The last thing I remembered was the pain, the way it carved itself into my ribs like fire and ice dancing a cruel duet. But now…
A dull, throbbing ache pulsed behind my eyes like the tail end of a migraine. My head felt like it had been split and stitched back together by unsteady hands. I groaned, breath shallow, as something warm and damp stuck to my back. Earth?
Light.
Soft and filtered, it trickled through a canopy of green above me. Trees. Tall ones. Ancient. Their leaves whispered secrets to the wind in a language I didn't understand. Shafts of sunlight pierced the thick branches, catching in golden motes that floated lazily through the air.
I blinked slowly, the edges of the world around me beginning to sharpen. My fingers, trembling and unsure, moved instinctively, dragging across my chest.
A hiss escaped my lips.
A scar.
It wasn't just a cut. It was something jagged and wrong, something that didn't belong on a living body. It ran diagonally across my torso, raised, rough, and unfamiliar. As if someone had stitched together the broken pieces of who I used to be.
I sat up, or tried to. Pain flared in my side, and I collapsed again with a wet grunt.
My clothes, if you could call them that, were tattered remnants. Torn sleeves, a shirt stained in blood now dried into a rust-colored crust, and pants shredded at the knees. My shoes were gone. My hands, scraped and bruised, trembled like they didn't recognize the world around them.
And then it hit me.
I'm... small?
I raised one hand in front of my face. The fingers were thinner, the skin smoother, no calluses, no scars, nothing that belonged to the adult who once walked under neon city lights. My legs were shorter. My arms, lighter. Even my voice, when I gasped in confusion, sounded higher.
This body... wasn't mine.
Panic tried to claw its way into my chest, but I forced it down, along with the bile rising in my throat. I took a slow, steady breath and looked around.
A forest.
Dense and alive. The trees stood like silent guardians, moss clinging to their roots, mushrooms blooming like miniature umbrellas across fallen logs. In the distance, a brook babbled cheerfully, as if it hadn't just become the backdrop to something inexplicable.
Was this some kind of dream? Or something else?
I reached up to touch my forehead, trying to steady myself, and that's when I felt it. Something pulsing faintly beneath my skin, like a rhythm not my own. Magic? No. That would be ridiculous... wouldn't it?
And yet... with every breath, the air shimmered ever so faintly, almost as if the forest itself were watching me. Waiting.
I wasn't just reborn.
I was somewhere else entirely.
A voice, quiet, distant, and oddly familiar, echoed faintly in my mind like a whisper carried on the wind.
"You have one chance. Begin again."