I was thirty years old when my world ended, and five years old when this one began. I woke up in pain. My body was sore all over, and didn't respond like it normally did. My vision was blurry at first, then it focused. The first thing I noticed was hands. To be specific, mine, but not mine either. Not the ones I remembered. They were tiny, like a child's. Not just my hands, but my arms, legs, chest, and everything else.
My heart was beating so fast I thought it was gonna burst out of my chest. I noticed I was raggedy clothes, and had shoes with tiny holes in them. I tried to get up, but my body was in so much pain, and I was starving. Like I haven't eaten in days. I pulled up my shirt and saw my mostly visible rib cage.
"What the hell is going on?" I thought.
I then looked around. To see a dumpster. I walked over to it and found a clear puddle in the ground, and what I saw next shocked me even more. My eyes were amber golden, and my skin was rich and brown like caramel. My hair was black and short. My eyes had bags under them, and my face looked sunken in. Clear signs of starvation. I was in the body of a child for sure, but why, and how?
"Great, on top of being in a child's body, I'm starving and don't even know where I am. I need to remember my military training. Assess my situation and search for shelter, or anyone who can help."
I wandered alone through the streets of a city that wasn't mine, in a body far too small and weak to be mine. For three days. The hunger gnawing at my belly was a constant reminder that this was all horrifyingly real. By the end of the third day, I could barely put one foot in front of the other. My legs, short, scrawny limbs of a half-starved child, trembled with each step as I stumbled along the busy avenues.
The first day, I noticed the city was alive and glittered around me, and utterly indifferent. Overhead, sleek skyscrapers of steel and glass speared into a twilight sky, their windows aglow with neon signs. Airships drifted between the towers alongside hovering transports, while below them.
I thought I was going crazy for a second when I saw it. But the hunger made all this real. A Chocobo-drawn carriage carrying a couple through a nearby park. It clip-clopped on cobblestone park road.
The city was a strange fusion of modern and medieval: I passed beneath an ancient stone archway that now housed an electronic billboard advertising a Chocobo Farm somewhere in the countryside ("RIDE WITH CHOCOBO COMFORT!" it blared, showing a family laughing on the back of a giant yellow bird). Just beyond, a sleek metal streetcar hummed along rails laid over old flagstones.
Crowds bustled past me, humans and others. A trio of Viera women, tall, poised, with long rabbit-like ears, strode by in school uniforms, conversing about a history assignment. A burly Ronso with azure fur and a single proud horn towering from his forehead nearly knocked me over as he shouldered through the throng, not even glancing down at the tiny child I appeared to be. I saw a Moogle running a fruit cart by the curb, a furry white creature no taller than my knee, with a pom-pom bobbing above its head as it squeaked "Fresh kupo fruits! Best prices, kupo!" to uninterested passersby.
In any other circumstance, I would have been awestruck; these were creatures out of the Final Fantasy video games I grew up playing. I dimly recalled from my old life watching my cousins and older brother playing FF7 and being amazed by the simple game. But awe was a distant second to survival.
"So I'm in the Final Fantasy world. But which one? There are so many different kinds. I'm not perfect at remembering all the characters or lore. But I need to be ready for monsters, war, and the crystals. In the Final Fantasy lore, no matter what world, if giant crystals exist. Then the world will sooner or later be closer to going to ending. Especially if the gods are moving behind the scenes."
I kept moving, deciding to focus on eating something. I was drawn forward by the scent of something warm and sweet. My mouth watered; I realized I'd smelled bread, fresh-baked bread from a vendor's stall up ahead. In my former life, I had money and means, but here I had nothing. Still, desperation overruled caution. I crept toward the stall where a fresh loaf lay unattended at the edge. My shaking hand darted out and snatched a small roll. I was about to stuff it into my mouth when a rough hand seized my wrist.
"Thief!" the stall owner, a human man in a stained apron, barked. He yanked me forward, and I stumbled, nearly falling. "Filthy street urchin, trying to steal my bread!"
"I'm sorry," I croaked, my voice hoarse from days without water. My heart thundered in my chest. The man's grip hurt; tears of pain sprang in my eyes before I could stop them.
"No excuses. I should call the guards on you," he growled, twisting my arm. I cried out, panic rising. If he turned me over to the city guard, they'd ask questions I had no answers for. How could I explain that I wasn't really a child from this world at all, that I was a stranger in stolen flesh?
"S-sorry," I whispered again, tears streaking down my dirty cheeks. I hated how weak and pitiful I sounded. The man's scowl only deepened.
Before he could drag me away, a new voice cut in, a languid drawl from just behind us. "Is there a problem here, sir?"
The bread-seller looked up, and so did I. A tall man in a uniform, with pointed ears. A Elvann. One of the elf-like races of the Final Fantasy series. I noticed the uniform; he must be a city guard. He regarded us coolly.
"This scamp stole from me!" the vendor exclaimed, shaking my arm for emphasis. "Caught him red-handed."
The Elvaan guard's gray eyes flicked to the crushed bread roll still in my fingers. I felt my face burn with shame and terror. Would he arrest me? Throw me in a dungeon?
Instead, the guard exhaled through his nose, then reached into a pouch at his belt. "What's the price of a roll?"
The vendor blinked. "Uh, two gil."
The guard flipped him a coin. "Here. Paid. Now let the boy go."
With a grunt, the stall owner released my wrist. I stumbled back a step, nearly falling over. Rubbing my arm, I looked up at the Elvaan in astonishment. He just gave me a faint, tired smile. "Run along, kid. And next time, just ask for help at the temple or the Crownsguard. Streets are no place for you."
I remembered that name "Crownsguard" from Final Fantasy 15. Wait, does that mean I'm in the country of Lucis, or the kingdom, to be exact? I wanted to say thank you and ask more questions, but the words stuck in my throat. Before I could find them, the guard was already moving on, the vendor grumbling but returning to his stall.
I clutched the stolen, no, paid-for bread, and I slunk away down a side alley. My cheeks burned with humiliation. This body betrayed me at every turn; it cried when I didn't want to cry, shook when I needed it to be strong. I sank behind a stack of empty crates, wolfing down the small roll in two bites. It barely took the edge off my hunger, but it was something.
Night fell before I found any other scraps of food. I scavenged what I could from trash bins behind restaurants, half-eaten skewers of roasted veggies, a discarded cup with a few swallows of lukewarm tea. It was disgusting and glorious all at once to my starving stomach. Under the cover of darkness, I curled up in a recessed doorway to rest. The city's neon glow painted the streets in a dizzying array of colors. High above, atop a distant palace of marble and steel that crowned the city center, I could see a giant crystal glowing a faint blue.
The Crystal of Etro, they called it. I had overheard snippets of conversation in passing. It was said to bless this kingdom, powering the magical Wall that kept monsters out of the city. Safe behind those barriers, the people in this "Kingdom of Lucis" lived in relative peace, going about their lives as if children never went hungry in the shadows of their glittering towers.
In front of the crystal was a small castle-like structure. I saw a tour group walking past, saying that their next stop is the royal palace and the Crystal of Etro. So I figured that's where the main character of Final Fantasy XV lived. Noctis Lucis Caelum.
I figured I was in the story of Final Fantasy 15. But something didn't add up. The different species didn't exist in the original story, and the look of the city was modern with a medieval look to it. In Lucis' case, a more Roman type feel to it.
I drifted in and out of fitful sleep, haunted by dreams of my old life, faces and places I feared I would never see again. The ache in my heart almost matched the ache in my belly. Almost.
The next day was worse. I was weaker than before, and even staying on my feet took effort. I tried asking for help, approaching a well-dressed human couple near a fountain, tugging on the lady's sleeve. She wrinkled her nose at my filthy appearance and pulled away as if I were diseased. Others outright ignored my soft pleas. A Moogling Delivery airship drifted overhead, casting a shadow as it dropped packages by small parachutes to waiting recipients on balconies, but no miracle packages came for me. Finally, by midday of the third day, I had nothing left. No strength, no hope.
People flowed around my tiny, stumbling form as I made my way down a broad boulevard toward the city's edge, though I don't know where I thought I was going. My vision blurred; the world swayed. With each step, I fought not to collapse. I just needed to hold on... maybe someone, somewhere would...
My foot caught on a loose cobblestone. With a startled cry, I pitched forward and hit the ground on hands and knees. Pain lanced through me, little cuts on my palms, my knee scraped raw. A few people glanced down as they stepped around me, like I was just a piece of debris in their path.
I couldn't rise. My arms trembled and gave out, and I slumped sideways onto the hard ground. The sky above spun, the late afternoon sun blurring with the glint of an airship passing overhead. This was it, I thought dimly. I survived thirty years in my old world, and only three days in this one. It felt pathetically unfair, but I was too exhausted to feel anger. My eyelids fluttered shut as the sounds of the bustling city dimmed into a dull roar.
My final thoughts were how cruel this world was to a child. To think that one person barely showed me decency. With my last bit of energy, I spoke.
"Please, someone help me, please." With tears trailing down my face.
The last thing I saw before darkness claimed me was a small pair of shoes skidding to a stop in front of my face, and a gasp of alarm in a child's high-pitched girl's voice.
"Daddy, look! There's a boy here!"
Then strong arms scooped me up, "What the hell is wrong with these people ignoring you like this?"
The rough male voice said, and I finally let go and fell into the black.
Soft sunlight pressed against my eyelids. I was warm, wonderfully, strangely warm, and lying on something soft. The harsh cobblestones were gone. For a blissful moment, I imagined I was waking up in my bed back home, that everything had been a nightmare. The illusion shattered as soon as I tried to move.
No more pain flared in my small body as I sucked in a breath, and my eyes fluttered open. Above me was a ceiling of white panels and gentle luminescence. I turned my head with a wince. I was in a bed, swathed in crisp white sheets, and an array of unfamiliar monitors. And what looked like an IV drip in my arm. All that and the antiseptic smell told me I was in a hospital.