Amadeus had always been a lucky boy. Adopted by a wealthy family and loved by everyone for his relentless positive energy, he was always at the top of his class and excelled in sports. He had blond hair and strangely red eyes, but doctors claimed it was a form of Oculocutaneous Albinism. To everyone else, it simply gave him an irresistible, otherworldly charm. He was the kind of person who helped without hesitation, stopping in the middle of important tasks to assist the elderly or rescue a lost animal.
Good looking and caring. He was, by all definitions, a typical main character.
But there was a moment in his life that changed everything. One day, while sitting in a mundane class at school, his mind began to drift. Despite his perfect life, he craved adventure; he wanted to do something reckless. As he stared at the tranquil blue sky and breathed the fresh air, he couldn't shake the feeling that something was off, that his life wasn't supposed to be this peaceful. Being popular and getting good grades felt small, like he was meant for something much larger than helping people carry heavy groceries.
While his eyes were fixed on the world outside, he caught a sudden shimmer on top of a nearby building. His lazy attitude vanished instantly, replaced by a sharp, instinctive alertness. Within a second, he dodged. A gunshot rang out, and Amadeus threw himself backward, his chair clattering to the floor.
He scrambled to look to his right, only to see his classmate collapsing, blood blooming across their chest.
He dove under the window as the entire class erupted into panic. Students scrambled for the door, but Amadeus could tell that the bullet had been perfectly aimed at him. Gritting his teeth, he found the courage to peek over the sill. Another shot rang out instantly, the bullet grazing his cheek.
"Fuck!" He hissed.
He bolted toward the exit, his heart hammering against his ribs. He felt a brief surge of relief as he burst into the corridor, but it vanished the moment he looked toward the windows. Three figures in black uniforms were hovering outside in the mid-air.
He didn't even have time to process the impossibility of people flying before a bullet pierced his shoulder. The force knocked him to the ground. The three mysterious figures smashed through the corridor walls, stepping onto the tiles amidst a shower of concrete and glass.
"General, we have the anomaly suspect." one of them said into a communicator.
Another reached for a pair of handcuffs, moving to restrain Amadeus. But as the figure leaned down, Amadeus's instincts took over. He slammed his forehead into the man's face with a brutal headbutt, used the momentum to scramble away, and dove straight through the shattered window.
He was on the fourth floor. A fall from this height meant certain death, but as he plummeted, he felt a strange certainty: dying was better than being captured by those people.
...
Amadeus woke up drenched in sweat, his heart hammering against his ribs. He looked around, dazed and confused; he remembered clearly the sensation of his body smashing against the pavement, the sickening sound of his bones shattering, and the white-hot agony of the impact. The memory was so vivid it made him retch. He leaned over the edge of the bed and vomited, his stomach turning inside out.
Suddenly, a heavy object struck him in the head. He looked up, reeling, to find his adoptive mother glaring down at him with pure hatred.
"You dirty trash! What the fuck are you doing?" She shrieked. "Clean it up! You're forbidden from eating for three days since you're just going to throw out what I give you anyway."
Amadeus stared at her, speechless. It was her face, the same features as his mother but the elegant, caring woman he knew was gone. In her place was a haggard, cruel stranger. He looked around the room; it was tiny, filthy, and draped in cobwebs. What he had thought was a bed was nothing more than a stained, ancient futon.
"Clean that up and get out of the house." She snapped. "A client will be here soon."
She slammed the door, leaving him in silence. Was he dreaming? As he stood up to find something to clean up the mess, he realized his perspective was off. He was tiny. He looked down at his hands and realized he was back in his eleven-year-old body, though he should have been nineteen.
After cleaning the floor, he found his mother in the main room and asked where his father was. The woman's response was to hurl a heavy glass ashtray at his head.
"If you don't want to die like him, get the fuck out of here immediately!" She screamed. She furiously shoved him out the door and slammed it shut, leaving him without even a jacket to protect him from the biting night air.
As he wandered through the dilapidated apartment complex, an old man leaning against a wall grinned at him.
"Oh, aren't you that bitch's son?" The man crouched down, puffing acrid smoke into Amadeus's face, making him cough in disgust. "Maybe I'll ask if she'll sell you to me."
The man reached out a hand, but Amadeus didn't hesitate. He delivered a brutal kick to the man's groin. As the pervert collapsed, screaming in pain, Amadeus didn't stop.
"You fucking pervert! Die!" He kicked him once more in the stomach for good measure and fled into the dark.
He ran like a madman until he reached a busy street filled with a vibrant festival. People looked at him with disdain, stepping around him as if he were a common beggar. Overwhelmed and humiliated, he curled into a corner, his head resting on his knees. He trembled not just from the biting cold, but from the raw weight of his panic.
Who were those people in black uniforms? Why was he still alive? Where was he, and why was he eleven years old again? So many questions raced through his mind, but the crowded street offered no answers.
Luckily, Amadeus was clever. He decided then and there never to return to that house. He became a child of the streets, taking on small jobs for anyone who took pity on him just to earn a few coins. Eventually, a local underground gang set their sights on him. They took him in and taught him their trade; by the time he was fourteen, he had learned how to handle a gun.
Despite the cruelty of his world, his natural cheerfulness remained. His positive energy drew the other members to him, and he soon found a family he never thought possible in such a dark place.
But once again, happiness was a fleeting thing.
The figures in black uniforms appeared out of the shadows, wiping out the gang in a matter of seconds. His new family died trying to protect him.
"Run! They are the Exotrack!" one of his comrades whispered with his final breath, pressing a cold, heavy pistol into Amadeus's hand.
"Exotrack?" Amadeus whispered, looking up at the enemies as they marched toward him, their footsteps heavy and methodical.
He knew the odds. He knew he couldn't win. Just like before, he felt that same terrifying certainty: it was better to die than to be captured. He raised the gun to his own head.
"Amadeus, no!" a comrade shouted, but it was too late.
The trigger clicked. A flash of light, a deafening bang, and Amadeus fell into the darkness once more.
...
Amadeus woke up drenched in sweat, gripped by the same haunting sensation that had preceded his second life. His heart hammered against his ribs, and a sharp ringing in his ears made his head spin. When his vision finally cleared, everything had changed again.
The bed was a crude construction of wood and hay; the floor was nothing but packed earth, and the walls were jagged, unhewn rock. As he inhaled, he began to choke the air was thick and foul, more polluted than anything he had ever breathed. He stood up and realized he was no longer a child. He was tall, his body lean and muscular.
When he stepped outside, he was met with total chaos. People were sprinting through the dark carrying torches, their shouts echoing about a missing child. Not far from him, he saw figures with leathery bat wings and obsidian horns. They were strikingly beautiful, yet utterly alien.
Uncertain of the situation, he sneaked out of the settlement and vanished into the surrounding forest. It was a stroke of luck; when he returned the following day, the village was gone. In its place was nothing but a massive, smoking crater in the earth.
He began to walk aimlessly. Whenever he encountered travelers, he would ask for the nearest village, but everyone was so hostile that he eventually gave up on speaking altogether.
During his travels, he discovered the name of this world: Vexis. He recalled fragments of history from his life on Earth; this was supposed to be a hellscape where demons and black magic resided. It was hard to believe such a place actually existed. On Earth, magic was a myth, and it was strictly forbidden for citizens to even peek at other planets or learn of their affairs.
The truth: Earth was being kept weak on purpose. The powers on other planets wanted to ensure Earth never created anything outstanding or reached a futuristic reality. Technologies like flying cars could have existed decades ago, but those in power elsewhere wouldn't allow it.
After a while, he reached a settlement and signed up as a mercenary; he didn't know what else he could do to make a living. Luckily, it was easy to fool the locals; they seemed to lack both intelligence and common sense. He joined the mercenary band primarily to discover more about the Exotrack, but he soon found that Vexis, much like Earth, was a cast-out planet. Living here was like being stuck in the Stone Age; the other planets in the system didn't even take it into consideration.
He lived on Vexis for more than ten years, and for a long time, nothing happened. This gave him plenty of time to think. In his first life, they had called him an "Anomaly" and tried to capture him. In his second life, he had found himself in a twisted, parallel version of his own home. Now, he was literally on another planet.
No one came for him here, perhaps because Vexis was a wasteland that everyone ignored. But he remembered the pattern: the key was to kill himself.
Before he could act on that thought, chaos erupted. He discovered the truth behind why the village where he first woke up had been destroyed: it was a punishment. To put it simply, the Demon Prince had loved a witch, but she had been killed by a slave whom the villagers had allowed to escape.
But that wasn't the most tragic part. Some of the villagers had feasted on the witch's remains, thinking they could steal her power. For their greed, they were wiped out by a single flick of the Demon Prince's finger.
Driven mad by grief and rage, the Prince continued to hunt for the slave, destroying every human village in his path in a desperate search for revenge.
He stood on a chair, whistling a low, aimless tune as he prepared the rope. He had debated his method for a long time. The nearest cliff was a month's walk away and wasn't even deep enough to guarantee the end. Drowning scared him to death, there were no guns to be found in this primitive land, and he couldn't bring himself to use a knife. Hanging sounded painful, but it seemed like the most certain way out.
In this life, he hadn't made a single friend. He had refused to love anyone, knowing that he was merely a traveler waiting for the next exit. Once the knot was secure, he looped it around his neck and kicked the chair away.
He wanted to curse his own stupidity the moment the rope snapped taut. He began to thrash and choke, his vision spinning as his lungs burned for air. Dying like this was painful as fuck!
...
Amadeus woke up drenched in sweat. This time, he didn't wait for the panic to set in; he began slamming his head against the ground, desperate to drown out the phantom sensation of the rope tightening around his throat. He hammered his forehead into the earth until the agonizing memory of his death was replaced by a sharp, physical throb.
Dizzy and exhausted, he soon fainted. He drifted into unconsciousness, never realizing where he had landed or that he was being watched. From behind a cluster of vibrant, oversized flowers, tiny creatures with delicate wings peered out at him. They tilted their heads in curiosity, whispering among themselves about why this strange giant had chosen to hurt himself so badly.