The days blurred together at first.
Sleep. Cry. Warmth. A voice humming. Light peeking through wooden shutters. The faint scent of woodsmoke and herbs.
But Samuel’s mind was never still.
He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move properly. But he understood. Or at least… he was trying to. The baby’s body responded with slow, jerky limbs and an uncooperative neck. He drooled. He hiccuped. Sometimes he cried for no reason. It was humiliating.
But every moment, he was watching.
The woman with the violet eyes—his mother—held him with a gentleness that was almost unnerving. She whispered to him in a language full of soft consonants and sharp vowels. At first it was all noise.
Then—rhythm. Patterns. Repetition.
She called herself Eliara. Her voice always changed when she said it—lighter, a little playful.
The man—taller, broader, voice like distant thunder—was Dorian.
They said his new name often. “Samuel.” Sometimes “Sammy.”
He hated that one. But he didn’t have much say in it.
Their home was simple—stone and timber, a single main room with a hearth and shelves filled with hand-carved tools and dried herbs. Eliara spent most days cooking, cleaning, humming. Dorian left early and returned in the evening, dusted with dirt, carrying tools and tired shoulders.
Sometimes they fought. Quiet, curt words. The kind couples have when they’re both too tired to shout but still feel the weight.
Samuel couldn’t understand most of it—yet—but he knew the tone. He'd heard it in his past life. He knew what it meant to argue about money, supplies, fear. Still, Dorian would always place a kiss on Eliara’s forehead before turning in for the night.
They loved each other.
And now… they loved him.
He didn’t know what to do with that.
By what he guessed was his fourth or fifth week, Samuel could track voices across the room. His body was still fragile and floppy, but his ears worked fine.
One day, while Eliara rocked him near the window, he caught a name he hadn’t heard before.
“Ulaz,” she said, smiling as she pointed outside. “Our Ulaz. Peaceful little thing, isn’t it?”
Ulaz Village. That was where he’d landed.
The world outside was green. Dense woods bordered wide fields of wheat and hardy vegetables. A few stone paths cut between houses. He’d seen maybe a dozen people from his perch near the window. Everyone looked… tired. Strong, but quiet. A village that lived without asking for much.
No airships. No tech. No buzzing lights. No cars. Just sky, trees, and the occasional goat bleating like it had a personal grudge against the world.
This was not Earth.
This was a world that felt older. Wilder. Real.
Then came the whispers.
Not from his parents. Not from outside.
From within.
It started at night. Flickers behind his eyelids. Glowing symbols. Shapes he didn’t recognize but somehow understood. They pulsed softly, like breathing light.
> [ECHO CODEX... STANDBY MODE]
[OBSERVING... STABILIZING SOUL THREAD...]
He couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. But his mind reeled.
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He wasn’t imagining it.
The system was still inside him.
Watching.
Waiting.
---
A week later, Eliara took him out to the field behind the house.
She laid him on a woven blanket and let him feel the sun. Warmth soaked into his skin. The breeze tickled his fingers. For a moment, he forgot everything. The regrets. The code. Even the deaths.
Then he heard it.
A word. Spoken by a child walking past.
“Mage.”
Samuel turned his head—just barely. The child was holding a stick like a staff, pretending to cast a spell. His friend laughed and said something about “mana” and “casting too fast.”
Samuel’s breath caught.
Magic was real. Confirmed.
And in that moment—beneath the sun, beside the woman who thought he was just a baby—Samuel felt something bloom in his chest.
Hope.
Real, terrifying hope.
---
That night, he stared at the ceiling beams above his cradle. Moonlight streamed in through the shutters. Eliara slept a few feet away, breathing soft and steady. Dorian snored faintly.
Samuel was still.
Then he heard it again.
> [SOUL INTEGRITY: 98%]
[STATUS: STABLE]
[WARNING: FOREIGN MEMORY INTERFERENCE DETECTED]
His body couldn’t move, but his mind screamed.
Something was wrong.
The Codex hadn’t just come with him.
It brought something else.
Chapter 2 – Ulaz Village (Part 2)
> [WARNING: FOREIGN MEMORY INTERFERENCE DETECTED]
Samuel stared at the words burned into the back of his mind.
He didn’t know how they were appearing—he wasn’t awake, not really. His body was limp and exhausted, but his consciousness floated somewhere just beneath the surface, aware and alert.
> [Stabilizing...]
[Anomaly... persists. Origin unknown.]
Then it all vanished. Just like that.
The glowing symbols dissolved into blackness, like ink dropped into water.
He was alone again.
Morning light crept into the room like it was apologizing for being early. The warmth on his cheeks stirred him awake, but not gently.
The memory of that warning sat in his chest like a stone.
Something else came through with him.
Or maybe… inside him.
He couldn’t shake the feeling—like there was a thought, a voice, maybe even a memory that wasn’t quite his, buried deep in the static. A wrongness he hadn’t noticed until the Codex said it aloud.
He wanted to scream. Not in fear. In frustration.
He was a grown man stuck in a baby’s body with a haunted OS installed in his soul and now possibly carrying some extra passenger he didn’t ask for?
Why did reincarnation never come with instructions?
Eliara’s hands lifted him gently from the cradle. She smiled, the kind of smile people give when they’re already halfway in love with someone—no matter how useless, loud, or drooly that someone is.
“Good morning, little stormcloud,” she said softly, brushing his hair back. “You always look so serious. Just like your father.”
Samuel blinked up at her. Her voice had become clearer over the weeks. He was starting to pick out meaning from sound. She called him stormcloud often. And “sunbud,” which he resented a little less.
But serious—yeah. That one stuck.
He couldn’t pretend to be a giggly infant. Not when his thoughts were racing and the system kept muttering cryptic horror movie warnings in the dark.
She sat down by the hearth, rocking him in her arms. A pot simmered in the fireplace, filling the air with the scent of roots, onions, and something smoky. Breakfast.
Dorian entered a few minutes later. He was already dressed for work—thick gloves, sleeveless vest, sweat on his brow. He leaned in and kissed Eliara on the forehead, then gently touched Samuel’s head with a big, calloused hand.
“How’s our little ember?” he asked.
Ember.
That one was new.
“Quiet,” Eliara replied. “Watching. He always watches everything.”
“He’s going to be sharp,” Dorian said, ruffling Samuel’s hair with a crooked smile. “You can tell already. Born with questions in his eyes.”
Samuel couldn’t help it—his tiny hand reached out, clumsily brushing against Dorian’s wrist.
The man froze.
Then, slowly, his eyes softened. He turned his hand and let Samuel grip his finger.
“Hey, hey... Look at that,” Dorian whispered. “He’s getting strong.”
No he’s not, Samuel thought dryly. I just don’t want you to leave.
And then the thought hit him like a gut punch.
I don’t want to be alone again.
Later that day, Eliara carried him outside.
The village was waking up. Chickens clucked and pecked around muddy paths. A merchant wagon clattered past the gate with crates of fruit and cloth. Blacksmiths hammered. Children ran barefoot past low fences, chasing dogs and trouble.
Samuel clung to every detail.
Every conversation. Every word. Every glimmer of the unfamiliar world he was in.
He was piecing together language the way you might rebuild a dream from fragments—slowly, painfully, with constant second-guessing.
But there were patterns.
Names. Objects. Emotions.
It was like building a puzzle with half the pieces missing—but the image was forming.
Eliara carried him toward the village center. A stone well sat under a canopy of red-leafed trees. A few older women sat on benches there, exchanging news in low voices.
“Any word from the capital?” one asked.
“Just the same. More patrols on the border. Mages being recalled.”
Samuel’s ears perked up.
Mages. Again.
“Something’s coming,” the woman added. “Something old.”
Eliara shifted Samuel in her arms and gave a polite nod to the women. “They always say that.”
“But this time,” the woman whispered, “they’re right.”
That night, Samuel lay awake in his cradle.
He couldn’t sleep. Not with that system warning playing on repeat in the back of his mind.
Foreign memory interference.
That wasn’t metaphorical. That was specific. Technical. Intentional.
There was another layer to this.
Another presence.
And if that was true… then maybe this world wasn’t just his second chance.
Maybe it was someone else’s unfinished story.
His eyes fluttered shut, but his mind stayed wide open.
And deep in the shadows of the cradle, just for a moment—he swore he saw something move.
