His skin was burning, flakes of it blackening and falling off, the ground around him boiled and bubbled. It was hot. Disgustingly hot. His hands and legs were tied behind him to the chair, and a gag was shoved into his mouth. He was going to burn alive in this heat. He had no way out and a hundred regrets, all of them about to end here and now as he died under the endless, never-setting sun. He thought of everything he could, any way to escape the vengeful sun. He knew he was going to die, and so made the pact knowing exactly what it would do to him. He needed a Sigil, and needed it fast, before he died.
-Abel Cyrus-
Abel: Just let me sleep...
He was tired, truly and properly tired. Lying on his bed, Abel Cyrus tried any way he could to claim any amount of sleep that he could. He had been awake for almost three days straight by that point and felt like he could well and truly die if he didn't go to sleep right here, right now.
Madlyn: No, you know we have things to do today.
Abel: Don't care. I'm tired.
And yet his sister, Madlyn Cyrus, was trying to prevent him from finally claiming his slumber.
Madlyn: Fine! I give up! Just lie there and rot then!
Abel: Thank you.
Madlyn fled the room, slamming the door behind her in a rage. He'd have to apologise for that later, but for now he was finally going to get some well deserved sleep. He closed his eyes and let his bed claim his consciousness as he fell asleep for the first time in far too long. He got only a few seconds of rest in his bed before he felt the light of morning on his eyes.
Abel, muttering: You have got to be kidding me.
The sudden sensation of extreme pain flooded every inch of his body as his mind caught up to the situation he suddenly found himself in. Agony. Complete agony all over his body. His eyes shot open and saw an endless expanse of sand, a desert. Why was he in so much pain?! He tried to scream in pain-
Abel: MMM! MHMMMMMM! HMMMMMHMMMHHM!
There was a gag in his mouth, preventing him from screaming. He felt his very skin burning as if he had been set on fire as he tried to get up and run away from whatever it was that was happening to him, only- His hands and legs were tied to something and he couldn't see what. In the corner of his eye he saw a large, red sun high up in the sky as if gazing directly upon him, he was burning up under the sun. Panic truly set in right then and there. He was tied up and gagged, burning alive underneath a red sun. What the hell was happening to him?! He had just been trying to go to sleep and now-!
[Notice: Death imminent]
A sudden voice broke what little focus he had left in him, had it said "death imminent"? Did something just speak to him?! He already knew he was dying, but death imminent?! The sensation of flames on his skin went out as his eyes began to fuzz over, blood beginning to pool out from him as his mind left his body. He was dying- No, he was already dead. The sun had killed him in the middle of a desert.
[Notice: Skill gained]
[Death Watcher, Level 0 -> Death Watcher, Level 1]
His mind snapped into place and his eyes shot open as he gasped for breath, waking up in a cold sweat, and began to pant.
Abel: *pant* W-what....?
It took him a minute but he realised where he was. He was in a bed. It had all been a dream. He sat up in his bed, placing his head into his hands.
Abel: *sigh* A nightmare... It was just a nightmare...
Only... It had felt so real. Even now he could still feel the sensation of his skin burning, slight even though it was. He had been sure for a minute that he had somehow been transported somewhere and left to die, but no. He was in his room and on his bed. Completely fine. He took his head out of his hands and saw it-
Abel: ... What? -Where am I?
This wasn't his bedroom. It didn't even look like any of the rooms in his house. Had he been kidnapped in his sleep? It was certainly possible, and made his dream about dying make a certain amount of sense, as if it had been his body's way of informing him that he had been kidnapped. But if he had indeed been kidnapped then what was he supposed to do about that? He needed to get as much information as he could before doing anything, so he stood up to look around the room.
Light leaked into the room from the sun outside, permeating through every single inch of the room, making it extremely bright inside. It seemed to be noon or a similar time judging by the amount of light coming in through the window, but that was impossible, it had been the late evening when he had fallen asleep. Either he had slept for several hours, or when he had been kidnapped he had been drugged to keep him asleep for longer to let his kidnapper actually move him somewhere. If he had been kidnapped, then what had happened to his sister? He suspected she had likely been kidnapped too and was being held somewhere just like the room he now found himself in. It was almost entirely empty, white walls barren of any photos or any form of decoration. Just a single window and mirror.
He didn't have any clothes on him, had he been stripped naked by his kidnapper? He was sure he had been wearing clothes when he had fallen asleep, although he had been so tired he wasn't completely sure of that fact, so he just had to hope he hadn't been wearing clothes when he went to sleep and instead had just been transported as is instead of being stripped by whoever had done this to him and his sister. He really hoped that she was alright, there was every possibility that she had been killed by their kidnapper in order to get him, but if that had been what happened then whatever reason he had been kidnapped wouldn't have applied to her. Why even had he been kidnapped? He couldn't think of any obvious reason for someone to bother kidnapping him, so decided to just leave it for now and look for a way out of the situation he was in. He could worry about the why later.
His eyes snapped into place after passing the mirror to get to the door. For a split second he was sure that he had seen someone that wasn't him in the mirror, but when he turned to look around the room for that person he saw nothing. He was alone in the room. He walked back to the mirror and looked into it.
Abel: Huh?
It wasn't him. In the mirror he saw a face and body that wasn't his. He looked around again to double check there was no one else in the room and again, saw nothing. The person in the mirror was tall, well-built, and had extremely short blond hair that looked like it had been shaven clean to the scalp recently. The person even had blue eyes compared to his brown. He touched at his head and felt the prickly, short hair and the mirror person did the same. He tried to do a few movements, before speeding up the rate at which he did them, but the mirror copied every single one of his movements. The person in the mirror was him. He wasn't in his own body. The fact that he could see perfectly without his glasses proved that, and he hadn't reached for his glasses when he woke up.
The body wasn't his. It didn't have his muscle memory or compulsions, and yet he was in it. He was definitely controlling it as seen by the perfectly in sync mirror. He stepped closer to the mirror and put one of his fingers, longer and thinner than he was used to, against the mirror. He saw the standard gap between his finger and the reflection, meaning this wasn't a one way mirror, but the real thing. He picked up the mirror and threw it down onto the floor, shards going everywhere. He checked behind the shard and saw nothing. It was a normal mirror. It was certain, he was no longer in his own body, but that of someone else's. Perhaps his kidnapper had used plastic surgery to change how he looked? But no, he looked everywhere over his body and saw no scars. Whatever was happening was genuine, he had stolen someone else's body.