It is dark.
Perhaps even endless.
Even a mere thought of sound feels impossible.
Suddenly—something flickered, a spark.
Then another follows.
They're thin and fragile like threads slipping through my fingers. But enough to remind me: I exist.
Who am I?
Throb.
Where am I?
Throb.
I see nothing.
Throb.
I hear nothing.
Throb.
It's cold.
Throb.
No answers came.
The questions scattered, as thin as smoke, drifting and dissolving.
Nothing listens.
The dark thickens, seeping into me like water, dragging me down deeper, until nothing remains but the echo of the beat in my head.
Throb.
Throb.
The beat grows heavier, pressing through the nothingness. It sounds dull, buried, like it's pulling at the edges of thoughts.
The silence bends.
A ripple through the dark.
Move.
I push, or try to. But it unravels in the fog, slipping apart before it can take shape.
Still, I push.
Another flicker.
Then another.
Light shatters the void.
Shards of something began shaping... Shards of colors and moments, tearing through the darkness.
Images begin to take shape.
Vague, erratic, yet there.
Faces without features.
Shadows without source.
Light that sears then dies again.
The beat roars closer, pounding against me, splitting the void apart.
Ugghh—!
My eyes snap wide open—harsh and blinding lights floods in. The void is gone.
I found myself sitting upright.
A table stretches before me.
Droplets of sweat slide down, falling one by one, leaving tiny wet marks on the woods.
I watch them gather, drip after drip, until the marks blur together.
I stare at each one.
Before me, a hand presses flat against the surface. The fingers move when I will them to, flexing lightly against the wood.
I can't look away. Every twitch feels borrowed, like a marionette moving on invisible strings.
Whose hands are these?
I begin to study them closely. The skin looks soft, delicate, pale and thin as candlewax. Faint veins are visible on the surface. Nothing unusual. That being said, the longer I stare at them, the less they feel mine.
Then slowly, lifting a finger. The fingertip brushes against my cheek, and in surprise, I feel it.
It was solid and warm. But the face beneath that touch feels foreign, unfamiliar, like I'm wearing someone else. Normal skin, normal shape, nothing out of the ordinary, yet wrong all the same, as though I'm tracing the outline of someone, of a stranger, I don't remember being.
Am I dreaming?
My hand rests against my cheek.
Must be.
My eyes caught the shards of glass scattered across the table, glinting under the lamp's dull yellow light.
A face stares back.
The glass splits it, warps it, but the shape holds. Smooth, greasy skin. Puffy eyes. Looks like a dead man wearing someone else's skin. Eyes burning in a color I know I've never had.
A face I don't recognize.
Someone else.
Someone is wearing me.
Who is this?
One shard gleams darker. A thin streak of red clings to its edge, trickling into the reflection.
It was blood.
I glance down.
Blood?! To my shock, my entire left hand is covered in blood, as a huge cut runs across the left palm, deep, raw. The blood from it spreads across the shard, staining the reflection, twisting the face.
I press it harder. No pain. No bleeding. My brain screams that this is real, while my heart stubbornly refuses to accept it.
I then notice the intricate pattern drawn in the table. The lines aren't carved, but seared into the wood. The faint, tiny glow from the line indicates that it happened a few moments ago. Then, I carefully swept the shards aside to get clear look at it.
There's heat—lingering heat, as I carefully reveal the symbols and letters.
What is this? Doodles?
Before me, a perfect circle, crisscrossed with a web of frantic, scribbled lines. A serpent coiled tightly along the outer ring, its scales forming into a seamless wall. Within, a wolf curled inside the smaller circle as though being cradled by the light of a thousand tiny suns.
Looks like some witch craft shit... There's no way this is a real magic circle. No way...
I wipe the blood from the wolf's eyes.
The warmth beneath my fingers flares, searing hot. I hiss and pull it away. "Ah?!"
The eyes of the wolf lit up in crimson color. The light flowed along the circle's lines, following every twist of the serpent's coils with a fluid motion.
I trip over my own foot, stumbling backward before sprawling onto the floor as the papers from the table rain down around me.
Thud!
"Tsk!" I grunted in pain.
Bit by bit, everything around me started to take form.
The room isn't too big, nor too small. Just enough for a person. Quite plain, completely stripped of anything. A single metal bed, accompanied with two drawers and a table lamp resting on top. A kitchen with a lone kettle and cooking pot. And a cabinet, as tall as the room. No unnecessary stuff in it, only the necessities needed for everyday use.
The walls are bare, drained of life. Lamps are fixed high, each enclosed in a glass cover with carved moldings of some creature with wings—not of a human, animal, or anything I've seen before—encased within a black grid.
Something crinkles.
I bring it closer. A thin, white sheet of paper, with something written on it. Probably letters? A language?
Hm?
I stare blankly at the paper.
The heck are these ancient, extraterrestrial squiggles? It's entirely different from the ones on the table.
Something smooth and cool brushes against my hand, instantly catching my attention. I grab it, pulling it closer. It was a deep red glass bottle, with black liquid dripping down my fingers. Turning it in my hands, I notice the lion etched into the surface. Its mane flared wildly, teeth bared into silent snarl.
Throb!
"Argh!" I grab my head, digging my nails in. The pain... It is nothing like anything I have felt before! Like my head is splitting in half and being stabbed at the same time. There's something... Something clawing its way out out of desperation. I feel it pressing from the inside, scratching the edges of my skull.
Calm down. Calm down. Calm down. Calm the fuck down. I told myself repeatedly.
I grit my teeth in pain.
A clock sound echoes inside my head, growing louder and louder. Each tick feels like a hammer hitting my skin from inside and out. My skin vibrates with it. My bones feel it too. I press my hands to my ears.
I think I'm going to lose it.
Then something flashes.
An old man's hand, rough and calloused? Clearly not mine.
They rush in without warning, flooding me, tearing through thought like a storm breaking glass.
A woman's soothing soft voice echoes, speaking words that I don't understand, yet hearing her voice aches my chest.
A light laughter, almost childlike, reverberated—Then it vanished, swallowed by the shriek of steel against steel.
Faces. Too many of them. Blurring, shifting, passing right through me. I cannot stop them. Cannot make sense of them.
My chest tightens. My hands clench. I think—maybe they are not real. Or maybe they are too real. I do not know anymore.
A boy appeared, no older than twelve, kneeling in the mud with blood smeared against his cheek, lips trembling as laughter echoes. He trembled in fear, trying to stand while the shadow jeers at him.
Somebody, somebody, somebody...
The candlelight flickers. Shadow dance across the walls. Slowly, I see them. A row of heads bowing down low, as they utter a single name in a desperate cry, over and over again, like a prayer. At the chamber's heart, a crest shaped like a dragon shines brightly in a purple hue, with its wings stretching wide. Almost as if it wants to swallow the whole room.
None of these, I lived.
But they keep pouring into me, drilling into my mind as if I've stolen them, or as if they're being forced into me.
The pain sharpens. I stagger, squirming around the floor as the memories keep breaking through.
Whose memories are these?
Then someone whispers—Claude Belmont.
The pain in my head worsens as if the name itself has a life of its own, refusing to be forgotten. Claude Belmont... That's the name of this body, the middle son of the Belmont Family.
And with it, more pieces begin to unfold.
Not the heir. Not the youngest to be coddled. Just the one caught in between, whom no one sees.
He wasn't like the rest of his brothers.
In a house where bloodline meant everything, he was the outlier. The one blemish in the lineage that prided itself on purity—the stain in the family. While the others carried magic, their birthright, fate laughed at him.
And without mana, the sword meant nothing in his hands. Where his brothers shone brightly in the training yard, sparks flying with every exchanged blow, he stumbled and fell, blade slipping from his grasp. Bruises in his arms, ribs ached with every strike he failed to parry. The tutors sneered, and the knights turned their backs.
He has no mana.
He couldn't fight.
What use was he?
At the young age of ten, his family stopped pretending. They stripped him of his crest, cast him from their halls, and shut him in this forgotten room.
A boy with no spark, no strength, no place in their world.
Deprived of mana and strength, he turned to what remained, which was his mind. Books became his weapons. While others sought glory in battles, he pursued the roots of divinity itself, burying himself in parchment and ink.
Despite choosing this path, at Atlas Academy, he was tolerated, not celebrated. A shadow in one of many in the back rows, scribbling notes, his pockets bulging with scraps of copied runes. Despite everything, he tried his best even when the words slipped through him like water.
He was a novice. A pretender. A Belmont who could not wield a sword even if his life was at stake. Yet in the act of trying, he attempted to defy his own erasure, a quiet declaration that he still had worth, letting the world know he existed.
Still...
Despite every effort, he was average at best.
And now, I'm staring at the world he lived in. I whispered to myself, closing my eyes, the word feeling both foreign and absolute. "I'm him..."