"Ahhh!!"
A sudden, intense pain jolted through Lance's body as he awoke, feeling as if someone had struck him square in the chest with an iron bat. He groaned, instinctively trying to sit up and take a deep breath, but as he attempted to lift his head and swing his legs over the side of the bed, nothing happened. His body refused to respond.
Panic began to creep in as he moved his arms and fingers, trying to regain control, but it was all in vain. No matter what he did, he couldn't move a single part of his body. Time passed, and his anxiety mounted.
"What the hell's going on?!" he shouted to the darkness.
"Is this one of those dreams where you think you're awake but you're not?"
"Or maybe it's sleep paralysis? But no… if it were that, I'd still be able to see my surroundings, but everything is completely dark, like my eyes have stopped working."
As Lance lay there, struggling to understand what was happening, a new wave of pain shot through his forehead—another sharp, piercing sensation, worse than the one in his chest.
"Ahhh!!... Shit!!"
"Not again!!"
He tried to make sense of it all, but nothing seemed to add up. He couldn't come up with any explanation that felt definitive. His thoughts raced in confusion.
Lance took a moment to calm himself, focusing on steadying his breathing. Slowly, the pain in his chest began to subside. It faded like a leaf blowing away in the wind, and the sharp ache in his head followed suit.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Lance managed to muster enough strength to open his eyes. The world before him was dark, but he saw a shadow out of the corner of his eye. It appeared to belong to a person, but that couldn't be right. Lance was living alone in his apartment; no one had shared his space since he moved out of his parents' house.
His eyes fully opened, and he immediately reached for his left arm, a habit from childhood whenever he woke from a deep slumber. But as he tried to rub his eyes, he noticed something strange. There was something heavy in his left hand. At first, he thought it might be his phone, but as he pulled it closer to his field of vision, his heart began to race.
"A gun!!"
His breath caught in his throat. He immediately dropped it, watching as the revolver clattered to the floor. Lance jumped out of the bed, momentarily forgetting about the pain in his chest. But as his feet hit the ground, they didn't land on the soft carpet he was used to. Instead, they met cold, rough wood.
His eyes began adjusting to the dim light, but what he saw was nothing like the familiar, bland room he was used to. The room around him was old-fashioned, with wooden walls and brass pipes running from the floor to the ceiling. Smaller pipes branched off, connecting to two medieval European-style lamps. One was beside the bed, hovering just above a small bedside table, while the other stood across from him near a cracked window.
'Where am I?' Lance thought as he scanned the room.
'Did I get kidnapped by the person I saw exit the room a moment ago?'
'Am I still dreaming?'
But the gun had felt too real. It didn't make sense.
He turned his head to the right and saw a reflection in a small cracked mirror. It looked like a person, but it was strange. The figure was tall, with long black curly hair, a sturdy build, and around six feet tall. As Lance moved closer to inspect, he realized the reflection was him—but not him.
"What the hell is going on?"
"This can't be… Could it be that I've transmigrated?!"
Lance stumbled backward, his heart racing. He leaned in to examine his face more closely, and that's when he noticed something horrifying—a hole in his forehead.
"F**k!!"
The hole felt cold to the touch, and as Lance's fingers traced it, he noticed a strange substance seeping from it—blood mixed with something yellowish.
"Blood... and what's that? Brain marrow?"
"How am I still alive with a hole like that in my head? Is this part of the transmigration?"
He slowly stood up, still processing the bizarre situation, and moved closer to the mirror to inspect the wound. But as he got nearer, he noticed another hole in his chest.
"What the hell is going on here? Did the person in this body get shot, or… did he shoot himself?" Lance muttered, shaking his head in disbelief.
"No, that doesn't make sense. Two shots—how could anyone do that to themselves? And he was lying in bed when it happened."
As his mind raced with questions, Lance's thoughts turned to the shadow he'd seen in the corner of his eye earlier. Could that person have been the one who shot this bodies original owner ? And why was there a gun in his hand? Had the killer placed it there, or did the person in this body know his time was running out and prepared for it?
Lance continued to think, his gaze fixed on the reflection in the mirror. As he did, the holes in his forehead and chest began to close up, slowly but surely.
"Huh? The holes are healing? Is this some kind of healing factor that comes with transmigrating, or does this person have regenerative powers?"
He was too stunned to comprehend fully. Even if magic existed in this world, it didn't make sense. If this person had regenerative powers, he wouldn't have died from the gun shot wounds .
Lance stood there, overwhelmed with the flood of questions in his mind. He hated being in the dark, especially about something so crucial to his survival.
Before he could dwell on it any further, another surge of pain shot through his head, causing him to stumble again. But this time, the pain brought something else—memories that didn't belong to him.
Cassian Faelan.
A citizen of the Western Continent's Norelia Kingdom, Duskmere County, in the city of Kelmire.
His father had been a soldier in the Imperial Army, brought out of retirement to fight in the Colonial Conflict between the Western and Northern Continents. He died in action. And due to his death the the compensation money had allowed Cassian to attend a private school and later university.
His mother, a devoted housewife, who had followed the teachings of the Holy Mother Aqua. Shorty after her husband's death, she took her own life by hanging here self in the middle of apartment they were staying.
Cassian also had a younger sister too . They lived together in a modest two-bedroom apartment, struggling financially. But the church, recognizing his late mother's devotion, had helped them. They'd provided for them, helping Cassian pay for school and easing their financial burdens.
The church's charity was a front, though. Cassian knew it was all to boost their influence and line their pockets, because behind closed doors they had not treated as if they were dirt . But he couldn't complain, not after all the help they'd given him and his sister even if it was a front.
The memories continued to flood into Lance's mind—Cassian Faelan's life, his struggles.
Lance sat down on the bed, adjusting to the foreign memories. The realization settled in.
"Guess I really did transmigrate."
After a moment of reflection, Lance stood up, his eyes catching the revolver on the floor. He picked it up, examining it carefully.
"From what I've gathered from Cassian's memories, the revolver was indeed his. But it was left on the table beneath the window, and there were only three bullets in it. The person who shot him must have taken one, or maybe they used all three. One of them and missed one ."
"Maybe the killer used one on his sister... no, that was impossible because she's staying at the church tonight."
"But if they came to kill Cassian, why didn't they bring their own weapon? If they wanted to stage a suicide, they'd have only shot him once, not twice—or even three times."
"Why didn't they bring their own weapon? Did they think Cassian wouldn't be home? Or maybe they knew he already had a gun?"
Lance's mind swirled with questions.
The door to his left, leading into the hallway, was cracked open, proving someone had been in here. But the door to the room where Cassian's sister slept was closed. Why? Did the killer enter her room and close the door behind them, or did they not bother entering at all?
"Why leave the door open to the hallway but close the one to her room?"
"Maybe someone was about to catch him leaving the room so he hurried off that could be possible "
"The person most likely was heading to the washroom or the bathrooms at the end of the hallway but the killer thought they had found him out "
"But something Is still off how did the killer mange to shot cassian more than one time without alerting the others in the apartment complex ?"
Lance continued piecing the puzzle together, but the answers weren't coming easily.
"Maybe it's some kind of sorcery... This world does have its strange beasts and gods, as Cassian read about in history books."
He sighed, frustration setting in.
"I'm not going to figure this out by standing around. Maybe I'll clean up and change out of these bloody clothes before Elowen gets home."
He scanned the room and quickly found the lever for the gas lamps in the far right corner. The small metal piece he pulled from his pocket fit perfectly into the mechanism.
"Hmm. I guess this is how the gas lamps work."
Lance turned the lever, and for a moment, nothing happened. Then, a low growl echoed from the pipes, signaling the gas flow had started.
"Huh. That's how it works. The rectangular metal opens the seal, allowing gas to flow through the pipes and light the lamps."
With the room finally illuminated, Lance moved forward, trying to gather his thoughts.
"I need to figure out what happened here and why I'm in this body."