13 years ago...

"Zeph, stop running in the house!" Astraea said with a stern voice. "You know I don't want that. Do you want to hurt yourself?"

Stopping immediately, knowing the possible consequences, I dropped my head and turned towards her.

"Sorry Mom," I said quietly.

"You are forgiven," she says with a cheerful voice.

She walked up to me and knelt down to kiss me on my forehead.

"You know I don't want you guys to get hurt, right? So please be careful next time."

I looked my mother in the eyes with a smile and nodded.

"Now," she continued. "Why were you in such a rush?"

Aria carefully came walking into the living from the kitchen.

"Mom? Are you angry with Zeph?"

She was sooooo cute when she was a little scared. I know I hate seeing her scared but in this harmless situation, those puppy eyes were killing me with cuteness.

What did I do to deserve such a nice and cute sister?

"No hunny, of course I'm not," she said reassuringly and this brought a smile to Aria's face again.

I really can't take those cute mood swings of hers. One second she looks super cute while being a bit sad, next she looks even more cute when looking happy.

Aria walked up to me and pulled on my shirt.

"Brother, can we go? I want to go outside and play."

A few minutes before I thought it would be a good moment to go outside and try to practice some basic magic I learned from Dad. It was some harmless water magic that we could now both use. I thought it would be fun to make a little training routine out of it. We would try to take turns and try to tag each other. This way we would be combining a physical and magical exercise in a playful way.

"Can we go out and play in the fields?" I said questioningly.

Mom started laughing when she saw me trying to put up a cute face like my sister always did.

"Zeph stop it. That never worked on me, so why would it now." She could hardly speak from laughing.

I frowned in annoyance. Not that I expected it to work, but that my sister could do it so easily and here I was, being laughed at by my own mother.

"Go on, go play in the fields," she said when she regained her composure. "But promise you won't go any further than the fields."

What we called 'the fields' were basically 2 big grass fields in front of our house split by a little road. You could almost say it was part of our garden. You could see almost all of it from the house front window, so it was a good spot to play while Mom and Dad could keep an eye on us.

I grabbed Aria's hand and ran outside as quickly as we could. Meanwhile, Mom walked up to the window to see us run out of the front gate of the garden and start to shoot waterballs at each other.

Father was outside, working on the flowerbed in front of the house, and saw us running by.

"You guys be careful ok?" he said caringly

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Aria and I didn't even look but in stereo gave our quick answer.

"We will Dad."

Some 15 minutes later we were starting to get tired from running around the fields and our magic energy was starting to run out. That is when I tripped and fell while dodging Aria's waterball.

I rolled down the hill while Aria was running after me. She thought she hit me and that it was her fault but she heard me laughing while I kept rolling down.

"hmpf, You're mean." She said with an attitude. She then fired another waterball my way that hit me.

As I stopped myself rolling down the hill I noticed I was almost near the edge of the forest. It surrounded the fields and our house. It almost felt like a natural wall with 1 road leading through an opening to the village further down in the valley. Behind our house was a steep mountain slope with no way up. It always felt really safe here.

As Aria came running towards me smiling again, I felt something coming from the forest. It made me feel unnerving. The feeling gave me goosebumps and something told me, perhaps my brotherly instinct, that I had to protect Aria.

I shouted to Aria she had to turn around and run but I was too late. She was already near the forest edge where I was and a massive human-like figure came out of the forest. It pushed her aside with a massive shunt which sent Aria flying through the air, landing hard on the ground a few meters away.

"ARIA!!!" I shouted. "Aria, are you ok?"

I heard her cry softly, most likely from the scare but she didn't respond.

"Found you, you little brat" the massive figure suddenly said to me.

This... thing, it was massive. It was at least 2 to 3 times as big as my father and wrapped in a thick dark purple aura. His presence emanated a pressure that made my body feel 10 times as heavy. I could only take 1 step backward before I fell and froze in place.

The figure walked up to me and stopped when he was towering over me. Everything in my body was locked and I could not move an inch. The only thing I could see now was this thing's massive body and a hand moving towards me.

"Time to bring an end to all this nonsense. She has had her fun." He said as he grabbed my neck. As he lifted me off the floor, his grip strengthened and I could hardly breathe anymore. My world began to slowly black out.

"Let me go!" I tried to shout but it was no use. Nobody would be able to hear me now.

"Save your breath child if Gaia. Your life will be at its end soon." It said while raising his other hand towards my face.

Wait! Did it just say 'son of Gaia'? The thought was quickly cut off as I closed my eyes waiting for the other hand to crush my head.

"Please stop. n-n-no please" I tried to call out for help once more.

After a few seconds, I started to feel weird. I felt like my soul was being stirred inside me. When I opened my eyes I saw the hand I thought would crush my head, float in front of me.

Then it suddenly chanted something.

"Corrupectum Tormortis"

Blue sparkling lights started to stream out of my body and I started to feel incredibly hot. Something was being pulled from my body and my head started to fade out. I completely lost all my senses and felt like my soul was being pulled from my body.

"LET HIM GO!" Aria shouted as she slammed into this thing's arm.

When I heard Aria's scream I could just open my eyes enough to see her run into it. This surprised it and caused the spell he was casting to fail. A bright light flashed as it let me go and Aria dropped on top of me and everything went dark.

"ZEPH!!!! ARIA!!!!! NOOOOO"

From a distance I heard Mom and Dad shouting as I felt the presence of that... thing, disappear and I lost consciousness.

When I woke up I heard my mom and dad pray for the safety of their children. When I opened my eyes, everything was blurry. Not the blurry kind you are thinking of. Think of it as watching 2 photos at the same time. It felt like 2 worlds were merged together.

Trying to look around the blur stayed but my head started hurting like hell. I let out a small cry of pain and in a reflex, closed my eyes again.

What was that? Why did it look like I saw 2 different rooms?

Mom and Dad both got up from their chairs and walked up to me. They gave me a big hug but something felt off.

Why does it feel like I'm being hugged in the same place by 2 people? This doesn't make any sense.

"Aria, are you alright?" my mom asked with tears in her eyes and still hugging me.

Aria? Did mom forget who I was?

Suddenly Dad let go of me "Zeph, are you ok? Do you have any pain?"

Wait, hold on! What is going on? Why am I being called 2 names now?

I tried opening my eyes again and that was the moment I noticed something was definitely wrong.

In the short moment that I could actually open my eyes without getting a headache, I saw Mom and Dad. But they looked to be inside each other. Like standing in the same place, phasing in and out of each other with every movement they made. Apart from this, I saw my room but also Aria's room.

What is going on? What is happening?

—

"Wait a moment," Lucian said surprised. "Are you telling me that you are 1 soul in control of 2 bodies?" His eyes were wide open.

"Yes," I answered in stereo with my sister.