The rain poured relentlessly, drowning the dim light of flickering street lamps as a lone teenager trudged down the empty street. His name was Atshushi Kurosaki, a boy whose eyes were shadowed with exhaustion, his steps uneven, as though weighed down by something heavier than the sodden clothes clinging to his body.
Then it came again.
A voice — thin, cold, and echoing — seemed to rise from the very darkness around him.
"Atshushi Kurosaki… you will no longer be what you are."
Atshushi flinched, his breath catching in his throat. It was the same voice. The same cruel, distant whisper that had haunted him for the past thirteen days.
He hadn't told anyone. Not his college friends. Not his therapist. Not even his mother. Because, in truth, it made sense that he might be paranoid. His mind was a patchwork of therapy sessions, half-forgotten medications, and a string of diagnoses no one could agree on. Ever since he was a kid, the world had seemed like a cracked mirror to him — shimmering, unstable, and ready to shatter.
The first time he heard the voice was in a dream. A pair of enormous eyes hung in the night sky, watching, unblinking, as the voice spoke his name.
And now, it followed him here.
Soaked to the bone, Atshushi finally reached his house. But something was off. No lights. No movement. The place felt hollow. The usual noise of his mother's TV dramas or the clatter of the kitchen was missing.
He stepped inside, water pooling at his feet, and tossed his bag onto the sofa. Without even changing out of his drenched college uniform, he grabbed the remote and turned on the television.
Static.
A dark screen stared back at him.
Frustration rose in his chest, clawing at his throat. He squeezed his eyes shut, muttering a curse under his breath.
But when he opened them… everything had changed.
He was no longer in his house.
He lay in a soft bed surrounded by unfamiliar walls, draped in silken fabrics. The scent of burning incense filled the air. Before him stood a man and a woman, dressed in strange, regal clothing.
The woman smiled, her hand warm against his cheek.
"Another new member of the royal family is born," she whispered, her voice soft like silk.
Atshushi's breath hitched. His gaze darted to his hands — smaller, delicate, the fingers of a child. He touched his stomach, his face, his hair.
A child.
"I… what…?"
The man spoke, his voice deep and commanding. "We shall name him… Kazuki Ayanami."
Kazuki.
His name wasn't Atshushi anymore.
His heart raced. His mind screamed. The world spun. But there was no escape. No voice to reassure him it was just another breakdown. He looked at the strange room, at the man and woman who called themselves his parents.
It wasn't a dream.
It wasn't a delusion.
He had been reborn. In a new world.
And he was no longer what he was.