The first thing Kell became aware of was the light.
"Ugh… why is there so much light?" he muttered, voice thick with sleep. He threw an arm across his face, trying to block the aggressive golden-white glare stabbing straight through his eyelids. The morning sun felt personal, like it had specifically chosen to burn him today.
"Wake up, brother-in-law. What are you going to do, sleep the whole day away like a hibernating bear?"
Suddenly, a voice entered his ears which was sweet, melodic, gently chiding—like honey poured over warm bread but completely unfamiliar.
Kell's eyes snapped open.
He lurched upright so fast the rough wool blanket slid off his chest and pooled in his lap. "Who—"
The word died in his throat.
A lance of pure, white-hot pain drilled between his temples—like someone had driven an ice pick through the soft spot just above the bridge of his nose and then twisted. He hissed through clenched teeth, both hands flying to cradle his skull.
"Oh! You're awake already," the same voice said from somewhere near the doorway. It carried a faint laugh, soft and unconcerned. "Good. Then come out quickly, alright? Your brother's already asking for you. If you're late again he'll scold you in front of the whole yard like last week. Come on, up-up-up."
Light footsteps retreated. The thin wooden door creaked once as it was pulled shut, leaving a bright rectangle of sunlight burning on the dirt floor.
Kell didn't move.
He couldn't.
Because in the three seconds it took that door to close, an entire life that was not his own had poured into his skull like floodwater breaking through a dam.
Images. Smells. Sounds. Emotions that belonged to someone else.
A small boy with scraped knees running after a taller shadow through wheat fields. The sour reek of a tannery his father used to work at before the bandits came. The hollow sound of his mother's name being spoken in past tense.
A rough, calloused hand ruffling his hair—Tim's hand—saying "You'll be alright, little Kell. I've got you." A wedding two summers ago: wildflowers braided into dark hair, Serene's shy smile, the way Tim's shoulders finally relaxed for the first time in years.
Kell Feldren.
Twenty-one years old. Orphaned. Raised by his elder brother in a sagging one-room hut on the edge of a barley-growing hamlet in the shadow of Red Serpent Barony. A life small, hard, and fiercely ordinary.
The memories settled like sediment in a shaken glass of water—slowly, heavily, inescapably.
Kell pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes until colors burst behind the lids.
"Fuck," he whispered hoarsely. "What the hell was that?"
He lowered his hands.
For the first time, he really looked at the room.
Low ceiling of cracked mud-and-thatch. A single narrow window with no glass, just a scrap of oiled parchment pinned up to keep out the worst of the wind.
A three-legged stool missing a leg that had been replaced with a stack of flat stones. A chipped clay pitcher. A pair of worn boots by the door, toes pointed outward like they were waiting for someone to step into them. The blanket he was sitting on smelled faintly of smoke, sheep, and old sweat.
This wasn't a dream.
This wasn't VR.
This wasn't even a particularly convincing isekai fanfic.
This was real dirt under his fingernails. Real cold morning air curling around his bare arms. Real ache in his lower back from sleeping on a straw pallet that felt like it had more rocks than stuffing.
He looked down at his hands.
They were rougher than he remembered. Palms thick with callus. A thin white scar curved across the base of his left thumb—something Kell Feldren had earned trying to skin a rabbit when he was fourteen. The knuckles were scabbed.
Slowly, Kell lifted his gaze to the small, cloudy piece of polished tin that served as a mirror hanging from a nail.
The face staring back was… him. But not him.
Same dark brown eyes. Same sharp jaw. But the hair was longer, sun-bleached at the tips, tied back with a fraying leather thong. A scattering of freckles across the nose he didn't remember having. A small nick of a scar at the hairline.
Kell Feldren looked back at him with wide, horrified eyes.
"You gotta be kidding me…" he breathed. "I seriously got transmigrated? But how?"
A thousand questions collided in his head at once.
Truck-kun? No truck. No stairs. No lightning. No suspicious glowing app. He'd gone to bed in his shitty studio apartment after watching three episodes of some trash isekai and eating cold ramen. That was it.
'So why—?'
"Kell!" The voice outside again—deeper this time. Male. Rough-edged with impatience. "What in the hells are you doing in there? Come out and eat. We've got the south field to finish harrowing before noon and the ox is already in a mood."
Kell jolted.
That voice. Tim's voice. The same one that had just comforted a crying child in his memories. The same one that had laughed at Serene's terrible jokes during the wedding feast.
"Coming!" he called back automatically.
He pressed both hands to his face for a second, dragging them down slowly.
'Okay. Okay. Panic later. Survive now.'
He didn't know how this happened. He didn't know why. He didn't know if there was a system waiting to pop up, or a demon lord somewhere, or a goddess about to give him a speech about destiny.
But he knew one thing with bone-deep certainty:
Tim was waiting outside that door.
Whatever else this world was going to throw at him, Kell wasn't about to let that man down on day one.
He swung his legs off the pallet, stood on unsteady feet, and reached for the patched tunic hanging from a peg.
"Alright," he muttered under his breath, voice barely audible even to himself. "Let's see what kind of bullshit life you left me, Kell Feldren."
He pulled the tunic over his head, took one last look at the stranger in the tin mirror, and pushed the door open into blinding morning light.
----
If you're enjoying this novel, please add it to your library. Comments and Power Stones are greatly appreciated!