The Boy and the Stray

The world smelled of exhaust and rain.

Ren Takahashi tugged his schoolbag closer to his shoulder as he hurried along the sidewalk. The late autumn wind cut through his thin blazer, biting his cheeks. Tokyo evenings were always crowded, but today felt different. There was a strange heaviness in the air that made him glance up at the steel-gray sky.

“Almost home,” he muttered, shaking droplets from his hair.

That was when he saw it. A small brown dog crouched at the edge of the intersection. Its fur was matted, ribs visible under the skin, and its ears trembled as cars roared past. It was clearly a stray. Ren froze for a heartbeat. The light had just turned green for the traffic, and the dog looked ready to dash forward.

“No… wait.” Ren dropped his bag and bolted.

His shoes splashed through puddles as he ran into the crosswalk. A horn blared. Tires screeched. He reached out, scooping the trembling animal into his arms, pressing it tight to his chest.

“Got you,” he whispered with a shaky smile.

Headlights filled his vision.

Then everything went white.

Warmth left his body like breath in winter. Ren felt weightless, like a balloon slipping from someone’s grasp. He tried to scream, but his voice vanished into the void. The world dissolved into an endless darkness that was not empty but alive. It pulsed with whispers, echoing like ripples in an underground lake.

Do you regret it?

The voice was neither male nor female, yet it vibrated through him as if spoken inside his bones.

Ren swallowed hard, though he had no throat to swallow with. “Regret…? No. That dog would have died.”

Even at the cost of your life?

“Yes.” His answer surprised even himself. But what else could he say? If he had done nothing, that creature would be a smear on the asphalt. At least now… maybe it lived.

Silence followed, then the voice spoke again, softer now.

Then let us grant you another life, boy who threw away his own.

Light bloomed in the darkness. It spread like dawn through fog, golden and warm, pulling him forward. He tried to shield his eyes, but he had no hands, no body. Only motion and blinding radiance.

A world unlike your own. A second chance. Live as you desire.

The words curled into his mind like threads of fire. Before he could answer, the light swallowed him whole.

He woke to the sound of crying.

Ren blinked, or thought he did. His eyelids felt heavy, his limbs heavier still. A rough blanket scratched his skin. Shapes loomed above him, blurry and huge. Voices spoke in a language he did not know, words tumbling like water over stones. A woman’s face hovered close. She was young, auburn-haired, and smiling through tears.

“Uhaa…” The sound left his lips unbidden. His voice was high, broken. He tried to speak, but only a wail came out.

Realization slammed into him like cold water.

He was a baby.

A newborn, swaddled in rough cloth, lying in the arms of a stranger who murmured sweetly in a tongue his mind could not grasp. The air smelled of straw and firewood, and outside the window, mountains pierced a sky so blue it hurt to look at.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to demand answers. Instead, the warmth of the woman’s arms lulled him into exhausted sleep.

Years passed like pages turning in a dream.

Ren Takahashi, though no one called him that now, grew in a small thatched house near the edge of a sprawling forest. His new parents spoke gently, laughed often, and worked hard, though life here was nothing like Tokyo. There were no cars, no neon lights, no hum of vending machines on every corner. Just the smell of tilled earth, the creak of wooden carts, and the distant songs of birds Ren could not name.

The language came slowly at first, then all at once, like rain breaking through clouds. By five years old, he could speak fluently enough to ask why the moon here seemed so much larger, why the stars burned like silver fire.

His father chuckled every time and ruffled his hair. “Because the gods watch closely from the heavens,” he said.

Ren smiled back, but inside, a quiet question lingered. Why had he been given this second life? Was it only because of that dog?

One spring night, it happened.

Ren lay in bed, staring at the wooden beams above. The crickets sang outside, and moonlight spilled across the floor like milk. His breathing slowed as sleep pulled at his mind.

Then something tugged back.

A strange weightlessness filled his chest. He blinked and saw himself, his small five-year-old body, still lying under the blanket, eyes closed, mouth slightly open. But he was no longer inside it.

He floated.

Ren gasped, though no sound came. His tiny hands, no, not hands, not solid, passed through the blanket like smoke. The room glowed faintly blue, every edge shimmering with silver light. He turned toward the window and drifted forward, through the glass as if it were air.

Outside, the world was silent and immense. Trees rose like dark towers under the moon, their leaves trembling with ghostly light. Ren’s heart, or whatever pulsed in his chest now, raced with a wild thrill.

“What… what is this?” he whispered, though no lips moved.

The night answered only with the cry of a distant wolf.

Ren found himself smiling despite the chill crawling down his spine. He should have been afraid. Instead, excitement roared through him like a storm.

He did not know yet that this was the first step toward a power that would change everything: the gift and curse of the Skinwalker.