Part 2: Not My Body
Summary: Riven wanders the city, dazed and uncertain. He doesn't recognize the streets, the skyline, or the language on the signs. He feels like a stranger in a younger body. But as the hours pass, something else becomes clear — this body doesn't move like it should. Or hurt when it should.
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The city didn't have a name.
Or maybe it did, and he just couldn't read the signs.
The letters were English, mostly — but stylized, stretched, strange. A mash of fonts and blinking lights and icons, some of them flickering in patterns he didn't recognize.
He walked anyway.
No one paid him much attention. Just another teenager in a hoodie and loose jeans, slipping between crowds and ducking beneath rusted overhangs.
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He wandered for hours. No map. No goal. Just walking.
At some point, he found a small grocery store with a metal rack out front. He pocketed an apple while the clerk argued with someone near the back. He didn't feel good about it.
But he felt hungry.
He sat on the curb across the street and bit in. It was sour and mealy.
Still better than nothing.
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His hands weren't sore from walking all day.
His feet didn't blister.
That was the first thing he noticed.
He should've felt at least some fatigue — but his legs moved steady, his breath stayed even. Like he'd been doing this every day for years.
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The second thing came when a bike nearly clipped him.
He didn't think — he just moved.
Snapped his arm out, caught the handlebars one-handed as the rider swerved.
The guy swore, shouted something, then kept riding without stopping.
Riven just stood there, looking at his own hand.
No tremble. No soreness.
He should've at least stumbled. He didn't.
It felt natural. Too natural.
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By late afternoon, he'd reached a broken part of the city — low buildings, cracked sidewalks, closed businesses. A few people lingered around fires in trash bins. Everyone here looked too thin, too fast to flinch.
He walked until the sky turned orange.
And that's when he tested it.
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There was a set of rusted stairs behind an old bookstore. Narrow. Uneven.
He climbed them two steps at a time.
Then three.
Then jumped and pulled himself up onto the metal awning overhead — not to show off, just to see if he could.
His feet landed hard. The steel creaked.
But he didn't stumble.
His balance held.
His muscles didn't shake.
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He dropped back down. Stumbled a little on purpose. Slapped his palms together. Light sting.
No ache. No strain. Not even in the joints.
He flexed his hands again.
The fingers closed tight.
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> What is this body?
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He wandered back into a closed lot behind a diner. Empty crates. A dumpster. Shadowed, quiet.
He placed his hands on the side of the brick wall.
Then pressed.
Just to feel it.
Then harder.
The tension moved straight from his shoulders to his heels. His back arched. Muscles flexed.
The wall didn't budge.
But neither did he.
He expected resistance. Shaking. Slipping.
There was none.
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He sat down against the dumpster, panting softly. Not from exertion. From confusion.
This wasn't adrenaline.
It was something else.
Something missing.
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Fatigue. Burn. Tension.
None of it hit the way it should.
This wasn't how a 17-year-old body reacted after a day of walking, running, climbing, pulling, testing.
It didn't hurt.
It just… worked.
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He looked at his hands again. Palms nicked from the brick.
But already, the redness was fading.
That's when the chill finally crept up his spine.
> This isn't normal.
And neither was he.
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