Drex grabbed the hilt of the dagger with both of his hands, his knuckles turned white as he sucked in cold breath and he ripped it out.
"Ughhh" He groaned, clenching his teeth hard he waited for the pain, but then again he was surprised. Cause that was it. There was no blood gushing out, his guts weren't spilling out either, nothing like he expected. He stared down, breathing heavily as he drop the dagger in the dirt beside him.
Then his eyes widened.
The wound was… closing.
He blinked then rubbed his eyes with his wrist, like maybe he was seeing wrong but no…. It was real. The wound in his stomach was knitting together like an invisible doctor was working on it. And then in seconds it was gone, not even a scar was left, his skin was smooth like nothing had ever pierced it at all.
Even the best doctors and the best machines on earth couldn't make this happen instantly, there would still be some red marks left there. This is… Magic.
"What the hell…" he whispered.
He sat there for a long second, just staring at himself in shock, trying to wrap his head around it. This wasn't normal and it wasn't possible.
And then something else hit him. His clothes.
He looked down properly for the first time and realized he wasn't in his dirty resistance rags anymore. He was in something else entirely, he slowly stood up from the ground brushing off the dirt and stared.
A robe.
But it wasn't just any robe, this one… it almost shined when the light hit it. It's sleeves was long and it had a soft dark fabric layered with white at the edge. Gold patterns ran across the chest and belt, there was even a crest stitched at the shoulder. Some kind of emblem he had no idea what it represents. And the belt itself was fascinating, a thick and strong leather, it held the whole thing together.
He looked like… like one of those young princes his mom used to tell him about when she read him the old stories. The kind from before the overmind, back when humans still told fairy tales and legends. It didn't even feel like wearing clothes, it felt more like he was wearing a piece of art.
He turned his wrist and noticed his hands were clean too. There was no dirt under the nails, no scars from years of running and scraping by. His skin was… new.
"What the hell is this place," he muttered again, louder this time.
He finally took his eyes away from himself and looked around and that was when he noticed it, how weird the forest really was.
The trunks of the trees were massive, way thicker than any he has seen on Earth, they looked almost like pillars holding up the sky. The leaves were broad and heavy, darker green than he thought possible and even the ground beneath him felt was sturdier.
He had seen the old clips of the earth, before the AI overwind changed everything. His mum used to show him whenever she wanted him to believe there was something better once. He remembered those videos, those blue skies and green forests. But this one, this was different. This wasn't Earth.
Even the sky itself was weird. It looked farther away, on Earth the sky always pressed down on you, but here it stretched out forever. The clouds drifted slowly and lazily, like they had nowhere to be.
He found himself just staring up at it with his mouth slightly open.
"Wow" he breathed out almost like a little kid.
It was a beautiful sight. The kind of beautiful he thought he'd never see in his whole life.
He thought about what his mom always said, about birds that could sing without wires, about skies without drones swarming, about clean air. And here it was, right in front of him.
"It's beautiful," he said again, almost to himself, like he needed to say it out loud to believe it.
The trees, the faint sound of the birds, even the air here, it was cleaner than anything he had ever breathed in before. It was fresh and light, and they filled his lungs in a way that almost hurt because it was so new.
But then, his mind went back to her.
That voice in the darkness, The one that brought him here.
How powerful did she have to be to do something like this? To bring him out of death itself and throw him into a brand new world, like she was moving a piece on a chessboard? He could not even wrap his head around that kind of power at this point. She wasn't an AI and she wasn't human either. She was a something else entirely.
"Who is she," he muttered under his breath. The question concerned him greatly but he knew he had no answer to that for now. He could not even take a wild guess as he know he will be miles off.
But even that wasn't the one that really ate at him.
It was this, why me?
Out of all the billions of people who must've died that day, across Earth, across other plantets maybe, across the whole damn universe, why him? He wasn't special, He was just a resistance rat who barely scrap by, always running, always fighting. He wasn't the smartest, he wasn't the strongest either t, he wasn't even supposed to survive half the crap he went through.
So why him?
The thought of it stabbed him in the chest harder than even the dagger had, he just stood there in that strange robe, in this strange forest, looking up at the beautiful sky, and he felt… small all over again.
"Why me," he whispered.
Drex bent down and picked the dagger up again. It was very slick and dark, he probably have never seen anything like it on earth before. He didn't know how he knew this but he just knew, this blade was poisoned. It felt like even holding on it for two long would be trouble.
He frowned and tore a stripe from the inside of his robe. Yeah, it hurt to mess the beautiful cloth up since it is probably worth more than anything he has ever owned. He wrapped the piece of cloth he tore around the blade and stuffed it into his pocket. It was close but not too close.
Better to keep it than to throw it away. Who knows, maybe it will be useful later.
He stood up and glanced left then right, then back again.
There was nothing but thick forest both ways. No paths, no signs pointing "hey go this way new guy." Just trees and silence.
He sighed hard, rubbing his face. "Great, just great. Dropped into another world, stabbed in the stomach and no freaking manual."
He looked around again like maybe the mysterious lady voice from before was still hanging around, waiting to explain the rules. But nope, she was gone. Just left him here like dumping a kid at school without a backpack.
Suddenly his head started throbbing. At first it was just a small pulse then it turned sharp. Like someone shoved a thousand volts through his skull. He grabbed his temples and stumbled as he groaned.
"Ahhh what the hell?"
Then it hit him
It was a surge, not an electrical one, infact not pain exactly. It was something else, his brain felt like it was being stuffed with things that weren't his but were his at the same time. Memories, flashed of places he had never seen, names he never even knew existed. Feelings he never felt.
And then it locked in.
A name.
Auron Kaiden.
He staggered back against a tree, his breath coming out shaky. That was him? No, not him, not Drex. But at the same time… yeah…. maybe.
Son of King Thane Auron.
He was royalty.
Drex snorted under his breath. "You've gotta be kidding me. I died a rat and woke up a prince?"
But the memories kept coming, they weren't stopping anytime soon. And as they filled him he noticed something weird. His last name… Auron. Same as his own on Earth. Was it a coincidence? Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't but it made his stomach twist like there was something more to it.
His face hardened as another wave of memory slammed in.
The dagger.
This forest.
The betrayal.
He furrowed his brows tight. He saw his own siblings, Brothers and sisters, all of them smiling the way snakes smile, they dragged him out here. He remembered their voices, their mocking voices, the way their eyes shined with greed.
And then he remembered the stabbing. The blade sliding in, the pain and the disbelief.
All because their father, King Thane favored him.
Because they thought he stood in their way.
But the truth was, Kaiden never even wanted the throne. He had said it again and again, He just wanted to cultivate, he wanted chase strength, to live his own path. He had being dreaming of it since he was a boy. Not crowns or politics, he wanted freedom.
But they didn't care, they never listened. To them he was just an obstacle.
And obstacles needs to be removed.
The betrayal forced itself into his chest, rage burned in him, endless rage. And worse than that, heartbroken. Kaiden loved them, no matter how much they spit at him, he still gave them kindness, he gave them time. He tried really hard, he wanted them to be siblings, not the enemies that they have become.
And what did they do with that? They tossed it back in his face and cut him down, they left him for dead.
Drex felt the emotions crash into him so hard he almost lost his balance. They weren't just memories, they were raw feelings bleeding into him.
The anger wasn't Kaiden's anymore, it was his too. The betrayal, the fire in his gut, the hatred coursing through his veins, all of it belonged to him now. He clenched his fists so tight his nails dug into his palms.
He couldn't shake it off, It wasn't going away.
For the first time since he woke up in this strange world, he felt something sharper than confusion, heavier than curiosity.
He felt Kaiden's rage.