A Stranger's Memories
A faint, rhythmic hum filled the room.
It was the sound of a standard-issue magi-crystal lamp, a low vibration that permeated the very air. Its containment rune glowed with a soft, steady light, casting long shadows across a cluttered desk.
Books were stacked high, their spines cracked from overuse. Mana Flow Dynamics, Vol. III. An Introduction to Runic Syntax. Next to them, a second-hand Terminal lay dormant, its screen dark. The desk was a sea of scattered papers, all covered in complex, hand-drawn diagrams of mana circuits.
This was the world of Cole Harris.
A world of obsessive study. Of relentless effort poured into a body that simply refused to cooperate. He was a mana geek, a theorist who could lecture for hours on the subtle arts of spell-casting, yet struggled to make a simple mote of light hover for more than a few seconds.
A Mid-F Ranker. The very definition of mediocrity.
Inside this body, the original Cole was pushing himself. As he always did.
He sat hunched in his chair, eyes squeezed shut. He was coaxing the thimbleful of energy within his core, forcing it to trace a new path. A path he had theorized could improve his mana circulation efficiency by a mere 0.5%.
It was a thankless, painful grind.
A bead of sweat traced its way down his temple. He forced the stubborn energy through an unfamiliar neural pathway. He felt a flicker of resistance, a clear warning sign. His body was reaching its limit.
He ignored it. For a boy with no innate talent, ignoring limits was the only way forward.
He pushed harder.
The resistance sharpened into a sting. The sting became a throb. The throb erupted into a blinding, searing pain, as if a needle of pure light had been driven straight through the center of his skull.
His vision didn't go dark.
It went white.
The hum of the lamp vanished, replaced by a deafening roar. The feeling of his body, the chair beneath him, the very concept of up and down, dissolved into an infinite, silent whiteness.
Consciousness fractured. Shattered.
And then, it reformed.
A soul from a different world—a world of digital and concrete, of science without magic—settled into the vacant space.
The first sensation was a profound, nauseating vertigo. He opened his eyes, but the room was a swimming, blurry haze. A torrent of information, seventeen years of a life he had never lived, crashed into his mind. It wasn't a memory. It was a high-speed data transfer.
He had been twenty-eight years old, a project manager ground down by deadlines and hollow corporate ladder-climbing. His own life, full of quiet compromises and lukewarm ambitions, now felt like a faded photograph compared to the vibrant, magical, and tragically short existence of the seventeen-year-old boy whose body he now occupied.
Laura Harris. Mother. A retired C-Rank Hunter. A kind smile and hands calloused from years of wielding a blade. The warm, savory smell of her stew. The quiet pride in her eyes, even when she looked at her F-Rank son.
Leo Harris. Younger brother. Fifteen. Boundless energy and a burning passion for the sword. Swinging a wooden practice sword in the backyard, yelling challenges at imaginary monsters. The familiar frustration with his own clumsy mana control, a perfect mirror of Cole's own.
Mia Campbell. Adopted sister. Sixteen. A year younger, but always seeming ten years older. Top of her class. Student council president material. Sharp, perceptive, and fiercely protective. Helping him with homework, her explanations so clear and logical they made the impossible seem simple.
He saw it all. First days of school. Scraped knees. The crushing weight of his first Index ranking. The quiet determination to overcome it all through knowledge alone. He felt the phantom ache of mana exhaustion, the sting of a training injury, the warmth of his mother's hand.
It was an avalanche of senses and emotions. Intimate and overwhelming, yet completely alien.
It was like watching the world's most immersive movie about a stranger who happened to have his face.
"Cole?"
The voice cut through the chaos in his head. Sharp and clear.
He blinked, the room slowly snapping into focus. A girl with dark hair tied back in a neat ponytail stood in the doorway. Her school uniform was immaculate. Her expression was one of mild concern, but her intelligent eyes were already analyzing him.
Mia.
His—Cole's—memories supplied the name, the context, the history.
His own mind, the one from Earth, screamed a single, panicked thought.
Act normal!
But what was normal for Cole Harris? The memories were a jumbled library. He was a frantic librarian trying to find the right book in the dark. He couldn't risk speaking. A wrong word, a misplaced inflection, and her concern would curdle into suspicion.
Her gaze flickered from his pale face to the book on his desk. The one detailing advanced mana circulation pathways. Her brow furrowed slightly. She was connecting the dots.
He needed an excuse. Fast.
His mind raced, sifting through the downloaded memories for a plausible scenario. Avoidance? No, acting sullen about his rank might invite a longer conversation. More chances to slip up. Impersonation? Impossible. He didn't know the part well enough to fake it.
That left one option. Deception. A lie that was ninety percent truth. The original Cole was a hard worker who pushed himself too far. It was his defining character trait.
He seized it.
He let out a low groan, lifting a hand to his temple. He made sure to let his arm tremble, just slightly. "Yeah," he managed, his voice raspy. It sounded exactly like the voice from the memories. "Just… pushed a little too hard on that theory. My head's splitting."
Mia's expression instantly softened. The sharp analytical edge was replaced by a familiar, sisterly exasperation. A look he'd seen a dozen times in the memory files.
"Again?" she sighed. She walked into the room and picked up one of the scattered papers, glancing at the impossible diagram. "Cole, Mom keeps telling you. Theory is useless if you burn out your own mana core trying to prove it. You're a Mid-F Rank. This stuff is for academy mages."
"I was close to a breakthrough," he mumbled, keeping his eyes half-closed. The original Cole probably had been.
"You're always close to a breakthrough," she said, but there was no malice in it. She placed the paper back on the desk. "Just be careful. Mom sent me to get you for dinner cleanup." She paused, her perceptive eyes scanning him one last time. "You really don't look good. Get some rest. Leo and I can handle the dishes."
"Thanks, Mia," he said. The name felt foreign on his tongue.
She gave a small nod and turned, leaving the room. The door clicked shut behind her.
Silence.
He was alone. The immediate crisis was over. He didn't move for a full minute, listening to her footsteps fade down the hallway.
Then, he took a breath. A deep, shuddering breath that felt like the first he had ever taken in this body. He slowly lowered his hand from his head. The tremor had been real.
He pushed himself up from the chair. His new limbs felt clumsy, uncoordinated. Foreign. He walked to the full-length mirror hanging on the back of his bedroom door.
A stranger stared back.
A boy of seventeen. Plain brown hair. Unremarkable features.
But his eyes… they held a depth of confusion and shock that did not belong to a simple mana geek.
This was his face now. This was his life.
He was Cole Harris.
He was in a world of magic and monsters, a world he thought only existed in fiction. He was utterly, terrifyingly, on his own.
He looked at the stranger in the mirror again. A cold, pragmatic resolve began to settle over the initial panic. He had the memories of the boy who had probably disappeared forever. And he had the knowledge of a world far beyond this one.
Surviving was the first step.
After that… he would thrive.