Chapter 2
(Lucid's POV)
Waking up in a hospital, I felt a sharp pang of disappointment settle deep in my chest. Why was I revived again? Was I being forced back into a life where death seemed like the kinder option?
I looked around the unfamiliar room—clean white walls, silent beeping machines, a faint antiseptic scent clinging to the air. Nothing here looked familiar. Nothing felt like me.
"Where the hell am I...?" I murmured.
I raised my hand slowly, surprised to find I could move it. It wasn't paralyzed... but every single movement sent searing pain through my body. I bit down on my tongue just to keep a groan from escaping. The pain was raw—agonizing. But strangely, it felt like hope. I hadn't felt pain in so long... I'd forgotten what it meant to be alive.
I sat up with effort, trying to adjust to the aches screaming through every limb. And then I saw it.
My skin.
It was pale. Smooth. Soft. And terrifyingly unfamiliar.
I swallowed hard, trembling as I raised my hand to my face. No stubble. No jawline. No sign of hair. Just... soft skin. Feminine skin. I touched my cheeks, then my hair—long, wavy strands sliding down my shoulder. I froze.
"No... No, no, no..."
My hands traveled lower, panic rising in my chest. I placed both palms against what should have been a flat chest... only to clutch something soft. Full. My heart dropped as I jerked my hands away and dove down to the space between my thighs.
Gone.
My balls were gone.
"Shit!" I screamed, the word escaping before I could stop it.
A wave of pain tore through my skull like lightning. I clutched my head as a thousand images crashed into my brain all at once—memories that didn't belong to me. Feelings. Moments. Thoughts that weren't mine.
A name screamed through the chaos: Hazel Vernon.
And then—darkness.
When I woke up again, the world felt too quiet. Too still. I didn't move right away. My hand slipped beneath the hospital sheet and found that same terrifying nothingness between my legs. A cold dread clung to my bones.
The door creaked open. A nurse walked in, clipboard in hand, like it was any ordinary check-up. Like I wasn't losing my damn mind.
"Please... Can I have a mirror? And... a phone?" My voice cracked—it was dry, unfamiliar—but it still carried that soft, undeniably feminine tone.
She nodded, thankfully without question, and returned a few minutes later. I snatched the mirror from her hand and held it up.
The face staring back at me was beautiful. Sickly, yes—but still striking. Big, expressive eyes. High cheekbones. A delicate nose. Soft, pink lips. It was the kind of face I would've admired. The kind I used to chase. Only now... it was mine.
I felt sick.
I unlocked the phone. I don't know how I remembered the password—123457—but it worked. I scrolled through the gallery, studying every picture and video the original Hazel had taken.
She liked makeup. Terrible makeup. Stuff that didn't match her tone or shape. It almost ruined her natural beauty. She'd post videos in little outfits, dancing or laughing alone in her room, pretending she wasn't tethered to a hospital bed by IV tubes. Pretending she wasn't sick.
There was one video where she swayed her hips in front of the camera, the hospital gown slipping down her shoulder. Her skin glowed beneath the dim lights, fragile and seductive. If I were still a man, I'd probably be turned on.
But now? I was her.
I tossed the phone onto the bed and stared at the ceiling, trying to calm the swirl of emotions choking me.
I scrolled again, looking for something—anything—that could make sense of this madness. That's when I found them.
Four pictures.
Four men.
They were all snapped from a distance, but they were undeniably attractive. Almost unnaturally so. Like models, each one dripping with raw masculine energy. But as I stared longer... another memory crept in. This time, quieter. Less painful.
Her mates.
Mates? Like animals?
Confused, I started searching the phone, looking up every word that felt foreign.
And what I found...
This wasn't Earth.
Not the Earth I knew.
In this world, gender wasn't just male and female. People were categorized by secondary genders—Alpha, Beta, and Omega.
Alphas and Omegas made up most of the population. Betas were rare. Alphas were all male—powerful, dominant, feral, with pheromones that could drown an entire room in their presence. Omegas were always female—submissive, delicate, heat-prone, and highly sensitive to Alphas.
Betas... they were the closest to humans. No heat, no pheromones. Just ordinary people. How I wished I was one of them.
Alphas experienced rut. Omegas went into heat. And Betas? They were safe. Normal. Boring.
But the more I pieced Hazel's memories together, the more the horror sank in.
She... was a mistake in this world's biology.
She was a female Alpha.
A walking contradiction.
No wonder she was rejected. No wonder her "mates" refused her. They chose her stepsisters instead—the delicate Omega with fake tears and a smile that could melt steel. No wonder her own best friend turned on her. And the poisoning? That explained why this body was so weak, so broken—the stepmother had been slowly killing her since childhood.
And now, I was trapped in her dying body.
Tears stung my eyes, but I refused to let them fall.
"I didn't ask for this," I whispered.
If this was what another life felt like, I'd rather stay dead. I swear, if I ever get reborn again, I won't be surprised if I come back as a sick cat or a mentally unstable frog.
I lay back on the bed, staring at the pale ceiling above me.
No balls.
No strength.
No freedom.
Just a borrowed life... and a body I didn't recognize.
As the quiet hum of the hospital lulled me, sleep crept in again.
Don't blame me.
Hazel's body... is just too weak.