The world around Nathan was fading.
The hospital room smelled faintly of antiseptic, the steady beep… beep… beep of the monitor dragging him through each laboured breath. His body felt like it was made of lead, bones fragile, lungs struggling to draw in even the thinnest wisp of air.
Seventeen years old, and already at the end.
On the nightstand, his phone screen glowed faintly. He'd forced himself to hold out for this—just this one thing.
On it played the final episode of Once Upon a Time.
Snow White and Prince Charming reunited with their family. Emma embracing Henry. Regina finally finding her redemption. The stories he had clung to during endless hospital nights… ending at last.
A smile tugged weakly at Nathan's lips.
"Heh… I actually made it to the end…"
But the smile wavered, bitter creeping in with the joy. All those characters had adventures—loves lost and found, battles fought, destinies rewritten. And what did he have? White walls. Medicine. Loneliness.
"…If only… if only I could've had a life like that. To live. To fight. To protect the people I cared about…"
The whisper was faint, almost lost to the hiss of the oxygen.
And then—
[Wish Detected.]
[Processing…]
[Candidate: Nathan. Status: Terminal.]
[Transfer Approved.]
A voice not of this world rumbled in his head, mechanical yet divine, like the turning of celestial gears.
His eyes fluttered open in shock. "Wh-what—?"
[Your request: 'To live inside the story.']
[Granted.]
[Reincarnation Initiated.]
Warm light wrapped around him, dissolving the pain, the weakness, the broken body. For the first time in years, Nathan felt free. The monitor flatlined, the beeping ended—
—and his world went dark.
When he opened his eyes again, it was to the vast expanse of a bright blue sky.
No ceiling tiles. No hospital machines. Just a gentle breeze and the distant chatter of cars and voices.
"…I… I'm alive?"
He sat up slowly. His hands—small, delicate—looked nothing like before. Not the frail hands of a dying teenager. These were the hands of a child.
Stumbling toward a nearby window, Nathan froze.
The reflection staring back at him wasn't the boy he remembered.
Short, platinum hair, strands catching the sunlight like silver fire. Thin streaks of crimson-red wove through the locks, vivid, like embers smoldering at the edges of snow. And his eyes—
Golden. Bright and radiant, yet lined with mysterious purple rings that shimmered faintly, as if secrets of magic lay dormant within.
"…That's… me?"
The boy in the glass was striking—otherworldly. Not just alive, but almost too perfect, too captivating.
And then—
[Reincarnation Complete.]
[System Integration: Standby.]
The voice again. This time it wasn't frightening. It was… reassuring.
Nathan staggered back from the window, heart pounding.
He remembered the last thing before coming here that his wish was granted. This world could it actually be.
His narrowing then widening when it struck him.
"…Once Upon a Time."
This was the story he had just finished watching. The story of fairy tales reborn in the modern world. The story where Emma Swan, Regina Mills, Mary Margaret and Henry changed everything.
And now… he was here.
Not just watching.
Living it.
A shiver of anticipation coursed through him. His second life—his chance at adventure—had just begun.
But just as he began to take a step forward—
[Quest Preview Unlocked.]
[Objective: Find The Truest Believer.]
[Status: Semi awakened, Fully Operational When Host Is In Storybrooke.]
"…Fine… the truest Believer?" Nathan repeated under his breath, his golden eyes narrowing.
He didn't need the System to tell him what that meant.
He already knew the child who would change everything.
"Henry…"