The light was wrong. It wasn't the flat, electric glow of streetlights seeping through his blinds, but a heavy, liquid gold that poured through leaves the size of dinner plates.
The air didn't smell of rain and concrete, but of damp earth, foreign flowers, and something else, ozone, and a faint, metallic tang like blood.
A young boy lay beneath a giant tree, sleeping soundly, his chest rising and falling rhythmically.
The sunlight kissed his skin,wrapping him its golden embrace. As if stirred by the warmth, his eyelashes fluttered open to reveal a captivating onyx vertical eyes, like the eyes of a beast, deep and mysterious like an abyss.
He sat up slowly, sleepiness still clinging to him. His eyes were groggy, and a slight chill made him shiver as he stretched with a satisfied grin.
"Never have I slept this much in my life." The boy muttered under his breath. Lazily scanning his surroundings, the blurriness and sleepiness began to fade away slowly as clarity returned to his mind.
He sat there in stunned silence, completely confused as he looked around." Wait...how did i get here?" This place is completely different from what he was very familiar with.
"I'm pretty sure I took a taxi home yesterday. How the hell did I end up lying on the ground instead of in my room? And why am I even lying under a tree!". Arthur was bewildered he had no idea what was happening.
He carefully took in his surroundings, the surrounding were deceptively plain at first glance, resembling a courtyard but on a far more grander and magnificent scale like some kind of a garden belonging to some noble house.
To his right stood a small mountain with a waterfall cascading into a clear pond where lotus flowers floated lazily and a few white swans glided gracefully. There was also a small pavilion by the waterfall.
To his left lay a small orchard and he is currently lying beneath an enormous tree whose long roots twisted together like forest dragons, a sight both beautiful and slightly terrifying depending one's perspective.
This wasn't a garden; it was a statement of wealth. The waterfall alone would cost a fortune in pump maintenance back home.
The sheer scale of it all, the ornamental pond, the manicured orchard, spoke of a power so vast it could waste resources on pure aesthetics. This was the property of someone who didn't worry about utility bills.
"What the hell is going on?" His unfamiliar voice echoed out laced with confusion and disbelief.
Raising his hands,he noticed something odd; his skin felt unnaturally soft and smooth. His hands looked quite small compared to what he is usually familiar with.
Arthur's mind to raced with countless thoughts. He couldn't comprehend why he found himself in such an unfamiliar place.
Just last night he had been hanging out with his friends before taking a taxi home; and now he woke up somewhere entirely strange. This was strange and unsettling.
Just then three words flashed through his mind : Transmigration. Reincarnation. Rebirth.
But he quickly shook off these thoughts, how can something so fictitious happen to him. Although he is an accountant but he'd read plenty of web novels and watched anime during his spare time, so he was quite familiar with the transmgratiom trope but experiencing it at firsthand seemed absurd.
While part of him had often wished for such an adventure, it had always been just a wishful thought not something he genuinely wanted for himself.
His life was perfect, he have a stable job quite rich if you put it that way, although he is not star struck handsome he have the looks to turn heads if he walks into a room.
He grew up in loving middle class family he was never worried about food or clothing, his social circle is also good, perfect in his eyes.
There was no bloody drama going in his life so for this kind of situation to happen to him is absurd after all, the novels that he have read the protagonists who usually got transmigrated are orphans, those who girlfriends are cheating on them or being bullied etc.
In fact he didn't even have the condition to transmigrate, he wasn't hit by a car,a truck or trying to a save a little girl he is just a little rich normal dude with a perfect life.
Just then his thoughts came to a sudden halt as his expression changed slightly.
His parents.
His parents are alive and well,and he is the only child of his parents he never lacked anything in his life because of the sacrifices his parents made so what will really happened to them now that he is here in this place.
His parents will be really heartbroken if they find his unmoving, unconsciousness body and even worse what if they don't find his body.
The thought was an ice pick to the chest. His mom, who still called every sunday. His dad, who'd taught him to drive.
They were practical people,they believed in facts. Their fact would be a cold, still body in an empty apartment. The police. The morgue. A coffin. His mother's face, collapsing.
Arthur's eye went slightly red as he tightly his fist." I don't want to be here, please take me back whoever brought me here please take me back i don't want to be stuck in place."
He lay back down on the ground as he looked at the drifting white fluffy clouds floating lazily across the sky. He was just shocked, speechless and confused at the same time, his heart a mixture of emotions.
His mind was a tangled mess, he didn't know what to do, he was desperate especially for his parents. And he can't do anything about it. Looking at the sky, Arthur heart felt really heavy like a mountain in being pressed on his chest.
After a while he slowly stood up from the floor and looked around his surroundings. The place was quite huge with many buildings in sight as well as unfamiliar but grand architecture as well.
He looked at the waterfall and slowly approached it, walking along the stone path and slowly stopped by the pond. The water was extremely crystal clear that the bottom can even faintly discernible.
His reflection on the water was extremely clear as well. His gaze looked at the reflection staring back at him who looked to be older than nineteen. That face looked back at him was nothing like the familiar face is used to.
This one looked more like he was sculpted rather being born, balance features drawn with impossible precision. His skin was pale but not bloodless,it carried the faint luster of polished marble. He has high cheekbones, a refined jawline, a straight nose and thin lips.
If beauty could be shaped into a weapon,this face was the proof.
He has a deep set of vertical onyx eyes, so dark they seemed to swallow the light around them. His hair is quite long reaching his waist, loose and wild, it was quicksilver,pure, molten silver shifting with the light, and it seems every stand is alive with mirrored sheen.
A gust of wind lifted a few strands, they move like liquid silver under dawn.
Arthur touched a few strands and was startled by the cool texture. Smooth,soft yet strong enough to resist the breeze.
He studied reflection longer,trying to find a flaw,something mortal but the face refuse to give him that.
"What a lady killer," Arthur muttered under his breath as he unconsciously smiled." I'm sure this guy have broken a lot of hearts with this face alone."
The reflection lips moved with his,softly curved,more confident than he felt. It made him look dangerous.
He quickly shook his head and diverted his gaze away from the pond as he looked up at the waterfall, he slowly turned around and walked away from the pond.
Suddenly his steps came to a halt,his eyed flew open wide,his mouth slightly opened. His face went pale as sweats started forming on his brows. A sharp and jarring pain shot up his entire being,his knees buckled as he held his head.
Veins popped up along his forehead like snakes his pupils dilated as the corners were tinged with red. He felt that his head was being smashed with a giant hammer and his consciousness was being ripped out of his head and pounded with a sledgehammer.
Undulating waves of foreign memories came crashing like the waves of the sea, memories that were both familiar and unfamiliar, they being forcibly instill in his brain like downloading a massive file into a computer.
He couldn't handle the pain anymore and just collapse on the ground as he held his head and kept rolling on the ground letting out low beastial grunts.
After who knows how long, the pain finally subsided, his entire body was soak with sweats, his face still pale.
"Damm that was painful. I didn't expect getting the memories of your predecessor was gonna be torture."
He slowly closed his eyes and after a few moments he slowly opened them again but this time his onyx eyes were filled with disbelief,shock and fear deep and intense fear. He has never felt so much fear in his life.
"Are you fucking serious?"