The jade rock was the size of a newborn's fist, barely weighing a kilogram.
The light bulb wavered with every new circuit Rai attached to the stone. He fixed the stone in a contraption attaching bundles of wires to the artifact, he was no physicist, that was for sure. He stood by a lever attached to the wall wearing safety googles and his white lab coat. This was risky, he might have to pay a year's worth of electricity bills if this was executed.
"I am making a new discovery here." He told himself, brushing away the thought.
He turned the lever, and immediately the light bulb burst with a pop, the room falling into darkness. It was not just the room, every lit bulb in the apartment building burst startling residents, and the building went dark.
Sparks lit up the room, fervent sparks, and Rai could see as powerful electrical currents went through those wires and struck the stone. He did not wager on the danger he was exposing himself too, instead he took a step forward, captivated by the sight.
The stone suddenly burst with energy, a reaction finally, just what Rai was hoping for. The energy dispersed into a green ball of energy encompassing everything in its immediate surrounding. Rai happened to be in its immediate surroundings. It all happened so fast.
'Ahhh, my head.' he held up his head, a pounding pain assailing him. It was like his brain suddenly tripled in size and weight and the skull had to bear the new excess. He staggered, almost falling when he gripped a chair to regain his balance.
He staggered forward and hit a wooden table with books opened across it, someone must have been studying, was it him? He brushed the air with his arms trying to reorient himself with the feeling of gravity, and then he sat.
His eyes were sore, and his belly panged with hunger, he needed both sleep and food. He placed his right arm on the table to lay his head when he paused, seeming confused.
'What is this that I am wearing?' he stared at the sleeve over his arm, it was red and adorned with a golden embroidery of clouds. He looked down to his legs, the same fabric covered them. Had he gone out on an occasion and left drunk?
'What was I doing? I remember…'
"The rock!" He blurted out loud, and was about to search frantically when he spotted the jade rock lying on the table right beside him, brighter than ever.
"Huh?" Seeing the rock calmed him, and then it was time to attend to other immediate needs.
"Oh god, I need to eat." His mouth quaked as he spoke. He turned, darting his eyes about, hoping some food was laying around. It did not even occur to him that this was not his room back at Enorh. He saw a blackened steel pot by the wooden wall and immediately he went on all fours, and crawled to it.
He pried into it, and what he saw had him raise an eyebrow.
'Steamed snails?'
That was a delicacy alien to Enorh's cuisine, something only seen in books about cuisines of other nationalities. Rai could not fathom that anybody he knew would make this. However, the pot oozed with steam and sweet aroma, it was a delicious meal alright, and Rai could not stop himself from salivating.
He dipped his hand into the pot and stuffed his mouth with one. Immediately, he closed his eyes, and recoiled from the taste. It was incredibly delicious, and though Rai knew he had never had steamed snails nor something close, he could not shake the feeling that it was familiar, that it was his favourite meal.
Soon enough, after many chews, swallows and finger licking, he was done and full, an inconvenience sorted.
It was as he sat in the room by the bed did he realize that the room was not his, Enorh's buildings were either made from concrete or bricks, a law centuries old had mandated that, but the walls around him were wooden.
"Where am I?" Upon uttering the words, his vision blurred, and keeping his eyelids open was proving to be a massive struggle. Before he knew it, he fell asleep right by the bed.
*****
That night, memories stormed his mind, fierce and unrelenting—the memories of Kel Hazeen, whose body Rai now inhabited, each fragment crashing against him like waves from a life he had never lived.
"I'll make you proud, Mama, Papa. I am going to be a royal alchemist."
The sound of a cock's crow jolted him from sleep. He craned, feeling a sore on his neck from how he had slept.
The night had been incredibly long, it was like he had been forced to watch an extremely long film without blinking. Memories poured in, memories that were not Rai's.
He slowly stood up, almost like he had forgotten how to. He raised his hands by his torso and stared at them. His calluses and scars from years working at the lab were no more, and his hands were smaller, pale and soft. The sleeves fell to reveal his boyish unblemished arms. Rai was quite proud of the scars he had accrued across the years, seeing this new skin of his was jarring.
His eyes wide-open, and his jaws open in disbelief. He was wearing a lab coat over his pyjamas, that was what he remembered, when did he switch clothes? When did he switch skins?
He touched his body, feeling the smaller, slender physique he now occupied.
"Oh mother Solania, what is this? I have been cursed? What is this?!" He screamed. He was losing his mind, a body that was not his, memories of another person, a boy that was not him.
Just as he was on the verge of going crazy and destroying things, he glanced at the stone, and suddenly, in some mysterious way, he regained his composure.
"I see now, you are responsible for this."