Ronan's scream tore out hoarse and ragged, more like a cough than anything loud. Panic hit him sideways and his legs folded under him before he could catch the fall.
The back of his skull met the floor with a dull crack that sent a quick flash across his eyes. He barely felt it. His stare stayed pinned on the bed.
The woman hadn't moved. Her neck stayed bent at that wrong angle, eyes open and empty, the black lines under her skin spreading like thin roots across her arms and chest. He had never seen a corpse up close before, not even at a funeral.
This one looked like something had been trying to crawl out through her skin and stopped halfway.
His breath came in short pulls. Sweat slid down his temples and into his collar. For a few long seconds his head stayed empty, then a heavy slam against the door snapped everything back into place.
The wood burst inward. Two men stepped through fast.
The first wore a black suit under a long overcoat, a hat low over his eyes. He carried a brown leather case with brass edges dulled from use.
The second looked younger, maybe mid-twenties, gray clothes cut like an old uniform, leather gloves on his hands. Both scanned the room at once. The older man's eyes went straight to the body on the bed, then shifted to Ronan. His look was steady, almost too steady.
He said something quick and low. The words didn't match anything Ronan knew. The younger one answered with a short nod and came straight over.
Ronan tried to push himself backward but his arms felt like wet rope. The man crouched, pressed two gloved fingers against Ronan's neck, and frowned.
"He's freezing. Extremely freezing… There are traces of possession."
The older man stayed by the bed a moment longer, studying the corpse without touching it. When he finally looked back at Ronan his voice was calm.
"Take him for purification first. Then medical treatment afterward."
"Yes, sir."
The younger man reached out. Ronan hesitated, then let the arm go around him. Standing took most of what little strength he had left.
They moved into the hallway together. Narrow walls of dark wood, lamps behind metal grilles throwing weak orange light. More doors lined both sides, all shut. The air tasted of old smoke and dust that never left.
They took the creaking stairs down. Outside, the night air felt sharp against his face. Gas lamps lined the street. Stone underfoot instead of pavement.
The buildings had steep roofs and narrow windows. Right in front of the door sat a carriage, dark paint catching the moonlight, lanterns hanging from its sides.
Ronan's thoughts slipped further. He barely registered the step up before pain split through his skull without warning. It felt like something had driven straight between his eyes.
Fragments poured in—faces, rooms, names that weren't his. The world tilted and went black.
He woke to a clean ceiling. White walls, brown beams, sunlight coming through an open window in a steady slant. He pushed himself upright slowly.
Strength was still missing, but the worst of the weakness had eased. The blanket slid down his chest. White sheets. A small cabinet beside the bed held glass bottles and metal instruments that looked half-familiar. The air carried a faint medicinal bite.
Before he could sort through it, another spike of pain drove into his head. Memories that didn't belong to him crashed through, too fast and too clear. Faces of people he had never met. Rooms he had never entered. The pressure made his breath catch.
He needed to see himself. No mirror in reach, so he staggered to the window. The glass gave back a faint reflection.
A stranger looked out—young, maybe nineteen or twenty, black hair, blue eyes that widened the same moment his did. Ronan lifted a hand to his cheek. The reflection copied the motion exactly.
Cold fear moved through his gut. A name rose on its own.
"…Percy…"
The voice that left his throat sounded wrong, thinner than he remembered. More details followed, uninvited. Percy Valemont. Nineteen. The memories sat in his mind like they had always been there, which only made the wrongness worse.
Ronan stepped back from the glass. His hands shook.
"No…"
He was Ronan. He had been camping alone, driven out to get away from work, set up a tent.
That part still felt solid. Everything else had been ripped away and replaced. The room started to press in. He dug his nails into his palms until the sting cut through the panic. It helped, a little.
"Calm down first," he muttered. The words came out uneven.
He forced a slow breath. The shaking eased enough that he could think in straight lines again.
"I died during some insane cult ritual. I woke up here. These memories aren't mine. They belong to Percy." He said the last part out loud, firm, like repeating it might make it stick. "I'm Ronan. Not Percy."
Treating it like a story he was reading helped keep the edges from fraying. Absurd, but it was the only thing that kept his mind from splitting further. Humans adapted fast when they had to. He had seen that much at least.
He looked around the room again. Cleaner than the last place. Larger. Curtains moved with the breeze.
A glass container hung near the bed, connected by a thin tube to the needle still in his arm. He pulled the needle free. A small sting, nothing more. The tube came loose without much resistance.
At the window he leaned on the frame and narrowed his eyes against the light. The sun looked smaller than it should. He stared, trying to decide if it was a trick of the glass or his own head. Then he noticed the second one—smaller, dimmer, hanging a little higher in the sky.
Ronan kept looking for several seconds. His mind went quiet, then settled on the only answer that fit.
"…Definitely not Earth."