In the beginning, there was silence.
Not peace. Not serenity. Just the raw, suffocating stillness of unformed life.
Then came pain.
Not the sharp kind that tears through flesh, but the deep, primal agony of existence being carved into reality. Something—someone—was being pushed into the world, screaming, bloodied, gasping for air with lungs that had never known breath.
And so he was born.
In a dimly lit chamber stinking of sweat, blood, and burning herbs, Lysander Caspian drew his first breath—not with the innocence of a child, but with the weight of another life echoing in his soul. A midwife trembled as she held him, her eyes widening at the crimson veins glowing faintly beneath his pale skin.
The child did not cry.
Not at first.
He stared. Blankly. As if confused. As if remembering something that no infant should be able to recall.
Then, slowly, deliberately… he began to scream.
The sound wasn't ordinary. It wasn't the wail of a newborn gasping at the shock of the world. It was guttural. Defiant. A scream that sounded too aware, too wrong.
Alex Caspian, the baron of a minor noble house, took the child in his arms with pride, oblivious to the flicker of unease in the midwife's eyes.
"He'll be strong," Alex muttered, brushing a finger across the baby's forehead, not noticing the slight tremor in his hand afterward.
His wife, pale and weak from labor, smiled faintly. "What… will you name him?"
"Lysander," Alex said without hesitation. "Lysander Caspian."
The name carried weight. History. Ambition.
But Lysander's soul—an echo from another world—knew none of that yet.
Only that something was… off.
And now, the voice returned—not from the room, but from the marrow of existence itself.
"Born of error… still you persist."
---
I don't remember being born the first time.
But this time? Yeah. I remember it far too well.
Imagine being trapped in darkness, crushed by flesh and blood, and then yanked into light like a fish gutted from a murky pond. That was my entrance into Veloria—a name I wouldn't learn for several months, by the way, but we'll get to that.
The moment I opened my eyes, I knew something was different.
First, I wasn't dead. Which, given the whole blood-leaking-from-my-nostrils situation on Earth, was already weird.
Second, I wasn't me.
Or at least, not entirely.
I couldn't move. Could barely breathe. My muscles were mush, my limbs floppy. The best I could manage was a squirm or a blink. But my mind? Oh, that was still mine.
Still adult. Still sharp. Still pissed off.
There were voices around me—speaking a language I didn't recognize but somehow understood. That threw me off. One of them, a man's voice, sounded proud. Confident. The other—softer, tired—belonged to a woman I assumed was the one who'd just pushed me into existence.
Great. New world, new parents. I couldn't exactly say "hi," so I settled for screaming. Partly to fit in. Mostly because it hurt.
Everything hurt.
My skin felt like it was humming. Not metaphorically—actually humming. Like something beneath the surface was… moving. Whispering. Breathing.
And then I felt it.
Warm. Viscous. Alive.
Blood.
Not just mine. Theirs. Everyone's. The midwife's veins, the nobleman's arteries, the droplets staining the wooden floor. I couldn't see them—but I could sense them.
I know that sounds insane. It was insane. But it was real.
I didn't ask for it. Didn't will it. It was just there. A pulsing awareness of every living thing around me, traced by the flow of blood through their bodies like glowing lines in the dark.
I would've thought it cool—if I hadn't just been born two minutes ago.
They wrapped me in a deep red cloth, tucked me beside the woman who birthed me, and for a moment, I considered biting someone just to see what would happen.
I didn't. Not because I was above it. I was just too damn tired.
Time passed quickly when you weren't doing anything but eating, sleeping, and listening. I picked up the language in days—maybe weeks. Hard to tell when you have no concept of time and your main source of entertainment is watching shadows move on the wall.
My name, I learned, was Lysander Caspian. Son of Alex Caspian, baron of some borderland territory called Duskwatch. Fancy title, crap location. Lots of mud. Fog. Crows. You know, the works.
I had an older brother. Julius. Golden boy. Smiled like a prince. Screamed like a demon when I pulled his hair—which was the first time I felt actual joy in this world, if I'm being honest.
It didn't take me long to realize I was the spare.
The second son.
Not heir. Not important. Just… extra.
I wasn't offended. I liked being underestimated. It meant people didn't pay attention until it was too late.
But there was still something wrong with me. Not in the crying-too-much, needs-a-wet-nurse kind of way. More like… unnatural silences when I entered a room. The way servants avoided my gaze. The way my father's smile never quite reached his eyes when he looked at me.
And then, one night, as I lay in my crib staring at the ceiling, the voice returned.
"Even here, you bleed incorrectly."
My heart skipped.
Not metaphorically—literally.
Just for a second. Just long enough for a cold sweat to break across my infant skin.
I didn't sleep after that. I couldn't.
Because the blood beneath my skin—it moved.
Not with my heartbeat.
But against it.
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End of Chapter 2