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Prologue - Leo, 25

Leo rode hard, cutting through the city on his bike. The sky was overcast, the air mild for early summer. The bike lane ran past an old building with a reworked facade, part leftover shell, part soulless modern update. It now housed a mix of offices and short-lived storefronts.

The urban center he was passing through seemed to have lost whatever identity it once had. Europe’s major cities had all been pressed into the same uniform mold. Only the names of the states still hinted that these places had once been sovereign nations, shaped by distinct cultures and traditions.

Thoughts like that had started coming to him more and more often lately, which in itself felt new.

Then Leo slammed backward on the pedals, and his bike skidded. A small electric cart had just cut him off. He missed it by inches and felt a quick flash of satisfaction at having reacted in time, especially since he still wasn’t fully used to the coaster brake. He’d put the bike together himself a few days earlier, another whim, probably no more lasting than the rest.

His wrist buzzed with an incoming call. He glanced at his smartwatch. Elyas.

“Answer.”

His earpiece clicked on.

“Hey, man. Done with your rotation?” Elyas asked.

“Yeah. Heading out on my bike. You?”

“Ortho reports. Hell.”

“There are worse rotations. Ever spend your whole morning filling out nursing home admission paperwork for dementia patients?”

“Fair enough. Sixth year of med school, and we still spend half our lives doing scut work... So, are you coming to the intern party tonight?”

“Shit, that’s tonight?”

“You’re kidding me. You always have an excuse. What is it this time?”

“I’m going to the NeuraCore lab. I’m staying there until tomorrow morning for the next round of the protocol.”

“What even is that again?”

“I’ve told you about it like three times already. A research protocol I’ve been part of for more than two years.”

“Oh right, the study where you prostitute your body for science. I thought you were done with that. Hope they’re paying you well, at least.”

“It’s decent.”

“And what do you even do with the money? We’re about to be doctors. I don’t really get it.”

“Invest it. Bitcoin, gold, foreign markets...”

“You’re seriously weird. Fine, I’ll make something up for the others. If I tell them the real reason, they’ll think you’re even stranger, and that’s not exactly helping your chances of finding a girlfriend. You’ve been single for, what, over a year now? You’re my friend. I have to help.”

“I guess I should thank you.”

“You’re welcome. Later, Leo.”

“Later, man.”

He glanced at his watch again. His speed was dropping, and so was his heart rate. Keeping up some kind of regular physical activity was one of his new resolutions, a way to push back against the stagnation of all those years of studying, during which he’d let his body slide.

He’d show up to NeuraCore soaked in sweat. With any luck, the protocol would be the same as last time: shower on arrival, disposable pajamas, and, as an added bonus, a free buzz cut.

NeuraCore was one of the few private companies still operating in Europe. Its neuroscience division, at the leading edge of research, focused on neurodegenerative diseases. In other words, the dementia market was a lucrative niche for anyone who managed to come up with an effective treatment.

For more than two years, Leo had been taking part in a protocol designed to map healthy brains with precision and track how they changed over time. The specialists called them “cerebral energy landscapes.” Even for a medical student, the exams were complex: scans, MRIs, EEGs, biological samples, cognitive testing, sleep recordings... It was an exhausting program, sure, but the pay more than made up for it.

Leo got off his bike a few yards from the entrance. A security guard stood in front of a wide glass door. Leo gave him a quick nod while pulling a badge from his pocket, his pass onto the highly secure site.

The man didn’t move. His expression stayed flat.

“The bike stays outside.”

“I’m here until tomorrow morning. Last time, it disappeared.” Leo shrugged. “I’m not taking that risk again. There has to be somewhere I can leave it. Otherwise, you can explain to your superiors why today’s tests got canceled.”

The guard hesitated, then opened the door.

The afternoon dragged by, followed by an endless evening. Leo had gone through this same battery of tests two years earlier, but he’d forgotten just how tedious it all was. Maybe his brain had edited out the worst of it so he wouldn’t give up on the protocol.

The same machines. The same movements. The same instructions.

A thought brushed across his mind: he’d never really tried to understand what they were doing with all that data. He pushed it away almost at once. After all, they were paying him.

Then, sometime around two in the morning, covered in electrodes, he drifted into a dreamless sleep.

1 - The Valley

Yaeline came tearing down the path to the hamlet and slammed open the door of a wooden cabin. The crash made Nemeas jump as he was pulling on his shirt.

“Are you crazy? You scared the hell out of me!” he snapped.

“Agast! Agast!” Yaeline gasped.

“What about Agast?”

“He’s gone.”

“What do you mean, gone?”

“I was heading into the woods to check my rabbit traps...”

She broke off, trying to catch her breath.

“And then I ran into Aslek. He was supposed to relieve Agast at the guard post, but... he wasn’t there. I ran to his cabin. No sign of him. Tell me he did take over for you last night.”

“Yeah, he came. Everything seemed normal. If something had happened, he would’ve blown his horn. We would’ve heard it all across the valley. There has to be an explanation.”

“I hope so. But this feels wrong...”

“Then let’s go find him.”

Nemeas’s face hardened as he pulled on a leather coat and headed for the door. Before stepping outside, he took his belt down from the wall, the sword at his hip still in its sheath.

They set out together toward the guard post, walking fast, tension written plainly across their faces.

Nemeas spoke first.

“When we find him, I hope his excuse is good. Otherwise, I’ll make him regret wasting my time. I was supposed to sharpen my blades this morning.”

“I was supposed to go hunting.”

Yaeline shifted the bow slung across her chest.

“Would you be this worried if I were the one who disappeared?”

Yaeline sighed and gave him a crooked, mocking smile.

“If you disappeared, your father would rally the entire valley. You’re not just anyone, Nemeas. You come from a prestigious line. You’re meant to become Primus.”

He shrugged.

“That inheritance is a burden too. My father still refuses to pass the torch. And becoming Primus seems to be a problem for the woman I want.”

“Yeah, well, being expected to bear heirs doesn’t appeal to me. I’m sure there are others who’d be happy to take on that role. Right now, we need to find our friend. He only has us.”

“You’re right...”

Nemeas dropped his eyes, stung by the remark.

The guard post stood atop a rocky rise. Modest and built of wood and stone, it overlooked the valley and offered a perfect vantage point. Each of the region’s Five Valleys had one, allowing the whole territory to remain under watch.

Aslek and Nemeas, Guardians of Wood Valley, were responsible for the safety of their people. Other inhabitants, like Agast and Yaeline, could also take part in the night watch. The pay was modest, but the pride of protecting their own was reward enough. To qualify, a person had to pass tests of aptitude, physical endurance, and combat skill.

Aslek, already aware that Agast was missing, was sitting on a stone bench beside the building. He rose as soon as he saw them coming.

“Nothing?” Yaeline asked.

The older warrior replied with a grim shake of his head.

Nemeas took charge at once.

“Aslek, make your rounds. If you notice anything unusual, let us know.”

“And how exactly am I supposed to do that? Agast still has the signal horn.”

“Check the post chest. There’s another one in there. One blast if you see something.”

Aslek gave a curt nod and moved off with quick, agile steps.

Nemeas turned to Yaeline and pointed at the wall beside the door.

“The oil torch is gone. Agast must’ve seen something...”

“And gone after it to find out what it was,” Yaeline finished.

“He can’t have gone far. Maybe he slipped.”

“Don’t say that.”

“We sweep the area, stay close to the paths. He never would’ve wandered out at night onto terrain that steep.”

Yaeline nodded and set off at once, moving even faster than before.

The two friends searched the western reaches of Wood Valley. More than once, they climbed onto dangerous rocky ledges where cliffs dropped sheer into deep ravines. Their eyes kept drifting downward, dreading what they might find. So far, those grim searches had turned up nothing, and the hope of finding Agast alive still remained... but so did the rising dread.

The sun stood high overhead, beating down on them, heralding the approach of the hot season. Sweat soaked them both, and only their hard-earned stamina let them keep going at that pace.

They had just reached gentler ground when Yaeline stopped short and narrowed her eyes. Far ahead, at the edge of a small clearing, something was lying on the ground.

She shouted for Nemeas and sprinted toward the motionless shape. By the time he reached her, she had already rolled the unconscious body over.

It was Agast.

Kneeling beside him, Yaeline pressed her face close to his.

“He’s breathing!” she cried.

Nemeas let out a breath of relief. He looked over his friend’s limp body. The oil torch lay beside him, and his hunting dagger and signal horn were still hanging from his belt.

“He doesn’t look hurt... and there’s no way he could’ve fallen here. What happened to him?”

Yaeline placed a hand against his forehead.

“He’s burning up!”

“He got sick? Just like that?”

“How would I know? I’m not a healer.”

“Look at his arm.”

She leaned closer.

“They look like puncture marks... We need to get him back to the hamlet. Then we find someone who knows what to do.”

But Nemeas was no longer listening. Something else near Agast’s body had caught his attention: a spherical object, barely larger than a skull, its top split open. Its smooth surface looked like scorched metal, darkened as if by fire. A simple metal hinge held the lid. The ground around it had caved into a small crater, as though something had slammed into the earth at high speed.

Nemeas reached inside and pulled out a strange stone, scarcely larger than a fist, its surface porous and uneven. Depending on how the light struck it, its color shifted between purple, scarlet, and brown.

Neither of them had ever seen anything like it.

“You’re thinking it too?” Yaeline asked.

“The color... it reminds me of Theia’s weapons. And my father’s.”

“Incredible. Could it really be... Blodium?”

Nemeas froze, stunned by the thought that he might be holding something so rare it survived only in legend and in weapons passed down through the ages.

“But then... the marks on his arm?”

“They look like Harmonization marks... but with... this stone?”

Yaeline’s expression darkened.

“Have you ever heard the myth of the Altered?”

“No.”

“My grandmother used to say Blodium was both a gift... and a curse. That anyone who touched it could lose their mind. In the Jorwelian Lands, they were called the Altered, hunted because of their link to Blodium... Do you think Agast...?”

A chill ran through Nemeas, but his answer came firm.

“Just stories. What we do know is that Agast found something valuable. Something that could save the Five Valleys. Let’s get him back to the hamlet.”

Still shaken, Yaeline nodded.

“Help me get him onto my back,” Nemeas said.

“All right.”

And so they set off again, hearts heavy and minds troubled, not yet knowing that what they had found was about to change their fate.

2 - Agast

Agast’s cabin stood apart from the hamlet. Like most of the buildings in the region, it was modest—easier to heat in the cold season, easier to maintain when repairs were needed.

Agast was nineteen, a year younger than his two friends. He had been living alone since his mother’s early death, carried off by a sudden illness the year before. He remembered nothing of his father, who had died defending the Five Valleys when Agast was still very young.

Yaeline and Nemeas laid their friend on the narrow bed inside. It was little more than a mattress stuffed with straw and dried moss, covered in hides Agast had tanned himself.

He was still unconscious, trapped in a restless sleep. His body temperature remained dangerously high. Yaeline pulled off his leather jacket. His breathing was rough and uneven, and his eyes moved beneath his closed lids. The puncture marks on his forearm had almost faded.

She dampened a cloth and brought it to his lips, trying to get a little water into him. The moment it touched his mouth, his body jerked. His fingers clenched the blanket for an instant, then went slack again. Yaeline lifted her head sharply.

“What should we do? Call the healer?” she asked.

Nemeas kept his eyes on Agast.

“I’ve been thinking about what you said... about the Altered. If anyone finds out about the Blodium, with Agast like this, the elders could panic. There’s no telling how far some of them might go.”

“Oh, come on. These are our people. People who’ve followed Aldus’s teachings all their lives.”

“What teachings? They’re barely more than words passed down by memory now. Aldus’s writings were lost more than three generations ago, during the wars against Jorwel and his fanatics.”

“That doesn’t mean they’d turn on one of their own.”

“You don’t know that. When people are afraid, the first thing they do is protect themselves. If the legend of the Altered still survives in their minds, Agast is more likely to terrify them than anything else.”

Yaeline lowered her eyes. Nemeas regretted his outburst at once.

“I’m sorry. We’re exhausted, and we’re worried about him... I’m just not sure anyone can help us. We don’t even know what’s wrong with him. My guess is that, just as a Primus weapon can bond with its bearer’s flesh, the Blodium ore did the same to Agast. And now his body’s reacting.”

“Like an infection?”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“But you touched the ore too, and nothing happened to you.”

“True...”

Nemeas fell silent for a moment.

“Maybe the reaction only happens the first time. Or maybe not to everyone...”

“And what about the Blodium itself? Surely we have to tell your father.”

“Not before Agast gets better. Otherwise, we won’t be able to explain his condition. The connection will be too obvious, and we’ll be buried in questions.”

“But the ore is a good thing for the future of the Five Valleys, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Only Theia and my father remain as Primus now... This could let us forge new weapons.”

“But the Primus are Aldus’s descendants, and the weapons are passed down from generation to generation. Do we even know how to forge new ones?”

“Not that I know of. But one thing at a time. There’s no urgent need to deal with the Blodium right now. We hide it for the moment. We take care of Agast first. When he’s better, we’ll figure out the rest.”

Yaeline nodded, visibly reassured by the decision.

Nemeas went to tell Aslek that Agast had been found and brought home. He explained that Agast had come down with a high fever and had headed back shortly before the change of watch. But weakened as he was, he had taken time getting there, and Yaeline had reached his cabin before he did. Aslek was relieved, though not particularly shaken. The whole incident, then, would pass unnoticed.

That evening, before starting his watch, Nemeas stopped in to check on his friends again. The fever seemed to be breaking, but Agast still hadn’t regained consciousness.

Yaeline decided to stay with him through the night. She asked Nemeas to pass through the hamlet and tell her younger brother, who would let their parents know she wasn’t coming home.

Night had fallen. The faint light of a candle lit the room. Yaeline sat on a blanket spread across the wooden floor, her back against the wall, close beside her friend.

She held his hand, murmured to him under her breath, sometimes sang softly, and eventually, worn out, drifted off to sleep.

Dawn had barely begun to break when a movement pulled her awake: Agast had withdrawn his hand. The candle had burned all the way down to the wick, and the pale morning light filtered through the small window, revealing the strain in her face.

Yaeline opened her eyes and saw his chest rise.

He was there. Still alive.

The weight in her chest loosened.

Slowly, Agast opened his eyes, still lost somewhere along the edge of waking.

“Agast!” she blurted, louder than she meant to.

He stared at her without speaking. Then his gaze drifted, disoriented, as if searching for something to hold on to. His features tightened—first with confusion, then with something deeper, stranger.

“Agast,” she said again, trying to anchor him. “You scared us half to death.”

“Where am I?” he murmured, his voice raw.

He looked at Yaeline as if she had stepped out of a dream—both familiar and unknown.

A heavy silence settled over the room.

“Agast, it’s all right,” she said softly.

But his breathing quickened.

“Agast? Who? I... I don’t understand... You... you’re Yaeline.”

His voice wavered between certainty and confusion, as if he were trying to gather the scattered pieces of a shattered memory.

A wave of dizziness hit him.

“I know that’s your name... and yet I don’t know you. I’ve never seen you before, but... I recognize you.”

The color drained from his face.

“I... I’m not Agast,” he said.

He sat up abruptly. His stare locked in place, as if the floor had just dropped away beneath him.

Yaeline instinctively stumbled backward and struck a chair, sending it over with a dull crash.

Agast’s gaze turned frantic, sweeping across the room with mounting panic. He brought his hands to his face, slowly at first, then with increasing desperation.

“Where am I? What did you do to me?” he asked, his throat tight.

He couldn’t catch his breath. Each inhale came in broken bursts, and the harder he fought for air, the more rigid his body became. His fingers clawed convulsively at his clothes, then at his own skin. His eyes darted around the room again, desperate, searching for a crack in reality, some answer, some way out.

Then he swayed and collapsed back onto the bed, curling in on himself.

Yaeline’s heart was pounding. She realized he was panicking. His distress echoed inside her; she moved before she even thought to.

She dropped to her knees beside him, placed a hand on his trembling back, and gently drew him into her arms.

“It’s going to be all right,” she whispered. “It’s going to be all right...”

And she hoped it was true.

By morning, Aslek had relieved Nemeas from his watch. Nemeas went straight to Agast’s cabin. When he opened the door, he saw Yaeline sitting on the bed.

Alone.

She lifted her eyes to him slowly. There was a deep sadness in her face, an expression he had never seen on her before. The sight of it hit him like a blow, breaking his heart. Her eyes were still wet with tears, and dried tracks marked her cheeks.

“What happened?” he asked, doing his best to keep his voice steady.

“Agast... I don’t know what to think anymore. He isn’t Agast.”

“What do you mean? Where is he?”

Yaeline drew in a deep breath. She closed her eyes for a moment, as if searching for the words.

“He woke up... But the way he looked at me... the way he spoke... it wasn’t him anymore. It was someone else.”

Nemeas froze.

“Did he hurt you?”

Yaeline slowly shook her head, devastated.

“No... He was even more terrified than I was...”

“And where is he now?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered. “He left.”

Nemeas’s expression hardened.

“I’m going after him.”

“Don’t hurt him! He isn’t dangerous. He’s just... lost.”

Nemeas said nothing. None of it made any sense.

But he had to find his friend.

3 - Tachypsychia

Leo wandered aimlessly along the rocky trails, his bare feet bruised by the jagged ground. The confusion swallowing him made him almost numb to the bite of the stones.

In a brief flash of clarity, he tried to pull his thoughts back under control. He knew he was slipping, that his mind was on the verge of splintering. He drew in a deep breath and pictured his mind as a river in motion. His thoughts were the current, wild and rushing. He had to still the turbulence, narrow the flow, master its force. He breathed again. And again. Slowly, the chaos began to loosen its grip. His thoughts sharpened.

He moved toward an opening in the rocks, and little by little the vastness of the landscape pressed itself upon him. Morning light, washed in gold, wrapped the peaks in an almost unreal glow, setting the eternal snow ablaze and revealing every vein in the stone. The air was crisp and glass-clear, carrying the mineral scent of sun-warmed rock mixed with the fragrance of wild grasses.

All around him, the mountains rose like motionless giants, majestic and unyielding, as though they had stood watch over these remote lands for centuries. Their jagged ridges cut into a sky of deep blue, and in the shadowed crevices, shades of azure and ink seemed to hide ancient mysteries.

Below, he spotted the cabin he had come from, flanked by a small cluster of houses tucked against the slope. Farther out, the valleys stretched in overlapping waves, softening the severity of the peaks. Everything here felt outside time, as if the grandeur of the mountains defied comprehension. Every detail throbbed with a dizzying beauty, almost... artificial.

He sat on a rock, his brow tight with strain. He had to understand. He closed his eyes and searched the dark corners of his memory.

What’s my last memory? NeuraCore.

The images tangled and slipped away.

NeuraCore. The protocol. I went through with it. I spent the night there. After that? Nothing. I’m still there, I know it. Am I dreaming? No. Impossible. This is too real. I’ve had lucid dreams before, and this is nothing like that. No, I’m certain of it: I’m still at NeuraCore. They hooked me up to their machines. It’s a simulation... a fucking simulation.

Anger rose in him, hot and visceral.

Those bastards. This wasn’t part of the protocol. They’re going to pay for this.

Then another thought stopped him cold.

But... why would they risk trapping me like this? They know I could come after them. It makes no sense. Unless...

His breath caught.

What if... they never intended to let me go back? But then how would they explain my disappearance? None of this makes sense.

His skull throbbed under the pressure of too many possibilities. The questions came in a flood.

Why am I in another body? Why does it feel like I can reach fragments of this body’s consciousness? That girl... I recognized her. And that name... Agast. It means something to me. Even the language she was speaking... I don’t know it, but I understand it. I speak it.

A wave of dizziness washed over him. He pressed both hands to his temples, as if he could contain the pressure building inside his head.

Then a thought broke through the chaos. A name surfaced: Nick Bostrom. A philosopher who, thirty years earlier, had shaken the scientific world with a staggering idea—the simulation hypothesis.

Leo knew the theory well. It fascinated him. According to Bostrom, if humanity were ever to create a simulation populated by independent consciousnesses, that would make it overwhelmingly likely that we ourselves were already living inside one.

A chill ran down his spine.

Maybe I was already inside a simulation. And now... I’ve simply been moved to another one. NeuraCore would be the bridge. A transfer from one simulated world to the next.

The idea sounded insane. And yet...

What if my mind—a mere program of consciousness—overwrote the one that inhabited this body before me? Could this be... a bug?

A pounding migraine crushed his thoughts.

A bug. Yes... why not? Plenty of people see the contradictions of modern physics as the signature of faulty encoding. The quantum world, with its superposition of states, defies logic. Even astronomical anomalies that challenge the Big Bang model could be nothing more than calculation errors, artifacts of a simulation running up against its limits...

A cold shiver slipped down the back of his neck.

And what if some psychiatric disorders are nothing more than programming errors? Glitches in reality’s interface?

He cut himself off, breathing hard. His mind was spiraling again, swept up in a storm of conjectures. He forced himself to slow his breathing.

Or maybe... I’ve lost my mind. No...

No. I can feel this reality. It doesn’t overlap with my old one. It exists. Distinct. Different. Irrefutable.

He pressed his fingertips to his forehead.

Distinct? Yes. Maybe this isn’t a simulation at all. Maybe it’s... parallel universes. Multiple realities, existing side by side. I simply slipped from one line to another. But then what happened to my original body? Did I vanish? Did I split in two? Am I still at NeuraCore? What if the original “me” went home... and what’s here is only a copy of my consciousness?

Leo went pale.

I wouldn’t be Leo anymore. Just... a replica.

For a moment, silence.

Then another terror tore through him.

These thoughts are egocentric. What if Agast is real? If I took his body... what happened to him? Did he shift too? Into my world?

His chest tightened. He shut his eyes.

Enough. Calm down. Science works by testing hypotheses against experience. So... experiment. This reality is here. Tangible. Explore it.

A long breath left his throat. A fragile calm spread through his veins.

Leo straightened and studied this unfamiliar body. Everything was different. The light, first of all. Brighter. Richer. As if the entire spectrum had been intensified. His vision, with its unsettling sharpness, carved every detail of the landscape into focus with almost supernatural precision.

I see the way Agast sees. Through his eyes.

Leo shivered.

How can anyone know what another person perceives? What if I’m living something unprecedented here... stepping directly into another being’s perception?

The thought stirred an almost childlike excitement in him.

He closed his eyes and listened. The sounds were sharper, fuller. The flutter of wings. The whisper of wind through the grass.

But his body unsettled him even more. He felt... different. Faster. Leaner. Sharper. As if he had traded a city bike for a racing machine, every muscle humming with contained power. Instinctively, he knew this body was built for feats he would once have thought impossible.

The sensation was exhilarating.

A little farther off, the murmur of a stream caught his attention. He followed it and found, at its edge, a shallow pool sparkling beneath the sun, where a thousand points of light danced.

Leo bent over the water and saw a face staring back at him.

His own?

No. Agast’s.

A young face, finely cut, framed by blond hair falling in unruly strands. Subtle green eyes, bright and almost inquisitive. The shadow of a beard along still-youthful cheeks. When he tilted his head, the reflection did the same, that unfamiliar face shifting with his expression.

Then a sound broke his concentration.

Footsteps.

Light, but hurried.

Someone was coming.

4 - Sincerity

A broad-shouldered young man strode toward him with unmistakable purpose, menace radiating from every step. His brown hair was pulled back into a ponytail. A closely trimmed beard shadowed his face, making him look older than he was. His eyes, blazing with anger, were locked on Leo. A sword hung at his side, adding to the threat he carried with him.

“Agast!” he roared, his voice shaking with fury. “What did you do to Yaeline?”

He didn’t slow. He stopped directly in front of Leo, looming over him.

Instinctively, Leo stepped back. His body, driven by a foreign memory, tightened, ready to react.

“Answer me! Why is Yaeline like this?”

“Nemeas...” Leo breathed.

“At least you can still talk. So talk.”

Leo felt his throat tighten.

What do I even say? How do I explain the impossible?

“This is going to sound insane, but...”

He searched for the words, his voice unsteady.

“I’m not Agast... or not completely anymore...”

Nemeas went still. His clenched fists were trembling.

“Then who are you?” he growled. “And what happened to Agast?”

“I... My name is Leo.”

His voice shook, but it was sincere.

“I don’t know where Agast is. I only know that... I ended up in his body. I can access some of his knowledge... I know your name is Nemeas...”

Nemeas didn’t move. He was breathing hard now, his eyes fixed on him.

Something was wrong.

He stepped closer, slowly, the way someone approaches a wounded animal when they’re no longer sure it can still recognize its own.

“Agast...”

The name hung between them.

Leo said nothing. He was looking at him without really seeing him, lost, unable to withstand that intensity.

Nemeas’s jaw tightened.

“Stop that.”

He took another step.

“Stop looking at me like you don’t know who I am.”

His voice rose despite himself.

“It’s me. Nemeas.”

Nothing.

Only that hesitation, that flicker in Agast’s eyes... no. Not Agast.

Doubt slid into him, cold and brutal.

“No...”

He shook his head, as if trying to drive off an absurd thought.

“That’s impossible.”

His voice dropped, lower now, harder.

“These stories about the Altered... they’re just legends.”

But the look in front of him...

It wasn’t his friend’s.

With a sudden movement, he grabbed Leo by the arm.

“Look at me.”

Leo obeyed immediately. Too quickly. Too obediently.

And in his eyes, Nemeas did not find Agast.

He found something else.

Raw fear. Disorientation. Something almost animal.

His grip loosened on its own.

A heavy silence fell between them.

“Damn...”

The word slipped out in a breath.

He stepped back.

“You’re saying you’re not him...”

His expression hardened again, as though he needed something solid to hold on to.

“Then tell me who you are.”

“I... My name is Leo...”

His voice was trembling.

Nemeas studied him for a long moment.

“Leo...”

He repeated the name as if testing its strangeness.

“And Agast?”

“I don’t know...”

This time, Nemeas didn’t answer right away. He dragged a hand over his face, trying to steady himself.

“What the hell is this...”

For a moment, his gaze drifted into emptiness. Then it fixed on Leo again.

“We’re going back.”

He paused, then added in a colder voice:

“But don’t do anything stupid.”

Leo nodded almost automatically.

“You walk in front.”

The three of them settled onto the small wooden porch beside Agast’s cabin. The crackle of the fire only seemed to deepen the silence between them. Yaeline had brought them water. A pot hanging over the flames gave off the scent of herbs.

Leo watched her discreetly. She had a natural kind of beauty, far removed from the artifices he’d grown used to in his own world. Her simple clothes hinted at an athletic body shaped by effort. Her wavy brown hair was tied back in a loose ponytail that moved with her gestures. Her eyes, lively and kind, held both gentleness and fire.

When she caught him looking, he turned away at once.

Beside them, Nemeas was finishing the work of skinning a rabbit with rough efficiency. His knife sliced through the flesh with instinctive precision. He was cutting the meat for the stew, and the task seemed to calm him.

They began to eat in tense silence.

“Thank you for the meal. It’s... delicious,” Leo said.

Neither of them reacted. No smile. No answer.

“The place where you live... it’s beautiful.”

Still nothing.

Leo lowered his eyes, but kept going.

“I’m telling you the truth. I don’t know what happened to Agast. Maybe our consciousnesses overlapped.”

He tapped his temple with one finger.

“Maybe he’s still here somewhere... Or maybe he took my place, in my world...”

He searched their faces before continuing in a quieter voice.

“I don’t want him to disappear. I can feel that he’s someone good. He deserves your friendship. I never meant to steal his place.”

Something in Nemeas’s posture loosened.

Leo caught it.

“I’m going to tell you my story and try to answer your questions. But before I do that, would you answer a few of mine?”

Nemeas glanced at Yaeline. She gave a small nod.

“Ask,” Nemeas said.

Leo drew a deep breath.

“Where are we?”

“In Wood Valley. One of the Five Valleys,” Yaeline answered.

“The... Five Valleys? Is this... a coun—?”

He stopped himself at once.

The anomaly hit him immediately. He was speaking their language, and yet the word country seemed not to exist. As though the concept itself were foreign to them.

He shifted course.

“And... this planet? What is it called?”

Nemeas raised an eyebrow.

“That’s a strange question.”

But Yaeline cut in.

“Wait. I think I understand.”

She paused, thinking.

“Aldus taught us that our world is a celestial body orbiting the sun. The old beliefs claimed we stood at the center of everything, but Aldus proved otherwise. Our world is called Terra.”

“Terra?” Leo murmured, shaken.

“Obviously,” Nemeas muttered, rolling his eyes. “The ground beneath our feet. What else would it be called?”

Yaeline tilted her head slightly.

“Do you come... from another world?”

Leo hesitated, troubled.

“I’m not sure... Maybe.”

Nemeas cut in, irritated again.

“You still have a lot more ridiculous questions?”

“Yes. A lot. Especially about what you said... about the Altered. And about... Blodium. I need to understand. I know all of this sounds insane to you, but believe me... it’s just as strange to me.”

Leo slowly set his hands on his knees and looked at them both with grave seriousness.

“Then let me tell you who I am and where I come from.”

He paused, gathering his courage.

“My name is Leo. I’m twenty-five years old. And I come from a world... very different from yours.”