the boy in the fire.
The last sound Sylus remembered was the horn.
A scream of metal. A windshield exploding into glittering knives. Heat flooding his chest.
And then—silence.
When he opened his eyes again, the sky was wrong.
Two suns hung above him. One gold, one pale white, casting twin shadows over endless fields of tall grass. The air smelled green, sharp, and impossibly clean. Trees with silver-veined leaves swayed in a wind that carried no dust, no exhaust, no noise but its own whisper.
Sylus lay there for a long time, staring. His heart raced. He remembered dying. He remembered the truck. He remembered nothing after.
He sat up too fast, clutching at his chest. His body was light, wrong. His hands were too slender, his skin pale and unscarred. No trace of the burns on his wrist, no crooked finger from the time he broke it playing basketball.
Stumbling to a pond, he dropped to his knees. The reflection made him recoil.
A boy. Sixteen, maybe. Ash-grey hair falling over his eyes. Irises like burning coals, faintly red in the sunlight. His face sharp but unformed, still too young.
"…That's not me." His voice was higher, smoother, raw with panic. "That's not"
He splashed the water, but the reflection didn't change. He dug his nails into his arm until it hurt. Still real.
"I died," he whispered. "So why the hell am I here?"
The twin suns gave no answer.
The first day was panic.
Sylus wandered the meadow, muttering, swearing, laughing bitterly to himself. "Okay. Two suns. Birds that glow like night-lights. No cars, no people, no—this isn't Earth. Did I… reincarnate? Is that actually a thing? Into this body?"
By evening, hunger gnawed at him. His stomach cramped so hard he nearly doubled over. He found fruit hanging from low branches, glowing faintly at the core. Against every survival instinct, he bit in.
Sweet. Tart. Filling. His hunger faded almost instantly.
"Not dead from poison." He wiped his mouth. "Progress."
For the first time, he laughed genuine, shaky, but real.
On the second day, he found smoke.
It curled faintly in the distance, a thin grey thread rising from beyond the hills. With no better plan than "don't starve," Sylus followed it.
The smoke led to a village. Not much more than a cluster of stone cottages around a square, with a river glinting nearby. Chickens scattered as he walked past. People stopped what they were doing to stare.
A woman carrying a basket frowned at him. "Where are your parents, boy?"
Sylus opened his mouth, froze, then muttered, "Dead." It wasn't even a lie.
The woman's expression softened. She pressed a hunk of bread into his hand and guided him to the well. "Drink. Eat slow. You're pale as chalk."
He ate like he hadn't seen food in weeks. Which, in a way, was true.
Around him, life moved on. Men carried lumber. Children splashed in the river, giggling. A man lit his pipe with a snap of his fingers—no flint, no spark, just flame born from nothing.
Sylus froze.
The man noticed his stare and chuckled. He held up his finger, where fire flickered like a candle. "What, never seen affinity before?"
Affinity. The word lodged in Sylus's skull.
steady as he could. His chest ached, but he forced it to obey.
"I'm not voidborn," he said. His voice steadied, fierce despite the tears in his eyes. "I'm fire. And I'll learn to control it, even if it burns me first."
The flame flared, then dimmed, hovering steady at last.
For the first time since waking in this world, Sylus smiled. Not bitter. Not broken. Just… determined.
The suns would rise again tomorrow. And so would he.