Before the silence, there was sound. And before the sound, there was a boy named Lumi.

  He wasn’t supposed to matter. He wasn’t supposed to succeed.

  He was the kind of teenager you’d see with unwashed hair, a hoodie pulled over his eyes, muttering strategies under his breath in a dark room lit only by the glow of a monitor. Not a prodigy, not a scholar—just a kid with unmatched instinct for the one thing his world dismissed as a waste of time:

  Real-Time Strategy games.

  And yet, he rose. In Ironfall, the most complex RTS ever created, he wasn’t just good—he was mythic. Entire guilds studied his matches like scripture. Fans called him The Architect. He forged victory from chaos. He spoke with timing, not words. And he loved it—not the fame, not the money. The command. The control. The endless puzzle.

  But the real world wasn’t a puzzle.

  His parents stopped speaking to him. Sponsors dropped him when illness made him miss tournaments. The sickness was new, undetectable. By the time it showed, it was terminal.

  The only other sound was breathing—the kind that didn’t belong to a nurse or a doctor. Someone else was there. Slouched in a plastic chair beside him. Elbows on knees. Shoulders shaking.

  Eli.

  The guy had stuck by him since high school. Back when Lumi was a twitchy, caffeinated streamer screaming into a headset and skipping classes to grind out matches in Ironfall. They’d shared everything—no, more than that. Eli had been Lumi’s anchor when his parents cut him off. When they told him he was wasting his life chasing fantasy. When they stopped calling.

  He tried to say something now. Anything.

  But his lips were dry. His voice wouldn't rise.

  Still, Eli looked up, his eyes rimmed red. “They’re not coming,” he whispered, as if saying it quieter would hurt less.

  Lumi didn’t respond. He just looked up at the ceiling, feeling the cold of the IV drip sting in his wrist like icewater.

  “They said it was... too hard to see you like this.” Eli swallowed hard, forcing down the acid. “Your mom didn’t even ask what hospital.”

  Silence.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  “I guess it’s just you and me again, huh?”

  Lumi moved his fingers. Barely. But it was enough for Eli to reach over and wrap his hand around them.

  “You had a great life, man,” Eli said, his voice cracking. “You did something nobody else could. People out there—they love you. You made them feel smart, feel seen. You didn’t waste anything. Don’t let them take that from you.”

  Lumi managed to grin. It was weak, crooked—but it was there. “I’m... passing everything to you,” he said, the words dry and crumbling out of his throat.

  “Don’t—don’t talk like that—”

  “It’s okay,” Lumi whispered. “I have no regrets. Not even this… Even though…”

  His fingers curled tighter around Eli’s. “Even though they left.”

  Eli leaned closer, tears sliding down his cheeks.

  “They didn’t want me. But you did.” Lumi’s voice softened, barely audible. “So I’m not alone. Not really.”

  A silence stretched then, heavy with memory. The monitor beeped slower. The pain in his chest spiked, dull at first—then sharp, blooming like a needle of fire between his ribs.

  Eli gripped him tighter. “It’s okay,” he whispered, shaking now. “It’s okay, brother. Rest.”

  Lumi's eyes fluttered, his gaze going somewhere far away. His mouth moved again, dry lips forming one last thought, barely more than breath:

  “I wonder... what it’d be like... to live inside the world I loved most…”

  The beeping skipped.

  Skipped again.

  Then went flat.

  Eli let out a sound no one else would ever hear. Half-sob. Half-growl. His head sank against the side of the bed.

  But Lumi?

  Lumi was gone.

  And in that nothing... came cold.

  Not the chill of death—but the absence of everything. No skin. No sound. No gravity. Lumi floated through a vast, black sea.

  Then—something rippled. A presence stirred.

  Not a god. Not quite.

  But not human.

  “I heard your final wish.”

  The voice was not sound, but certainty. It spoke directly into the essence of what Lumi was.

  He tried to move. Speak. Nothing. But his mind still worked.

  “You are not broken. You are between. You spoke of wonder—not power. You asked, in your last breath, what it would be like to live within the world you loved.”

  Ironfall… the thought whispered through Lumi's being.

  “Yes.”

  Then, Lumi found his voice—not spoken, but formed like thought echoing back.

  “What are you?”

  “I am no god. I am no system. I am simply an answer that drifted near when your soul crossed the veil.”

  “So this is death?”

  “No. This is after.”

  Lumi's consciousness trembled at the vastness surrounding him. No body. No time.

  “You said you’d give me a chance. What chance?”

  “Not a return. Not a redo. A rebirth.”

  A long pause.

  “You will be born again in a world shaped not by code or pixels, but by the spirit of what you mastered.”

  “Ironfall… but real?”

  “Not a copy. A world that reflects what you craved most.”

  “Will I remember?”

  “Not all at once. But your instinct—the part of you that lived in battle—that will remain.”

  “And who will I be?”

  “You will be someone new. But you will still be you.”

  A flicker of light bloomed in the void.

  A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

  Lumi hesitated. Then one last question formed:

  “Why?”

  “Because you asked... and because few ever ask to live for something beyond themselves.”

  The light widened, swallowed him whole.

  Then—

  Sound.

  Heat.

  There was no sky.

  No screen.

  No voice telling him the match had started.

  Just pressure, and wet heat, and something inside his chest screaming to be free.

  Then—air.

  Raw, sharp, cold. It blasted into his lungs like fire. He gasped, and pain ripped through his ribcage.

  He didn’t know where he was.

  But it wasn’t a hospital.

  It wasn’t Earth.

  It wasn’t death.

  A cry escaped his throat, high and thin and alien.

  And in that moment, he knew something terrifying: he was alive. Again.

  Warm hands lifted him into the open. Someone was speaking. A voice—not mechanical, not sterile—alive, vibrant, laced with emotion.

  “Kaelen…”

  The word hit him like a pulse. He stilled.

  Kaelen?

  It wasn’t Lumi. It wasn’t his name. Not in the world he came from.

  But somehow… it was.

  It felt strange. Heavy. Like a name that didn’t belong, but might, in time.

  They’re calling me that. Me. Is this who I am now?

  He couldn’t answer. Couldn’t ask. The body he inhabited was small, helpless. All he could do was breathe—shaky, confused—and blink against the brightness.

  He looked up.

  The face above him was not human.

  Not by any standard he remembered.

  But it was not frightening.

  It was warm. Familiar in the way a sunset is familiar, even if you’ve never seen it from that angle before.

  Her skin was smooth, earthen—like sun-baked clay. Her hair, thick and glossy, was pulled back in strands tied with beads. Her features were fine, her jaw slightly narrow, and her eyes—deep, large, shimmering dark blue—were filled with tears.

  And her ears… round, wide, and soft-looking, shaped unlike anything on Earth. Slightly too large, slightly too expressive.

  She looked down at him as though he was the first spark of fire in winter.

  Is this… my mother? he thought, disoriented.

  She held him against her chest, speaking softly. He didn’t recognize the language—it was tonal, melodic, breathy. But he didn’t need to understand the words. The feeling in her voice washed over him like a lullaby.

  Another shape approached. Bigger. Broader.

  A hand—rough, calloused, worn from labor—touched his brow with careful reverence.

  He turned his gaze toward it.

  A man stood there—his new father, perhaps. Just a silhouette at first. Square-shouldered, dark-haired, built like stone softened by time. He murmured something too, voice low, voice breaking.

  And suddenly, a cry forced its way from Kaelen’s chest again. Not pain this time. Not fear.

  Response.

  As if the body remembered how to live even when the mind was still catching up.

  Drums echoed softly outside the birthing hut. The beat was slow, ritualistic, like a heartbeat shared by many.

  Other voices joined in—not loud, not shouting. Murmured celebration. Footsteps over woven wooden bridges. Someone lit a small bowl of incense. The air filled with the scent of smoke and flowers.

  Kaelen didn’t know what kind of people they were.

  He didn’t know the name of the race he’d been born into.

  But they weren’t machines.

  They weren’t cold.

  They were present.

  They were here.

  And the woman—his mother—held him with such care that it made something ache in a part of him that hadn’t ached in years.

  She whispered to him again. Her lips brushed his forehead.

  “Kaelen,” she breathed.

  It no longer sounded like just a name.

  It sounded like a truth.

  That’s who I am now, he thought, or tried to. Kaelen. Not Lumi.

  He tried to hold onto it—but his thoughts blurred. He was slipping, drowning in the fatigue of life beginning. His eyes fluttered.

  Before the dark took him, he caught one more glimpse of her face. The beads in her hair. The deep blue of her eyes.

  And her smile.

  The first he’d ever been born into.

  The first thing Kaelen noticed was rhythm.

  Not the kind of rhythm you find in games or heartbeat monitors, but something older. Alive. Organic. A pulse that rose and fell all around him.

  Birdsong. Drums. Footsteps on ropewalks. The swaying creak of wooden structures. A lullaby hummed in a low voice, not for show, but for comfort.

  This world breathes, he thought, even when I don't.

  He was warm. Swaddled in soft cloth that smelled like moss and smoke and something sweet—fruit, maybe. His tiny limbs felt impossibly weak, his hands little more than twitching things wrapped tight in a sling against his mother’s chest.

  She moved slowly, swaying as she walked. He could hear the hush of leaves brushing her shoulders. Hear her breathing. Hear her voice as she murmured things in a language he didn’t know, but wanted to.

  Kaelen tried to focus, to learn.

  But his body wasn’t built for focus.

  Not yet.

  Sleep came in waves.

  And so did dreams.

  When he woke again, the world was quieter.

  No more drums. Just the creak of wood, the rustle of canopy leaves high above.

  A hand ran along his cheek—gentle, slow, almost reverent.

  He blinked, and this time, he saw his father.

  Not a blur.

  A man.

  He was sitting cross-legged beside them, watching. His shoulders were bare, his skin marked with small faded scars and lines of dried clay from pottery work. His face was serious but not stern. His jaw was square, but his mouth seemed unused to speaking.

  Kaelen watched him watch.

  Their eyes met.

  And in that moment, Kaelen felt something odd: approval. Not the forced, tired kind he used to chase from his old parents, but something simple. Unspoken.

  The man touched his forehead again, and this time whispered something short.

  Kaelen didn’t understand the words—but he knew the tone.

  You are mine, it said. And I will keep you.

  Later, more noise.

  Voices. Laughter.

  Something—or someone—was bounding toward them, footsteps fast and light.

  Then a head popped up beside him.

  A girl. Wide grin. Messy black hair tied with uneven braids. Bits of leaf stuck to her shoulder. Her dark blue eyes—just like his—lit up with wonder.

  “Is that him?” she gasped.

  Kaelen flinched slightly as she leaned in, nose almost touching his. She smelled like bark and flowers and mischief.

  The mother laughed—Lureya, he remembered now—and responded in that lyrical language, nodding.

  The girl placed her hands on her hips like a proud explorer. “He’s squishy,” she declared.

  Kaelen blinked.

  Then she poked his cheek.

  He flinched again. But it didn’t hurt.

  “I’m your sister,” she said confidently, though he didn’t understand the words. But he caught it in the way she puffed out her chest. “I’ll protect you from all the sky bugs and tree snakes. Even the mean lady who makes us eat bitter root.”

  Kaelen stared up at her. She stared back.

  Then he let out a small sound—not quite a coo, not quite a whimper. Something involuntary and surprised.

  Her grin widened. “See? He likes me already.”

  Lureya laughed again and kissed Kaelen’s brow.

  The girl leaned down, lowering her voice to a whisper like she was sharing a conspiracy.

  “I’m Imari. You’re Kaelen. Got it? That’s your name now.”

  Kaelen.

  The name echoed in his mind again, more familiar this time. Less foreign. More his.

  He didn’t know why—but he felt lighter hearing it from her.

  Maybe because she didn’t speak it like she was naming a stranger.

  She said it like he was already hers.

  Mornings in Veleth did not begin with alarms.

  They began with birds. Sharp, layered trills echoing through the canopy, some close, some distant, like conversations thrown between trees.

  And then came the footsteps. Not careful adult steps—but chaotic, unfiltered, completely unnecessary running.

  Kaelen had learned, in the limited ways his infant body allowed, that this particular rhythm meant Imari.

  She burst into the room like a gust of wind and laughter. Every day.

  No knock. No warning.

  Just:

  "I'm heeere!" followed by a clatter of something wooden.

  Kaelen had no idea what she was saying. But he knew her energy. Loud. Bright. Fast.

  He lay in a woven reed cradle near the window—if it could be called that. It was more like a circular arch of vine-draped wood that let sunlight spill in over his tiny body. His arms flinched toward the light. It warmed his skin.

  Then a face filled his sky.

  Imari.

  Again.

  "Morning, squishbug," she announced, crouching until her nose hovered inches above his.

  Kaelen blinked. His mouth made a little 'o' sound. One hand flexed uselessly.

  She gasped dramatically.

  "He made a sound! Mom! He did a thing!"

  Lureya’s calm voice replied from the other room, probably kneading bread or boiling leaf water. Kaelen couldn’t see her—just felt the echo of her presence somewhere in the home’s wooden walls.

  Imari sat cross-legged beside the cradle, arms resting over the edge, chin on her wrist.

  "Okay. Lesson one, baby brother," she said, all seriousness. "Don’t eat the yellow nuts. Even if Mavi says they're sweet. She lies."

  Kaelen blinked again.

  Imari nodded solemnly.

  "Second—don't let Uncle Sorel braid your hair. He doesn’t know how. He thinks this is good." She yanked one of her lopsided braids. "This is not good."

  Kaelen let out a soft whimper—not upset, but curious. Imari leaned closer.

  "You like stories, huh?"

  He made the sound again. She took it as yes.

  "Okay! I’ll tell you the one about the sky beast!"

  And she did.

  In half-sung, half-mumbled, completely untranslatable babble, she told him a tale of some mythical sky snake that swallowed clouds and only got defeated when a girl threw a basket of spice leaves at its nose. She waved her hands, made sound effects, and knocked over a cup in the process.

  Kaelen watched everything.

  He couldn't understand the words. But he understood her voice. The way her energy changed when she whispered, the way her eyes darted when she lied in the story to make it more fun.

  It was communication.

  It was play.

  And he realized something:

  This is how they speak.

  Not just through words—but movement, music, emotion. Like… units on a battlefield, but not just executing commands—responding to each other.

  His mind, still hazy with newborn haze, flickered with old instincts.

  He remembered parsing enemy formations from subtle shift patterns. He remembered knowing when an opponent was bluffing just from a pause.

  And now?

  He was watching a girl act out a sky-beast story and realizing she was teaching him more about this world than any scroll ever could.

  Imari was his first opponent.

  His first teacher.

  His first… friend.

  That night, when Lureya fed him and Harun lit the low lamp carved from a gourd, Imari was still chattering.

  Kaelen drifted off to the sound of her voice.

  His last thought before sleep took him:

  I never had this before.