Lunar abruptly opened his eyes. He was deep in the woods.
Dark branches stretched above him while wind slid through the leaves with a low whisper. For a moment, he couldn’t breathe. The air refused to move in his lungs, as if his body had forgotten how.
Then his chest jerked violently, and he sucked in a ragged breath.
Cold, wet soil pressed against his palms, reeking of damp earth. The sharp, earthy smell filled his nose as his thoughts tried to form a question: Where
The thought shattered before it could finish. A sharp pain stabbed through his skull, and something cold and foreign rose from deep inside his mind.
.
The word was clear, sharp in his mind, and it was not his.
His body twitched.
Ahead of him, four figures walked through the forest, moving carefully between the trees. They looked young, maybe fifteen, scanning the woods as if something might leap out of the shadows.
Lunar tried to stand, but his legs did not move. He forced the command again, focusing harder.
Nothing happened.
Instead, his fingers slowly curled into the dirt, as if someone else was testing how they worked.
Then suddenly, his body stood. The motion was smooth and natural.
But Lunar had not done it.
His heart slammed against his ribs as he forced another command through the haze in his mind.
.
His legs froze instantly.
But only lasted half a second.
Then they began to move again.
Not because he wanted them to.
The forest tilted as dizziness rushed over him. A flood of unfamiliar images burst through his mind. A stone courtyard, rows of battered training dummies. A boy swinging a wooden sword again and again until his arms trembled with exhaustion.
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The images vanished just as quickly as they had appeared.
Lunar staggered.
His vision blurred while the body continued stumbling forward. Another command echoed from somewhere deep inside his skull, strained and desperate.
The words felt heavier than his own thoughts.
The words pressed into his mind.
His throat tightened as the body tried to speak for the first time. The sound scraped weakly from his throat.
“..h…elp...”
The words came out cracked and thin.
The group ahead froze instantly.
They turned.
“Did he say something?” the brown-haired boy asked, peering back towards him.
Lunar tried to answer. His jaw opened, but before any sound could come out, the other presence pushed back violently.
Pain exploded through his skull. The world lurched again as another memory crashed into him.
A small house filled with warm lantern light. A woman laughing softly while stirring something in a pot. A boy sitting at a wooden table, waiting quietly.
The emotion that followed didn’t belong to Lunar.
It was raw.
Terrified.
Lunar gasped as his knees buckled beneath him.
Now, both of them were fighting.
His arm lifted suddenly, only to slam into the trunk of a nearby tree with a dull crack. The boys rushed toward him.
“Hey! What’s wrong with him?”
“Is he poisoned?”
Lunar tried to speak.
The other voice tried too.
Their words tangled together in his throat, broken fragments forcing their way out.
“…my..”
“..stop…”
“..don…”
The sounds came out wrong.
His body jerked again.
For a brief moment, Lunar felt the other mind clearly; panicked, clawing for control, refusing to disappear.
The thought slammed into him like a fist.
Rage surged through Lunar in response.
His survival instinct roared awake. His fingers dug into the dirt while his lungs dragged in another desperate breath.
His hand twitched.
The other presence pushed back immediately, forcing the arm into a violent spasm that made the boys step back in alarm.
“Something’s wrong with him!”
“Hold him down!”
But Lunar barely heard them.
Inside his head, the struggle had become a storm. Memories collided in chaotic flashes, strange places, unfamiliar faces, fragments of a life he did not remember mixed with another life he had never lived.
Both of them were drowning in the same body, and neither was willing to let go.
Somewhere deep inside, another presence pushed against him, desperate to survive.
Lunar felt himself slipping. His hold on the body frayed like a thread ready to snap. A quiet instinct flared inside him. Let go, and he would disappear. Not die. Be erased from existence.
Something inside him refused. Not strength. Not willpower. Just instinct.
The other presence reacted instantly. It screamed without sound, panicked, clawing through his mind, refusing to vanish.
Lunar tightened his grip.
The forest around him collapsed into unnatural silence. Even the wind seemed afraid to move between the leaves. The air turned colder.
He didn’t know which of them would win.
He only knew one of them had to go.
And neither of them was willing to be the one erased.
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