, my mother would appear at the edge of the rail. She was exceptionally tall and strong, her hair resembling spun sunlight and her eyes shimmering like polished green jade. She always offered a warm smile, even when I was screaming like an absolute banshee. She would lift me with practiced ease, whispering soft words in a dialect that sounded like a beautiful, melodic cross between Elvish and ancient Scandinavian tones.
Feeding time remained an incredibly awkward psychological hurdle. Breastfeeding was entirely natural, of course, but maintaining the mind of a middle-aged man made the process deeply uncomfortable. I tried my best to detach my thoughts, staring blankly at the wooden beams above to dissociate from the intimacy of the act. Still, the physical proximity, the steady, rhythmic thumping of her heart, and the low, earthy lullabies she hummed comforted me in spite of my awkwardness.
Mmm~! Breast milk tastes pretty damn good!
During one of these morning sessions, she carried me over to the window to adjust the curtain, granting me my first real look at the outside world. Through the open frame, I saw a sprawling, endless field of green wheat swaying in perfect synchronicity with the wind. A simple split-rail wooden fence marked the boundary of our land. There were no asphalt roads, no automobiles, and zero traces of industrialization at all. It was pure farmland. We were deeply isolated from civilization, located in a village that seemed to stretch out for miles.
And Lyra, my sister. I figured out her name whenever she disobeyed our mother's words; she would yell, 'LYRA!'
Lyra would frequently torment me during these quiet moments, peeking over the crib with a mischievous, sharp grin. She would stick her tongue out, puff her cheeks, and deliver a swift flick to my forehead the exact moment our mother turned her back. Her body language was entirely fluent in the universal dialects of sibling rivalry and smug superiority. Yet, she didn't hate me. In the quiet hours, she would occasionally hold my tiny hand or pull the fallen blanket back over my shoulders. She was wild, fierce, and unapologetically honest, much like her mother. Honestly, I couldn't help but admire her spirit.
***
Seven months slowly bled into the calendar. I still couldn't walk, I couldn't articulate sentences, and I possessed zero bladder control. Yet, despite those glaring biological limitations, I had successfully mastered a vital skill of vanishing.
HAHA! Ba-bye!
It had taken me months of dragging my lumpy, uncooperative baby body across the cobblestone floor like a sack of wet meat, but I had finally perfected a military-style crawl. Utilizing my elbows, knees, and pure stubbornness, I achieved total mobility. Of course it would hurt a little, but my curiosity to explore the house was far stronger than the little bruises I get from crawling. My reward was exploration, along with inducing mild panic in my parents. My small world expanded completely beyond the wooden crib, encompassing the entire cobblestone first floor.
Eventually, I set my sights on the staircase.
Woah..
Those steep timber steps were an absolute curse. My short, stubby limbs turned each individual riser into an alpine summit. My knees were perpetually scuffed, and I spent countless afternoons sitting at the base of the structure, glaring up at the wood as if engaged in a personal war against gravity.
But I discovered an easy loophole: momentum! Duh! By gathering maximum crawling speed, latching onto the lip of the stair with both hands, and throwing my knee upward, I could heave myself up. I looked like a frantic sea turtle scaling a rock formation, but it worked. Twenty steps meant twenty grueling individual battles, but I reached the top every single time.
Reyna and Thorskil did not appreciate my new 'moves'. They would mutter anxiously in their native tongue whenever I suddenly vanished from sight. To them, I was a reckless almost-one-year-old with a death wish. To myself, I was Paul Gapor, a grown man desperately trying to claw back a modicum of autonomy in a terrifying second life.
Through my covert expeditions, I mapped the entire layout. The ground floor housed the hearth, the kitchen with its massive clay oven, a sitting area with woolen chairs, a pantry, and a washroom. Upstairs, my parents' master bedroom was the largest room, containing an iron bed frame and a rustic desk cluttered with maps, documents, and strange tracking tools. A massive steel sword and a heavy spear hung crossed on their wall, indicating they were likely retired warriors, or something like that. Lyra's room was a chaotic disaster zone filled with cloth dolls and wooden training swords, while my own quarters remained, uh, small.
The absolute worst aspect of my existence was the utter lack of physical independence, particularly concerning basic hygiene. Gosh, dude. I could actively feel the urge to relieve myself, but my undeveloped muscles were entirely incapable of holding back the tide. Having my own father, Thorskil, constantly changing my cloth diapers was a deeply humiliating experience that crushed whatever remnants of adult dignity I had left. Experiencing warm, sticky waste pressing against my skin made me squirm with visceral disgust, resulting in more forced baths in a single year than I had taken in the previous decade.
Despite the daily indignities, I achieved a monumental milestone during my first year, and it was my very first spoken word!
It occurred on a peaceful afternoon while I was lounging in my crib, contemplating the existential dread of my circumstances. My mother marched into the living room carrying a massive, double-bitted wood-cutting axe slung casually over her powerful shoulder. She was drenched in sweat, with wood shavings embedded in her golden hair, tracking a faint trail of sawdust across the clean cobblestones. Looking at this fierce, powerful woman radiating raw strength, my vocal cords suddenly fired, desperate to bridge the gap between my mind and this world.
"Mama."
The word came out remarkably clear, devoid of baby babble. Reyna froze entirely in her tracks. Her vibrant green eyes widened in absolute shock, and the heavy iron axe slipped from her fingers, clanging against the stones with a resonant ring. She turned toward me slowly, as if checking to ensure she hadn't suffered an auditory hallucination.
Capitalizing on the moment, I repeated the word intentionally. "Mama."
She immediately sprinted out of the room, shouting for my father.
"THORS!"
Thorskil, my father's name, came barreling through the doorway seconds later, his hand resting instinctively on his belt, eyes scanning the perimeter for an invading monster. Instead, he found me sitting upright, looking like a smug little goblin with applesauce smeared across my chin.
I tilted my head, locked eyes with him, and executed the follow-up combo: "Papa."
He blinked in stunned silence before bursting into a deep, booming laugh that shook the rafters. He scooped me up into his massive arms, tossing me into the air as if I had just unlocked the secrets of the universe.
"Haf ga non, Reyna! Bos du papa!" he shouted, his rose-colored pupils sparkling with pure, unadulterated joy. The sheer warmth of his laughter chipped away at my guarded heart. By the time Lyra wandered inside, looking thoroughly annoyed by the commotion, my new parents were practically passing me back and forth like a holy relic.
***
By the age of three, I had fully mastered the mechanics of walking. I could run, stumble, crash into furniture, and get right back up like any normal child. More importantly, my increased height allowed me to finally reach the door latches. By stretching onto the absolute tips of my toes and straining my fingers, I could manually manipulate the iron handles.
That was how I officially discovered the family study. It was a small, dusty sanctuary with bare wooden walls and a singular window overlooking the infinite wheat fields. It wasn't a grand archive, featuring only a crooked bookstand and a solitary wooden cabinet. Inside, I discovered a grand total of four books.
It was a pitiful collection by modern standards, but in this pre-industrial world, four leather-bound volumes represented an absolute fortune. I think. Our family name, as I had recently decoded from my mother's slow explanations, was Samsworth. Reyna Samsworth. Thorskil Samsworth. Lyra Samsworth. And myself, Kyro Samsworth. The name carried an elegant, almost noble weight that felt entirely too sophisticated for a toddler who spent his mornings picking wild grass out of his teeth.
As the months progressed, Lyra grew louder and more formidable. At seven years old, she spent her days running amok with the local village children, covered in mud and wielding wooden swords. Whenever they stormed through the house, I would quietly retreat into the corners, observing them in absolute silence. The local kids paid me no mind, viewing me as a bizarre, quiet mute who simply stared with wide, unblinking yellow eyes.
I could comprehend basic vocabulary now: fire, water, danger, food, sleep. But following complex, rapid conversations remained incredibly difficult. My persistent silence clearly unnerved my parents. Reyna would often place a gentle hand on my white hair, her green eyes filled with a quiet, lingering anxiety. Lyra teased me constantly, calling me "Kyro the quiet" or insisting I was merely a forest squirrel trapped in a human child's body.
I chose not to speak, not out of inability, but out of a deep, psychological fear. In my past life as Paul, I had spent over two decades locking myself away from society, withdrawing into a reclusive shell where human interaction felt like an absolute minefield. That lingering trauma carried over entirely into my new brain. Every potential conversation felt like a test I was destined to fail, a reminder of the failure I had been back on my previous life.
Furthermore, I still viewed this family as complete strangers. Thorskil and Reyna were incredibly kind, but they weren't the parents I remembered back as Paul. I felt an immense, crushing guilt for keeping them at arm's length, but the haunting memories of my previous life, and the agonizing thought of the mother I had abandoned to grief, refused to fade.
The dusty study became my ultimate refuge, a parallel to the locked bedroom of my past. The thick, leather-bound books contained strange runic lettering and faded black ink that I couldn't yet decipher, but one specific volume featured beautiful, hand-drawn illustrations of mythical beasts and wildlife. For the very first time since my reincarnation, a genuine spark of curiosity ignited within my chest. I could control the flow when reading books. The printed letters wouldn't judge my silence, nor would they pity my strange behavior. They simply waited patiently on the parchment, waiting to be understood. I resolved to return to this room every single day until I mastered their language entirely.
***
--Reyna--[1]
Kyro had taken his very first steps at eight months old. While remarkably early, his physical development wasn't the primary source of my maternal anxiety. It was his terrifying, unnatural behavior.
The moment our boy gained the ability to balance on his own two feet, he developed a near-supernatural talent for vanishing. Even before he could walk, he was an absolute handful, constantly slipping out of my lap to crawl to gods-knows-where. We noticed he was more interested on going to the second floor of the house, we even saw him stare at the stairs, like he would sit on the cobblestone floor as his tiny hand rubbed his fluffy chin as if he's actually.. thinking. Eventually, we had constructed structural blockades three separate times, yet he always discovered a way to bypass them.
Now, at three years old, he was acting even stranger.
Initially, I assumed he merely inherited his father's relentless curiosity. But Kyro was fundamentally different. He almost never spoke, avoiding childish babble entirely unless he required physical assistance. He never cried out for attention, choosing instead to sit perfectly still, watching our family with an intense, analytical gaze that felt entirely too mature for a toddler. It was odd, for sure. It felt as though an invisible, unyielding wall separated me from my own kid.
Determined to uncover his secret, I spent the afternoon pretending to prune the tulips in the garden. The moment I witnessed Kyro waddling down the hallway, casting a highly suspicious glance over his small shoulder, I quietly dropped my tools and followed his trail.
I crept silently up the timber stairs and down the narrow hallway, stopping outside the door of the abandoned study. Peeking through the cracked frame, my heart swelled with a complex mixture of pride and intense worry.
Kyro was sitting entirely alone in the dusty library, his small legs crossed perfectly as he balanced a massive leather tome on his lap. The warm afternoon sunlight poured through the open window, illuminating his pale white hair and casting a serene, almost sacred glow across the floorboards. He turned the heavy parchment pages with absolute reverence, completely detached from the world. He looked far too small for that heavy chair.
Suddenly, a deep voice shattered the silence directly behind me. "Rey?"
"Gah!" I shrieked, spinning around on instinct as my trained barbarian reflexes took over. My right fist flew through the air with lethal velocity.
WHAM.
A heavy, solid thud echoed through the corridor as Thorskil collided violently with the wooden floorboards, letting out a sharp grunt.
My eyes widened in absolute horror. "Oh no, Thors! I am so incredibly sorry!" I dropped to my knees, frantically checking his face. "Are you alright?!"
Thorskil blinked up at me, a goofy, shameless grin slowly spreading across his rugged features. "Me? I am firmly convinced I have died and gone to heaven. I am perfectly fine, babe."
I followed his dazed gaze, realizing with a burning blush that his face had landed squarely between my breasts.
"You absolute pervert," I muttered, delivering a firm, playful smack to the top of his head.
"Hey," he chuckled, laying his head on my lap with zero shame, "you're my wife. You're a pervert too, especially in the bed."
"Shut your mouth," I snapped, blushing furiously as I tapped his forehead again.
"Ow! Alright, the teasing ends now, haha.." he laughed, rubbing the reddening spot before his expression turned serious. "What is truly troubling you, love? You looked entirely lost in your own head."
I hesitated, turning my eyes back toward the cracked study door.
"It's Kyro, Thorskil. He barely communicates with us. He carries himself through this house as if he possesses more life experience than the two of us combined. I just found him hiding in the dust, reading historical texts like a scholar trapped in a three-year-old's body."
Thorskil remained silent for a long moment, his rose-colored eyes softening as he sat up. He placed a massive, calloused hand firmly on my shoulder.
"Reyna, you know how your mind races when you are anxious. You assume something is inherently broken just because it is unfamiliar. Our boy isn't broken at all. He might be incredibly quiet, and undeniably sharper than any child in this province, but being unique isn't a curse. It simply means we were blessed with a special one."
I remained quiet, absorbing his words as I leaned against his massive frame.
"We don't need to force him out of his shell all at once," Thorskil murmured gently. "We simply need to remain by his side whenever he reaches out. He will find his way to us in his own time."
A soft sigh escaped my lips as I looked back through the doorway. Kyro hadn't moved a single inch, remaining completely engrossed in his book, bathed in the golden light. Thorskil was right, as usual.
"I just desperately wish I knew what thoughts were racing through that brilliant little head of his."
Thorskil snorted in amusement. "He is probably accurately deducing that his parents are absolute idiots."
"You are likely right," I chuckled softly, the crushing weight on my chest finally lifting.
We stood together in the quiet hallway, watching our extraordinary, mysterious little boy from a distance, patiently waiting for the day he would finally decide to let us in.
[End]
[1] It's a POV change. Expect something like this on upcoming chapters.