I should've felt proud. Maybe I did, briefly, before the reality hit me like ice water. An A. Not A++. Not perfect. Just… ordinary.
I stared at it like it had insulted me personally. My chest tightened. My hands shook. I wanted to scream, to throw the paper, to prove to the universe, to myself, that I deserved better. But words, movement, any sort of outlet… failed me.
I had spent years cultivating the perfect image, a flawless pattern of effort and outcome. And yet… this. One letter, one symbol, one tiny deviation from the standard I had built my life around, and it shattered me entirely.
I didn't plan the next step. I didn't plan to leave this world behind. It happened quietly, in a breathless instant. One moment I was staring at a grade, the next I was floating in that terrible, infinite silence—the kind that doesn't just swallow sound, but existence itself.
---
When I woke, I didn't wake in my room. Not in Vladivostok, not in the city I had known, with its flickering fluorescent lights, scuffed linoleum floors, or the faint, bitter tang of winter smog.
I woke on grass. Thick, impossibly soft, damp beneath my palms. The scent of earth, wildflowers, and something metallic clung to the air. My lungs drew it in greedily, and for a moment, I thought I might actually cry.
The sky above was impossibly wide, painted in a shade of blue that made my eyes sting. The sun was closer somehow, larger, alive—like it had a heartbeat of its own. And the breeze carried a vitality I had never experienced in my old world, a freshness that whispered through my hair and brushed against my skin with an almost sentient touch.
I remembered.
I had died. And yet, here I was. Somewhere else. A new world.
---
Being a toddler in a foreign world is a study in frustration. Everything is unfamiliar, dangerous, and yet strangely fascinating. Every movement requires attention: rolling, crawling, standing, speaking. Even the simplest acts—eating, laughing, recognizing sounds—become mountains to climb.
I watched. I learned. I imitated. I avoided attention. Curiosity became my refuge, observation my shield. Every glance, every motion of people around me was cataloged in silence. And the villagers, my foster parents, even the occasional traveler who passed by, saw a quiet, ordinary child. Nothing remarkable. Perfectly invisible.
But I couldn't stay invisible forever.
---
The first stories I learned—myth and rumor, whispered histories handed down by the villagers—were captivating. Eldoria. A city that had fallen long before my arrival, swallowed by catastrophe. Its king, a man of wisdom and might, turned to stone. His daughter, lost. And the magic of the city, once bright and proud, corrupted and lethal, leaving scars upon the land that persisted decades after the fall.
I was drawn to it immediately. Something about the story didn't sit right with me. Patterns seemed broken, contradictions left unchecked. I filed it away in my mind like a puzzle waiting to be solved—but I didn't touch it. Not yet. Curiosity, yes, but not interference. Observation first. Always observation first.
---
Time passed. Slowly. Quietly. The seasons rotated, the sun rose and fell, snow blanketed the hills, then melted again, and I grew. I grew in silence, careful to appear ordinary to anyone who might observe me. I learned language quickly, far faster than my peers expected. I learned history, geography, customs, without attracting attention.
I observed patterns in the villagers' daily lives: how the bakers timed their bread, when the smith would take his breaks, which roads were safest at night. I memorized routines, routes, and rhythms. Nothing too daring. Nothing that would mark me as extraordinary.
---
Yet the old compulsions never left. I could not fully escape myself. Even as a child, I recognized the urge to excel, to calculate, to solve, to master. I buried it, deeply. I learned the art of appearing calm, normal, average. And I succeeded. Most of the time.
But sometimes, tiny sparks of brilliance escaped. A calculation too precise. An observation too accurate. A question that revealed understanding beyond my age. Those moments, fleeting as they were, reminded me of what I had left behind—and of what might one day pull me into this world in ways I could not predict.
---
My foster parents were kind. Practical. Grounded in a way that made sense in this world. They noticed my abilities, of course, but they did not push, did not force. And that in itself was a luxury I had not known in my previous life. They offered guidance, choices. And eventually, when I was old enough, a decision loomed:
Academy. A place for learning, training, growth. Combat, knowledge, and perhaps even magic—if one could master it.
Or the family business. Safe. Predictable. Mundane. Quiet.
Or something else. Something… unexpected.
I listened to their arguments, the quiet back-and-forth in the warm kitchen of our modest home. I chewed my bread and pretended not to care, pretending to be a child without burdens. But I knew. I had learned too much from my first life to believe in quiet safety. The world would notice. Someone always notices.
The choice was made. Academy.
I did not protest. I only nodded. Resistance was pointless. Survival meant calculation. Patience. Waiting. Watching.
---
And so my life continued. I grew taller, steadier, quieter. I observed the village, the forests that skirted the far hills, the trade routes that wove like veins across the countryside. I learned, slowly, imperceptibly, the rhythm of this world. I cataloged every detail, every pattern, storing it for later.
Eldoria, the ruined city, remained a distant, whispered mystery. I thought of it occasionally, always with caution. There was danger in curiosity, danger in knowing too much. But there was also… fascination. Patterns. Connections waiting to be made. Secrets, old and lingering, calling to the part of me that could never be satisfied with normalcy.
Even now, as I lie beneath the shade of an unfamiliar tree, the soft wind brushing my face, I know that this is only the beginning. The world is vast, alive, and dangerous. And one day, I will step into its currents fully—not yet, not now—but when I do… nothing will ever be the same.