There is one thing no man, no beast, not even the fallen angels could ever truly grasp: what it feels like to be reborn—naked as the day you were made—into a world you don't know, flailing about in a body that weighs less than four kilos.
The place Genta found himself in was vast—white stone, lacquered wood, and a soft light filtered through a chandelier hanging from silver hooks. The air was calm, almost solemn. On one of the walls hung a crest: a wing and a flame, coiled around each other like untameable lovers.
Noble surroundings. Too noble.
He blinked. Or rather, his tiny body did it for him. He was lying in a richly carved cradle, wrapped in sheets that probably cost more than his old flat. It didn't take long for him to realise he was no longer in his own world—and more importantly, no longer an adult.
He sighed inwardly.
So many people dream of living out some grand adventure in a fantasy realm. Him? He was just relieved not to have been born in the mud, covered in lice and starving.
"He's awake," said a woman's voice.
A woman approached. White skin, dark hair tied into a tight bun, and eyes that had seen too many battles for her age. She wore a dark velvet dress and had a dagger tucked into her corset.
"Hello, young Master Elliot. It's me, Lysara!"
Elliot? That's me? That's my name now? She's not speaking my language, yet I understand every word…
Lysara was making odd antler shapes with her fingers, never taking her eyes off Elliot. She wasn't his mother, nor just a nursemaid. There was something in the way she held him, a subtle tension in her movements—it hinted at a sacred duty. A bodyguard? A guardian mage? Maybe both.
Either way, Elliot only wished for a quiet life. The rest didn't really matter to him.
But he had to revise that thought.
A deafening crash. The door exploded in a burst of golden light. Shards of metal and flame scattered across the room. A man stormed in, his armour blackened with soot, streaks of dried blood along his arms.
"Demons! They've breached the Onyx Gate!"
The room froze. Even the walls seemed to hold their breath. Lady Lysara turned pale, then her gaze hardened.
In the distance, an explosion rumbled like strangled thunder. Bells began to toll—frantic, distant. Then came the screams.
Elliot shivered. An ancient cold crept up his tiny spine. A primal instinct, older than logic or memory, stirred. He hated those sounds. His body responded before he could think: he screamed.
"There, there, young master," Lysara murmured.
She slipped a purple object into his mouth. A pacifier. Elliot fell silent, caught between humiliation and relief.
This is mortifying, he thought. I'm visibly regressing.
Lysara lifted him into her arms.
"We must go. Now."
With a swift motion, she wrapped her cloak around them. The smell of gunpowder and ash clung to the fabric. She slipped from the room like a shadow, the walls behind them untouched—as if nothing had happened.
Outside, the night was in ruins. Rain fell like burning blades. The cobblestones, once polished, were blackened with fire and slick with blood. Bodies lay scattered. Others ran, stumbled, screamed.
Elliot, nestled against Lysara's rain-soaked neck, understood little—but felt everything.
He couldn't have said what those creatures were. Only that they didn't belong in any world.
One of them burst from an alley, huge, slick with black, glistening chitin. Its limbs bent at angles that defied both geometry and decency. Its head was adorned with six asymmetrical eyes and whistling mandibles that snapped hungrily.
Another, leaner, wore what appeared to be a coat of stitched flesh. Its arms were as long as its entire body, and clawed fingers dragged along the ground like swords. With each step it took, the earth trembled slightly, as if it carried an echo from the depths of the world.
Oh God. Maybe it's time I started believing in something.
Lysara was running flat out, the hem of her cloak whipping through air thick with ash. Her boots skidded across the rain-slick cobblestones, but she didn't slow. Elliot was pressed tightly against her chest, shielded beneath the soaked folds of her coat.
At the corner of a street, a horse-drawn carriage loomed out of the mist like a promise of salvation. Without hesitation, Lysara sprinted toward it, yanked open the door, and cursed under her breath as she hauled herself inside. She hadn't even sat down when a roar split the air.
The blast hit her square on.
A wave of scorching force tore through the carriage. The wood shattered like glass under pressure. Lysara was thrown backwards, tumbling through mud and flame. Elliot, for his part, experienced the brief thrill of flight. He traced an odd arc through the air before landing in a puddle. Feet in the air. Pacifier gone.
A suspended silence followed—so out of place amid the chaos that it felt unreal. Then came the wailing. Not from tantrum, but because the body—this traitorous bundle of flesh and nerves—hadn't yet learned any other way to process shock.
Don't cry. Crying is death. You know that. They hear everything.
But his vocal cords didn't care. They betrayed him, shrieking like sirens.
Well. So this is how I die. Wet, filthy, and not even a proper introduction to my new organs.
But fate, fickle and sardonic, had other plans.
A figure emerged from the fog—a boy, barely into his teens. Soot-smeared face, wild hair, eyes like cold ash. He approached Elliot with the awkward confidence of someone who's survived too much, too young.
"Don't worry, mate," he saw, scooping up the infant. "We're gettin' outta this madhouse. Heard up north there's forests the demons won't even go near. Not far now."
Elliot tried to voice an internal comment, but only managed a damp burp. The boy gave a small laugh. He picked the pacifier out of the mud and, without ceremony, popped it back into the baby's mouth. Then they moved on.
The streets they crossed were nothing but ruin and shadow. The screams had stopped. Replaced by something else. A low, rhythmic humming—like a choir from another world.
And then… they were no longer alone.
Something dropped in front of them. A bloated, stitched-together mass of flesh and metal that hit the ground like a fleshy anvil. The boy let out a cry and tightened his grip on Elliot.
Hooded figures stepped from the shadows, surrounding them. Not wild beasts like before. These had human shapes, but only just. It was an illusion, like a badly worn mask. Horns jutted from their skulls, red light gleamed beneath their hoods. And their teeth… long, fine, impossible to ignore when they smiled. No doubt about it—they were demons.
One of the figures stepped forward.
It was a woman—or something that had borrowed the shape of one. Her skin was stretched taut like a drum, almost translucent. Her eyes, two pools of liquid ink, pulled the gaze in and never gave it back.
She reached out. The boy hesitated, then was violently flung aside, slammed against a wall. Elliot had a new bearer.
The demoness cradled him in her arms with an almost tender slowness. The others didn't move. They simply watched, silent, as if bearing witness to a rite.
She leaned in close, and Elliot felt—for the first time—a cold that had nothing to do with the rain. A cold that came from within, that had no season, no source.
No. No. No no no. I'm not good at eating.
She ran a hand over her shoulder, letting the thin strap of her garment fall. Filaments of shadow spilled from her chest, snaking toward Elliot's lips like impatient tendrils. He wanted to resist. He swore he did. But his limbs no longer obeyed.
Then came the flow. He drank it like milk. Sweet. Soothing.
"Sleep, sweet baby," she whispered. "Sleep… and forget it all."
And Elliot slept. Not from exhaustion, but because the world had closed itself around him.
***
He was dreaming.
He was running, barefoot, across a ground of still-warm ash. His breath had long since vanished, replaced by a dry, rasping, animal respiration.
The world around him screamed: men, women, animals, even the stones themselves.
Everything that could burn, burned. Everything that could die, died.
He had no face anymore. Only hands slick with blood, and a vast shadow stretching out behind him. No voice—just a raw, pure rage, seeded deep inside him like a burning ember.
He liked running through the end of the world.
***
When he opened his eyes again, it wasn't red or black that greeted him. It was… white. A stark, dry, almost artificial white.
The light slapped him like an insult.
What sort of thought did that monster plant in me? he wondered, freshly returned from hell.
Everything was blurry. He tried to move—nothing. His wrists, his ankles, his chest: all were strapped down to a metal table by thick black restraints. No pain, but a worrying stiffness.
Nearby, a machine gave off a low, regular hum. Cables ran from it to his arm, his neck. He looked down—or tried to—and what he saw unsettled him.
It was no longer the body of a baby.
He had grown. A lean, toned torso. Long limbs. Defined bones. Far too many years had passed. The change hadn't been gradual.
Am I still Elliot—or just another incarnation?
A faint crackle stirred the air. Then a woman's voice.
"He's awake."
But it wasn't Lysara.
Two figures slipped in through a sliding door with a barely audible pshht. Scientists. Or something very much like it. One was thin and twitchy, always moving—fingers, brows, jaw. The other, a young woman, stood straight-backed, with an angular face and thick glasses.
They stopped at a cautious distance. Silence stretched.
"Hello. Can you hear us?" the woman asked.
Elliot nodded slowly. The two scientists exchanged a glance.
"Do you understand what we're saying?"
He opened his mouth. His voice came out clumsy, crooked, as though he were fumbling with an instrument he hadn't yet mastered.
"Yes."
They did not hide their surprise.
"Can you speak?"
"Y-Yes," repeated Elliot.
He felt unreasonably... excessively shy.
The woman with the glasses stepped forward cautiously. She wasn't afraid. But in the set of her shoulders, in the careful control of her hands, there was that tell-tale tension, like someone approaching an animal they think is tame, but know might still bite.
"Is your name Elliot, isn't it?"
He hesitated. How can they know that?
"Yes… Elliot… I think."
He actually liked that name quite a bit.
"No worries. Amnesia can be partial. Or selective. But in your case… it's probably not an accident."
"He's responsive. He has memories," the suspicious man retorts.
"No... I... I don't remember. Not really."
It was neither a lie, nor the truth. Just protection.
I remember dreams. Not memories. And if I told them what I'd seen... they'd cut me open to study every last bone.
The woman studied him for a long moment. Then, in a softer voice, like one speaking to a child:
"You appear to be around ten years old. That's our assessment. I'm going to ask you something strange... but it's important. Are you... human?"
Elliot said nothing. The question hung in the air, suspended between doubt and absurdity. Then he nodded, carefully.
She didn't look convinced. She pulled out a small mirror and held it out.
"Look at yourself."
He saw a child in the glass. A strange one.
His skin was very pale. Long, unkempt blond hair hung around his face. And his left eye—it shimmered faintly red. Far too striking to be just human. Elliot reached up to touch his eye and noticed as he opened his mouth that his upper canines were slightly elongated. Animalistic. Subtle, but unmistakable.
He lowered his gaze to the rest of his body. He was surprisingly well-built for a child of ten. A scar ran from his elbow down to his wrist.
"What's this?"
"We had to operate to stitch you back together. You should be grateful."
Elliot looked away. She seemed willing to answer questions, so he pressed on:
"Excuse me, but... where am I?"
"In a human zone. Specifically, a laboratory."
"And why am I... here?"
"You were captured two days ago in a demon bastion. We recovered you after a specialist unit launched an assault. You were found among the demons."
"You were killing," the other scientist added bluntly. "Do you remember that?"
Elliot didn't respond. He didn't remember killing anyone. But in his dreams... in his dreams, the blood had fallen like rain.
He closed his eyes.
"I don't remember anything. Sorry..."
The woman with the glasses stood still for a moment, then turned to a metal tray where she picked up a small object between two fingers.
"We found this on you. Do you recognize it?"
It was a pacifier. Elliot's pacifier. Plum-colored, worn smooth like a stone polished by time. But in its center, still intact despite the years, gleamed a pearlescent symbol: a wing and a flame, intertwined like a seal.
He'd seen that seal before—on the wall, at the beginning of all this.
A strange tension rose in his chest, a mixture of apprehension and melancholy.
Why didn't I have a normal reincarnation? Why this leap through time? Why the lack of clear memories between infancy and now??
A whole decade missing. As if his life had been stitched together in haste, by the careless hand of some distracted storyteller.
"Can I have it?" he asked, almost without thinking.
The scientist hesitated. He saw the flicker of doubt in her eyes. Then, she handed it over. Elliot took it with unconscious care.
The material was ordinary, and yet he examined it more closely. His name—Elliot—was engraved in tiny letters on the side. Then a faint smell reached his nose. A familiar smell. Sweet, almost addictive.
Something uncoiled in the depths of his mind. A coiled movement that suddenly snapped open. His breath hitched. Anger, or something perilously close to it, began to rise.
He dropped the pacifier as if he could no longer grasp it.
Everything around turned red. Reaching the woman,
***
The straps snapped. The tubes tore free from his skin. The table itself was ripped from the floor and hurled against the wall like a discarded toy. Metal shards scattered, raining down around Elliot.
His left eye now glowed with a strange light, a tiny flame burning escaping from it.
The woman with the glasses fell backwards, her hands splayed against the floor. Behind a reinforced pane of glass, grey silhouettes burst into frantic action, hammering consoles, shouting mechanical incantations: Delta Level. Containment breach. Emergency protocol. Immediate remedy...
But Elliot... heard none of it.
The world, to him, was no longer made of sound. Only red. The red of dreams, the red that leaks behind closed eyelids.
He took a step. Then another. As if discovering his own body for the first time, fighting the urge to drop to all fours.
Reaching the woman, Elliot reached out. He didn't intend to hurt her.
And yet, his fingers closed around her neck like claws. He lifted her effortlessly. An incredible strength for a ten-year-old child. She didn't scream. But her eyes widened—and in the fragile mirror of her pupils, Elliot caught a glimpse of himself once again: a tensed face, feral, a predator dripping with saliva.
And in that image, he understood what he was becoming.
This isn't me.
Because there was something else, buried deep within. Another self, far more human. Genta. A clumsy man, unremarkable in strength, but capable of love, of loyalty, of restraint. A man who, even at the end, had chosen not to harm.
That part wasn't gone.
He wanted everything to stop before it went too far, but his anger clouded his thoughts.
The other scientist—who had cowardly hidden behind some still-standing equipment—lunged for the pacifier and hurled it at the back of Elliot's head.
"Take that to calm yourself down, you little demon!" he said without conviction.
But Elliot caught the pacifier with a quick reflex before it even reached his head. Holding it in his hand, he decided to follow the advice and put it in his mouth.
And the moment he did, calm returned.
He loosened his grip. The woman collapsed to the floor, gasping. He dropped to his knees. The silence returned, heavy as a bell made of lead.
The woman was breathing. She was alive. Her white coat was rumpled, stained. A thin trickle of blood ran from her lip—but she was whole. She looked up at him and in her eyes, there was a tension sharp enough to cut.
"I... I... I'm sorry," Elliot said, his voice breaking.
She didn't answer right away. When her voice came, it was low, almost hoarse:
"What are you?"
She looked at him the way one looks at something not yet understood—but already known to be dangerous. She no longer spoke to him as a child. Not even as a human being.
And Elliot see then that, to them, he would never be innocent again.
***
What he didn't see, however, was the other figure.
Behind the glass. Not among the scientists, but futher. Hidden in a dark alcove, barely perceptible in the shadows of the vents. A man, still. His tailored suit clung to a frame built like a war machine. One hand rubbed at a grey beard, revealing a flash of teeth.
And when Elliot said those words—"I'm sorry"—the man narrowed his eyes, just slightly.
"Fascinating."