The air in the barn was dry, dust swirling in rays of golden sunlight. The smell of hay and sweat lingered as the twins finished stacking logs from the morning chores. Kavel, their father, stood nearby sharpening a broken axe handle, nodding silently with each thud of wood hitting the pile.
Ragna tossed the last log onto the stack and stretched. "Race you to the creek?" he asked, already bouncing on his heels.
Eudora didn't answer. His gaze was locked on the blade in their father's hands. It wasn't threatening — just an old farming tool being repaired. But it made his stomach twist.
He remembered too much. Too many blades. Too many deaths.
"Eudora?" Ragna frowned. "You good?"
"I'm fine."
He wasn't. His body still felt foreign. His thoughts kept slipping into flashes of the ruined world he came from. Burned trees. Screams in the dark. His own blood on the ground.
He turned away and picked up a rusted sickle to clean. Its edge was chipped. Still sharp, though.
"Careful with that," Kavel warned, not looking up. "It'll bite if you don't respect it."
Eudora nodded and started cleaning. But the metal slipped. A sudden sting shot through his finger.
"Shit," he muttered, dropping the sickle as blood welled up from a deep gash across his fingertip.
"Let me see," Kavel said, standing quickly.
"No, I—" Eudora stopped.
The blood was gone.
He blinked.
Gone. The cut had vanished. Not even a scar remained.
He stared in silence, gripping his hand. His heart pounded in his ears. That wasn't normal. That wasn't possible.
Ragna peeked over his shoulder. "You cut yourself?"
"I… thought I did."
"You probably missed."
But he hadn't. He felt the blade bite. He saw the blood.
Kavel narrowed his eyes, but said nothing. He simply returned to the axe.
Eudora turned his back on them both, wrapping his hand in cloth anyway — pretending he still bled.
His thoughts swirled.
That wasn't healing. That was… something else. Instant. Silent. Impossible.
But the fear that gripped him wasn't from the wound.
It was from the truth.
Something was changing. And he had no idea what it meant.