Lukas Hartmann awoke to a strange sensation, as though his body was not his own. His eyelids fluttered open, greeted by the dull light filtering through a dusty window. His heart raced, not out of fear, but from the realization that something was deeply wrong. The bed beneath him felt unfamiliar, the weight of the sheets—too heavy, too oppressive.
His eyes moved over the room—small, cramped, with faded wallpaper peeling at the corners. The wooden floors creaked beneath his every movement. But it wasn't the room itself that bothered him—it was the feeling of being out of place, like stepping into someone else's life.
He blinked and quickly took stock of his surroundings. A small, dilapidated desk stood near the window, littered with books and papers—nothing that seemed out of the ordinary, but the overwhelming feeling of wrongness lingered.
Sitting up slowly, he ran his fingers through his hair. It was darker than he remembered—longer too. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and for a split second, he felt a sharp pain in his head. Something like a memory—or several memories—flashed before his eyes. Snippets of someone else's life. Fragments of knowledge, images of another world, jumbled and incomplete.
He shook his head, trying to clear the fog. He needed to focus.
His eyes were drawn to the door. His mind was screaming at him to remember, to figure out why everything was so familiar yet so foreign. He swung his legs off the bed and stood up, suddenly feeling the weight of his body—younger, more muscular, but different. This wasn't the body he remembered from Earth. He hadn't been this age in years.
The memories of the body he now inhabited began to emerge—a gradual pull in his mind. He could feel fragments of a life—sights, sounds, and feelings that weren't his own. The name came first: Lukas Hartmann, a name he instinctively recognized, but it felt almost like a distant echo. He could almost recall his parents, his school, his work—but it was blurry, as though someone had tried to erase the edges of those memories.
Before he could delve deeper into these flashes, a voice snapped him out of his thoughts.
"Lukas? Are you awake?"
It was Eliza, his younger sister. The sound of her voice, so familiar and comforting, settled his racing thoughts. He turned toward the door as it creaked open, and there she was.
She stood in the doorway, her face just visible through the dim light. Eliza was about ten years old, with dark, wavy hair that fell just below her shoulders. Her eyes—bright and wide—shone with an unspoken curiosity. Despite the clear exhaustion in her face, there was an undeniable spark of innocence that made her seem much younger than her actual age.
She wore a simple, worn-out dress, and in her hand, she held a small, faded book.
"Eliza…" Lukas muttered, almost as if testing the name on his tongue. The connection felt unnaturally strong yet distant at the same time. He had forgotten so much, and yet… she was here. She was real.
She smiled at him, but it was faint—like the smile of someone who knew the weight of too many unsaid things.
"You were still asleep," she said softly, stepping into the room. Her small feet moved across the wooden floor with practiced ease, as if she'd been walking it for years. "You've been in bed all morning. Mama's waiting for you."
Lukas nodded, though his mind was racing. Mama—his mother. The memory of her sickly form, weakened by an illness he could not cure, swept over him. It was a stark reminder that he had been trapped in an endless loop of survival, and here, in this strange new world, that same battle would have to continue.
He straightened himself, trying to shake off the dizziness, but his body—this new body—didn't quite feel like his own. His movements were a bit too slow, too deliberate. He could feel the unnatural weight of it—this wasn't the body he had been born into. Yet, he couldn't deny that the memories of it—the feelings, the movements—felt like they were his. As if they were slowly waking up inside him, piece by piece.
Eliza looked at him curiously. "Are you okay, Lukas?"
"Yeah… yeah, I'm fine," Lukas replied, forcing a smile. But his mind was still elsewhere. He needed to remember.
As he stood, he could feel the faintest twinge of nausea, but it wasn't from the usual weariness of poor nutrition or exhaustion. This felt… unnatural. The memories of the body he now inhabited weren't all his, and they were pressing in on him, fragmenting and rearranging his thoughts.
"Eliza," he said, focusing on her now. "Where are we? Where is this place?"
Her brow furrowed, and she stepped closer, glancing at him with a mix of worry and curiosity. "Lukas… don't you remember? We're home. You've been here for weeks. Ever since… since Papa…"
Lukas's heart skipped a beat. Papa. That memory, too, flickered—like a fading photograph, too far out of reach. He could recall the grief, the heavy weight of losing someone important, but his mind refused to let the details settle.
"Right," he said, voice tight, "of course."
Eliza looked at him carefully, then took a few hesitant steps forward, lowering her voice. "Are you sure everything's okay? You've been acting strange lately."
Lukas opened his mouth to respond, but before he could, the door creaked open further, and another figure entered the room.
"Lukas, Eliza," the voice was soft but filled with a quiet authority. Helena, their mother, appeared in the doorway. The frailty in her figure struck him immediately. She was slightly hunched, her skin pale and drawn, eyes heavy with the weight of a sickness Lukas couldn't recall the name of.
She smiled faintly, her hands clutching the back of a worn wooden chair for support. Her voice, when she spoke, was weak but warm. "Good morning, Lukas. Eliza. Did you sleep well?"
Lukas stood there for a moment, his mind working furiously to recall everything about her. His mother, Helena, had been bedridden for as long as he could remember. He remembered the soft warmth of her embrace, the comforting smell of her old perfume, and the way she used to speak to him with such care. Yet, now, as he looked at her, he saw the hollow gaze of someone who had been fighting a losing battle for too long.
"Good morning, Mama," he said, his voice betraying none of the turmoil swirling inside him. He smiled at her, but it was strained—his body not quite used to this new life, this new world.
Helena didn't seem to notice the tension in his voice. She took a few more steps into the room, her hands trembling slightly as she reached for Eliza's. "I've made some tea. I thought we could all sit down together before the day starts."
Lukas nodded, though his thoughts were still on the memories he was slowly piecing together. This life, these people—they weren't just some afterthought of his old life. They were real, tangible, and somehow, he felt responsible for them, as though their futures hinged on his decisions.
But the more he tried to recall, the more everything felt like it was slipping through his fingers. Who was he now? What was he supposed to do?
The memories would come, slowly. He was certain of that. But the answers—those would take time.