It was raining.
The soft kind — cold but quiet — the kind Alec used to love. The city was painted in silvers and shadows, and though he couldn't see any of it, he'd walked this route a hundred times. Cane tapping the sidewalk, boots skimming puddles. He didn't need sight to feel the life around him. The city spoke in smells and sounds: hot food from a corner vendor, traffic buzzing at intersections, the faint rhythm of a jazz tune from a passing car.
Alec breathed it in like a hymn.
He was 32. Blind since thirteen. And at peace with it.
The world had taken enough from him. His vision. His family. His first love. But he'd built something quiet and dignified from the pieces. His job as a translator. His small studio apartment. The fan in his coat pocket — real silk, real wood — a relic from a lover long gone but never forgotten.
The crosswalk signal chirped. He stepped forward.
A roar split the air.
Screeching tires.
A scream — someone else's.
Alec's heart seized.
The impact came too fast to dodge.
And then... nothing.
But not the kind of nothing Alec had expected.
There was no cold. No void.
Only warmth.
Alec floated in a space that felt like a dream pressed against his skin. It was silent… until it wasn't. A deep hum rumbled through his chest, vibrating every cell of his body.
His arms drifted outward. He felt heat blooming at his fingertips — flame, yet it did not burn. Beneath him, a tide of cool water surged upward, cradling his back like silk.
For the first time in years, Alec opened his eyes... and saw.
Not just light — but colors. Movement. Flow.Flames coiled around his hands like dragons. Streams of water spiraled through the air like ribbons, gleaming in blues and silvers. Stars blinked into existence above him, then fell like rain.
His heart should have been racing — but it wasn't. It was still. As if... this wasn't death. Or life. But something else.
A whisper stirred the space around him — genderless, echoing:
"You straddled two worlds before. Let us give you one where the lines were always meant to blur."
"Born of water. Tempered by flame. A soul of balance."
His eyes glowed — one azure, like glacier-fed rivers. One crimson, like a dying star. The fan in his coat flickered with golden light — not broken, not gone. It was still with him. It, too, had passed through whatever threshold he now crossed. And then the space shattered.
He hit sand. Hard.
The wind knocked from his lungs, Alec rolled over and gasped — eyes wide, lungs burning. The sky was black velvet above him, the stars brighter than anything he had ever imagined.Waves lapped at the shore nearby.
His hands shook as he touched his face — no stubble, no scars. He crawled to a puddle formed in a smooth rock basin and peered in. Silver hair. A narrow, younger face. A body slim but toned, honed by balance. And his eyes...
He could see them now. And he didn't want to.
Not in this world. Not like this.
So Alec took a strip of cloth from the hem of his robe and tied it tightly across his face. Not as denial — but as devotion.
He would see... differently. Again.
The fan — still tucked at his side — throbbed faintly, pulsing with heat. Something inside it hummed, almost like a compass.
From deeper inland, a voice rang out — furious, cracking like thunder:
"You WILL learn respect!"
Firelight flashed between the trees.
Alec turned his head, instinct guiding him. Something inside him — a ripple in his bones, a pulling at his soul — told him that moment was important.
It was a beginning.
He stood on unsteady legs, the waves hissing behind him and fire crackling ahead. As he tried to process what had happened, a sharp pain surged through his head. It was too much. The world tilted, and he collapsed, the tattered remains of his clothes clinging to his body as he lay motionless on the shore.
Just before everything went dark, Alec thought he heard a voice—distant, muffled, but real. He couldn't make out the words, except for one broken question:
"Who's there?..."
"Synchronizing with host... 0%... 35%... 72%... 99%..."
"Synchronization complete."
"System activated."