The Darlings.

Aaron' Pov:

My body didn't feel real more like it was suspended, rocking gently in an unseen current. I drifted in that emptiness, weightless yet so impossibly heavy. Then I heard something, The muffled hum of a distant voice pierced the silence, a low tremor that sent unease. It felt close, too close, yet I couldn't place it. My mind felt empty as I tried to turn toward the sound. I couldn't move.

The voice grew sharper, trembling, feminine but distorted. But I was alone, wasn't I? The room should've been empty. I forced my eyelids to lift, only to be greeted by a haze of light and a blurred silhouette. A face? A figure? The effort drained me, and before I could focus, the darkness claimed me again.

In the void, I floated, weightless yet unsteady. The sensation was wrong, nauseating. A faint image burned at the edges of my thoughts the blurry figure. It lingered, unsettling. There was a sound, faint gasps, and then a pang of pain. It didn't hurt—not really—but its presence gnawed at me. My thoughts fractured, circling the image, clawing for clarity.

When I opened my eyes again, the blur sharpened, but not fully. Flickers of red danced in my vision, vivid and jarring a figure with crimson hair. Words spilled from her lips, sharp and hurried, but they were muffled, garbled. My sight adjusted, bit, and then her hand shot out.

The slap landed on my cheek. It snapped my head to the side, but… nothing. No sting, no heat. Just the dull knowledge that it happened. My eyes focused further, drawn to the face glaring back at me. Anger twisted her features no, not just anger. Disgust. Loathing.

It was Ms. Angelica, my homeroom teacher.

Her lips moved again, words laced with venom, but I couldn't hear them. My mind raced what did I do? Why was she so furious? Before I could gather a single thought, her hand clenched in my hair, dragging me upward.

She hurled me like I weighed nothing. Her fist drove into my ribs. The impact was brutal, a force that should have shattered bone.

But still… no pain. I felt nothing.

The absence of it was terrifying. My chest felt hollow, wrong. I tried to speak, to ask her what was happening, but my mouth wouldn't move. My limbs wouldn't respond. She stood over me, seething, a storm barely contained.

Her figure blurred again, dissolving into a haze as the weight of unconsciousness wrapped itself around me. My gaze wavered, unfocused, catching on something in the corner.

A mirror.

The reflection was fractured and incomplete, but I saw it, a bloodied figure staring back. Disheveled hair, skin smeared with crimson streaks, and hollow eyes that didn't quite seem human.

Wait… was that me?

The realization gnawed at the edges of my fading thoughts.

"Ahh," the words slipped from somewhere deep, a quiet, bitter whisper, "I'm totally messed up."

***

Aaron Solarius.

Once, that name was a weight carried with pride—a legacy forged in the fires of strength and honor. Draven's solorius second son, the one destined to uphold the Solarius name. He was meant to protect, to inspire, to be the hope of tomorrow.

But tomorrow had splintered. Shattered. In a single, irreversible moment, Aaron's future was undone.

Whispers spread like wildfire through every corner of the pre-academy. The story twisted with each telling, the truth lost in the cacophony. Aaron—the Aaron—had assaulted a girl. The boy once revered, now reduced to nothing more than a symbol of shame.

The reactions came in waves: some mocked him, some turned away in disgust, others wanted to strike him down, and some simply didn't care. His name, once a banner of pride, was now sullied, a taint on his family's honor.

Instructors scrambled to contain the chaos, their words struggling to quiet the storm. Meanwhile, Aaron was dragged through the hallways, unresisting, and locked behind the cold doors of Ms. Angelica's office. The victim was whisked away, sent to the infirmary, then to therapy. But for those who craved spectacle, they tried to sneak into the office, hoping to capture a moment of his disgrace. But Angelica was swift, her fury catching them before they could act.

Amidst the turmoil, Aaron slept. At least, that's what it looked like. To anyone who dared glance into the office, his face was peaceful, as if he had escaped the storm swirling around him.

***

The darkness held me in its grip, twisted, dense like a thick fog I couldn't escape. Flickers of vision cut through, jagged and disjointed. I reached for them, but they slipped through my fingers like smoke. Pain followed each one, sharp and strange, though I could not understand its source.

Time became irrelevant eternity folded in on itself. It was only after what felt like lifetimes that my thoughts began to coagulate, to take form in the chaos of the visions. There were two lives, two sets of memories crashing against each other. My life. Both of them.

I could remember the past few years of my life with clarity—every detail, every moment. But beyond that, everything was a haze. My past life—what little of it remained—was nothing more than fragmented, tangled memories, slipping through my mind like water through cracks. The pieces were there, I knew they were, but they were just out of reach, scattered and incomplete, like a puzzle that had lost most of its pieces. The weight of it all was suffocating, overwhelming. I couldn't make sense of it.

And then, the realization hit me. It came crashing down, overwhelming, like a wave of emotions too strong to resist. The weight of it pushed against my chest, suffocating.

Memories from my present life collided with something from the past. A book.

A book I had read in my past life. The story from those pages, the words, the imagery most of it aligned with the present I was living now. The book had appeared out of nowhere, drawn me in, and consumed my attention.

If my past life was real, and the contents of that book were about this world... then

The blurry image resurfaced again, but this time, it was sharper and clearer than ever before. The pieces of my fragmented memories seemed to fall into place, and the truth struck me like a jolt.

'Did I assault Susan?'