Life, I always believed it was best enjoyed when you weren't the center of the universe.
I am Kael Davis. Contentedly navigating my final year of high school, I had finished my required reading for the week, done with the homework. It was late, but the night felt quiet and the blanket was comforting.
My bed was exactly where I wanted to be, my phone lay charging on the nightstand, its screen dark. I had spent the last hour devouring the fresh chapters of the novel The Age of Celestial Sages —the current conflict was heating up, and protagonist Alaric was just about to find a crucial Elemental Key, I was buzzing with satisfaction.
I loved the novel, because it was a thrilling, epic distraction from the simple truth that I had a perfectly decent, non-epic life. I pulled my comforter up to my chin, sighed, and closed my eyes. It had been a good Friday.
The darkness was immediate and deep, Sleep came quickly wrapping around me like my comforting blanket.
I must have been only half-conscious, perhaps dreaming, when I heard a Sound.
It wasn't a sound I heard with my ears, it was like a resonance I felt deep inside my Soul, vibrating against my consciousness. It was cold, Mechanical, and utterly devoid of human emotion.
"Host Found."
The two words were stark and commanding.
My eyes snapped open, I was staring at the familiar, textured ceiling of my bedroom. The digital clock on the nightstand read 2:15 AM.
I sat up, heart thumping a dull, confused rhythm. The room was silent, the only noise was the faint, rhythmic whirring of the aging AC unit.
Host found? Did I hear that Right? What kind of nonsense was that? I hadn't been watching sci-fi. Maybe I'd accidentally left a weird app open, or maybe I was just tired. My mind, ever the pragmatist, chalked it up to a particularly bizarre hallucination sparked by a long day of reading fantasy.
I flopped back down onto my pillow, shaking my head. "Weird," I mumbled to the empty room.
I closed my eyes again, the brief moment of confusion fading away. The darkness returned, vast and peaceful.
This time, sleep didn't return. Instead, the darkness deepened into a stillness I had never experienced. There was no pressure, no sound, no sensation of breath or heartbeat. It was complete, painless, and absolute null. I felt my sense of self gently detach and float free.
It was not scary. It was just... over.
The first sensory input that dragged me out of the void was the heavy, rich scent of lavender.
The second was the unbearable heaviness on my eyelids. I forced them open.
I blinked several times, my vision swimming. Above me was a ceiling so high it felt cavernous, decorated with intricate oak beams. The air was cool, thick, and utterly foreign, smelling of old, expensive wood and polished stone.
' Okay, this is definitely not my bedroom ceiling ', I thought, my mind sluggish and confused.
I tried to sit up, and the world tilted. A sudden cascade of movement accompanied me—heavy, soft white linens shifting, rustling silk pajamas, and the thud of a head hitting the pillow again because my body refused to cooperate.
When I finally managed to prop myself up, I looked around.
I was in a ridiculously opulent room. The light filtering in was muted, blocked by massive, heavy velvet curtains the color of deep sapphire. I was on an enormous four-poster bed made of dark, polished wood, surrounded by thick, hand-woven rugs. A small, roaring fireplace cast dancing shadows on the walls, illuminating bookshelves that reached the ceiling.
This wasn't a hospital. This wasn't home. This looked like the inside of a European palace, or, more accurately, the private chambers of a very wealthy character in a high fantasy novel.
A new wave of sensory input hit me, a rush of memories that were not my own. A different childhood. A different name. Different parents. Lessons on etiquette, history lessons filled with noble house crests.
I raised my hands to my face. They were tiny, pudgy, and utterly lacking the callouses from part-time work I did. I fumbled to the side and found a small hand mirror resting on the bedside table.
I stared at the reflection. Eyes possess a deep, profound purple of Amethyst stared back. Pure, pale silver hair, catching the light with a faint, almost metallic sheen. A small, five-year-old boy.
The reality hit me with the force of a physical blow, a surge of adrenaline that cleared the last of the sleep from my brain.
I was Kael Davis. I had died in my sleep. And I had been reborn as this five-year-old child in a Fantasy world.
My memory, sharp and cold, instantly supplied the name of the noble house crest carved onto the foot of the magnificent bed. A House that had only existed in the fictional world of Aetheria.
" The Age of Celestial Sages "
I pushed my small hands into the soft mattress, confirming that the sheets, the bed, and the immense room were all terrifyingly real.
"I... I actually Reincarnated into a novel " I whispered, the tiny voice squeaking in my throat.