My world exploded into a hurricane of burning agony as the portal’s nothingness wrapped around me. The dark void came alive and became violent. Skin ripped, blood spilled, and my chest heaved as I felt the waves of darkness cut deep into me. I screamed in pain. I begged for it to stop, but it was all useless. Trying to fight back was like fighting against nature.

  “N . . . Noah!” I let out a pathetic scream in the darkness, but my pleas were swallowed with no answer to save me.

  Then I noticed I couldn’t move my arms. I couldn’t move my legs or even feel ANY part of me. I realized that my body and I had separated. As a soul I floated there, alone and terrified.

  To my horror, a pale light shone through the darkness, highlighting my body as it disintegrated in real time. It was like god, or someone, was mocking me, forcing me to witness my own body’s destruction. After my body crumbled into dust, the light disappeared, and the last bit of pain vanished, my essence was hurled across the void—destined to inhabit another form. Or at least . . . I hoped.

  I was in too much shock from the pain to worry about what happened next. Instead, as always, I worried about my brother.

  Noah went through here . . . Was he also torn apart? I wondered as I continued to torpedo through the darkness.

  That’s when I heard the voices again. There were three of them this time: a man and a couple of women.

  “The stranger must be silenced,” hissed the man, his voice slicing through the gloom. “If another twin soul is allowed to wander Stylos, our master’s plans could be ruined. One twin soul is enough to cause trouble—and now the transference stirs once more with this new . . . interloper. He must not live. Do something. Do something now. How did he even get in there?”

  A measured, ice-cold female voice spoke up. “Silence, brother! Do not worry, I shall cast him far away from our master’s design. He will be a voidblood. He will have no protection, he will have no rights, he will hardly be able to call himself a man. Humans of Earth are weak. They aren’t able to survive our world, our magic, or our rules. The shock alone will cause his composure to break. Do not worry. He is no threat.”

  “Eradication is the only recourse, sister,” growled a second woman. Her tone was heavy, scratchy, and calculatingly hateful.

  “Not whilst he wallows in transference,” the first replied with deliberate disdain. “I will break him though, mold his essence into naught but a wretched worm.”

  The man’s voice returned, laced with dark relish: “To consign him as a voidblood? What a brilliant idea, sister. A being of unlimited potential . . . limited by the one thing he can’t control, his body. How deliciously . . . wicked.”

  “Does he require our constant watch?” the second woman queried, her voice a low, dangerous murmur.

  “Observe him? He is destined to be less than nothing. Should he even dare stray from his own confines, he shall be bound in chains before he can step beyond his door,” the cold voice sneered.

  “And if he flees to Ash?” the other pressed, a challenge threading her words.

  “Even in Ash his fate is sealed—death awaits. And if fortune allows his survival, we will send a hand to finish the deed, without fail. Now, silence—I must concentrate,” she commanded.

  As their voices receded, my mind shattered inwardly, each word a splinter of icy agony. The darkness deepened, and with it, my senses blurred.

  Ash? The word echoed in my mind before all went dark.

  Time seemed to go on forever. I went from terrified to anxious to bored, and then I almost lost all sense of self. However, I did in fact wake up.

  It was quiet; not the kind of quiet like an endless void but the kind of quiet that the real world has... an imperfect one. Crickets chirped in the distance, and a fire crackled from somewhere nearby. My hands still pulsated from the lingering phantom pain, but I could feel again too.

  There was hard stone beneath me. The pain was gone, but my anxiety was spiking.

  Where . . . am I?

  I slowly flexed my hands. They were not the skinny, long-fingered hands I remembered; these were rough, calloused, scarred, and . . . not mine.

  What the . . .

  I remained on my hands and knees while I strained my eyes to adjust to the dim surroundings. The small, closet-sized room held little besides a lone cot and a small wooden box that was collecting dust. Ahead was a narrow crawl space door that teased a sliver of dim, orange light and was wide enough to let the faint smell of burning coals through. Determined to find some answers, I crawled toward it.

  It’s over . . . right? Right? No more twisting or ripping? I thought, half laughing, half wanting to cry.

  I pushed the tiny door open and emerged into a larger space—a workshop illuminated by the soft glow of dying embers from a domed forge. The heat from the coals lapped my skin as I stood. Beads of sweat formed on my brow, which felt equally as unfamiliar as my hands. Usually, long curly hair blocked my forehead, but now I felt very short, soft, fuzzy hair on top.

  Not my hands . . . not my hair . . .

  Shaking the rising confusion away, I approached a large anvil that caught my eye where a hefty blacksmithing hammer rested. I reached out to touch the hammer, and the light from the coals revealed my skin. My arms were the working limbs of someone who had labored for years. Not labored like I had, working random jobs to barely make rent, but real hard labor, like a blacksmith. Sinuous muscles ran down each forearm, burn scars chased after them, and veins danced around them both. My arms were reddish tan, and my palm was coated in a thick, calloused layer of skin grown by relentless hammer blows.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Panic surged through me. I felt fear fill my veins and rise into my heart.

  Not my hands . . . not my hair . . . not my arms. What is going on? Am I . . . in someone else’s body?

  Desperate for confirmation, I scanned the room for a reflective surface until I spotted a barrel of water near the forge. I ran over, peered in, and then my heart dropped. My fear had been confirmed. The face that stared back was not my own; it was a young teenager.

  The teenager . . . or I guess, my new body . . . was no more than sixteen years old. I had dusty gold eyes and short, dark green hair. My face looked too thin from too little food, and I had a few scars that hid behind my freckles.

  Okay . . . well, I guess this is a sort of isekai situation? Did I just take over the body of some sort of poor orphan boy? I thought.

  I looked into my eyes, and in the faded gold something flickered.

  What the hell?

  Inside my head, another voice spoke up from the void, loud, scared, and young.

  ‘Who the hell are you? What happened to me? What did you do?!’ the voice shouted.

  I cupped my ears and bumped into a table, knocking over a set of metal pliers that fell to the floor with a loud crash. Frustrated at the sudden screaming, I shouted back, “Damn, kid, look what you made me do! Stop yelling, I don’t know what’s going on either!” My voice sounded strange. It sounded younger, it sounded . . . like the voice that was yelling at me in my head.

  ‘Get out of me!’ the voice continued to scream over and over. ‘Get out of me! Get out of me! Get out of me!’

  Before I could respond, the large door to the forge flew open and slammed against the wall. Standing in the doorway was a woman with fierce eyes and unruly green hair.

  “Fern!” she bellowed. “You better have a damn good reason to be up right now.”

  I looked around the forge and saw I was the only person there. I turned back to the woman and tilted my head.

  ‘Shit, look what you’ve done!’ the voice inside my head said.

  My stomach churned as the woman advanced. She looked crazed, like someone on too many narcotics would look. I felt myself grow cold with fear. She opened her hands dramatically, spreading her fingers wide so there was a lot of space between each one. Between her fingers, strands of golden string materialized out of thin air.

  “Fern, you worthless child, answer me right this instant! Why are you up?” she demanded, her tone icy.

  I attempted to protest, but then a sharp whip smacked across my thigh. I winced in pain and instinctively reached out to grab my leg.

  Holy shit, that hurt. What the hell is wrong with this person? I thought, looking up to see the crazed woman standing over me.

  ‘Mom, please!’ whimpered the inner voice.

  “Mom? Really?” I managed to ask aloud, though my voice still felt foreign. Then in that instant, I put it all together. Somehow, I had ended up in the body of this . . . Fern kid and incurred the wrath of his crazy-ass mom at the same time.

  Fern’s mom leaned over me. “Is this some sort of joke? Must I remind you what happens when you make me tell you something three times?” Her hands rose, and with a flick of her wrist, the golden strands swung forth, striking me across my arm. I cried out in pain as three new small cuts opened up on my forearm.

  “Ow! You crazy b—” Before I could protest and try to stand, Fern’s mom flicked her wrists again and the magical threads crackled to life and shot out toward my legs. They wrapped around my ankles like snakes and lifted me up in the air. Fern’s mom slowly twisted her wrists, and the strings turned my now-hovering body toward her.

  “Honestly, voidbloods must really be genetically inferior. You can’t even answer a simple question,” she mumbled. She then looked up at me as I hung upside down. “You just need to be quiet and do as you’re told. Don’t make me beat you. Go . . . to . . . bed,” she said through gritted teeth. She dropped me and then slammed the door behind her as she left.

  In the heavy silence that followed, I heard a soft sob echo inside my head.

  “Ahh shit, that wasn’t fun. Hey, kid, you all right? A beating from the ‘rents isn’t fun. I’m not even going to ATTEMPT to dive into whatever the hell kind of magic your mom was using. I’ll figure that out later, but anyways, say . . . I assume your name is Fern?” I whispered, careful not to invite more trouble.

  ‘Sniff . . . Will you just . . . stop talking,’ snapped the inner voice. ‘Gods, the whole world can hear you, you’re so loud. I think we can talk in thoughts, you know? Haven’t you figured that out yet, genius? Mom can’t. So talk to me with yours.’

  I raised an eyebrow, then closed my eyes and thought to him.

  Well, first of all, no, jerkoff, I did not know you could hear my thoughts, I said to him mentally.I’m kind of new to the whole “rip my soul from my body and shove it in another” thing. The sarcasm left my brain as harshly as it would have my lips. I continued before he could respond. The name’s Erik. I don’t know how I ended up in your body, but I’ll tell you what happened to me.

  For the remainder of that long night, I recounted everything to Fern.

  ‘That’s . . . impossible. There’s a world other than Morne?’ Fern asked.

  I guess so. I always figured there were aliens or alternate realities, but this . . . is something else. I am still totally shocked about whatever the hell your mom did to me, I said, rubbing my arm where the burn marks still stung.

  I had countless questions, but for now, I tried to force them down and take things one at a time. I made my way back to Fern’s small room in the crawl space and fell asleep for a few hours.

  When morning came, I shuffled back to the forge almost instinctively as my body, Fern’s body, remembered what it had done every day for years.

  ‘I need my body back, Erik. I hate this feeling. It’s like I’m trapped behind a window watching life pass by,’ Fern said.

  I sighed.

  I understand, Fern, I do. But do I look like some wizard?

  ‘A what?’

  You know, like your mom? I asked to clarify.

  ‘She is a mageblood, Erik. Not a wizard,’ Fern said dryly.

  I rolled my eyes and finished bringing the forge back to life. Then I wandered to a small window.

  Fern had told me about Corello before I fell asleep earlier. It was a trading hub sitting in the middle of the country, at the bottom of a canyon, where an ancient river used to run through. Today, the ancient river was long gone, oceans touched either side of the city, and people had built homes on every square inch of stone land available. Looking out the window, I took in the present day of Corello and was in awe of the thousands and thousands of square homes all within the canyon.

  Stone buildings lit by the soft glow of torches hung to the walls like suspended skyscrapers. Even by my own experience with modern engineering, I was impressed by the sheer size and scale of the city and how its buildings were laid out. Above, two moons hung in the sky. Both were teal and both were the same size, twin sisters watching over the alien planet.

  The heavy door to the forge opened loudly again. This time though, it didn’t slam into the wall. Fern’s mother, who he had told me was called Zola, was dressed in a classy blue work dress with gold seams. Beside her stood a young boy.

  ‘My brother, Lotrick, the pride and joy of the Landaluce family,’ Fern stated sharply.

  “Get dressed, Fern. You’re to accompany your brother today,” Zola ordered.

  I nodded at her command and glanced at Lotrick.

  The young boy had just turned thirteen, according to Fern, yet he looked at me with the intensity and focus of an adult man.

  Does he know I am not Fern?