The waking was brutal.
Davin jolted upright and smashed his head against the rotten boards of the cart above him. The impact tore a hoarse groan out of him, almost ridiculous next to the memory of the fire that had eaten through his organs minutes earlier.
He breathed in on instinct. Once. Then again, harder, until his lungs filled with the stench of mud, piss, and rotting wood.
"I... I'm not dead?"
His voice came out raw. Wrong.
Davin froze.
That wasn't his voice.
His trembling hands groped at his chest, slick with grime. No burn. No charred skin. Just ribs jutting under sickly, sandpaper flesh. His fingers slid over a sternum that showed too much, muscles barely there, bones already lined up for the next famine to push through.
He looked around.
No white walls. No hum of medical equipment. No smell of disinfectant. Just packed dirt, damp air, and the sticky misery of some makeshift camp.
Where the hell am I? Not the hospital. Not home.
He dragged himself out from under the cart. His knees sank into cold mud. A few inches off, his eyes caught the murky reflection in a puddle of stagnant water.
He leaned over it.
And froze again.
"This is a joke. This can't be real."
His voice was barely there.
The face staring back at him wasn't his.
Hollow features. Cracked lips. Stringy hair stuck to a filthy forehead. The face of some starving drifter the world had already given up on.
Davin lifted a hand.
The reflection lifted one too.
He touched his cheek.
The skin was real. So was the pain.
Denial tried to climb back up, but his last memories cut it down: the impossible chill of that goddamn apple, the rush of flavor, the fire crawling through his veins, then the agony that had killed him on Earth.
He drove his fingers into the muck. It slid under his nails, cold and obscene.
"That fruit killed me."
The words came out broken.
He tried to line up the facts. No burned body. No living room. No paramedics. A foreign voice, an unknown face, an impossible setting. The odds defied every law of science, but the facts were there, too solid to deny.
He had transmigrated.
A dull rage built in his chest.
Twenty-eight years. An adult life. A career that had finally started giving him real stability. Habits, anchors, projects he hadn't finished, all of it cut down by an anomaly that had grown on some sick apple tree.
If gods were watching this farce from up there, they had to be laughing themselves sick.
Then grief hit him, sharp and unexpected.
His mother.
He saw her clearly. Coming home from her night shift, exhausted, dropping her bag on the entryway table. Calling his name into the silent house. Walking into the living room. Finding him twisted on the floor, eyes open, mouth locked in his last scream.
She would scream.
She would collapse next to him and stay there. Maybe for hours. Until some worried neighbor finally called for help.
And after?
The silence of an apartment that would never fill up again. A retirement ahead of her, empty. An only son buried before her.
His chest tightened.
"Mom. I'm sorry. I hope you make it through."
His voice cracked.
You won't. I know.
He stayed still for a few seconds, eyes locked on the mud. Something heavy and useless climbed up his throat.
Then his body shut it down.
A cramp twisted through his guts, violent enough to wipe out the grief in one stroke. Not just an empty stomach. A savage, animal hunger, a raw acid void that felt like it was dissolving his own organs from the inside.
Davin folded in half, teeth clenched.
Grief later. Food first.
A few yards off, ragged figures sat slumped in the dust. Other beggars. Their dead eyes barely hid the hostility of scavengers.
Davin swallowed thick, gummy saliva.
His body was already failing him. Throat burning. Legs shaking. No money, no weapon, no information, no strength. But he had to read the place before he dropped for good.
He braced himself on the broken wheel of the cart, hauled himself up on shaky legs, then moved toward the group.
"Please... food," he croaked, playing up the wreck his body already was. "Just... scraps."
The beggar he'd grabbed by the shoulder turned around.
His face twisted in disgust.
"Get off me, you little shit!" the man spat, voice wrecked by filth and cheap liquor. "You got nerve, coming back here. After what you stole from us."
"What are you—"
The blow came without warning.
A calloused backhand cracked across Davin's jaw. White flashed across his vision. He staggered, cheek burning, the copper taste of blood flooding his mouth.
For a beat, surprise froze him.
Then instinct took over.
Raw rage short-circuited his thinking. Davin clenched his fist and drove it with every scrap of strength he had into the bridge of the man's nose.
The man stumbled back, screaming, hands clamped over his bloody face.
The pathetic victory didn't last two seconds.
"He hit Carle!" someone bellowed behind him.
Four more beggars rushed him.
Adrenaline kicked into his wasted muscles. Davin spun and bolted as fast as his new starved body would let him.
But hunger had already sentenced him.
Ten yards in, his legs gave out. He hit the dirt hard.
No. Wait.
He tried to speak. His dry throat wouldn't make a sound.
They were on him a second later.
The kicks started raining down.
"Die, you thieving piece of shit!" one of them snarled, grinding his heel into Davin's ribs.
Pain lit up his whole body. Rage still boiled in his veins, but he forced himself to think straight.
He was too weak. If he fought, they'd kill him.
Davin choked back a scream, curled into a fetal ball, and locked his arms around his skull. Ribs, liver, neck, temples. He protected what he could and gave the rest to the boots.
He took it in silence.
When the beggars were panting and bored of his lack of reaction, they spat on him and walked off, sneering.
Davin stayed flat in the dust.
A minute passed. Maybe two.
He hacked out a thick clot of spit and blood, then checked himself over slowly. Bruises everywhere. Some deep. A dull throb in his ribs.
But nothing broken.
He pushed himself upright, grimacing, the pain pulsing in time with his heart.
I'll remember every one of your fucking faces. Not today. Today, staying alive costs enough.
[BEEP]
Davin's pupils contracted.
Hallucination? Concussion?
A glowing window had just appeared in front of his eyes, hanging in the air like it belonged there.
[BEEP. System Message / Analysis in progress...]HOST STATUS:Name: DavinBiological age: 19Strength: 0.3 | Standard average: 1.0Agility: 0.4Vitality: 0.2Unknown Energy: 1.2[ALERT / Recommendation: Critical status. Severe malnutrition detected. Advanced bodily atrophy. Estimated 24h survival probability: 12.4%. Emergency nutritional intake required.]
Davin stared at the panel.
An interface. The AI. It fused with me.
He wanted to understand it, test it, trace it back to the apple, to this body that wasn't his.
Then his eyes locked back on one line.
Estimated 24h survival probability: 12.4%.
Curiosity could wait. His questions could wait.
The next few hours needed food, water, and a body still able to walk.
Davin lifted a shaking hand and tried to touch the translucent screen. His fingers passed straight through. Annoyed by the panel cutting into his line of sight, he tried to ignore it, hoping it would fade on its own.
It didn't.
What kind of tech is this? No glasses. No implant I know of. Straight into my head.
He tried to wave it away. Several times.
Nothing.
Irritation climbed.
Shut down. You're in my way.
The window vanished instantly.
His vision cleared.
Davin breathed in slowly.
So it answers to thought. Good.
He tested it.
AI, open.
The interface reappeared.
AI, close.
It disappeared.
He'd just figured out the basics. Not enough to explain it, but enough to use it.
Davin turned his back on the camp and fixed his eyes on the miserable village in the distance. Open ground in front of him. No asphalt, no street lamps, no signs. Just a rough path, packed dirt, and stones.
AI, how far is that village, and how long to reach it in my current state?
[BEEP. System Message / Analysis in progress...]RESULT: Topographic analysis complete. Estimated distance: 2.5 km. Given host's critical vitality and agility: estimated travel time, 1h 40min.[ALERT / Recommendation: Movement inadvisable without nutritional intake. High risk of collapse.]
Davin clenched his teeth.
So I walk, or I die here.
He scraped together what was left of his will and set off.
The walk was hell.
Every step was a negotiation. Hunger sawed at his stomach. His legs trembled under a body that no longer recognized itself. His vision blurred in waves, then snapped back into painful focus. The sun, white and unfamiliar, pressed down on the back of his neck like a flat hand.
But he kept moving.
Not courage. Not hope. Just a refusal to die in a muddy ditch.
At the village gate, two guards in worn leather armor blocked the way.
"Halt, scum!" one of them barked, crossing his spear. "We have to search yo—"
The guard cut himself off.
His face twisted in revulsion. He took a step back.
"Gods, the stench of him," his partner swore, pinching his nose. "Get away from us, wretch!"
Davin blinked, dazed.
He knew he reeked. The smell of ground-in filth, stale sweat, and dried blood clung to his skin. But the guards' reaction went past simple discomfort.
He smelled like something already half-dead.
The first guard waved him through, exasperated. No interest in touching him. Even less in searching him.
Davin passed through the heavy wooden gates of the village, body wrecked and stomach screaming, but alive.
His stink had spared him a search, and probably worse.
The village hit his numbed senses with an almost aggressive energy. A packed-dirt main street, broken up by uneven cobblestones, ran between the buildings. Wood and rough stone houses lined the road. The air smelled of bitter dust, hot bread, sweat, and burned grease. Mail-clad guards patrolled, heavy swords clanking against their belts. Merchants shouted to move their goods, haggling hard with hurried passersby.
For a second, Davin watched.
Another world. Unknown rules. Danger everywhere. A hierarchy he didn't understand yet.
Then another cramp wrenched his stomach, worse than the others. It almost tore a groan out of him.
The world, the magic, the answers. All of that could wait.
The cramp in his gut wouldn't.
He needed food. Before his new body decided to quit on him for good.