The world didn't end with a whimper; it ended with a crackle.
Blue light, jagged and violent, was the last thing Aron Beaumont saw. It danced across his vision like a swarm of angry hornets, stitching itself into the fabric of his reality until the edges of his small, cramped apartment began to fray and dissolve.
There was no pain at first—only a terrifying, weightless silence as his consciousness was unceremoniously yanked from the physical realm and tossed into a blender of memories.
Fragmented images flickered past his mind's eye like a projector gone haywire. There was his younger self, a boy with scraped knees and a bright smile, flanked by parents who still looked at him with pride rather than the quiet, polite disappointment they would later adopt.
He saw his graduation day—the sun was too hot, the polyester robe was itchy, and the diploma in his hand felt like a heavy anchor. He remembered the bold, red ink on his test scores, the "Honors" and "Distinction" that were supposed to guarantee him a seat at the high table of the corporate world.
Instead, those accolades had led him to a four-square-meter room.
The scene shifted to the "Aron" he had become: a man who lived by the glow of a flickering, second-hand monitor. He could almost smell the stale scent of lukewarm coffee and the ozone of a struggling CPU.
His fingers, calloused from years of typing stories that only a handful of people ever read, flew across a keyboard that was missing the 'S' key and the left 'Shift.' He was a ghost in a digital machine, a shut-in whose only connection to the outside world was the delivery man and a certain animated show about a boy and his yellow rodent.
Then came the sound.
It wasn't a roar or a celestial choir. It was a soft, rhythmic meow—the kind of sound that usually preceded a demand for treats or a calculated trip-hazard in the hallway.
"Barnaby..." Aron whispered in the void of his mind.
Barnaby was a ginger-and-white disaster of a cat. Aron had found him three years ago, half-drowned and mangy in a rain-slicked alley behind a grocery store. He had spent his last hundred dollars—money meant for rent and a new phone—on antibiotics, flea baths, and a vet bill that made his eyes water. He had carried the kitten home wrapped in a tattered kitchen towel, feeling like a fool, yet for the first time in years, he had felt needed.
Over the years, Barnaby had transformed from a skeletal stray into an orange balloon of fur and attitude. The cat was a priority. Aron would skip a meal to ensure Barnaby had the premium kibble. In return, Barnaby provided the only companionship Aron had left, sitting on his lap while Aron played his favorite RPG—a game where a Paladin, clad in silver armor and wielding a staff of light, led a charge against the darkness.
The memory sharpened. He saw Barnaby, his tail twitching with feline malice, eyeing the frayed power cord of the old computer.
"Barnaby, no!" Aron had shouted, but the warning was a second too late.
The cat's teeth met the copper. A flash. A boom. A sensation of being turned inside out, as if his soul was a wet towel being wrung by a giant.
"Barnaby, you absolute menace!"
Aron's voice cracked as he gasped for air, his lungs feeling like they had been filled with carbonated water. His first instinct was to reach out, to grab the cat and scold him, but his hands met something... soft. Something that didn't feel like fur.
His eyes were still squeezed shut, but his other senses were screaming. The air didn't smell like dusty electronics and unwashed laundry. It smelled like damp earth, crushed pine needles, and a sweetness he couldn't quite place—something like wild lilies and ozone.
Wait. Ozone?
Aron's heart hammered against his ribs. He felt a lingering numbness in his limbs, the tell-tale aftershock of a high-voltage kiss. He confirmed two things in that instant: first, Barnaby was a suicidal idiot who didn't understand the basics of electrical conductivity; and second, cats were, in fact, excellent conductors of electricity. He had felt the surge travel through the cat's body and into his own with the efficiency of a lightning rod.
Twenty-four years of being a law-abiding, single, shut-in citizen, and I get taken out by a cat's snack time, Aron thought bitterly. Barnaby, you're grounded. No treats for a week. No, a month! Let's see how you like the generic brand kibble after this!
"Um... could you... please let go?"
The voice was tiny, no louder than the hum of a dragonfly's wings, but it hit Aron like a physical blow.
His eyes snapped open.
His vision was blurry, swimming with spots of blue light, but he realized with a jolt of pure panic that his arms were wrapped tightly around someone. And not just someone—a girl.
He felt the smooth fabric of a dress and caught a whiff of a floral scent that definitely didn't belong to a ginger cat. His brain, still fried from the shock, went into a catastrophic tailspin.
Oh no. I'm in a hospital. I've survived the shock, but I'm brain-damaged, and I'm currently assaulting a nurse. Or a visitor. Or... wait, is this a child?
"I'm sorry! I'm so, so sorry!" Aron stammered, his voice sounding weirdly high-pitched and frantic. He scrambled backward, his limbs feeling uncoordinated and stubby, like he was learning to walk for the first time. "I thought you were my cat—wait, that sounds worse. I didn't mean to—I'm just... disoriented!"
As his vision finally cleared, he took in the person in front of him. It was a young girl, perhaps six or seven years old. she wore a light pink dress that looked suspiciously clean for a forest, and a delicate straw hat adorned with a pink ribbon was perched precariously on her head. She looked like she had stepped right out of a high-end boutique or a very expensive daycare.
But something was wrong.
Aron looked up. And up.
"Why are you so tall?" he blurted out.
The girl blinked, her eyes wide with a mix of confusion and lingering embarrassment. "I... I'm not tall. You just... fell on me."
Aron ignored her, his head whipping around to survey his surroundings. This wasn't a hospital. There were no white walls, no smell of antiseptic, and certainly no medical bills.
Instead, he was standing in a cathedral of green. Massive, ancient oaks—trees that looked like they had been growing since the dawn of time—towered hundreds of feet into the air, their canopies so dense they blotted out the sun, leaving only dappled gold light to filter through. The bushes nearby weren't just bushes; they were walls of tangled briars and vibrant berries, some the size of tennis balls.
"What the... where am I? Did the cat blow us to the Redwood Forest?" Aron muttered, his breathing becoming shallow.
He began to pace, his mind racing through every logical explanation. Maybe he was in a coma? Maybe this was a very vivid, very botanical near-death experience? He stomped his foot in frustration, but the sound it made wasn't the heavy thud of a grown man's boot. It was a light tap.
Aron stopped dead. He looked down at his hands.
They were small. Pale. Soft. There were no callouses from his keyboard, no scars from kitchen accidents, and certainly no hair on his knuckles. He looked at his legs—short, spindly things clad in blue shorts that looked brand new.
"These... these aren't mine," he whispered, his voice trembling.
He wasn't just in a forest. He was in a different body.