Kai's eyes snapped open, and for a moment, the world felt like it was still spinning, as though he hadn't quite finished falling from some dizzying height. The pitch-black void from the previous moments was gone, replaced by an overwhelming flood of light. It was blinding, unnatural, like the sun had just been born inside his skull.
He raised a hand to his face, rubbing his eyes, but immediately recoiled. It was… wrong. The skin was too smooth, too unfamiliar. His fingers felt like they belonged to someone else, like he was a stranger in his own body. His heart thudded against his chest, and his breath quickened as he tried to comprehend what had happened. Was this a dream? Was he still dead?
His reflection—his reflection—finally caught his attention. The glass in front of him was cracked, shattered along the edges like the remnants of a forgotten memory. Yet, as the shards of light cleared, the image staring back at him was unmistakable: Kaien Lior, a character he'd written as little more than a background extra. The average, forgettable student at Arcanum Academy. The one destined to die in Chapter 13, a casualty of a tragedy meant to highlight someone else's heroism.
And yet, here he was.
He swallowed hard. The face that stared back at him was his—but at the same time, it was not. It was young, soft, with slightly unkempt brown hair that fell into his eyes, and an expression of perpetual indifference. His skin was pale, the faintest freckles dotting his cheeks, the kind you would forget moments after noticing. His eyes were brown—plain, lifeless, a bit too large for his face. Unremarkable. Just as Kai had written him. Just as Kai had meant him to be.
A surge of panic hit him. He lifted a hand to his throat, feeling the pulse there. It was steady. Real. He could feel his heartbeat thrumming in his ears, the throb of blood rushing through his veins. This was no hallucination, no dream. This was real.
"What the hell is going on?" he gasped, his voice hoarse and unfamiliar.
The words felt wrong in his mouth, a reminder that nothing about this situation made any sense. He stumbled backward, trying to find something—anything—that could explain this absurdity. The room he was in was small, a basic student dorm, though the faded wallpaper and creaky floorboards looked like they'd been around far longer than any average academy would have them. A cheap wooden desk was tucked in one corner, piled high with what looked like notebooks, half-written scrolls, and magical textbooks. A small window let in the golden light of a setting sun, but something about the lighting felt... too perfect, too scripted, like a painting in a cheap frame.
He looked down at his hands, flexing them as though seeing them for the first time, and then he remembered: Kaien Lior. The side character. The student with no ambition. The one who barely mattered in the grand plot of things. The one who dies halfway through the story in a tragic accident, used merely to motivate other, more important characters.
A sickening chill crept up his spine. This wasn't a dream. This wasn't a metaphor. He was Kaien now.
"I'm not… I can't be."
His heart raced even faster. He slammed his palm into the desk, knocking over a pile of books, the clang of metal hitting wood cutting through the room like a jarring scream. This can't be real. He didn't care if he had been the one to write it—this was impossible.
But as he stood there, staring at his hands, at his reflection, the overwhelming feeling of wrongness gripped him, and he realized—there was no escape. This body wasn't his. The world wasn't his. He was trapped.
For a long moment, Kai just stood there, frozen, paralyzed by disbelief. This wasn't some elaborate hallucination. He wasn't waking up in a hospital bed after a traumatic event. He had been reborn into the body of his own character. A side character. A forgotten soul.
He staggered back, slamming into a chair, his mind racing with panic. He grabbed the edge of the desk, staring at the unfamiliar items scattered around it—pages of ink sketches, notes written in hurried handwriting, and—strangely—unfinished spells and enchantments that he could almost read, but not quite.
"This is a dream. It has to be," he muttered, his voice cracking. "I'll wake up. This is all just… some kind of coma hallucination."
And yet, the reality around him felt too sharp, too precise. The cold wood beneath his feet, the creaky floorboards, the faint rustle of pages in the corner—everything was far too real.
In a burst of frantic energy, he stumbled toward the door, grasping for anything that could help him break free of this… whatever it was. But as he pulled the door open, he froze.
The hallway outside was eerily quiet.
The walls were lined with ancient tapestries, the air thick with the scent of old parchment and musty stone. The students—his peers—moved around him, none of them taking any notice. It felt like a scene pulled straight from the novel he had written.
"Alright. Alright. This isn't real." He clenched his fists, summoning the courage to speak the words he had written on the page so many times before. "I'm dreaming. I'm hallucinating."
He swallowed hard, staring at the blank slate of the hallway in front of him. Desperation clawed at his throat. What did it matter if he was trapped in the body of a character? Maybe, just maybe, there was a way to break free. To fix it. To… wake up.
"I need to die." The words slipped out before he could stop them. His mouth was dry. His hands shook. A simple death. That was the only way out.
No. Not just any death. The death.
He snatched a spellbook from the desk in a fit of madness, flipping through pages frantically until he found a spell—something simple. A quick, painless way to end it all. He muttered the words under his breath, the ancient script rolling off his tongue.
His heart thudded in his chest. The magic surged—twisted—then stalled. The world stopped.
He looked down.
The spell had backfired.
A tiny puff of smoke escaped his socks. The smell of burnt fabric filled the air.
"What the hell?" He stared down at his socks, which now sported little scorch marks on the edges. "You've got to be kidding me."
He crumpled to the floor, feeling his legs give out beneath him. The desperation was overwhelming, and it only grew as he realized that no matter what he tried, nothing made sense. Nothing was real.
As he sat there, head in his hands, trying to make sense of his existence, a small piece of parchment fluttered to the ground from his desk. It was a schedule—one he didn't recognize, one that clearly wasn't his. The ink was fresh, and the writing was unfamiliar, but the words were unmistakable.
Arcanum Academy—Student Schedule.
He couldn't believe it. He hadn't written this.
Arcanum Academy? The place he had only vaguely outlined in his manuscript, an institution meant to serve as a backdrop for the real story, a mere setting in the grand scheme of things.
No. No. This was impossible.
His finger trembled as it traced the first line of the schedule.
"Kaien Lior – Freshman Year, Scriptors Faction."
There it was. His name. His new life.
And for the first time, he realized the horror of it all.
To be continued…