He opened his eyes, and light pressed against them, too bright and too close.
For a moment, he was certain he had not woken alone.
Something lingered at his back—close, almost touching.
Like a reflection he could not turn to face.
Then it was gone.
His body refused to move.
Not the way it should have been.
His hands came into view, small and fragile in a way that did not belong to him. He stared at them, uncomprehending, trying to reconcile what he saw with what he remembered. There had been blood, and there should have been pain.
But there was nothing. No wound, no ache, not even a trace.
For a moment, nothing made sense. Then the thought came slowly, almost unwillingly.
He might have died.
Warmth surrounded him soon after, unfamiliar and soft, and voices followed, blurred at first and then gradually clearer. He could not understand the words, but he could hear the emotion behind them.
They sounded happy.
That did not make sense.
He forced his eyes open wider, and shapes formed above him—faces leaning closer, smiling as if he belonged to them. He had never been the reason for anyone's happiness.
A breath slipped from him as the understanding settled in, heavy and difficult to accept. He was not in the body he remembered. It was smaller, lighter, and unmistakably not his.
Slowly, the truth took shape.
He had been born again.
The thought did not fit. Nothing did. His mind felt too full for the body that held it, crowded with memories that did not belong to something so new. He closed his eyes for a moment, trying to steady himself, and when he opened them again, the light had softened.
For a brief instant, he hoped it was a dream—a dying mind's final flicker.
But it was not.
He was still there.
The young woman leaned closer, exhaustion softened by relief, while a man stood beside her, watching quietly with a kind of care he did not understand.
The room around them was small and simple, with wooden walls, soft blankets, and the faint scent of firewood and cloth lingering in the air. It was nothing grand or rich, yet it felt larger than anything he had ever known, as though it carried a quiet sense of life he had never experienced before.
A thought formed before he could stop it.
This might be a second chance.
He did not accept it immediately. The idea felt too fragile to trust, too uncertain to rely on, and yet it lingered in his thoughts. If it was true, then he would need strength—enough not to be cast aside again.
His gaze drifted toward a worn mirror, where he caught a glimpse of himself. Dark hair, plain eyes, and features that held nothing remarkable or striking. It was the kind of face no one had ever looked at with joy.
It made no sense to him why it was different now, or why people like them would smile at him as if he belonged there, as if he was wanted.
The thought twisted inside him.
He had never been wanted. He had only ever been a burden—a curse.
In his previous life, all he had brought was hunger and hardship. His parents had been poor, forced to divide scraps that were never enough even for themselves. A child like him had never been a blessing.
Even if they had loved him, and he believed they had in their own way, love had never been enough to fill an empty stomach.
There had never been enough for three.
Not enough food, not enough warmth, not enough life.
One of them had to go.
So he left.
———
The memory returned in fragments, disjointed but vivid enough to hurt. He could feel the ache in his shoulders and the weight of things far too heavy for a child's hands. His days had begun before sunrise and ended long after dark, repeating in a cycle of labor, hunger, and exhaustion that never seemed to break.
He remembered wishing for it to end, praying for sleep deep enough that he would never wake.
But death had not been merciful.
It came slowly and without kindness. His body never had the chance to grow; it only withered, each passing day taking something from him—strength, weight, breath—until there was so little left that it felt as if he had simply faded from the world.
As if he had shrunk enough to disappear.
And yet the memories remained, sharp and unfaded, too vivid for a newborn mind to hold. The hunger, the cold, and the strain of work against a body that had never been strong enough lingered with him, along with the quiet erosion of a life that had never truly begun.
Then something pulled him back.
Movement.
Warmth shifted beneath him, steady and careful, and arms held him close with a kind of protection he did not recognize. A soft voice hummed above him.
At first, it was only the young woman's voice, soft and unsteady as she held him close, her gaze lingering on his face as though trying to understand him.
Then the realization followed, settling quietly within him.
She was his mother.
His eyes remained fixed on her.
Something about her was… wrong.
Not wrong—just not human.
Her ears were too long. Too refined. Unmistakable.
He did not know what to call it.
But he knew it did not exist in the world he remembered.
His father, at least, looked human.
That alone was enough.
This world did not seem to follow the same rules.
The realization settled without shock, as if he had already run out of ways to be surprised.
Then he heard it.
A name.
"Ere."
The sound lingered in the air, spoken with a tenderness meant for him. He lay still, unable to react, as the word slowly reached him.
Ere.
His name.
He had never imagined he would be given something so gentle, something that sounded as though it belonged to a person worth keeping.
He let it settle inside him, quiet and unfamiliar.
He could not remember the last time anyone had called him by a name at all. Most of the time, he had only ever been a curse, and perhaps they had not been wrong.
Somewhere along the way, even that name—his old one—had faded from memory, buried beneath hunger and bitterness until nothing of it remained.
The thought was too much. His mind felt heavy, crowded with more than this small body could hold, and he closed his eyes.
As the days passed, warmth became something familiar rather than comforting. He felt the heat of his mother's body when she fed him, the steadiness of her arms when she held him, and the quiet presence of the man who watched over them both.
They were kind—consistently, unguardedly kind.
He could not bring himself to trust it.
Something colder remained within him, a quiet certainty that refused to yield. This would not last. Sooner or later, he would be thrown away again.
The feeling endured, untouched by warmth, as if it had survived death itself—an expectation of loss that refused to loosen its grip.
Whenever he retreated into himself, he found himself within his own mind, in the same strange place: a silent, endless darkness without walls or boundaries. The only thing present was the chair beneath him, while another sat behind him, always occupied.
A shadow sat there, unmoving and absolute.
He had tried to turn and face it, but something in him refused. Still, he could feel its presence—silent, unmoving, always watching.
It never spoke, yet it felt familiar in a way he could not ignore, as if it carried the same wounds and exhaustion he did.
There was something else as well, something he could not fully grasp. Whenever hope began to take root, whenever he allowed himself to believe that this life might be different, the shadow would stir. It felt almost deliberate, as though it existed to pull him back, to remind him of everything he had endured and everything he might be forced to endure again.
Perhaps, in time, it would reveal more.
For now, he let it remain.
Whatever it was, it could wait.
As for his parents, he could not decide what they were to him yet, only that they stood before him with a patience he did not understand and a kindness he had never learned to trust.
He did not know if he felt anything for them yet, whether it was love, trust, or even something as simple as attachment.
Not yet.
But he could see the worry in their eyes. He heard their whispers when they thought he was asleep, concerned that he was too quiet, too still, too serious for a child who should have been crying.
They believed something was wrong with him.
They were not entirely mistaken.
Something was wrong, and the feeling lingered beneath everything else, quiet but persistent.
Beyond this small house and the quiet village surrounding it, Ere carried a faint, unsettling sense that this second life would not remain gentle for long.
And in the darkness behind him, something already knew.