Dark.
Cold.
Strange.
Auren didn't know how to really describe the feeling, but maybe this was what it felt like to be dead.
There were times when he wondered how people felt when they were dying or had already died. He might have walked near death itself, but this was his first time. Even words couldn't describe it.
Now what? He asked himself. What are we going to—
"Aye, lad. How long do you want to lie there?"
Auren tried to move, slowly feeling like she could move something. His body. He could feel his hands trying to open and close, his legs were sluggish, and his energy seemed to have run out.
But then, he could hear the voice coming again.
"Don't die on me. Let alone in a place like this."
Then, he could feel someone lift him, carry his body, and put him onto a flat and harsh surface.
His body thudded softly against the surface—stone, maybe metal, something hard enough to bruise. The noise echoed in his skull like it didn't belong in this world. His limbs were sluggish and disconnected, like they belonged to someone else. He blinked again, but darkness clung to him like wet soil.
It was the stillness that got to him.
Not the kind of stillness found in sleep, but something heavier, suffocating, like a crypt sealed shut. No wind. No breath. No heartbeat.
His awareness was fractured. Slivers of thought cutting through the void like shards of broken glass. He didn't know where his body ended and the darkness began. He didn't even know if he was in a body. There was pain, but distant, as if the nerves weren't his. He tried to curl his fingers, and they twitched, stiff and slow like rusted hinges.
Somewhere above him, he heard the scrape of boots, the shuffle of movement. A voice—rough, unfamiliar—lingered at the edge of perception, like a memory he never had.
Was he alive?
No, that wasn't right. He remembered dying. Not the blur of death, but the clarity before it. The betrayal. The blade. The silence that followed. He had looked into the void with open eyes and accepted it.
But this—this wasn't peace.
This wasn't rest.
This was wrong.
Something ancient stirred within him, coiling like smoke. He didn't know what kind of force had reached into the grave and dragged him back, but it hadn't done so gently. He could feel the strain in his bones, the tension under his skin, like his soul didn't belong in this shell.
Because this wasn't his body.
It was younger. Lighter.
His hands—once calloused and veined—felt smoother, more fragile.
His breathing, when it finally came, was shallow and mechanical, like his lungs weren't used to the air. Not his lungs. Not his bones.
Who was this boy?
And why was he in him?
Magic, he thought. But no magic he had ever studied. Not his rituals. Not his resurrection circles. This was something… older.
He gritted his teeth. Somewhere between life and death, someone had dared to bind him again. But not to his own flesh. No… this was something stolen.
Borrowed.
Claimed.
And he wasn't sure whether he was the thief or the one who'd been taken.
But he was alive. Or felt like one.
Auren blinked once. Twice, then thrice. It's all the same.
If this was hell or something in the underworld, it looked so close to the human world. Many things had changed, but one thing remained the same even in the underworld: a construction with a round dome and a cross sign on the upper building.
The very sign that he knew and loathed.
The Grand Church of The Holy Order.
Was this the way of the underworld to punish him and conjure the worst thing he hated from Kaleville?
"You look almost like porcelain, too pale," another comment came. "You're alright, lad?"
It felt weird that someone in the underworld offered such a concerned question. He thought hell was more like… well, cold and menacing.
Unless this wasn't the underworld, hell, or anything similar to it.
This was Kaleville.
But things were changing too much. He didn't recognize the weird buildings here, nor the forest that barely had any leaves on its trees.
The air felt heavy with an unfamiliar energy, and he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.
Had he somehow crossed into another realm, or was this all just a vivid dream?
The more he thought about it, the more his head began to ache with confusion. He needed to find some answers, and fast. But first, he needed to figure out where exactly he was.
Auren stood slowly, unsteady at first, his legs awkward and thin beneath him. His joints ached like they'd never been used, and perhaps they hadn't—not by him.
Here, the air was colder than he had remembered, and it was tinged with an odd static that made his skin prickle like a thousand tiny needles.
His eyes scanned the world around him, and his heart—if it had one—tightened with a slow, sinking dread.
This wasn't home.
This wasn't his Kaleville.
And yet it was.
He recognized the shape of the hills in the distance, the curve of the horizon where the old forest once stood. But the trees were nearly bare, grey and twisted like skeletal fingers reaching for a sky that no longer cared. Buildings rose in unfamiliar shapes—too tall, too smooth, their surfaces gleaming with materials he didn't recognize. Glass and steel and light—nothing like the stone and timber he remembered.
Even the scent in the air was foreign. Once filled with woodsmoke and soil and the distant echo of magic, now replaced by something… sterile. Clean in the way a hospital was clean—lifeless, soulless.
Time had not simply passed. It had moved on without him.
He stumbled forward, caught between two breaths that didn't feel like his own. His reflection flashed for a moment in a pane of dark glass, and he saw a stranger's face staring back—young, pale, eyes wide with something between terror and awe.
This wasn't a rebirth.
This was an invasion.
And the world had changed while he was buried.
Then, he saw it. Looming above the skyline, untouched by time, casting a long, merciless shadow:
The Grand Church of the Holy Order.
That symbol. That cross. A mockery of hope, painted in silver and purity, but built on fire and execution. The same symbol was etched into the chestplates of the knights who burnt his books. The same one stamped onto the seal of his own death.
They were still here.
And still in power.
Did they know what they had done? That their oldest enemy now walked again, hidden beneath the face of a stranger?
Auren's lips curled into a bitter smile.
Let them pray.
Their gods would not save them this time.
For the first time, he finally looked at the man who helped him. He was an old man with white hair and a thick beard. His clothes were dirty white, a sign that made Auren think he was probably middle to lower class.
That's why he helped him. The upper class would probably just pass by and ignore him.
"This is Kaleville, right?" Auren asked.
The old man nodded, his eyes filled with a mixture of sadness and resignation. "Yes, this is Kaleville," he replied quietly.
Auren felt a pang of guilt for assuming the man's motives, realizing that kindness could be found in unexpected places.
"Are you not from here, young lad? You looked…"
Auren took a look at himself once again. He wasn't just different, he was… foreign. His clothes were a little bit better than the old man's, with a coat that had scratches all over it. The coat was deep forest green in color and fabric that felt surprisingly expensive to the touch.
"I must have lost my way," Auren said, which wasn't really a lie.
"What is your name?"
It was a simple question, of course. A classic one, even. Answering it wasn't hard.
It's supposed to be that way, except for Auren.
"I'm…" His sentence hung in the air for a few seconds as his mind circled fast, trying to search for an answer.
He knew who he was. And he also knew how he ended up.
If this was truly a second chance for him,a crack to open something that was previously tightly closed, he couldn't be himself.
At least, not now.
"Ren," he finally said, his voice was low but certain. "I'm Ren. Ren Vale."