Pain.
It was the first thing Aaron felt. A deep, suffocating ache that settled in his chest, pressing down like an iron weight.
His fingers twitched, his breath came in ragged gasps, and for a moment, all he could do was lie still, letting the remnants of something… something important… slip through his grasp.
No. Not something. Everything.
The last thing he remembered was falling. The cold bite of wind against his skin, the rush of gravity pulling him down, the hollow acceptance that this was the end. That his life… Aaron's life… had reached its conclusion by his own choice.
But instead of nothingness, there was this. A body that wasn't his. A heart that shouldn't be beating.
He forced his eyes open, blinking against the dim candlelight.
The ceiling above him was old, cracked stone.
The air smelled of damp cloth and rusted metal, thick with the remnants of smoke.
His limbs felt weak, his breathing uneven, but the moment he tried to push himself up, a wave of foreign memories crashed into him.
His breath hitched. Noah.
The memories weren't his, but they were inside him—woven into the fabric of his mind like an unshakable dream. A boy named Noah. A boy whose life was cruelly short, whose death was inevitable, whose suffering had been orchestrated from the very beginning.
A boy who should have died at this very moment.
Aaron gritted his teeth, the weight of realization settling over him. This body wasn't his, but somehow, he was here. Somehow, he had taken Noah's place. And that changed everything.
A rustling sound broke the silence. He turned his head sharply, his pulse quickening.
Curled up on a pile of thin blankets was a boy—a teenager, his dark hair messy, his face slack in sleep. His chest rose and fell in slow, steady motions.
Adam.
The name surfaced instantly, as if it had always been there. Aaron didn't need the lingering remnants of Noah's memories to recognize him. He felt it.
Noah's younger brother. The one who was meant to survive. The one who—if things had gone the way they were supposed to—would have risen in Noah's place, carrying the weight of their family's broken legacy.
But that wasn't going to happen now.
Aaron inhaled sharply, steadying himself. He wasn't Noah. He had no reason to care. But the memories—the raw, aching sorrow buried within them—clawed at him, as if demanding that he did.
Before he could think further, the door creaked open.
Aaron tensed, his body instinctively trying to react—too slow, too weak.
A figure stepped inside, pausing just beyond the threshold. A girl, no older than seventeen, with wary eyes and the hardened posture of someone who had seen too much.
She studied him for a long moment before speaking.
"You're awake."
Her voice was measured, cautious.
Aaron swallowed, his throat raw. He had a hundred questions, but only one mattered.
"Where am I?"
A pause. Then…
"Solmaris."
The name sent a jolt through him. Recognition flickered like a dying ember, dredged up from memories that weren't his. Solmaris. A city. A country. A world that shouldn't exist outside the pages of a story.
Because Aaron knew this place.
He had read about it before.
And in that story…
Noah was supposed to be dead.
"Haa.."
Noah took a slow, steady breath, pushing past the lingering fog in his mind. His thoughts raced, piecing together fragmented memories that didn't belong to him yet felt as real as his own.
His grandfather… executed.
A sigil… carved into his back.
The sigil of the Orthar family.
The name sent a chill through him. The Orthars—once rulers, now nothing more than a cursed bloodline, betrayed and overthrown by the eight noble families that stood at the pinnacle of power.
His grandfather had been the last remnant of their shattered legacy, and his death had been nothing more than another step in erasing them from history.
Noah's breath hitched.
The execution had been public. A spectacle. A message.
And if the Fennorian knights had found the sigil on his grandfather…
His stomach twisted. They weren't safe. Not here. Not in Solmaris.
Noah turned sharply toward Adam. His younger brother lay curled in on himself, his face buried against the tattered blanket.
Even in sleep, tear stains clung to his cheeks, his body trembling with quiet, uneven breaths.
Noah swallowed hard. He couldn't afford to hesitate.
He reached out, gripping Adam's shoulder and shaking him gently. "Adam. Wake up."
Adam stirred, blinking blearily up at him. His eyes were puffy, his face drawn. "...Noah?"
Noah ignored the way the name still felt foreign on his tongue. "We have to go."
Adam frowned, rubbing at his eyes. "What?"
"There's no time. The knights will be looking for us." Noah's voice was firm, steady, despite the unease twisting in his chest. "If we stay here, we're as good as dead."
Adam hesitated. He was exhausted—broken—but Noah couldn't afford to let him stop now.
He gripped Adam's shoulders, forcing him to meet his gaze.
"Listen to me." His voice was softer now, but no less determined. "We only have each other. That's it. And if we don't keep moving—if we don't survive—then everything Grandfather fought for will be for nothing."
Adam's breath hitched. For a long moment, he said nothing. Then, finally, he nodded.
That was enough.
…
The alleyways were dark, the streets lined with flickering lanterns casting long, stretching shadows. The city was different tonight—tense, alert, the air thick with an unspoken weight.
As they moved, Noah's unease only grew.
Guards. Too many of them. The insignia of the Fennorian knights gleamed on their armor as they patrolled the streets in greater numbers than usual.
The execution had shaken the city, but this—this was something else.
They were searching for someone.
For them.
Noah's grip on Adam's wrist tightened. They needed to reach the Spire—the towering structure at the city's edge, where the transportation device stood, allowing passage to the other floors.
But when they finally reached the outskirts of the plaza leading to the Spire, Noah's breath caught in his throat.
Fennorian soldiers. Dozens of them, stationed at every entrance. The usual guards had been tripled, maybe more. Their stance was rigid, alert—prepared.
The city wasn't just on edge.
It was on lockdown.
Noah exhaled sharply. This wasn't going to be easy.
And if they made a single mistake—
Noah recalls the story he read "Orvathis" where Adam was already in his twenties when the world fell into chaos.
The system had collapsed, and catastrophe had struck the Pillar.
Entities from the higher floors had descended upon the neutral zones, turning them into blood-soaked battlegrounds.
Adam, amidst the carnage, had become a vigilante. But Noah had no memory of how Adam had survived to reach that point.
He turned to look at his younger brother—frail, his eyes still puffy from crying. A kid his age should never have witnessed something like this, let alone survived it alone.
Noah clenched his fists. Not this time.
He knelt before Adam, placing a firm hand on his shoulder. "Stay here," he whispered. "If I pass, follow after me."
Adam hesitated, but Noah had already turned away. Pulling his hood over his head, he strode toward the Spire's gate.
The towering structure loomed in the distance, a beacon of escape—but it was also heavily guarded. Fennorian knights stood in watchful formation, their armor gleaming under the dim light. Security had been tightened.
Too tight.
As Noah approached, a knight stepped forward, blocking his path. "Face," the guard demanded.
Noah exhaled. They don't have the kind of advanced security Earth did. He pulled down his hood.
The moment his face was exposed, the knight's eyes glowed a deep, unnatural purple. His expression twisted into one of manic devotion, and with an almost fanatical fervor, he bellowed—
"Glory to Solmaris! Glory to the Fennorian family!"
Before Noah could react, the knight lunged.
Pain exploded in his gut. A spear pierced straight through him, its steel tip slick with red. The agony was instant, raw—a sensation that seized his entire body.
He gasped, blood bubbling in his throat. His knees buckled.
No, no, no…
Another spear struck. Then another. Blades tore into his flesh, armor boots crashed against his ribs, hands gripped his hair and slammed his head into the ground. He couldn't even scream. His own blood choked him.
Noah's vision blurred. The world tilted. He saw Adam.
Standing frozen in the alley, his small fists clenched, his face a mix of rage and sorrow.
A weak, bitter laugh gurgled from Noah's lips.
So this is it? A side character. A disposable name in someone else's story. A stepping stone for Adam's vengeance.
Dying twice in the same day. How pathetic.
His body twitched. His mind slowed. The sounds around him faded into a dull hum.
But then…
A crackle.
A sound like static.
[....Initiating....]
Noah's breath hitched. The pain twisted. His body lurched for a moment, like something had latched onto him.
Glitches flickered across his darkening vision.
Lines of text appeared—then fragmented, distorted—as if they weren't meant to be seen.
[System initialization...]
[ERROR: Undefined entity detected...]
[Adjusting parameters........]
A pulse.
A sharp, cold jolt through his dying body.
[Designation assigned: "Noah Orthar"]
[Archetype detected: "Innocent"]
His fingers twitched. Something was wrong. No… something was here.
His mind barely registered it before the final message appeared:
["Innocent Shall Receive a Second Chance" has been activated.]
The pain vanished.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
Noah's final thoughts blurred into nothingness. His body felt weightless, like drifting through an endless void.
Then—a notification appeared.
[You died.]
But just as his mind was about to succumb to the abyss, a glitch appeared above the notification, flickering in and out of focus.
A distorted line of text—broken, fragmented—glitched erratically:
[Innocent shall receive a second chance.]