Chapter 2 - A Familiar World?

Warmth clings like rot.

The drops of sweat run up my back, slimy and sticky. It gathers around my knees and back of my throat.  Each inhalation is a mouthful of dust, smoke, and blood, not familiar but real. My skin crawls with a strange sense of betrayal, as if my nerves still remember someone else’s trauma.

My skin crawls with a strange sense of betrayal, as if my nerves still remember someone else’s trauma.

Since the last burst of information has passed, I have not moved. I can't risk it.

Not yet.

The cot creaks under me, sharp and thin like a funeral plank. The tent is quiet now. Too quiet. No more pulses of data, no symbols spinning through my head like shrapnel made of knowledge. Just silence. For now.

I look at the palm of this hand, Kaelum's hand.

Veins like woven silver. Fingers long enough to feel inhuman. A scholar’s hand. A noble’s hand. Not meant to grip weapons, and yet… it carries the memory of doing so.

A shadow cuts across the tent flap.

My pulse spikes. I don’t think; I just reach for the dagger. The same one from earlier. My fingers close around the hilt, and for a moment I feel his scream again. The panic. The blood in his mouth. The last curse he spat before dying.

I shouldn’t have touched it again. I knew better.

[Warning: Memory Overlap Risk Detected]

[Scrape Buffer Not Yet Recovered]

I force myself to breathe. Slow. Grounded. Let go of the weapon.

The flap opens once again and somebody goes in.

A tall, slender, broad shouldered, clad in a cloak of with the color of sand.  Their blue boots crush the dust. There is a low hood to their face; nevertheless, I can sense their eyes, keen and calculating.

They stop just inside the entrance, just out of reach.

“You’re awake,” they say. Voice low. Controlled. Female, I think. “Didn’t think you’d snap back this fast.”

I am not talking.

Should I, or not?

"You remember me?" She asks while tilting her head.

I would like to say yes.

I want to play along.

But unfortunately I don't know who she is.

So I gamble.

“You’re late,” I say, matching her tone. Cold. Unimpressed.

She snorts softly. A smile without humor.

“There it is,” she murmurs. “I was worried they’d cooked your brain. Guess the real Kaelum’s still under all that pretty face.”

She steps forward now, pulling back the hood.

Dark hair, half-shaved. Tan skin weathered by sand and wind. One eye is covered by a metal visor etched with blinking sigils; the other stares at me like it’s always been suspicious.

“My name’s Seren Solaris Veight,” she says. “You briefed me six days ago in the Bonehill ruins. I’m your contact. Your observer. Your fallback if this whole ‘rebel infiltration’ gig goes sideways.”

She crosses her arms.

“Tell me you at least remember the cover identity.”

I blink. A faint pain pulses at the edge of my skull. Not a scrape, but something like it. An echo left in the body I now wear. A name, burned into the nerves.

“…Kael Vren,” I say.

She nods. “Former border scout. Defected two months ago after your squad was slaughtered. Cited ‘divine corruption’ in your superior officers. Picked up by the rebellion and assigned to intel review.”

I try not to let my relief show.

She walks past me and taps the tent wall. Two quick knocks. A signal.

“You’ve been unconscious for nearly thirteen hours,” Seren says. “Too long. People are asking questions.”

She turns to me, scanning my face again.

“You look like hell. Which is normal for you, honestly. But you need to move. Stretch. Speak. Bleed a little. Whatever makes you seem less… statue.”

I push myself off the cot.

Legs wobble. Muscles tense wrong.

But the body responds.

The body of Kaelum remembers posture and poise. I still move with the ease as if somebody who is meant to be here, even packed away in my clothes, which are saturated with sweat.

That scares me.

Not because it feels good… but because it feels natural.

---

Outside, the camp is quiet but not silent.

Low voices echo between tents. The occasional clang of metal, a distant argument. Smoke curls into the aurora-drenched sky, tinted pale green and gold, tonight’s color. Emotionally neutral, but close to shifting.

Rebel banners hang limp across jagged clotheslines. Black cloth, stitched with red arcs. No standard insignia, too many factions, too little unity. And yet they survive. They resist. That matters.

Seren walks ahead without waiting.

I follow.

Every footstep brings a wave of ambient information.

[Tent post: Cypress wood, not native to this region. Transported illegally via Skypath Route Theta. Worn edges. Bloodstains—dry, not visible in standard light.]

[Crate: Ration Type IX. Stolen from a Council supply drop four months ago. Spoilage rate: 12%. Hidden under false floorboards.]

It keeps coming. Uninvited. Unfiltered.

My head pounds.

I grind my teeth, suppressing the pain, and keep moving forward.

We come to a fireplace surrounded by piles of crates. Two men are arguing over a map. A third lies asleep beside them, snoring softly with a rifle in his lap.

Seren doesn’t stop walking until we’re past them toward a sectioned-off command tent lined with woven aurorasilk. Expensive. Reinforced.

Seren flaps open the opening of a bigger tent. This time it is made differently, with thicker walls, strengthened seams, and a slight shimmer of protective magic that buzzes on the edges of my sight. Within the dark, shadows slosh. In there is someone important.

She doesn’t enter right away.

Instead, she looks at me. Really looks.

“…Before we go in,” she says, voice slower now, deliberate, “there’s something you need to hear.”

I blink. Her tone it’s not new. I’ve heard it before. Not recently, not from her, but… somewhere.

She goes on.

“We found a trail two klicks out. Fresh movement. Scouts say it wasn’t a beast or council patrol.” Her eye narrows. “Too careful. Too precise.”

She shifts her weight, clicking something behind her back with a faint mechanical tick.

“It’s the kind of movement that means a third party’s watching. Not with teeth. With questions.”

I swallow. My tongue is dry. Not from fear. From recognition.

The way she said it, the rhythm of her words, and the phrasing , it’s not improvised. It’s almost… scripted.

Her tone, the firepit, the canvas flap, and the glint of her visor . All of it hums with this unreal, threaded familiarity. Like walking through a scene I didn’t live but once watched. Maybe even played.

And then it hits me.

This isn’t just a world.

This is a game.

A game I’ve seen before.

Fragments flicker at the edge of thought. A menu screen. A demo trailer. Something half forgotten.

The rebel camp. Seren Solaris. Her name had appeared in flavor text, hadn't it? Minor NPC. High perception. Reactive dialogue tree.

She had said the same thing in the prologue scene, word for word.

I stare at her now, not with fear… but with a dawning horror.

I know this world.

Seren frowns slightly. “What?”

I shake my head quickly. “Nothing. Just, memory’s still foggy.”

She studies me for a second longer, then finally lifts the flap.

“Come on. Commander’s waiting.”

I step inside.

And somewhere deep beneath my ribs, something cold curls in.

This world, this war, this story…

I’ve seen it before, or more correctly, I have played this before, over and over again.

But there is something wrong; something is not as it should have been. It could be her tone of voice, or it could be her attitude, but something is amiss. I do not know what it is, as my memory is still quite foggy.