My name was Ethan Marlow. Before everything changed, I was a theoretical physicist obsessed with the quest to understand the threads that compose the universe. My life was dedicated to the laboratory, where I delved into the mysteries of reality. But all my intelligence and passion couldn't save my heart from loneliness.
While manipulating equations and attempting to unravel the secrets of the strings, it was I who seemed entangled, isolated in my own world. Excluded by everyone, even by my own family, except for one person: Elena, my childhood best friend, and later, my wife.
She was the only one who saw me beyond the surface, who believed in me, but even that didn't last. I discovered she was betraying me with my own boss. Her words cut deeper than any blade: "You've always been a weakling, Ethan, someone I could take advantage of. A convenient toy."
The divorce shattered my heart. I descended into a deep depression, lost in the darkness of my own bitter musings. My passions, my dreams, everything seemed empty and meaningless.
Until one day, while conducting yet another experiment, everything collapsed. An explosion, reality trembling, and I found myself torn between dimensions. My essence felt stretched to its limits, and then... nothing.
And then, like a rebirth, I opened my eyes to a new reality. There was no more lab, equations, or pain. There was only light and two faces smiling at me. It took me a moment to realize, but they were my parents. Parents I had never known. I was a baby, a newborn.
My mother's gentle voice echoed in my ears, "Welcome to the world, Valdorin."
My eyes opened wider, and the name echoed in my mind. Valdorin. A name I had never heard before. And then memories of Ethan, of loneliness and betrayal, flooded my consciousness.
But these memories were different now. I still carried the pain, but also a connection to something deeper. The strings I had studied so intensely in my previous life now seemed to be present in my very essence.
I looked at the smiling faces of my parents, feeling a mixture of emotions. This was a new beginning, an opportunity to explore the mysteries I had once only known theoretically. I was no longer Ethan Marlow, but Valdorin, a being destined to unravel the threads of the universe in a way I could have never imagined.
This is just the beginning of my journey, a journey of discovery, power, and redemption in the threads of the universe.