Ecliptics?
They look like us, walk among us, and live in the same world we do… but they are far from ordinary… They're superhuman people who carry a power so vast it feels almost godlike.
Ecliptics live 270-400 years unlike a normal human being. And because of that… They see history differently. Many empires rise and fall before their eyes and generations come and go while they witness everything.
The strange part is that this power can awaken at any point in their lives as there's no pattern, nor any set of time. Like a child might suddenly discover it, or someone nearing the end of their years might feel it stir for the first time.
—Rumble! —Rumble!
Someone leaned back in her chair as the silence of the library was broken by lighting.
Her name is Tess Hollow.
She glanced toward the tall windows and saw the rain streaking down heavily. She checked her watch, [3:29 A.m.]
"Already this late. Time had slipped away without me noticing... I should go home." She closed her book carefully, set it aside and pulled off the reading goggles, rubbing the bridge of her nose where they had rested too long.
The library felt colder now, emptier, as the storm outside grew louder. Gathering her things, she knew it was time to head home, though a small part of her still lingered with the words on the page, as if they weren't quite ready to let her go.
"This world is truly a realm of wonders and impossibilities!" Tess whispered to herself while popping open her umbrella as she stepped out into the drizzling rain, heading back to what she now called home. Just a few hours earlier, she had jolted awake in a stranger's body with confusion after her mind reeled from the shock.
In her previous existence, she had met a tragic end aka murdered by an unknown assailant right before wrapping up a long day at the office.
'Is it a coincidence or something else… Why am I even here?' She thought because, by some strange twist, her new appearance mirrored her old one closely. The sole distinction being is that her former self had possessed a more striking beauty, one that turned heads effortlessly.
More importantly, Why couldn't she recall her age?! Or the accident that had thrust her into this strange existence?! And she knows that she was… hitwoman in her last life? How?!
'Luna is twenty-two years old.' Tess vaguely sensed she had been before... Whatever happened. All the memories were slipping away like sand through her fingers, leaving only echoes of regret and a deep-seated loneliness.
—Rumble!!
"I should hurry. Dean must be waiting at home… Maybe wondering why I'm running late again today."
From the scattered thoughts and notes Tess found in Luna's modest apartment. It became clear that Luna had been living a solitary, determined life. She had adopted a son, eight years younger than her.
"Perhaps he had been a street kid or someone in need, and Luna… had taken him in formally, treating him like family despite the age gap."
They lived alone together in a cramped but cozy home, far from the judgmental eyes of the world. Luna worked tirelessly on two jobs. One of them was as a waitress during the day and another as a library assistant at night, all to give him a shot at a better life than the one she'd endured.
Tess muttered. "Like some fragments from a dream I can't completely recall. If I remember her past…"
She delved into Luna's painful memories, and discovered how her parents had abandoned her as a teenager, vanishing into the cold city without a word. This betrayal had hardened Luna into a pillar of fierce independent woman. Who's putting every ounce of her love into her adopted son, swearing he'd never endure the rejection that scarred her soul.
A wave of empathy washed over Tess as her own hazy memories echoing with familiar shadows of loss.
"I'll... be his family if he wants me to. Plus... I'll be free from underworld work... I don't need to kill others for my freedom." The words tumbled from Tess's lips like a prayer as she clutched the umbrella and quickened her pace in dark alleyways.
"Taste of fear, huh? It sounds boring now." In Luna's borrowed body, she glimpsed something she'd never dared to dream of… A chance at redemption wrapped in the simple act of coming home to someone who needed her.
Tess approached her dimly lit house as she felt Luna's rectify merging with her own soul. Maybe this was a chance to heal herself, and to remember who she had been while honoring who Luna was.
"I'm home... Dean." Tess's voice died in her throat as her fingers brushed against the door handle. The lock was open... Wide open.
'Luna always locked the door.' Her blood turned to ice. It was an obsession born from years of fending for herself on dangerous streets. Only she had the key, only she knew the particular way the old mechanism clicked into place.
"... No sound… Something is messed up!" Tess's heart hammered against her ribs as she pressed her ear to the door, every nerve screaming that something was wrong.
Her old instincts, the ones she'd tried so hard to bury, clawed their way back to the surface.
Without thinking, she shifted the umbrella behind her back, her grip tight enough to leave marks. She opened the door and sounded normal. "Dean. Where are you?"
'Dean always calls back.' He always rushed to greet her, and he always had some story about his day or a joke that made her smile.
The quiet felt wrong, heavy with the kind of dread that made her skin crawl. Her eyes lurked around the room, taking in the disaster… Chairs were knocked over, and mud tracked everywhere. Its awful metallic smell made her stomach lurch.
Dirty boot prints. Three distinct sets, tracked across Luna's pristine floors like a roadmap of violation. Heavy treads, military-style… the kind worn by people who did the same work she used to do in her past life…
"Assassination? But why?... Maybe I'm overthinking…" She felt her numb fingers as cans rolled across the hardwood with hollow… Echoing thuds that seemed to mock the silence.
"Dean?" Tess mumbled again, but the house swallowed her voice whole.
Her gaze focused in the living room with predatory skills. Overturned cushions.
A family photo of Luna and her adopted son shattered on the floor, glass catching the dim light like scattered stars.
The coffee table had been shoved aside, and there is a mark etched into the wall in what looked suspiciously like blood, was a symbol that made Tess's stomach drop.
She couldn't decipher the crude marking, but something about it remains dark memories she couldn't quite locate. The quiet life she'd been desperately reaching for making grocery runs, worrying about normal things was crumbling before her eyes.
'It looked like peace wasn't going to be an option anymore. But…'
"Dean... Where is Dean?" Her voice cracked as a muffled whimper drifted down from upstairs, so soft she almost missed it.
Tess went rigid, her knuckles white around the umbrella handle. Every protective instinct of Luna screamed at her to run upstairs, but her assassin training held her calculating the risks.
The sound came again… 'Definitely human and… terrified.'
Her heart shattered and hardened simultaneously. Whatever the cost, whoever was up there with Dean, she was done running.
"I should check upstairs." Tess's hands shook as she made her way to the kitchen. She fumbled through the drawers until her fingers found the chef's knife for better weapon choice. Holding it made her feel slightly less helpless, though nothing could quiet the terror clawing at her chest.
She climbed the stairs as every creak of the old wood made her flinch, but she forced herself to keep going. Dean was up there somewhere. Whoever had him... Her grip tightened on the knife handle until her knuckles went white.
Even the hallway stretched before her like a nightmare, and Dean's door sat partially open… casting an awful sliver of light that somehow made everything worse.
She could hear something now. "Please let him be okay. Please."
Her whole body was shaking in anger as she reached for the door handle.
She'd killed people before, done terrible things, but this felt different. This wasn't some contract or survival… This was about protecting someone she'd grown to love through Luna's memories.
Tess pushed the door open, ready to fight for her family, but what she saw made her legs give out completely.
"No... this can't have happened…"