[A/N - Hi Guys, I am remaking Birth of the Renegade Star from the ground up. I apologize for the inconvenience, but I refuse to give you anything less than a story that deserves your time. Thank you for your patience.
Lore_Whisperer]
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The morning sun filtered through floor to ceiling windows, painting geometric patterns across imported marble floors. Each rectangle of light fell precisely where it had yesterday, where it would tomorrow, where it had for all the mornings of his life. Levin lay still beneath Egyptian cotton sheets, counting seconds until the inevitable intrusion. His alarm had not gone off. It never did. His mother preferred the personal touch of control.
The door opened at 6:47 AM. Not 6:46. Not 6:48. Precisely 6:47, as it had every morning for twenty four years.
Her footsteps crossed the threshold with practiced efficiency, heels clicking against marble in a rhythm Levin could map in his sleep. Three steps to the window. Pause. The soft whisper of curtains drawn back with mechanical precision. Light flooded the room, aggressive and unwelcome.
"Up. Your father wants you in the study by seven thirty."
No good morning. No warmth. Just instructions delivered in the same tone she might use to summon a servant. Levin kept his eyes on the ceiling, tracing the pattern of recessed lights embedded in the plaster. Twelve of them, arranged in a grid. Same as yesterday. Same as the day before. Same as every day since they had installed them when he was sixteen. The thought made his chest feel tight, as if the air itself had grown thicker.
"Levin." Her voice sharpened, taking on the edge she reserved for moments of perceived disobedience. "Don't make me repeat myself."
He sat up slowly, joints protesting the movement. The prescribed workout routine his father demanded left him perpetually sore. Not strong, despite the hours spent with the personal trainer who came three times weekly. Just exhausted. Everything they wanted him to be felt like wearing a suit tailored for someone else, the shoulders too broad, the sleeves too long, the fabric scratching against skin that wanted to breathe.
His mother remained by the window, silhouetted against the morning light. She did not look at him as she spoke. "Shower. Dress appropriately. Your father is already in a mood."
She left without waiting for acknowledgment. The door closed with a soft click that sounded louder than a slam.
Levin sat on the edge of the bed, bare feet against cold marble, and wondered what would happen if he simply stayed here. If he refused to move, refused to comply, refused to continue this choreographed dance they called his life. Nothing good. He knew that much. His father had methods of ensuring cooperation that never left visible marks.
The bathroom sprawled before him like a showroom, all polished chrome and Italian tile. He turned the shower to the temperature he preferred, watching the digital display climb. But the water that poured from the rainfall head ran cold for the first minute, then scalding, never settling at the comfortable warmth he wanted. Even the plumbing in this house refused to compromise.
He stood under the spray, letting it beat against his shoulders, and tried to remember the last time he had made a choice that mattered. What to eat. Where to go. Who to see. Every decision filtered through his parents' expectations, their social calendar, their vision of what a Cortez should be.
The water began to cool. He stepped out, dried himself with towels probably worth more than most people earned in a week, and dressed in the clothes his mother had laid out the night before. Gray slacks. White shirt. Navy sweater. The uniform of inherited wealth.
Downstairs, breakfast waited on bone china so delicate you could see light through it. Poached eggs arranged with geometric precision. Wheat toast cut into perfect triangles. Fresh fruit portioned by the nutritionist his parents kept on retainer, a woman who had never asked Levin what he liked to eat. He had not chosen his own meal in years.
His father sat at the head of the table, newspaper crisp between his hands, eyes scanning stock reports with the same intensity he brought to everything. The patriarch of the Cortez Empire. Builder of dynasties. Consumer of sons.
Levin took his seat three chairs down on the left. Never at his father's right hand. That seat remained empty, a ghost of the brother who had died before Levin was born. The perfect son. The one who had set an impossible standard.
He picked up his fork. Set it down. Picked it up again. The eggs sat before him, congealing slowly in their own steam.
"We have the meeting with the Ashford family tonight," his father said without looking up. The newspaper did not rustle. His voice carried the flat certainty of someone announcing weather rather than destiny. "Wear the charcoal suit. Second drawer."
Levin's fork paused halfway to his mouth. Something cold slid down his spine. "What meeting?"
Now his father looked up. Eyebrows raised slightly, the only indication of surprise. "Don't play stupid. With their daughter. Sophia. Lovely girl, excellent pedigree, studied at Oxford. Her father and I have already discussed the arrangement."
The eggs turned to paste in his mouth. He forced himself to swallow, though his throat wanted to reject the food. "Arrangement."
"Yes." His father returned to the newspaper, the conversation already concluded in his mind. "You'll court her properly for six months, engagement by spring, wedding next fall. We've scheduled it between the Singapore expansion and the Tokyo merger. It fits perfectly."
His mother added cream to her coffee with practiced precision, the spoon making three complete rotations before she set it on the saucer. Not two. Not four. Always three. "She's quite beautiful, Levin. You should be grateful. Some men never find suitable matches."
"Suitable." The word tasted like poison on his tongue. Like metal. Like the flavor of blood when you bite your cheek too hard.
"Is there a problem?" His father's eyes lifted again from the paper. Cold. Calculating. The same eyes that evaluated quarterly reports and failing investments. The eyes that looked at Levin and saw numbers, projections, returns on a twenty four year investment.
Levin wanted to scream. Wanted to flip the table, send the bone china crashing to the floor, watch the perfectly poached eggs splatter across imported tile. Wanted to grab the newspaper and tear it to shreds, burn it, scatter the ashes across his father's impeccable suit. Wanted to destroy every perfectly ordered thing in this suffocating tomb of a house.
Instead, he set down his fork with deliberate care. "No, sir."
"Good. Seven PM. Don't be late."
The study session began at seven thirty, as scheduled. Three hours blocked out on the calendar, same as every Tuesday and Thursday morning. His father's study smelled of leather and old wood and the particular scent of money that had aged beyond rawness into something more refined.
They sat across from each other at the massive desk, Levin in the smaller chair like a student called before the headmaster. Projections spread across the polished surface. Market analysis printed on heavy stock paper. Charts and graphs depicting the systematic dissection of everything Levin would inherit and manage and optimize.
His father spoke of the future as if Levin were already dead, just a placeholder for the next generation of Cortez control. The words washed over him in waves. Quarterly earnings. Stakeholder expectations. Board composition. International expansion strategies.
"You'll need to think about children early," his father said, adjusting his reading glasses with one finger. He did not look up from the documents. "Three, preferably. Two sons minimum to ensure succession. Your mother and I have already consulted with specialists. If Sophia proves unsuitable for childbearing, we have contingencies."
Something cracked inside Levin's chest. A sound like ice breaking over deep water, silent but absolute.
"How many children."
"Three. Perhaps four if the first is a daughter. The genetic counselor suggested we could screen for certain traits. Intelligence markers, athletic potential, disposition toward leadership. It's quite remarkable what they can identify now."
The words began to fade into static. Levin stared at his father's mouth moving, shaping words about heirs and bloodlines and legacy, planning out the lives of children who did not exist, would not exist, could not exist because Levin could barely breathe in his own skin, let alone pass this curse to another generation.
They had his entire life mapped. Birth to death. Every milestone scheduled and optimized. First steps. First words. First day of school. Graduation. Marriage. Children. Grandchildren. All of it planned before conception, carried out with mechanical precision for twenty four years.
How many more years? Thirty? Forty? Fifty?
The thought made his vision blur.
He stood abruptly, chair scraping against hardwood with a sound that made his father's eyes snap up.
"Levin, we're not finished."
But he was. Levin was so desperately finished.
He walked. Out of the study, through the foyer with its twin staircases spiraling up toward unused bedrooms. Past the portraits of dead Cortez ancestors who had probably been just as miserable, their painted eyes following him with something that might have been pity or warning. Past his mother arranging flowers in the front hall with obsessive precision, each stem cut to exactly the same length.
"Where are you going?" she called after him. "You have your etiquette review in twenty minutes!"
He did not answer. Could not answer. His legs moved on autopilot, carrying him through the front door, down the circular driveway with its perfectly trimmed hedges, onto the manicured sidewalk that led toward the city center. He wore house slippers. Did not care.
The sun climbed higher, indifferent to his unraveling. People passed him on the street, their lives full of chaos and choice and beautiful uncertainty. A woman argued on her phone, voice rising and falling with genuine emotion. A man sat on a bench eating a sandwich he had presumably chosen himself. A child ran ahead of her parents, laughing, veering left when they called for her to go right.
Things Levin would never have. Could never have.
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He ignored it.
Buzzed again. Ignored it.
Seventeen missed calls by the time he reached the bridge.
The Riverside Crossing stretched over the Meridian, a churning expanse of gray water that flowed from the northern mountains down to the sea. Beautiful, people said. Majestic. A landmark of the city, featured on postcards and tourist brochures. Levin just saw escape.
He climbed onto the pedestrian walkway, legs shaking. Not from fear. From relief. From the first real choice he had made in twenty four years.
His phone rang again, the vibration insistent against his thigh. He pulled it out, saw his father's name on the screen, and threw it into the water below. Watched it arc through empty air, tumbling end over end before disappearing into the current with a distant splash he felt more than heard.
Freedom sounded like breaking glass. Felt like the moment between lightning and thunder.
People were starting to notice now. A woman with a stroller stopped, hand rising to cover her mouth. A jogger slowed, recognition flickering across his face. That was him. The Cortez heir. What was he doing on the railing?
Levin climbed higher, pulling himself up onto the thick metal barrier that separated walkway from void. The metal bit into his palms, cold and real and solid. The wind tugged at his clothes, whispering promises of weightlessness, of release, of an end to the crushing pressure of being someone else's creation.
"Hey! Stop!"
Footsteps pounded behind him. Someone shouting for police. A small crowd forming like spectators at an execution. His execution. Finally, an event he had planned himself.
He looked down at the water. Fifty feet, maybe sixty. Enough. More than enough.
His chest filled with something that might have been peace or might have been the absence of everything else. Either way, it felt better than another day in that house. Better than the meeting tonight with Sophia Ashford, who would be just as controlled and controlled as he was. Better than three point five planned children and a marriage scheduled between business deals.
"Son, please! Just talk to us!"
But there was nothing to say. No words could untangle twenty four years of suffocation. No explanation would satisfy people who thought control was love, who believed that providing everything meant they owned you completely.
Levin spread his arms wide, palms open to the sky.
For the first time in his life, he smiled. Really smiled. Not the careful expression he had practiced in mirrors for photographs and social events. A real smile that came from somewhere deep and true.
And jumped.
The fall lasted forever and no time at all. Wind screamed past his ears, the world a blur of gray sky and darker water. People's shouts faded into nothing, swallowed by the rushing air. Gravity embraced him like an old friend, like the first genuine touch he had felt in years.
This was flying. This was freedom. This was his.
Impact.
The water hit like concrete. Cold punched through his body, crushing the air from his lungs in one violent compression. The current seized him immediately, dragging him under with hungry fingers that wrapped around his ankles, his waist, his chest. Down. Down into murky depths where sunlight could not reach.
He could swim. Champion swimmer, actually. Three years on the varsity team because his father said it built character and looked good on college applications. Levin could slice through water like a blade, powerful and precise, efficient and controlled.
He let himself sink instead.
His lungs began to burn. Old instincts screamed at him to kick, to surface, to survive. Every cell in his body rioted against this decision, begging him to fight, to live, to continue. He ignored them all. This was his choice. His decision. The first thing in his entire existence that belonged only to him.
The water grew darker. Colder. Pressure built against his eardrums. His body begged for air with an urgency that bordered on panic. But Levin held firm. Held still. Let the current take him deeper into the Meridian's embrace.
His vision started to tunnel. Black creeping in from the edges like ink spilled across paper. Strange how peaceful it felt. How quiet. No voices telling him what to do, who to be, how to live. No expectations pressing down like physical weight. No calendar of predetermined events stretching into an unbearable future.
Just silence.
His mouth opened involuntarily, body overriding mind in one last desperate attempt at survival. Water rushed in. Filled his lungs. The burning intensified for one horrible moment, pain sharp and absolute.
Then it faded.
Everything faded.
The darkness swallowed him completely, and Levin Cortez let it.
And then there was nothing.
Absence.
A void without thought or sensation or time. No pain. No pressure. No expectations. Just the quiet that comes after.
Until something changed.
Warmth.
Distant at first. Growing closer.
Light bleeding through the darkness like dawn through heavy curtains, soft and insistent.
Sensation returning in fragments. Softness beneath him. Weight on his chest. The feeling of lungs that worked, a heart that beat, a body that breathed without effort.
Levin's eyes opened.
The ceiling above him was unfamiliar. Vaulted and grand, painted with celestial murals of stars and constellations he did not recognize. Intricate moldings traced the edges where wall met ceiling, gilded and gleaming with a luster that seemed to generate its own light. Silk curtains the color of deep sapphire framed towering windows, their fabric catching light like water.
He sat up slowly, head spinning with vertigo that had nothing to do with the movement. The bed beneath him was enormous, canopied with carved posts that spiraled toward the ceiling like frozen flames. Sheets softer than anything he had ever touched, embroidered with symbols that seemed to shimmer and shift when he looked directly at them, going still when he glanced away.
He looked down at hands that were not his. Smaller. Younger. Calloused in different places, the skin rough across the palms in patterns that spoke of sword work or manual labor. Scarred along the knuckles with white lines that had healed long ago.
The room sprawled around him like a palace chamber from some fantasy. Polished floors reflected the light from those impossible windows, the wood inlaid with patterns of lighter and darker grain that formed images he could almost understand. Furniture carved from dark wood, inlaid with mother of pearl that caught the light. Tapestries depicting battles and ceremonies hung on stone walls that spoke of age and power and histories he did not know.
Through the windows, an alien sky. Night had fallen, deep and complete, but the darkness felt different somehow. Richer. The stars scattered across that black expanse formed patterns he did not recognize, constellations that had never hung over Earth. A single moon hung luminous and pale, but it seemed larger than it should be, closer, its surface marked with craters and seas in arrangements his mind insisted were wrong.
This was not the Meridian. Not the hospital where they might have pulled his body from the water. Not the afterlife, whatever that was supposed to look like.
This was somewhere else entirely.
Confusion gave way to a single, crystal clear realization that settled in his chest with the weight of absolute truth.
He had died.
And somehow, impossibly, he lived again.
In another body. Another place. Another world.
This is the story of the Renegade Star.