The headache had dulled to a heavy throb behind his temples.
Ethan leaned against the desk, trying to catch his breath.
The oil lamp flickered gently beside him.
The smell of old wood, iron, and something faintly medicinal lingered in the air.
His hands trembled faintly.
This felt real.
Too real.
But the way they came, something about it felt unnatural. Incomplete. Blurred at the edges.
And yet, as he stared into the faint reflection in the windowpane, the name—
Ethan Carson.
He closed his eyes, allowing the fragments to sort themselves.
His father... yes.
His name had been Edward Carson. A stern man, He'd served as a professor of ancient Mourian history at the University of Harlowed—one of the most prestigious universities in the kingdom, located in the capital itself. It was said only the top three percent of scholars earned a place there, and Edward had been not just a lecturer, but a published historian.
He died mysteriously when Ethan was thirteen. No official explanation, no ceremony,—just a note sent to Valewick, stating he had passed in the night during a research expedition to the Isles of Ornwood, studying the ruins of a pre-Veination civilization.
His mother, Liria Carson, had died much earlier—when Ethan was barely three. A housewife, devout follower of the Church of the Luna Goddess, a religious sect known for its nocturnal prayers and obsession with fate, purity, and lunar cycles. Ethan barely remembered her.
After her death, and then his father's, he'd been left with only one person.
His older brother.
Caleb Carson.
That name struck with a different kind of weight.
His brother was nearly four years older than him. Sharp-minded, well-spoken.
He had once been a rising star in the University of Lendbug, second only to the capital in academic prestige. Caleb had been a prodigy, already working on published theses by the age of sixteen.
But everything changed the day their father died.
Caleb never returned to university after that.
He dropped his papers, forfeited his scholarship. Ethan remembered the way his brother's eyes changed—once filled with certainty, they became cautious.
A year later, Caleb turned seventeen—and failed to awaken his Vein.
It was a rite of passage in the world. Every child, upon reaching the ages between fifteen and seventeen, might awaken a vein, hoping to unlock the dormant spiritual line that ran through the body—a conduit for supernatural affinity, strength, or perception.
Some awakened gifts. Most awakened nothing.—Ratio was too low only 1 person awakens veins in hundred.
Caleb, to the disappointment of many, didn't awaken.
And in a world like this, where Veins often determined your role in society —it was like a death sentence.
He'd taken up work immediately after. The Industrial Welfare Policy, one of the newer mandates under King Harold III, aimed to offer "non-Veined citizens" opportunities to work for the Crown in sanctioned roles—postal management, lamp-lighter crews, mechanical maintenance, railway inspection, even city archivist roles.
Caleb became a Night Census Clerk, operating one of the massive rotary typewriters that helped record citizen data across Valewick.
All to raise Ethan.
He was the one who made Ethan's morning tea, who taught him history with worn books, who walked him to the schoolhouse during winter months, holding his hand even when Ethan was too old for it.
And yet…
This room…
Ethan turned slowly, taking it all in again.
It didn't feel like his room.
The desk was too clean, the walls too wide, the window made of tempered glass rather than patched wood panels. There was an en suite bathroom—a luxury reserved for the upper-middle class or state employees.
And the oil lamp… it was a recent model, the kind only available after the Alkener Workshop Reforms last year. Imported brasswork. Smooth flame control.
This room didn't match the memories.
Caleb couldn't have afforded this. Not on a clerk's salary.
And Ethan certainly didn't remember owning a coat that fine, now hanging on the back of the door.
None of it added up.
He looked again at the mirror, faintly fogged.
The face was young, pale, and unfamiliar.
Blood had dried along his collarbone. The wound on his neck had crusted, but the skin was still gaping—raw, pink.
"...What's happening?"
The words escaped before he could stop them.
He walked back to the desk and sat down in the rickety chair.
Then leaned back.
"Are these really… someone else's memories?" he whispered.
The thought hit him again. Not with panic, but a heavy, unsettling quiet.
"Did I… transmigrate?"
He didn't know the answer.
But something told him this life wasn't borrowed.
It was stitched into him.
Thread by thread.
Then he looked again at the message.
He stood up motionless near the desk, his eyes fixed on the message.
'Obey her or else you are dead.'
'By her who does he mean,' ethan thought.
"Did ethan… write this?" he murmured.
It felt wrong. The message carried a weight that didn't match what little he knew of the boy named Ethan Carson. If the boy had truly written this message before his death—what had he been going through? And more importantly...
'If he wrote it for himself… why?' Ethan whispered.
'Or does he know that someone will transmigrate here?'
He took a slow breath, turning from the desk.
The room hadn't changed, but his perception of it had. Everything looked a little more suspect.
He dropped his gaze.
The knife.
Lying near the edge of the bathroom threshold.
He walked over slowly, crouched, and picked it up.
It wasn't ceremonial. No fancy engravings. Just a simple kitchen or utility knife—well-used, judging by the worn wooden grip and dulled edge. It was stained. Dried, crusted blood stuck along the blade and hilt.
His blood.
He turned it in his hand, inspecting the blade in the faint lamp glow.
The weight felt wrong in his grip—not because of the steel, but because of the memories it carried. Something in him recoiled from it. Not in fear. In sorrow.
"He killed himself with this," Ethan said aloud, voice barely a whisper.
The thought didn't come with shock or revulsion.
It came with a question.
"What pain… what desperation... what unbearable weight did he carry that made him feel like there was no way out?"
He looked again at the bathroom—the blood-spattered tub, the trail of dark stains leading to the doorway.
The boy had walked, or perhaps crawled, after slitting his own throat.
And died on the bathroom floor.
The thought lingered, heavier than before.
Ethan's fingers tightened around the knife.
Then slowly, carefully, he set it down on the edge of the sink.
"I should clean this up first," he muttered.
It wasn't a decision driven by panic, nor a desire to hide evidence. He wasn't even sure who he'd be hiding it from. It was more… instinct. Something quiet and practical inside him said, you can't think clearly in this mess.
He turned back to the room and spotted a silver chain glinting on the dresser.
A pocket watch.
Elegant. Well-made. Its cover was scratched but functional. He picked it up and clicked it open.
The dial was set in old Mourian numerals, it was quite close to roman numerals.
3:00 AM.
The soft ticking was almost comforting.
Ethan exhaled slowly and tucked the watch into the dresser drawer, then moved to the corner near the bathroom entrance. There was a modest cleaning bucket tucked under a cloth-covered side table. No doubt the kind housemaids used when visiting middle-class homes once a week.
He found a cloth nearby, already damp.
He returned to the bathroom.
The blood was everywhere.
It had sprayed up the side of the tub, congealed around the drain, soaked into the bath mat. It had pooled into the tile grout. Some of it had dried into a dark rust color, and some remained wet enough to stain his fingers when touched.
He didn't rush.
He knelt, soaked the cloth, and began wiping.
Each pass took effort because every stroke made it more real.
He wasn't cleaning someone else's blood.
He was cleaning his own death.
The air smelled of iron.
His hands began to ache from gripping the cloth too tightly. His neck throbbed again—dull, insistent pain.
He paused at the mirror.
He hadn't looked too closely before.
The boy—Ethan Carson—looked back. Pale-skinned, sunken cheeks, thin shoulders. The veins along his neck and arms were faintly visible under the skin, giving him a sickly sort of elegance. His black hair was cut neatly, parted at the side, though now damp with sweat and blood.
There was fear in those eyes.
But more than that—confusion.
"Is this really a parallel world?" he whispered.
He turned, walked back to the desk, and picked up the message again in his mind.
The knife.
The room.
The death.
Nothing made sense. But at least now, it felt grounded.
He wasn't just dreaming anymore....