The world was a painful, flickering reel.
One moment, there was nothing: a black, silent void, serene and cold. The next, a blinding, white flash of pain and the immediate, staggering realization of hunger.
Darkness.
Wait. The darkness broke again. He felt a pressure on his lungs—a ragged, shallow breath—and the searing, pervasive ache of a body that had been starved past the point of despair. He was alive, somehow, but death felt like a persistent, heavy blanket.
I died. The thought was fleeting, overwhelmed by the physical reality of a heart beating too slow and too weak. He remembered the truck, the rain, the sudden, violent rush of white light, and the final Crunch of metal. Now, he was here, a tiny, miserable consciousness trapped in a decaying vessel.
The next return to the light was forced by a stimulus: a tickle. A tiny, delicate pressure on his inert fingers. A flicker of movement, followed by a wet, nervous rodent sniffing against his skin.
The sheer, overwhelming surge of instinct—the body's final, desperate attempt at survival—bypassed his panic and fear. The man who knew about hygiene and plagues vanished. All that remained was the predatory spark of the starving creature.
His mouth snapped open in a silent, violent lunge.
Crunch.
A high-pitched, terrifying squeal was instantly muffled. The resistance was small, brittle, and hot. A frantic, wriggling struggle erupted in his grip. The sensation of the bite, of that involuntary, savage connection, jolted the new soul into horrifying, complete lucidity.
Oh, God. I just bit on a rat.
He spat, violently rejecting the raw, bloody mouthful. He finally managed to wrench his eyelids apart. The world swam into a blurry, sickly focus: a damp, dark alley lit by nearby torches in its vicinity. The air was thick and heavy, and the floor was littered with broken bottles and food.
He looked down at his own hand, trembling uncontrollably. His thin, filthy fingers were clamped around a rat—half of it, anyway. The rest of the creature thrashed wildly, its dark, desperate eyes meeting his before it managed to tear itself free.
The remaining half of the body—the head, still connected to a sliver of bloody fur and bone—was gripped tightly between his jaw, which was clamped shut in rigor mortis.
A wave of nausea hit him, but it was instantly crushed by the primal need for sustenance. Before he could scream, before he could weep at the sheer horror of the act, the new soul in the old body surrendered to the necessity. He chewed.
The flavor was iron and grit, a flash of protein. It was vile, disgusting, and it was the single greatest thing this body had experienced in days. He swallowed, gagged, swallowed again, forcing the brutal, metallic sustenance down his throat.
A tiny, momentary surge of strength fired through his system. Enough to register the surroundings.
What an entry to a new world.
He looked at his surroundings. He saw a city made of ancient, mismatched stone. Dominating the skyline was a single, impossibly huge, spiraling stone tower that reached into the clouds, the tip vanishing from sight. What kind of world was this?
He was a half-dead child, lying in a forgotten corner, having just cannibalized vermin in a garbage-filled alleyway.
He had no name, no context, and no idea where he was. Survival here wasn't a choice or a game. It was a savage, day-to-day war against the starvation and the neglect of the people—if they were people—around him.
He pushed himself up on one trembling arm, ignoring the metallic aftertaste. He had won the first, brutal battle.
He looked out to his surroundings. He needed a plan. He needed food, strength, and way to survive in this unknown world.
This is his second chance at life, and he is terrified, and totally alone in a world he can't understand.