CHAPTER 1: REINCARNATION.
A gentle tapping on his cheek. A voice, warm and soft, cutting through the heavy darkness. “Ashley… Ashley, honey, are you okay?”
He fought towards the light, his eyelids heavy as stone. Finally, they opened. A bright, sterile white ceiling. He flinched, closing them again with a groan.
“You okay?” the voice asked again, closer now.
He knew that voice. It carried a scent—lavender and something like home. It was an anchor in the raging sea of confusion. Mom. The title surfaced from the murk, clear and certain.
“Mom?” His own voice was a dry rasp. He tried to move, to reach for the sound, but a sharp, stabbing pain lanced through his chest and side. He cried out.
“Ashley, I’m so glad you’re awake.” Cool, gentle fingers slid under his palm, squeezing lightly. Her name came to him: Diana.
“Mom… where am I?” he whispered, forcing his eyes open again. The room resolved into a hospital room. Tiled walls, a beeping monitor, the smell of antiseptic.
“You’re in the hospital, sweetheart. Your boss, Mr. Briggs, called me. He said you got into a fight with a customer who didn’t want to pay.” Her explanation was calm, rehearsed.
Mr Briggs?
That name rings in bks head, but he couldn't get a meaning out of it.
"Who's Mr Biggs?"He aksed, tiredly his voice confused.
Diana heart skipped a bit as she leaned closer a new fear lurking around her heart. "Mr Biggs is your boss, Ashley. You don't remember?"She aksed softly.
He shoked his head slowly. "No, I don't remember anything about Mr Biggs, how is he my boss?, and why am I here?"He aksed tiredly his voice dry and weary."
"You got into a fight with a customer, and you was hit "She explained again. "You don't remember?"She aksed feeling ha head.
"No, I don't remember."He groaned, the effort making his ribs scream in protest.
“Stop, stop moving. You have a fracture. The doctor said three ribs.” She gently pressed his hand back onto the stiff sheets. “Just be still.”
The disconnect was terrifying , this body feels different and foreign and worse, be doesn't understand remember anything.
The disconnect was terrifying. “What’s going on mom ? Do I… do I look like me?”
Diana’s face, etched with worry, creased further in confusion. She smoothed his hair back. “What? You look like yourself, Ashley. It’s you.”
He shook his head, the movement tiny. “But... but my name is not Ashley. Why is everyone calling me that?”
She gave him a look of profound pity. She thought he was broken, concussed, lost in trauma. “It’s okay. I understand you’re confused. The doctor said you were hit very hard in the head. It can make things fuzzy.”
“I was hit in the head?" He aksed again.
"Yes, you don't remember?"She whispered.
"I can't remember a thing."Ashley replied, ad he looked at his hands, they look different, his bones looks stronger too.
Almost immediately, the door opened. A man in a white coat entered, a nurse trailing behind with a clipboard. “Ashley Vale? I’m Dr. Evans. How are you feeling?”
“I’m not fine,” he said, the words coming more forcefully. “I don’t… I don’t feel like myself.”
Dr. Evans gave Diana that same knowing look—a silent exchange about brain trauma. He leaned in, placing a stethoscope on his chest. “You were found outside the pizza shop. The assailant ran off, and you were unconscious. Can you tell me anything you remember from before the incident?”
He searched the blank walls of his mind. Nothing about Ashley, nothing about pizza, nothing about Briggs. But beneath that blankness, something else stirred, dark and electric.
He had a flash back: a sterile, metallic room. People in dark clothing. A containment chamber glowing with violent, arcing energy. A warning scream. A choice—a door. He’d reached for it…
“I don’t remember anything from here,” he stated, locking eyes with the doctor. “But I am definitely sure my name is not Ashley.”
Dr. Evans sighed, a professional sound of patience. “Look at this woman here. Do you know who she is?”
“This is my mother. Diana.”
“Okay. Good. That’s good.” The doctor straightened up. “If your name isn’t Ashley, what do you think your name is?”
The memory surged forward, unbidden. Not a thought, but a full-sensory recall. The hum of high-voltage equipment. The smell of ozone. The taste of metal on his tongue. A female colleague, her face a mask of terror, screaming his real name as he touched the door handle. The world turning into pure, white agony.
“Void,” he murmured, the name feeling like a key turning in a long-locked door. “Void Reaper.”
“What did you say?” Diana and Dr. Evans asked in unison, their tones shifting from clinical concern to startled curiosity.
A desperate, urgent need seized him. “Give me a mirror,” he demanded, his voice suddenly clear and commanding. It was Void’s voice, cutting through Ashley’s weakness.
“Ashley, honey, what do you need a mirror for?” Diana asked, alarmed by the sudden change.
“Just give me a goddamn mirror!” The command cracked through the room, leaving silence in its wake.
The nurse, wide-eyed, hurried to a small cabinet and produced a compact hand mirror. She passed it to Diana, who, with trembling hands, held it up before his face.
He looked.
The face staring back was young, probably early twenties. Pale, with dark circles under wary blue eyes. A sharp jaw, lips that were currently parted in shock. It was a stranger’s face. Ashley Vale’s face.
A wave of crushing disappointment threatened to drown him. It was just a delusion. The head injury. He was just a beaten-up pizza delivery boy with a concussion.
Then, almost as an afterthought, his gaze—Void’s scrutinizing gaze—dropped. To the side of the neck, just above the collar of the hospital gown.
There it was. A small, dark mole. In the exact same place Void Reaper had one.
His eyes snapped back to the reflection. He stared, not at the unfamiliar features, but through them. He saw the exhaustion, the fear, but also, buried deep, a sharp, calculating glint that did not belong to a victim. The pieces, impossible and horrifying, slammed together in his mind.
The foreign body. The lost memories. The familiar mole on a stranger’s skin. The dying echoes of a life ripped away.
A raw, disbelieving laugh escaped his lips, sounding almost like a sob. He looked from his mother’s confused face to the doctor’s wary one.
“I have been reincarnated.”