Warm air brushed Lucein's skin. His feet touched something cold and uneven — something people in old times might have used for flooring, perhaps stone.
The warm air scraped his lungs — a suffocating feeling. His nostrils and eyes burned, and a few tears welled up — it burned.
Am I alive… again?
His vision was blurry because of the smoke.
"Cough! Cough!"
He tried to look back, but nothing happened, as if his neck wasn't listening to him. He tried again.
Failure.
"Wh-What!?" He tried again, but to his shock he could not move. "What is going on!?" He gasped for air, but the only thing he inhaled was smoke.
He kept coughing, and his heart pounded faster and faster. The smoke was so thick that he could not even see his own palm, yet he felt that he was gripping something uneven. He could not decipher what it was.
But to his shock, his hand rose to his eye level on its own. His chest heaved, and his legs shook like autumn leaves, yet these sensations of fear felt foreign to him.
"I… wh-where am I!?" he shouted. The voice sounded unfamiliar, yet it came from his own throat.
What is going on?
Lucien did not understand what was happening. He had lost motor control and could not command his body — but now he realized it had never been his body to begin with.
"Is this what they call transmigration!?" He felt every sensation, along with waves of confusion seeping in — feelings that never truly belonged to him. "Or am I being punished in some corner of hell!?"
The body fell to its knees, lungs finally reaching their limit. The person to whom the body belonged clutched his legs tightly, ignoring the pain as his nails dug into his own flesh.
Lucien's will was tranquil, but the fear, pain, and terror of death from the body's owner clouded his clarity. The influence was strong, and he felt helpless.
"FIRE! FIRE!" Muffled shouts reached his ears. Lucien couldn't tell whether the sound was distorted by the flames or if the last traces of oxygen in the room were moments away from being consumed.
"Cough! Cough!" A silhouette of a man burst through the smoke toward something unseen.
Thud
Thud
Somewhere within the smoke, a sound echoed, growing louder with each passing moment.
BOOM
The sound of something cracking open rang out, and the smoke began to feel less heavy with each passing second.
"The door is broken! Quick! Water!" someone shouted from somewhere beyond the haze.
The voice was muffled and might have gone unheard if it hadn't been so loud.
Lucien's vision was lost to the smoke; his will drifted in a daze.
Outside, people threw water onto the small burning hut, and with each passing moment more and more villagers gathered.
After minutes of struggle, the smoke finally left the hut through the gaps in the broken door and the burned roof.
The body in which Lucien's soul resided breathed slowly. Its chest rose and fell with each inhale and exhale — he had survived.
The boy appeared to be in his early teens. His dark eyebrows were sharp, his features slightly above average, and what stood out most was his head, shaved like a monk's. This was the owner of the body Lucien inhabited.
His eyes were closed, but they twitched. He breathed weakly, trying to return to his senses. While Lucien felt intact, his will sensed only the owner's daze and a dark veil before him.
"No… I still exist!?" Lucien wanted to laugh, because to his utter shock he still felt his sense of self drifting within this existence, though it felt forced and against the natural order and his own beliefs.
He was confused more than anything.
"Wait… am I forgetting something?"
A doubt surfaced in his mind, but he set the thought aside.
As the boy stood, he crunched his torso upward, his legs heavy as he tried to rise in a daze.
BAM!
A foot slammed into his stomach with brutal force, sending him backward. His mouth spat saliva — at the instant the kick landed, he gagged and vomited, but only bile came out.
His stomach twisted in pain as he clutched himself, curling inward as if trying to hide from the world itself.
A man stood before him with a hawk-like nose. His shoulders were broad, his build muscular and bulky. His chest was covered in thick hair, and his beard reached his collarbone. He looked to be in his mid-to-late forties. Wearing little to no clothing, he stared at the bald boy with bloodshot eyes.
"I–I don't know what happened!" the boy said, still clutching his abdomen. His voice was weak, and tears streamed from his eyes. The sudden impact had left him in great agony.
The man snorted and walked toward an axe near the window, where smoke still drifted overhead. He gripped the hilt and turned back toward the boy, teeth clenched.
"Okay… so this time I'll die for the second time," Lucien thought. He had somewhat recovered from the impact, yet his mind remained disoriented. How could the world be so generous as to grant someone a second life? It felt less like mercy and more like a cynical torment — punishment for choosing logic over faith.
"Aghh! P-PLEASE!",The boy dragged his body as the man got closer and closer, he crawled digging his nails on the stone floor–trying to get away from the man in a futile attempt to escape.
The man snorted his lips bleeding blood as the boy–now fell in a corner with no room for escape.
" S-STOP HIM! O-OR H WILL KILL THAT LAD!!", Somebody from the crowd shouted,yet no body dared to come close to this man who is consumed by rage.
"Aghh! P-PLEASE!"
The boy dragged his body as the man drew closer and closer. He crawled, digging his nails into the stone floor, trying to escape in a futile attempt to get away.
The man snorted, his lips split and bleeding, as the boy collapsed into a corner with no room left to flee.
"S-STOP HIM! O-OR HE WILL KILL THAT LAD!" someone from the crowd shouted.
The man raised his axe. Rage consumed him. None dared to save two lives bound within one body.
THUD
Dust fell over the boy's head as he shifted slightly.
"HE DODGED!?" someone in the crowd gasped.
They watched with a strange mixture of worry and excitement, emotions flickering from face to face.
"He's lucky…" someone muttered.
A hooded figure tried to push closer, attempting to see through the flocking crowd.
"Aey! Look, it's your mad dog, isn't it?" a skinny, tall boy snickered. "See? Today that butcher will kill him for burning his house! Look, he's naked! And his house is burning! Hahaha!"
"H-Hey, stop laughing! It's inappropriate!" a chubby boy elbowed him, though the sneer never fully left his face.
The hooded figure forced their way nearer through the crowd.
"P-PLEASE! FORGIVE ME!"
The boy trembled. His bald head was soaked in cold sweat, his face deathly pale.
" He dodged!?",Lucien's will was also dazed at that fact, even a one hit from this axe could result in a cracked head and instant death if it connected–and he was struck in a corner where even a blind person could kill a nimble cat but yet from some unknown miracle this boy survived.
The man grunted as he tried to pull back the axe–unlike a battle axe it was a normal axe, from the jagged stone wall but the wodeen handle snapped as the man tried to get it out with his entire might.
Lucien sighed in relief,"Huff..maybe the world is not cr-",the boy's face turned purple as the Hawk-nosed man's strangled his throat from one hand.
"Look he is choking him!",the crowd erupted with shock.
"How can it be so simple!?"
Lucain's will wanted to laugh at his own foolishness.
"…It hurts."
The boy's face drained of color as the hawk-nosed man tightened both hands around his throat. His legs scraped helplessly against the ground, kicking in a futile attempt to escape.
The crowd fell completely silent.
No one even dared to breathe.
"HAHAHA! Die! Die!" the hawk-nosed man sneered, ignoring the boy's nails scratching weakly at his wrists — shallow, desperate attempts to free himself.
SLAM!
One hand loosened for a fraction of a second.
The boy gasped desperately for air—
—but the man's fist crashed into his nose.
A dull crack sounded.
Blood burst forth.
"S-STOP!" a few people from the crowd shouted. Some even stepped forward, unsure, afraid.
The boy cried loudly, blood running over his lips.
"Please… I didn't do it on purpose…"