A few weeks had passed, and everything was fine.

"This is fine." Reese reassured himself as he washed his face. "Everything is fine." Quickly checking his pulse, 82 beats per minute. Roughly. That was fine, this wasn't a panic attack. Just normal, Reese.

"Reese, you're late for school! Hurry up!"

That's right, the morning bell sounded a few minutes ago. That's what woke him up. His stomach growled but he wasn't really hungry, just empty.

Right! He needed to move; he was late. Bounding down the stairs, he ran through the kitchen and out the back door.

"Reese! Eat something before you-"

The sound of the door closing behind him cut off his mother's voice. School awaited him and he could not delay any longer!

Entering the schoolhouse, he ignored the shaking of his sister's head and the gaze of the other students. It didn't matter, it was fine.

"Reese, you're very late. Please take your seat, we'll talk after class."

Finding his seat was easy because it was next to, no one now. The schoolhouse was emptier than normal. Gazel was gone, Emilie was gone, but others seemed to be missing too. It occurred to him that Samil and Venginn hadn't been around for a few days. They weren't friends, but sometimes he and Samil would talk. Sometimes Venginn would insult him in a way that was, almost amusing. They were intelligent people, willing to think and discuss the frivolities of history, literature, and mathematics. Scholars, like Emilie and him.

A few times they had even stayed after school to discuss more advanced topics and questions with their teacher. It's how Reese came to learn about all those sea battles in the unification wars. Like the Battle of Toolth Bay, that helped turn the tide of the war. But that didn't matter right now. Where were they?

They weren’t friends, but he enjoyed their company.

It didn't matter though, not really. When he first got to school he didn't have any friends, and the six years before that he had been alone too, and that was fine. Why would things be different now? People go away, it's just what they do. Some may just leave, some may die, all go eventually. It's fine, this is fine.

At the end of the day, Reese faced Fense. "You were very late today. I'm used to seeing you a minute or two after the bell, but never that long. I've had you do a lot of pages the past week. I think, maybe a little light this time. Four pages should be in order today."

Ok, right. Four pages. At this point that meant a new book. In his hands, Fense held a truly fresh book in his hands, one that looked like it was freshly purchased or donated. "Reese, how are you at drawing?"

Fense handed him the book, "Geography of The Worlds Continents".

It wasn't what he was expecting, inside was a mixture of maps and text. With a straight edge and compass, it wouldn't be too difficult to duplicate the maps, but it would take far more time than writing.

Thankfully, the first 3 pages were text, only the last was a map. Which, as he suspected, took an inordinate amount of time. Eventually, the last students finished their work or just went home, leaving Fense and him alone. It seemed like a good time to ask.

"Fense, can I ask you a question. About the other students?"

"Hmm, depends on what the question is."

"Do you know where Samil and Venginn are? I haven't seen them for a while. Probably a week now that I think about it."

Fense rocked in his chair, thinking for a while before answering. "I don't know. I asked Ard about them two days ago, but he didn't know too much either…"

"I see."

"You were friends with them, weren't you."

"No… but I did like to talk with them. Without Gazel and Emilie… I don't know."

"Well… This is a rumor, so I'll ask you not to spread it. I know their families had a significant fight. Soldiers became involved from what I heard."

Reese stopped drawing. "My father didn't say anything about that…"

"No one died, just normal police actions. I think Samil left town. If I had to guess… no I shouldn't do that."

"…Venginn left with him." For a moment Reese felt himself smile. A bitter bit of his own happiness, that maybe those two would find their own good ending together, somewhere.

"As I said just a rumor. I'm sure you know how the elves feel about, well, people like me, they're even worse about people with mixed blood… It's getting late, why don't you take a break on the map and work on it tomorrow. Don't worry about the homework tonight. I already know you know your math tables."

Behind him, the school doors closed. Large ominous doors that he noticed had grown a bit smaller. Perhaps, he had just grown taller. Why did things have to change.

The bookstore was closed for the day, so Reese made his way home, alone. At least he had time to work on his experiments and research.

In his room, Reese sat and jotted down ideas in his notebook. There was something almost relaxing about solving an equation, like a mathematical puzzle. What he was working on right now, was differential equation, a very special one, the hydrogen equation. The parial differential equation, that would give you electron orbitals, and their rough energies. It would help open the door to Earth's chemistry, and give him the tools to probe this world's 'alchemy', which he suspected was the same, but didn't quite know how to prove it yet.

Bellow him, he could hear his parents talking and arguing. Something that was quite common. However, the subject matter made him pause what he was doing and stand up in fear.

"You want to send him away? Send away Reese. Fortus, he's 8. Where would you even send him?"

"I don't know Lilith. But it's getting too dangerous. I…"

"Fortus, what aren't you telling me?"

"I think the same person was behind the bandits and the goblins, and… I think we might have been their target."

Silence.

"Fortus, that's… insane. Sending an army of mercenaries for us? A goblin horde. This isn't a story book. I mean… why and why are they targeting us?"

"To make it look like an accident, to make it seem like we were just another random causality."

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"I mean, you're sure?"

"… No. But… No. I'm not sure. Which makes this worse. We could be sending him away for nothing."

"If we send him somewhere else. Will he really be safe, will we?"

"Lilith, I don't know. I just know strategy and I know tactics. If you're enemy want's something, keep it from them."

“Where would we even send him?”

“… I don’t know. I was hoping his sword skill would have improved, we could have sent him to my old academy. I still have connections there. I could, encourage them to consider him. But without any real skill.”

"Ok, so what else is there?"

"Maybe… We could send him off to a host family. Maybe an arranged marriage. That's what my family did. It's what my brother…"

There was protracted silence, for a moment Reese wondered if they were done arguing.

Lilith broke the silence. “That's it, isn't it? You think it was your uncle or your brother. Don’t you?”

“Lilith you don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Are you lying to me or yourself now?”

The two would continue arguing about Fortus' family, their attention drifting from him.

The weary sensation in Reese's legs disappeared as he fell to the ground with a light thud, likely audible only in his room. It occurred to him; his parents had no idea he could hear them in his room. It should have been obvious before now, but for some reason had just now become apparent. It was almost amusing.

This wasn't fine. He wasn't fine. Everything around him was breaking down. People he cared about, people he had let himself rely on had begun to disappear again. Change, he could never handle change. Like all those decades ago, when he went off to college, when he left his family and friends. That’s when it all fell apart.

They were going to send him away again. Far away from them. But no, that would be fine. It was fine. He was always alone after all. Always. 'All we need are the machines.' That voice again. Not the one he hated, not from those that called themselves gods, but from something deep inside himself, the one that seemed to hate him. 'Build them.'

Every time he had to listen to it. Every time it spoke, it felt like an army inside of him. An infinite echo of himself and infinite lifetimes. Every time, it just led to more pain. It was usually just a feeling, an impulse, an obsession to do and to build. If he hadn't listened to it, maybe he would have paid more attention to his friends. Maybe he wouldn't have locked himself away again. Maybe… he wouldn't be alone again.

"Reese?" A tinny voice.

'Our strength was never with them. Don't let them lie to you.'

"Reese… are you ok?" The tiny voice was not who he was expecting. Mabel was standing in his room, her face and hands were dirty, like she just got done cleaning out the chimney. Though he knew his parents would never have let her do that.

"Is Nemi bullying you again? She needs to do her own chores."

But Mable just shook he head. "I just wanted to clean the tops of the shelves. No one ever thinks to do them. But Fortus and Lilith told me they needed to talk in private." She smiled, broad and bright. "I did good, right?"

He forced a smile of his own and rubbed her dirty red hair. It was almost brown with the dinge of dirt and muck. "You're always doing good Mabel. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

With a bit of strength, he called from somewhere he stood back up. Sulking on the floorboards wouldn’t fix anything.

‘Build...’

The voice grew quiet, replaced with that same impulse, that same feeling. None of this mattered. His notebooks held questions he had never bothered to answer. Maybe it was time he tried?

“Hey, Mable want to watch me setup an experiment?”

A week would go by, Reese kept himself in his room. He stopped going to school, stopped going out. Just worked.

There were issues with his setup, he had problems with his circuits. When they got too large, odd things happened. Variable mana fluctuations. It was like the atmosphere wasn't just full of mana, but also it varied though out the day, and randomly at that.

"Reese, are you ok?"

Still another week, just leaving to eat and be yelled at by his parents.

The mana effects made the problems with his mechanical project unsurprising. There were issues with variable friction, like he expected from his earlier experiments. His clock failed to tick more than a few times before jamming. Maybe he could use less gears? Still, anything big and mechanical would have issues.

"Reese, are you ok?"

Yet another week and another still. Food and arguments were all that waited outside his door.

He tried his hand at alchemy or rather chemistry. He was certain that most of the elements from earth existed here and had similar properties. Which meant electron orbitals existed and were the same. Well more or less, there were some oddities he couldn't account for. What he really needed now was good glassware. That would be hard to make, but even harder to find. Perhaps a skill he could learn in the future. For now, the deeper mysteries of chemistry would likely remain that way. But he already had enough insights and foundations to move forward elsewhere. He just needed to remember those handful of chemistry classes, those lessons.

Of all his degrees, he never got one for physics or natural sciences, the best he could do was engineering and mathematics. The concepts of the philosophy of science he kind of understood, Modulus Tollens, proof through disproof, and others, but it was all a very basic understanding.

He was an engineer, maybe when he was done here could actually do something with all this knowledge. Truely build something and not just be a failure in the shadows again. This was his second chance, he had to get it right.

"Reese, are you ok?" Everyday, Mable came back and asked that question. She looked in on him and stayed with him, maybe because she felt out of place like he did. It was an unspoken connection he and his half-sister shared. Though it was annoying at times, her company was never unwelcomed.

In just over four weeks he had filled up an entire notebook. Several centuries of ideas and concepts, he just needed to do something with it!

But that would have to wait till later. His family had other plans.

"Lets go!" His father had practically broken down his door and dragged him outside.

He didn't throw him to the ground, but Reese still found himself there, quite literally touching grass. It was almost amusing. His breath, forming clouds that coated the now brown grass leaves. The sun was still in the sky, so it wasn't evening yet. Actually no, it was on the wrong side of the sky, it was morning. Had he worked through the whole night without sleeping?

"Get up, we're going to spar." His father threw him a wooden sword.

It was just a normal wooden blade. A normal amount of pain, but he had enough of it and didn't need anymore. Pain. He knew pain, pain was easy. You just shut it off, like your emotions, your thoughts, your mind. Focus on the problem you want to solve, let everything else fester and rot away. Once it's rotten to dust and gone, it no longer matters.

Like his old family, his old friends. Long dead, forgotten. Leaving him with, whatever it was he had after. He couldn't even call them machines. They were unflushed out ideas and sketches on paper, failed grades and attempts to be something more than just whatever he was. Nothing.

Sparring would make this end faster, and then he could get back to satisfying that damn voice in the back of his soul. He picked up the sword. "Fine."

Smack.

Thwack.

Simple thrusts, and slashes from his father. Some simple parries from him, even a riposte. It didn't matter his father wasn't taking this seriously.

Thwack!

The impact wasn't as hard as it could have been. Reese knew how hard his father could hit. Still, his arm almost hurt, but not really. It was like his feelings were numb. The pain didn't matter. With a sigh, Reese spoke, "1-0".

If he could get to 3-0 they'd be done.

"No. We're not doing this for score. Come on, keep going."

Thwack.

Smack.

His father spoke between swings, "I get it, you're upset your friends left. Emilie, Gezal, even those two weirdos Venginn and Samil. If it was me, I would have just moved on."

Smack.

Smack.

Thwack!

'2-0' Reese thought to himself. His father was better at dealing with emotions than he was. Fortus was a strong warrior and fighter, and Reese, was just gateless Reese. Did he want to continue this charade of a fight?

Thwack.

His father didn't give him a choice as pushed at him with the wooden blade.

Smack.

Thwack.

"Friends come and go, some of them we'll see again, some, probably most, we never will. It's easy for me, I've always moved around. Maybe because I was always running from my family it made it easy."

Thwack!

'3-0' They should have ended the spar now, but of course they didn't. His father wouldn't let him.

Smack.

Reese tried making the first blow this time. Of course, he failed.

Thwack.

Thwack.

"Reese, I don't understand you. I probably never will. But you are my son, and I do care about you."

Thwack!

'4-0'. Reese felt his hands start to shake. His nervous system was fighting with him, it didn't like being suppressed. This body was still harder to control than his last one. It wanted to do things he didn't want it to do. Like he stole it, from the dead child that would never have been anyway.

"I don't know why they gods gifted you to us, to me."

Thwack!

'5-0'. Reese didn't bother blocking.

Something wet crossed his cheek as he spoke, "I know, I'm a broken blessing. I always have been. My whole life, I've never been able to amount to anything. I've always been missing something. I'm sorry you're stuck with-"

His father wrapped both his arms around his son's chest, squeezing almost tight enough to break bones. Almost.

"Reese. You're my son. That's enough. And you're still so young. You act like you're 80, but you're still 8. I may never understand you, but I will always love you, and I'm not going to leave you."

He wasn't ok but would be. Eventually. He just, needed to breathe.