Dorian opened his eyes groggily, a migraine pounding inside his tiny skull. It felt like gladiators were waging a bloody battle in there, steel clashing against bone. He tried to raise a hand to massage his temple and ease the pain, but found he couldn't move.
He blinked harder, forcing his eyes open wider, but all he could see was darkness — thick, suffocating, endless.
"Is this… the afterlife?" he muttered ,or thought he did.
What came out instead was the babble of an infant.
His eyes widened. "It wasn't a dream!?"
But again, the sound that left him was the shrill, crisp cry of a newborn. His mind went blank.
I reincarnated as a newborn?
But why do I still have my memories?
Are newborns not supposed to be blank souls?, clean slates washed by the river of forgetfulness?
Was I… exempted?
Then another thought struck him like a hammer.
Don't tell me… my bad luck followed me into the afterlife too?
He groaned softly, but all he heard was another pitiful cry.
That was when it hit him — a stench so powerful it nearly emptied his tiny lungs. It smelled like the waste of an entire solar system left to rot under the twin suns for weeks, with a dragon vomiting over it just for good measure.
The odor was so vile it made his newborn body twitch. He tried desperately to cover his nose, but his hands wouldn't move.
For a moment, panic gripped him — was he paralyzed?
He stilled, focusing, and realized he could feel his limbs. They were simply trapped, wrapped tightly in something soft and thick. His swaddle.
His racing thoughts slowed as his eyes adjusted to the murk. Shadows turned into shapes — towering heaps of waste, rusted containers oozing with slime, hills of junk stretching endlessly into the gloom.
He lay beside a massive trash container, swaddled in a surprisingly soft cloth, tucked inside a wicker basket. The lid was open only where his head rested, allowing him to breathe.
And then, it sank in.
He had been abandoned. Again.
His bad luck had followed him from his previous life — straight into this one.
And the cruel irony? He'd been dumped in a dumpster. Again.
"Why is my life so shitty!?" he screamed — though it came out as nothing but a newborn's wail.
"What crime did I commit that one lifetime of bad luck wasn't enough for you!?"
"Whatever god is doing this, haven't you had enough?!"
He howled, cursed, cried — but the heavens offered no reply. Only the stench of rot and the distant hum of unseen machinery.
This time, being abandoned didn't even hurt the same way. In his last life, at least he had been left where someone might find him. Here, all he saw were mountains of trash and rivers of sludge. No buildings. No people. No salvation.
No one was coming.
He would starve here, alone. Or worse — suffocate beneath the garbage when the next load was dumped.
So he wailed, cursed at fate, cried until his tiny body trembled and his lungs burned. His hunger clawed at him from the inside, turning his cries weaker and weaker until only a faint whimper escaped.
"My life… is really shitty," he mumbled, and exhaustion finally dragged him into sleep.
--------------------------------------------------------
Far across the cold expanse of the Galactic Imperium, a forgotten planet drifted around a dim, dying star.
It was called Nexarion.
A world cloaked in smoke and industrial haze, its surface choked by endless factories, scrapyards, and smelters. For centuries, it had served as the Imperium's dumping ground — the graveyard of a thousand civilizations' waste.
Here, broken machines, bio-waste, and discarded technology came to die.
Its people were hardened by the fumes and filth. Life on Nexarion was cheap, and survival was bought through grit and cunning. Crime thrived in its shadowed alleys, and the planet's very name had become synonymous with filth and sin.
Among the planet's sprawling slums stood Nexus City, and within it — the Rift Junkyard.
....
....
Niamh's weathered eyes swept across the endless maze of twisted metal and rusted machines. The air was heavy with dust and grease, every breath stinging her throat. Her worn gloves were blackened from years of scavenging, her coat patched so many times it was more stitch than fabric.
She had worked these junkyards for decades. She could tell the worth of a thing just by the sound it made when kicked.
Today was supposed to be like any other day — searching for salvage to sell, old tech to trade. But fate had other plans.
Something caught her attention — a faint, unnatural shape nestled between a rusted refrigerator and a pile of appliances.
Curiosity piqued, Niamh approached, her steps cautious. Junkyards had a way of hiding both treasure and trouble.
She stopped. Her eyes narrowed.
It was a basket.
Inside, swaddled in a ragged blanket, was a tiny baby.
For a long moment, Niamh said nothing. The child's skin was smooth as polished jade, streaked with faint tear stains. Wisps of silvery-blue hair peeked from beneath the swaddle, glimmering faintly under the dim light.
Her heart clenched.
"Who would… throw something like this away?" she murmured.
The baby stirred — eyelids fluttering open.
And then she saw them.
Two silvery-grey eyes, luminous and deep, reflecting the light like gemstones cut from divine treasure.
For a moment, Niamh forgot to breathe.
Those eyes blinked up at her, filled with an emotion far too knowing for a newborn. Surprise, then joy. The baby smiled, gums showing, before sleep claimed him again.
Niamh stood frozen, the warmth in her chest spreading to her fingertips.
"Well, little one," she whispered, voice trembling, "looks like you're coming home with me."
....
When Dorian awoke again, his stomach felt like it was devouring itself. He let out a small cry, clutching instinctively at the ache, when a soft chuckle met his ears.
"You must be hungry, little one," a voice said warmly.
"You scared me for a moment there , I thought something happened to you."
He turned his gaze toward the voice. An old woman sat beside a strange cooker, its surface glowing faintly without producing flame or heat. Her long grey hair, streaked with faded green, hung in loose strands. Her face was wrinkled and tired, yet there was beauty buried beneath the years and grime.
The small room around them was barely four meters wide. Cold air seeped through every gap in the metal walls, yet Dorian didn't feel it. Oddly enough, the chill didn't bother him at all.
The woman stirred something in a pot, humming quietly to herself.
Looking at the baby who watched her with steady, curious eyes instead of crying, Niamh felt her chest swell with affection.
"You must've been out there a while, huh? Poor thing."
She had no idea how he'd survived the night in that freezing yard. Any normal baby would have perished hours ago. But this one… this one was different.
The goddess must have spared him, she thought.
She'd never had children of her own and in that moment, her mind was made up. She would raise this child. Protect him. Love him as if he were her own blood.
"It'll be done soon," she murmured softly. "Then you can eat. You slept six hours straight, you know? Gave me quite a scare. But I guess it's the first time for both of us, huh?"
Her voice trembled on the edge of laughter.
Dorian stared, not understanding her words, but somehow feeling their warmth.
Then something else caught his attention — a pale blue light flickering faintly in the corner of his vision.
It had been there since the dumpster. He'd ignored it at first, too overwhelmed by everything else. But now that he was safe — relatively — the glowing icon was impossible to overlook.
At first, he thought it might be a side effect of his reincarnation. Or cataract.
But when he focused on it, the light moved. He could will it to shift from one corner of his vision to another.
That was when panic set in.
A moving cataract?
He stared harder.
Suddenly, a translucent panel snapped open before his eyes, rows of glowing text filling his vision.
Then came the sound — sharp, metallic, and almost alive.
DING!
> Compensation System Activated!
ERROR! ERROR!! ERROR!!!
System override detected.
Attempting to fix error...
FAILED!
Attempting to fix error...
FAILED!!
Attempting to fix error...
FAILED!!!
Commencing deletion of system to prevent data loss—
FAILED! FAILED!! FAILED!!!
...
...
...
Dorian's tiny heart thumped wildly.
"What the hell is happening?" he thought, eyes wide. "Don't tell me… my bad luck's acting up again!?"
The notifications kept flashing. Then suddenly
DING!
> SUPREME MONARCH SYSTEM ACTIVATED!
Lesser Power Seed detected.
Attempting erasure…
Seed harmless to host. Devouring...
Devour complete.
SUPREME MONARCH SYSTEM BIND SUCCESSFUL.
....