The contrast between laying on a mattress and the ground and staring at the wooden ceiling and the stars in the night sky was not something JD thought he'd miss for a while. But it was something he was forced to compare after tonight's event.

After a moment of confusion and mixed emotions, the cold of the night finally broke in past JD's long sleeves, prompting him to gather his stuff and take a short walk around the town's borders. Aimless and still confused about what had just happened, he got to a spot that led to a forest.

With the tall and dark bodies of the trees and the silent coos of night owls in the distance, paired with the peace between the forest and the town's side walls, it was evident that the forest was safe enough to hide in a short while. Hunters usually went to the woods more than a kilometer away from the gates of Abarly, and none had stepped further into this one after making sure it didn't have much to offer.

JD wandered further into the forest and eventually reached a sign that stated its name, Tamethe and proved as the last point of human travel. It was the center of the forest, Tamethe, and the more JD stepped forward from the sign, the more the area proved empty of any other creature than owls.

There was a hillside, however, and only once JD got to its little peak did he drop his luggage on the ground and allow his body to fall onto the short grass fields clear of most of the trees in the forest, lost in thought.

Only then did the events with Zalden fully sink into his comprehension.

"Why?" He mumbled, eyes tracing the familiar formation of the stars above.

Abarly was a small town by the southeast of the continent known as The Great Gemini, rumored to be ruled by the Gemini gods in heaven. And the sky changed forms and appearances based on which land one stood and gazed above. So, whether it was a constellation of any of the gods, JD guessed it must be the constellation of the Gemini gods.

The move Zalden's CEO made last was odd, and while the townspeople themselves threw JD out of the town, it all didn't shake his resolve. None of it made complete sense.

But as the night grew deeper, and so did his thoughts and wonders, exhaustion seeped into his bruised body. The forest called Tamethe had also been swaying his soul left and right. For a moment before his consciousness vanished, something in his very core made an unfamiliar, burning reaction to somewhere beneath the hill.

A low growl, or maybe a snarl. It echoed lightly as the colorful fur of a mythical creature ventured on untouched land and sturdy, towering pine trees. Cyan claws so bright they glowed against the cold moonlight and cautiously trudged onto an area in the forest. An area past the sign humans put up where the grass always stayed up had been flattened. Someone walked past the signage.

Hours might've passed until JD woke up to the startling alarm noise from his phone. An alarm set to a point where dawn hadn't even peaked yet.

JD turned and tried to grab his phone somewhere nearby. It shouldn't be too far away, but a piercing noise against a screen not only killed the alarm noise but also shot his senses and eyes wide awake.

Somewhere close to his hand reaching out to his phone were traces of cyan, magenta, and white fur enveloping bright, cyanic claws. Right there stood a creature whose two clawed fingers held his spare phone in between, the sharp edge of the paw against the screen screeching, and eventually, both edges stabbed through the phone.

If that wasn't enough to get JD's frozen state up and running, the creature—the monster's bright blue eyes shifted from the phone to JD. He flinched, and as if frozen water were poured on him, he found himself sprinting down the hill with his mind going blank.

JD's heart raced, his body trembled as he ran, and he could practically see where his soul resided inside as it blinked like a broken bulb and bounced around like a rubber ball.

"Whoa!"

Moreover, the ground quaked, and JD nearly lost his balance at the sudden vibrations. He took a quick look behind, and the monster had leaped from the hill down to the forest. And with a mighty wind that almost sent JD flying, the creature growled and chased on all fours.

"Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit-"

The ground seemed to bounce with every step, and the air danced sharply. Eventually, JD found the signage, but he couldn't bring himself to run to Abarly for help. Getting an unknown creature to a peaceful town would endanger everyone there. With one more curse under his suffocating and uneven breath, JD turned on his heel to avoid the direction of the town.

Just as he did, the monster leaped a few meters before him, rendering the land vibrating, and JD's body jumped from the impact. He fell to the ground and scrambled to get up, but the monster was already too close for him to try and outrun it.

Sweat washed over from his forehead while his head searched for something—anything—amidst the panic of his soul and the lack of knowledge of what the creature was. The only thing it resembled was a colorful mythical creature from The Unified Scales that one could only find pictures and information about in the library. But beasts mentioned in such books weren't supposed to exist—they were nothing but myths that religious people believed existed many, many centuries ago.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

With a surge of impulse, JD grabbed whatever he could, and when he did get something, it was the most helpful thing one could find in a forest in such a dire situation.

A stick.

The monster relieved itself from the leap and growled lowly at JD, taking careful steps towards him. From that angle, it resembled the dogs in the southwest town when they saw a human with a long stick in their grip. Cautiously approaching, preparing to jump, and eyes expectant for something.

Hoping the monster would act the same way and play fetch, JD internally cursed and threw the stick toward the creature with as much power as his numbed, morning arm could muster.

It reacted.

The monster hopped forward to face the stick as JD took off straightaway without looking back. A bump between the stick and something hard echoed lightly, and it roared in response. JD still refused to peek and pushed his legs to their limits, not taking the chance of losing the opportunity for survival.

Then he stopped running and caught his breath. When he peeked behind him, there was no monster chasing him.

"..Did it actually play fetch?" Disbelief painted his voice, but he shook his head right away. "No. That can't be right."

JD leaned over a tree and watched the direction where he came from: no growls, no shaping wind, no quakes, no monster.

"Where did it even come from?" He mumbled under his breath. "No, rather, why did it chase me...? Was it hungry?"

Maybe it found something to eat. The stick might have proved enough for its appetite.

Despite the argument JD had to go through in his head, he knew it wasn't just some hallucination. While he didn't have an inborn talent and could only perform the basics of magic, he was sure he had complete resistance to mind-related magic, as proven by how Zalden's mind-control attempt didn't reach him.

Unknown minutes passed, and the argument inside JD's head changed to whether he should walk back to check what happened or go elsewhere.

The latter seemed like the more logical thing to do, but as JD calmed down, his soul hadn't. What he first thought, his soul panicking due to the chase of a monster, might be wrong. His soul seemed to react violently, desperately reaching out to where he had left the monster.

Before he could rationalize, his feet had already started walking back. He grimaced. He had no complete control over his body when his soul was like this. But again, there was only one time this had happened before.

When he first found Abarly.

It was in his soul's interest to stay—it refused to let him leave the town as if something there fed his soul the reason for its existence. As if something near Abarly meant the world to his soul.

It might be part of his soul's previous life reacting even in this new life despite having no recollection of what and who JD was before.

Soon, the head of the monster came into his vision. The stick he threw remained on the ground near it, but the monster sat right there, with one paw gently caressing its chest.

JD's squinted eyes enlarged as the monster took his paw away. It must've been the panic that made JD unable to notice the little detail about his predator.

Right in its chest was a circular, transparent gem that glowed faintly with every second. A tiny scratch peeked on the gem's side, which might've come from the stick he threw.

From how it protected it and resembled a gem, it must be like the rumors in the north of The Great Gemini: it was the monster's core. His very soul in physical form, so vulnerable and open to be severed by the world.

That fascination of JD's was short-lived, as the broken bulb that was his soul seemed to blink and resonate with the way the monster did. The monster's eyes gazed at him, and he flinched. But on closer look, the monster had no malice in its eyes.

It had a soft, gentle, and patient expression as it stared back at JD's dark brown eyes.

Nothing had made his soul react this way throughout his life—the same thing that made him stay in Abarly and led him to walk back to the monster. All this time, it was only now that something reached his soul. He knew something was doing this, but he didn't know what it was supposed to be and what it meant.

Above all, when something strong called out to his soul, he didn't expect it to be a monster.

Now devoid of any rational reasoning, JD took more steps forward, one hand on his chest and one rising to reach the monster. Suddenly, he didn't feel scared anymore.

The monster's paw on his core moved away slowly, as though similar to JD, it didn't feel in danger in a living being's presence. And for the first time in years, since it's wandered The Great Gemini, it felt safe with someone—enough to allow them to be this close to touching his core.

The monster closed its eyes, and JD set the tip of his fingers to its core. The faint glowing grew fainter, then brighter, until light occupied the monster's existence as if a spell it was under had been broken.

One of JD's hands traveled to his head. A sudden streak of pain arrived in his head and to his soul. He grunted, unable to take his hand away from the glowing monster and fully understand what was happening.

As he closed his eyes, flashes of light remained in the darkness. And for some reason, a bundle of memories and emotions deep inside JD had awakened.

A paradise. Many people with constellation symbols in their being. The god of creation, Garnet, himself right there. But JD didn't get how he would recognize Garnet himself in a memory.

And then the rest of the memories raced in his mind. All of it from different angles, but only focusing on one subject. A boy. A blonde, blue-eyed boy with the brightest smile on his face. A faint voice from the boy echoed in the distance of JD's senses, saying only one thing—only one word.

The final panel of memory stopped, and it was that same boy—coughing up blood, his blue-eyes panic-stricken, and from the perspective, it seemed like that boy held JD's previous body in his arms. A hand reached out to the boy, and the words came clear. It came from JD's perspective.

"I'm... sorry, Ameme."

Tears poured from JD's closed eyes, and the harder he held his head, the more the pain of the past forced its way into him. Alongside it, something warm crept to his soul, almost the same sensation those who awakened inborn magic described.

With a shriek amidst the overwhelming changes coming to him, JD felt weak. But someone caught him as his body fell.

The only word that repeatedly echoed from all the final memories remained screaming at him while JD succumbed to the loss of consciousness. And as the person holding his body called out to him, that one word resembling the ones in his revived memories opened his eyes wide.

"Brother!"

The monster was no longer there, and like staring into the mirror, who held him then and there, was someone who looked just like him.