I got woken by pain so severe I couldn’t think straight anymore. I was on the verge of losing my consciousness a second time when a hot sensation suddenly permeated my whole being. It relieved me of most of the pain that lanced through my body.

As the pain receded, I picked up scraps of spoken words. A short while later I was able to actively listen to what was being said around me.

“Shh Aron, everything will be okay. Relax, mummy is here.”

A cool hand caressed my cheek. Many question-marks popped up In my head. What the heck was going on?! I wanted to ask, but my body didn’t follow my will, my mouth only moved a little in response. My mind felt like it was full with spiderwebs.

The woman beside me must have seen me moving as she immediately tried to placate me.

“Don’t move. You are too weak at the moment. Let your body heal. Everything will be fine.”

Having listened to her soothing voice, I relaxed. Fatigue overwhelmed me and I drifted into the land of dreams.

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POV Amanda Brightcloud

Amanda sat next to her son’s bed and observed him as he was sleeping peacefully. She couldn’t refrain from thinking back to what had happened a short while ago.

Amanda was in her office when she suddenly heard a scream. She immediately stood up and ran towards the noise. Quickly she had arrived, but what she saw when she came around the corner nearly stopped her heart.

Her son Aron was lying on the floor. A knife in his back and a puddle of blood growing around him. Amanda immediately ran to him and knelt at his side. Touching his back, she forced her light magic into Aron. To her horror, she couldn’t feel any life signs. Not wanting to believe that her son was dead, she didn’t stop pushing more into his body.

Even so, nothing seemed to change. The wound wasn’t closing, and he didn’t recover. Amanda was at her wit's end. She had never seen such a strange phenomenon. She only knew if she stopped she would have to admit that her beloved son had died. She couldn’t do that, so she continued.

Suddenly the body spasmed, she felt that he was alive again. Happiness flooded her being. Feeling the heart and brain working, it was time to heal the knife wound. She pulled out the knife and moved her left hand on top of the now open wound, letting the light magic do its job. The whole time she prayed that it wasn’t too late.

Luckily, there were no complications. She felt the wound close below her hand, but even then she didn’t stop to force the magic into Aron’s body. She wanted to be sure he was completely cured. As the energy couldn’t mend the wound any further, it moved on and flowed through his body in search of an affliction that it could heal.

Some time later, Amanda was certain that everything that could be healed in her son's body had been healed. She breathed out slowly and stopped. Looking down on her sons peacefully sleeping form, she felt delighted and talked to him hoping he would hear her. A short while later he moved slightly. Realizing that Aron was still too weak, Amanda used a sleep spell to let him recover.

She couldn’t believe that she was able to bring him back. The body felt dead when she had touched him at the beginning. Not wanting to dwell on it, she pushed the memory into the deepest part of her brain and moved on with caring for her child.

————

POV Aron Brightcloud (Andrew Westfield)

As I woke up this time, I was able to open my eyes. I saw wooden walls, a mirror with a cabinet and a tall cupboard. A table and chairs as well as a couch were positioned on the other side. There was even a window.

I had undoubtedly been moved into a bedroom, but how had that happened? I was a ghost for Christ’s sake, who would be able to see and lift me up?!

My entire body felt strange. It felt like I was wearing a heavy jacket and trousers that were weighing me down. Out of reflex I wanted to float up, but couldn’t.

Not understanding what was going on, I turned my body to the side. My eyes became round as I realized that I was unable to move through objects anymore. A surprised shout directly followed it as I fell out of the bed.

Laying on the ground, I couldn’t believe that I had an actual body. I touched everything that I could reach. Never had I been so happy about the rough texture of the wooden floor below me.

That realization induced me to touch my own body. Yes! I could feel the warm flesh below my hands, the pulse of the blood that was running through my veins and the up and down of my lungs that were working tirelessly to suck the air in and push it out again.

With a metaphorical bang in my consciousness, I realized what must have happened. The youth had pushed my soul into his body!

Quickly freeing myself from the bedsheets I was wrapped up in, I stood up and ran towards the mirror that was hanging on the left wall of the room.

I immediately checked myself. A sixteen-year-old youth was staring back at me. I was right! I had a new body! Yes!!

I scrutinized myself. I didn’t look bad. I still had my blond hair and had even the same height as my old self when I was eighteen. Still on the slim side as well. Sadly, I could feel that my predecessor didn’t train his body as I had done. But that was not a big problem, I could change that in the near future.

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Only my face looked different. Now my eyes were a steel blue and my cheekbones were more pronounced.

All in all I was quite happy with my appearance. I was still half in shock and awe that I had gotten a new body. Okay, I had now to play a sixteen-year-old youth, but that was still much better than having to float around as a ghost.

I should look at it as if I had gotten a new chance to right my “past”. Had you ever the feeling that you wanted to do certain things from the past a second time? Well, I had the chance now. Albeit a lot had changed as I was now stranded on another planet, but I could still go to an “university” a second time. So that was a big plus in my book.

Satisfied with the new knowledge I relaxed a little. Without me realizing it, I felt much more comfortable and natural in my new “hull” already. I swiftly moved my body into some of the basic Jiu Jitsu stances, trying them out.

It became clear that I had to train myself. My tendons were not flexible enough, and my muscles were straining to hold me in the right positions. Even so, I was happy. Everything felt as it should.

Suddenly I felt a stabbing pain in my head.

Suppressing a shout full of pain, I fell to my knees. It felt like my head would explode. Then, something gave and I felt strange particles arrive in my consciousness. They flooded it completely with additional information. With a start I realized that they were the memories and emotions that were part of the soul-pieces that I had eaten from the insect!

I had to focus to not get overcome by all the new information, feelings and memories. With a last effort I dragged my body to the bed and let myself fall onto it, now completely focused on what was going on in my head.

It really hurt, but I instinctively knew that I had to stay awake otherwise it would end badly. So I held onto my consciousness with an iron will. I would not lose this one chance on a second life!

The ride in hell lasted over two hours before the pain slowly stopped. Leaving me lying in a wet bed, as I had been sweating profusely. I felt like a wrung out blanket, but at least the pain in my head had receded.

I slowly breathed out and tried to relax my tense muscles. Five minutes later I had organized my thoughts enough to check my new memories.

As I had now three sets of memories, it was quite the chaos. Firstly, I started with looking through the memories that I had gotten from the youth. The problem was that they were not complete. The insect had only eaten a part of him when I had ripped it out. So It was messy.

After I had combed through all of them and had sorted everything in a way, I felt should be correct, I now knew at least some facts of this new world.

In a nutshell: My new name was Aron. I had obtained the feelings and emotions of him towards his family and the knowledge of the language they spoke on this planet. I was especially happy about the last memory as that would allow me to integrate much easier.

I would have hated to first have to learn the language again. Having his emotion towards his family would also help me to not change too drastically. Even so, I knew that I would be able to move according to my own will as they were more like guidelines and not that powerful.

Now it also made much more sense that I understood my new mother, when she had healed me after I had entered Aron’s body. I was using his imparted knowledge subconsciously.

Sadly, I had only inherited the basic memories about the world and how it functioned. But that was okay. I was used from my old world to research and could fill in the blanks later. The general information was enough for the time being. It would allow me to draft some initial plans.

Good, that was the first part. Now came the insect's memories. At first I wanted to skip them, but decided against it. I felt that something was very wrong with the situation. The boy was stabbed with a knife, so why was such a creature here eating him? Something wasn’t right.

I prepared myself for the worst and dived in. Surprisingly, the memories were very structured and detailed. Nevertheless, that didn’t make me happy at all as I realized in what a minefield I had walked into.

Damn… I had enough problems already, I didn’t need another set of them…

So why was I cursing? It was simple. Yes, there was a deeper plot going on here, a much deeper and darker one. Summarizing would be too inconvenient, as I had something important to do now. I will let you watch its memories a second time while I deal with that important matter.

____

Somewhere far away, earlier in time, POV: ???

“By the dark gods of Avelar, I order you to wake up! Soul Eater of old!”

After having slept for eons, the entity slowly opened its eyes, looking at its surroundings. It lay in a pentacle and two lowly humans were standing In front of it. It wanted to break through the constrictions and eat their souls, but the pentacle was made without weak points. Knowing it couldn’t do anything, it simply stood up and watched these lowly life-forms.

One human spoke. “As ordered by the ancient contract, I order you to carry out one mission! We will bind you to a ceremonial knife, the weapon will be used to stab a certain youth. You will use this entry point to eat his soul and take over his life.

Incorporate him and play this role to perfection. Don’t let anyone know that the actual human has already died long ago. While you masquerade as said youth, your objective is to find the ancient inheritance of their family. Find it and bring it to me!

The soul-eater opened its mouth for the first time and started to speak. “Who are you to dare giving me orders?! I will eat everyone of your lowly beings!”

The magician didn’t flinch. “We, the scions of the fallen gods, have inherited the right to give you orders! The inheritance of said family is the only thing that could sabotage our plan when it has reached its end phase. Only its power could hinder us to revive the old gods! You are a servant of the old gods. It is your highest purpose to follow them! Are you telling me you would forsaken your oath of fealty?!”

“You dare to question my fealty to the fallen gods?! I would rip you apart if I could break through the constrictions! I will follow your order, but be aware, I won’t let such an offense slip a second time!”

“I will. Donson! bind it to the knife now.”

“Yes, Archmage Mandor!”

Being bound to the knife, the soul-eater was moved to an unconscious state. It only awoke when the knife was stabbed into its victim's back.

After such a long time being able to eat a soul again, it felt ravenous. All the emotions and memories were so delicious, it savored every second. Enjoying itself, it was furious when it suddenly got grabbed from behind and ripped away from its delicious meal. Who dared to intrude on it?!

There, in front of it, a second soul was floating. It looked at it provocatively while saying some strange words. The soul-eater immediately hurled itself at this stupid soul. How dare it to be so disrespectful! It would have to pay with its soul for it!

Biting into the soul, the soul-eater anticipated to feel the addicting rush of memories and emotions. It was perplexed when nothing came. It couldn’t understand what was happening. It felt the soul’s legs and arms tacking a hold on itself, hindering it from fleeing before it felt a horrendous pull on itself.

Too late it realized that that soul was accommodating a much more evil, darker and more powerful existence! It had never seen such a thing; it was pure evil and almighty, its regal aura ordering it to prostrate itself.

Wrestling itself free from the sudden urge to go to its metaphorical knees, it wanted nothing more than to flee but couldn’t move due to the soul that held it in an iron grip. It trashed around, but quickly slowed down as its very existence got devoured.

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