The hundred candles burning in the cave gave Det just enough light to appraise his finished work on the tall stretch of granite wall. Even with the steady light of the candles, the thick lines of his art seemed to dance and flicker on the stone, and he held his breath, inspecting every detail. It had to be right this time. Had to be enough.

  At his feet, nearly every bottle of ink he’d been able to save, make, trade for, or buy sat empty. A year’s worth of preparations, and it was almost the moment of truth. He lifted an ink-stained hand to his chest, heart hammering beneath his fingers, then clenched at his shirt. At the flesh beneath. The thought of failing again hurt. Hurt so much he wished he could rip his own heart out.

  But, no, he wouldn’t do that. If he did, he’d never get back to them again.

  He needed to stay calm. To slow his pounding heart and control his breathing. He had to be able to adapt and improve. Those were the only ways he’d be able to return to the people he needed, and who needed him.

  It took a few seconds—the longing, anticipation, and fear of getting hurt again harder to push away—but Det got himself under control. He could do this. And, as much as he hated to admit it to himself, if not this time, the next time. Or the time after that. Through two lives, there was one thing Det had learned about himself.

  No matter how tough it got, or how many times he got knocked down, he always got back up. This wouldn’t be any different. A failure in the past—and he’d had almost twenty years of them—was just more kindling fed into the roaring fire that would be his success. More motivation.

  Composed again, Det let his hand drop back down to his side, and began the final inspection of his art. It would work this time. It would. The ten-by-fifteen space—the only one that fit his needs on the entire pillar, and was free of the mist—contained an image he’d taken for granted for more than twelve years. An image of something he desperately needed to get back to.

  Painted in the thick black lines of the ink-wash style, four stone steps—with the damn crack on the third stair he’d always been too busy to fix—led up to the wide, wooden door. Though outlined in black, the true red of the front door sprang up in Det’s mind so completely, it almost fooled his eyes into thinking he was looking at the color again. On the right side of the door, the bricks of the heritage building stretched for two feet, every detail as accurate as it could be.

  Those seams and chips had taken the longest. He’d ignored them last time, in his fury to complete what lay to the left of the door, but he wasn’t taking any shortcuts this time. No, they were perfect. Every single brick was exactly as it had been the last time he’d climbed the stairs. As for what lay on the left? The picture window with its curtain perpetually half-hanging, and the stupid cat-lamp his wife loved that only worked a third of the time—and never when he needed it to—stood in perfect form.

  Like the door, his mind fooled his eyes into seeing the calico coloring of the lamp, and the royal blue of the curtain, despite the thick strokes of black ink from his brush. Beyond those two items, almost blurry, lay the outline of his sectional and coffee table. Staring at them, it wasn’t color his mind tricked him with, but the shape of a young girl, kneeling at the table and doing her homework.

  “Nat…” Det whispered before he could stop himself, the first time he’d said his daughter’s name in years. His hand lifted toward the ‘window’, though he stopped before he could touch it. His daughter wasn’t there. Not even an image of her. It was all his imagination. Besides, he couldn’t afford to scuff the ink. Sure, it was dry by now, but he wouldn’t risk anything. Not when he was so close.

  Finally, his eyes went to one last thing he’d added to the image of the door. Something that had never been there in real life, and that he’d debated with himself about until the very last minute. The one-word sign wasn’t something he’d ever hang on a door, but it also represented everything on the granite wall in front of him.

  “Home”

  He stared hard at that word for several long seconds. Twenty years since he’d been reborn in this world like some kind of dumb anime, and this was all he ever wanted. Isekai’d, the media on earth called it. They always played it off as some great adventure. A young kid with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Some kind of cheat magic or skill, and a harem of unreasonably busty girls hanging on his every, dumb word.

  Here, though? Here he was called ReSouled, and it was no grand adventure. No harems. No cheat skills.

  Det carefully and methodically put his brush down beside the rest of his supplies, then looked at the palms of his hands.

  There was magic, though. And this was Det’s.

  Reaching out, he put his hands on the cool granite in the flickering light, and pushed. Energy flowed out from his fingertips, drawn to the ink, then flooded along the connected lines. Two seconds, that’s what it took for the black ink to shimmer in the cave, then begin to lift off the wall.

  Det quick-stepped back, his breath held, as the stairs came first, extending out in lines of thick black that magically hung in the air. Next came the door, the frame of it bulging out from the wall, while the door itself sunk in slightly. The knocker rattled gently at the motion with a soft clunk, clunk that almost made Det gasp. The sound… it was just like home.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  This… this…

  No, he couldn’t let himself hope. Not yet.

  The bricks came next, the seams of black ink seemingly carving themselves into the wall. On the other side, the window almost looked to be reflecting the sunlight of a spring morning—though it was only the candlelight—while the curtain swayed as if somebody had just stepped away.

  Last, but certainly not least, the one-word sign—“Home”—shimmered with more energy than the rest. The black lines almost seemed to hold veins of fiery radiance within.

  Unable to wait a second longer, Det climbed the stairs toward the door. Despite being nothing more than black outlines, his magic made his art real. Anything he painted, he could bring to life. Animals. Tools. Weapons. Even doors to other places. Normally, just the next room, but this was magic.

  If he could make a door from a kitchen to a bedroom, couldn’t he make himself a door home?

  His hand closed around the black doorknob, the ink of it hanging in the air until his fingers tightened on it, then turned. Clunk, clunk the knocker banged against brass, while the squeaky, top-right hinge squealed like it was announcing his return.

  “Nat!” Det called, light flaring around the edges of the door as he pushed it in. “Yumiko! I’m…”

  His words died on his lips. In front of him, it wasn’t his entryway, with his family’s shoes and coats hanging on one side. It wasn’t his staircase up to the second floor ahead of him. It wasn’t Yumiko rounding the corner with a smile on her lips to tell him okaeri, or Nat sprinting down the stairs to tell him what she did at school today.

  No, all he found was a cold, granite hallway, the same size and shape as the door he had opened. At the far end, mist poured in and crawled in his direction.

  All he’d managed to do was open a door out to the far side of the pillar.

  He’d… failed. Again.

  Eyes lingering on the mist as it crawled in his direction—his tired mind adding shapes moving within, like his wife was waiting for him—and he had the brief thought of sprinting down the hall and leaping through the door he’d opened. After that, what would happen? Nobody knew what was down there deeper in the mist. Would he fall forever? Was there ground or an ocean… or something… down there?

  Whatever it was, could it take him home?

  “No,” Det said, stepping back and closing the door behind him. Killing himself had never been the answer to getting back to his family. Or, at least, not until it was an absolute last resort. There was still more he could try. Especially now that he was twenty, if what the townspeople said was true.

  Hand still on the doorknob, Det leaned his head forward against the closed door. “Nat. Yumiko. I’ll get back to you. Somehow. I promise.” Saying their names—something he normally kept inside—wasn’t easy, but it also made his vow more real.

  Unlike the magic that was fading beneath his feet. With the door closed, its purpose served, the magic was already unraveling, black ink coming apart in the air. On his left, the top of the window ran down, while the cat-lamp seemed to melt. The curtains frayed, the bricks fell apart, and Det moved back to the center of the candlelit cave before the stairs dissolved.

  Even given the size of the working, the whole scene was gone in seconds. Nothing remained of the bottles of ink he’d streaked across the walls. His magic had consumed it all. For nothing.

  Normally calm, Det… leaned forward and screamed at the wall. A ripping, primal shout of anger and frustration that echoed off the stone and bounced down the winding, narrow entry to the uncaring mist outside. Long seconds of throat-tearing rage poured out of him—twenty years’ worth—until he was left breathless. Even then, the pain quickly vanished, his lungs refilling with a single gasp.

  Magic and a superhuman body. Those were the two things ReSouled got. For a kid from Earth, it would be a dream. For a forty-seven-year-old man who’d finally found what he wanted out of life? It was hardly a fair exchange.

  Still, being ReSouled offered him one other hope, or so Huck and Jezz—his new ‘parents’—told him. In their twentieth year, all ReSouled were enlisted in the military. Det didn’t care about any war or protecting the pillars. No, what he cared about was what the military academy could give him. Growth. More power. The whole point of the academy, after all, was to make the ReSouled stronger. If they could teach him how to get more out of his magic, then maybe he could make his doorway home work.

  There were also the different kinds of magic other ReSouled would possess, or magic items the military had in their vaults. All avenues he could—would—explore to find his way home. It was an opportunity he couldn’t squander.

  Which also meant he couldn’t linger in the cave. The military would be along any day now, possibly even today, and he needed to be in town—in Radiant—when they arrived. Given the location of Det’s new ‘home’—below the Mistline—it wasn’t likely the military envoy would linger long. And, there was no telling whether or not they would wait for him. They probably would, but he wasn’t going to risk it.

  Gathering his used supplies—mainly the empty bottles—gently into his sack, Det double-checked to make sure he’d gotten everything. Though he’d used the ink, there was no reason to waste the glass bottles. They were hard enough to get as it was. Confident he had all of those, he picked up the scroll-cases Jezz had made for him—one for each hip—and strapped them into place.

  Kind of like old-west holsters, each case held three of his prepared scrolls in case of emergency. He had three more in a shoulder belt he put on next. The pillar outside of the town of Radiant was smothered in mist, and though he didn’t need to worry about the detrimental effects of it—because he was ReSouled—that didn’t mean it was safe. His scrolls offered him at least some protection, though he’d never be a real combat-mage like Calisco, the only other ReSouled in Radiant.

  Last, but most certainly not least, he grabbed his three brushes. Each of a slightly different size, they—and ink—were necessary for his magic, and he slid them into their loops on his scroll cases, along with his last full bottle of the black liquid.

  His sack clinked as he lifted it from the cave floor, but he didn’t bother dousing the candles. With the military coming, Det wouldn’t be back. The wall was bare again, after his hundredth or so time trying to make the doorway home work. Still, he’d spent much of his new life here. Leaving the candles burning one last time was his way of saying thank you to the cave. He hadn’t succeeded, but at least he’d always had the hope here, and it’d kept him going.

  Now though, it was time to move on. Time to head back to Radiant and wait for the military mistship to come pick him up.

  not the same character from RS, or even (necessarily?) related, but a big expansion on what that character's magic could've done.