In the dark between one life and the next, Arlo's memories slowly started to fade.
The faint outline of a world he was about to leave behind.
Where is that other child?
The question surfaced one final time, quiet and unanswered. He let it go. There was nothing left to do but let it go.
He closed his eyes.
"I guess it's time," he said softly. "I lose my memories."
His body turned to light.
The darkness swallowed him whole.
After some moments he woke up, but this time he wasn't reincarnated. His soul has been transmigrated.
He had forgotten everything.
But remembered only one thing. Memories of when he had no knowledge, when he was a normal teenager, when he lived as Rovelt. He had memories of Rovelt till the airplane accident.
What replaced the darkness was a ceiling.
Specifically, a very tall ceiling with a painted fresco of people in robes doing important-looking things. Gold trim on the walls. Heavy curtains. The smell of candle wax and something floral he couldn't name.
He stared at it for three full seconds.
Why am I not dead?
He sat up. He was in a bed the size of a small room, covered in sheets that probably cost more than his laptop. The floor was carpeted in deep red. Every piece of furniture looked like it belonged in a museum.
Okay. Okay. The plane crashed. I survived. They put me somewhere. This is fine. This is a very fancy recovery room. Europe has very fancy recovery rooms apparently.
He stood up, legs unsteady, and crossed to the window.
Outside, rolling hills stretched to the horizon beneath a sky that wa slightly wrong. Too clear. Too wide. A garden sprawled below, bigger than his entire neighborhood back home, with fountains and hedgerows and flower beds in colors he didn't have names for.
No roads. No cars. No pylons.
He stared for a long moment.
Very. Fancy. Hotel.
He turned away from the window—andaw the mirror.
He walked toward it slowly, the way you approach something you already know is going to be a problem.
The face in the mirror was not his face.
Sharp jaw. High cheekbones. Silver hair. Pale eyes that caught the light in a way that felt almost unnatural. It was, objectively, an extraordinary face. It had nothing to do with him.
"Okay," he said to the mirror.
The mirror said nothing helpful back.
"OKAY." He grabbed his own cheeks. The face grabbed its cheeks. He let go. It let go. "They gave me someone else's face. The crash was so bad they gave me a completely different head,, and nobody thought to mention this?"
He sat down on the floor. The carpet cushioned him like it was apologizing.
He sat there for a moment, doing the mental paperwork.
Name: Rovelt. Age: 17. Last known location: seat 24 A on a flight that was very much on fire. Current location: unclear. Current face: also unclear. Status: apparently alive, which is the main thing.
A knock at the door.
He pulled himself together. Stood up. Straightened clothes that weren't his on a body that wasn't his and walked to the very large door and opened it.
A girl stood in the hallway. Roughly his age. Neat uniform. She'd clearly been running—herreath was slightly uneven, her composure freshly reassembled. She looked at him with the careful concern of someone professionally trained not to show alarm.
"Is something wrong, Young Master?"
He stared at her.
Young Master.
They're really going all in on this.
"You don't have to do the whole bit," he said kindly. "I appreciate the dedication. Just bring me chicken curry—ricen the side, lemon squeezed on top, not too much. And tea." He paused. "Strong tea. It's been a morning."
He started closing the door.
"Young Master, I—" She hesitated. "Forgive me. I know chicken, but... what is curry?"
The door clicked shut.
She stood in the hallway for a long moment, holding the question like something fragile, then walked toward the kitchen because it was her job and she had no better options.
The head chef turned around, his face turning red with frustration. "What the hell is a curry?! I don't know, and I don't care! Just boil some chicken with vegetables or something and send it up to him!"
Meanwhile, the self-proclaimed "Young Master" was having a grand old time, dancing and singing around his luxury suite.
"Wow, I sound incredibly melodious," he chuckled, pausing mid-stride. "I just noticed my voice changed, too."
Suddenly, a primal urge struck him. "Pee. I have to pee right now."
He stopped.
"I have to pee."
He ran out into the hallway.
Left — portraits of stern-faced people in formal clothes. Right — a staircase. Down the staircase — more hallway. Through a door—a room full of bookshelves. Back through the door—still the hallway.
What kind of establishment has no bathroom? What century is this hotel from?
He rounded a corner at speed and hit someone like running into a wall.
He stumbled. The other person did not.
The man was in his mid-twenties—white hair swept back, posture that radiated the specific energy of someone who had never been told no and thought this was a personality trait. A woman stood behind him, watching the collision with carefully maintained blankness.
The man looked down at him with mild amusement.
"Ellen. Where are you going in such a hurry?"
Robert, hopping from foot to foot, misheard him entirely. "Alien?! What the hell are you talking about? Talk without your weird accent! Where is the toilet?!"
The brother crossed his arms, replying in a deeply taunting voice, "I don't know. Why don't you go find it yourself?"
"You fucking bum!" Robert screamed, turning on his heel and sprinting back toward his room.
He slammed his doors shut. Think, think! There must be something to pee in here. Like a chamber pot! He scanned the room frantically. "Where is the pot?!"
His eyes landed on an ornate vase. "No, that looks way too expensive."
He looked at the window.
Then, his gaze drifted to the open window. "Yeah. The window. Nature's bathroom."
Robert rushed to the ledge, unzipped his pants, and proceeded to bless the lands below.
He approached carefully.
Directly underneath his window, a romantic scene was unfolding. His fourth brother, Bronski, was heavily flirting with a beautiful maid named Rosalina. She had an expression balanced precisely between flattery and mild discomfort.
"Rosalina," the young man was saying, one hand pressed earnestly to his chest, "when I am named successor, I will take you as my wife. We will have so many children... We will have a household full of—"
Suddenly, a sudden rain fell from the heavens. Strangely, the droplets were incredibly warm. And oddly salty.
It was not rain.
Both of them went very still.
They looked at each other.
They looked up.
"Ahhh, finally," Robert sighed from the window ledge, a look of pure, blissful satisfaction on his face.
But that satisfaction instantly curdled into pure horror. He heard the sharp clatter of a silver platter dropping onto the floor behind him.
He slowly, stiffly turned his head around.
The maid stood in the doorway—the door he had, it turned out, not fully closed—holding a lunch tray, completely motionless. Her eyes were very wide. They were pointed directly down at Robert's exposed lower half. Robert, paralyzed.
He looked down. She looked down.
He looked back up. She kept looking down.
At some point, without appearing to consciously decide to do so, she had raised both hands over her face. She was watching through the gap between her fingers.
A chorus of blood-curdling screams instantly erupted, shattering the peace of the entire estate. The maid screamed. Down below, Rosalina and Bronski shrieked in absolute disgust and fury. But Robert screamed the loudest of all.
"Did I forget to close the door?!" he yelled in a panic.
He frantically tried to pull up his trousers, but the fabric got horribly stuck. He stared at his reflection in horror. This is not my body! Mine was never this big! This isn't normal!
He looked back at the maid, his voice shaking violently. "S-Sorry! Can you just close your eyes properly? And why are you peeking through your fingers?!"
He desperately yanked at the zipper. "I couldn't find the toilet! This was my last resort, I swear!"
With one final, desperate tug, he finally managed to pull his pants up.
Terrified, the maid spun around and bolted out of the room. But she almost crashed into someone else who was charging in.
And inside the room, Ellen, because the pants were still comprehensively stuck and the situation had developed in ways he hadn't anticipated, felt the screaming was justified.
He got them up.
Silence.
He stood very still in the center of the expensive room, breathing steadily, reassessing.
Close the door, he thought. That's the rule. Going forward, in this hotel or any hotel, the door stays closed. That's the lesson. That's what we take from today.
The footsteps started from somewhere down the hall—heavy, fast, and accelerating.
It was Bronski. Covered in mystery fluids and dripping with pure, unadulterated rage, the fourth brother kicked the doors open, his face twisted in a murderous snarl.
His voice, when it came, was low and controlled, which was somehow worse than shouting.
"You dumb dewdropper!" Bronski roared, veins popping on his forehead. "Today, I am going to kill you!"