Grey clouds pressed low against a pale sky shapeless and endless, with only the faintest hint of morning behind them. There was no ceiling above him: the wind's cold fingers grazed his cheeks, setting his hair shivering, and the uneven press of damp earth beneath his back reminded him with insistent clarity that this was no bed.
He did not remember lying down, nor going to sleep.
The first sounds that reached him weren't birdsong, or traffic, or the insistent buzz of his phone alarm, but a coarse medley of guttural voices blurred with curses and laughter from somewhere unseen. Nothing felt right. He blinked, once, twice, hoping it might rearrange the world by sheer force of habit.
The world did not change.
Gone were the walls of his cramped apartment, the ghostly blue of his computer screen, even the careless, music-filled afternoon that, somehow, now felt impossibly distant. That split second the screech of brakes, his heartbeat seized in disbelief rippled faintly in his mind before dissolving away, lost to the hush that had come after.
He flexed his fingers, slow and uncertain. His hands felt too small pale-knuckled, slender, dusted with grime that had not belonged to him before. He was… smaller. Lighter. Panic fluttered within his chest, but it was tempered by a more primal longing: hunger, raw and hollow, twisting in his belly.
He forced himself upright, breath short and quick. Two objects lay at his side a folded slip of parchment, its edge trimmed with gold thread, and beside it, a glass vial swirling with blue and gold, its glow cutting through the morning chill. A squat, wax-sealed bottle, humming with a music he sensed more than heard, nestled next to them.
His hands shook as he reached for the letter. The paper felt impossibly delicate, the ink on its surface shimmered as if alive:
To the child awakened beyond time:
You have been transported from a world that no longer knows your name, but music remembers all things. In your hands, I have placed the Essence of Music. Uncork its power and let it sing through you; it will shape your life, if you let it.
Alongside it is a serum, forged from the essence of heroism a chance to protect, to survive, to thrive.
You stand in a realm both wondrous and cruel. Listen and create; learn and endure.
The rest your story must be written.
Use your gifts, boy. Or this world will take all that you have left.
He read the last line again and again, as if the words might arrange themselves into sense transported, gifts, survive.
A laugh snuck out tremulous, half-mad.
Maybe this was a dream, or some strange hallucination. But the earth pressed real and cold beneath him, and the bottle sang with notes so ethereal, so achingly beautiful, that the air itself seemed to quiver.
Standing took more effort than it should. His legs wobbled, pulling him upright on limbs that felt at odds with memory. Everything around him was sharper, stranger the acrid tang of burning peat, the sweet rot of manure, the bitter steam of boiled cabbage. A settlement rose through the morning fog:
crude timbered shacks, squat stone chimneys coughing slow ribbons of smoke.
Instinct not memory carried him toward the village, the letter pressed close to the warmth of his chest, the vials tucked deep in a stolen pocket. Each footstep was an exercise in careful hope, every new sound electric with possibility. Voices grew louder as he neared;
shrill giggles erupted from a group of dirt-speckled children kicking a makeshift ball of rags and twine, their bare feet prancing through puddles. A woman with tired eyes dunked laundry against a battered stone.
None paid him heed—yet. Still, he sensed that sooner or later, eyes would find him.
His stomach rumbled. It struck him with odd relief; some things, at least, remained unchanged across worlds.
He tried to remember the music he'd listened to in his past life. A pop hook, some lost melody, a half-heard tune while drifting through the city. The details slipped away, but as his lips parted, a note curled forth gentle, trembling, half-formed.
At once, the bottle in his pocket thrummed.
The air shivered in response. For a heartbeat, the village sound quieted children paused, the woman stilled in mid-laundry swing, eyes unfocused as if listening for something at the edge of their world. A stray goose lifted its head, cocking it as if waiting for his song to finish.
He broke off, startled. The moment snapped.
Life tumbled back into noise.
What had he done?
He slipped between houses, beguiled and anxious. Was he a ghost or something more? He examined the contents in secret one bottle, glowing warm with the promise of music, the other colder, darker, heavy with unspoken potential. The words of the letter replayed in his head: "Essence of Music," "serum," "gifts," "be a worthy"
He hesitated, gripped by indecision. Which was the greater risk: using these gifts, or refusing them altogether?
A shadow fell across the mud at his feet. He looked up, meeting the wary gaze of a girl only a year or two older than he looked her hair tangled, but her eyes clear and sharp.
She eyed his unfamiliar clothes and the wary way his hands hovered near his chest.
"Lost?" she asked. The accent was strange, vowels rough and unfamiliar, but the meaning sank in.
He almost laughed how else could he possibly answer?
He nodded. "Yeah. I suppose I am."
She snorted, unconvinced but unsuspicious. "You're new. Here." She pressed a hunk of bread into his hand tough as wood, but the smell made him salivate. "Don't get caught stealing and don't look at the knight's men.
They hate orphans." She eyed his pocket.
"Best keep your treasures hidden. Or they'll take them."
"Thank you," he whispered, meaning it as he never had before.
She grinned a flash of humanity in this cold new universe. "Best not to stand in the street." And with a flick, she vanished, melting into the crowd of urchins.
He ate in silence, ignoring stale crumbs and watching the village come fully to life. With every heartbeat, the possibilities of his strange belongings buzzed in his mind: music that moved not only hearts, but perhaps the currents of fate itself. And a vial of power, still untested.
In that moment, the loneliness, the fear, the thrill all crashed and mingled together, surging through this small vessel of a boy's frame.
Somewhere distant, a song waited to be sung.