WARNING This is not a story about redemption. It is a tale of a man's slow descent into madness. A journey where every attempt at salvation only sinks him further into despair, and where the very people he seeks to protect may be the ones who destroy him.

Arius Volkris woke not with the sharpness of a blade through his heart, nor the cold bite of death's embrace, but with a jarring stillness. The kind that presses against your skin like a weighted blanket, the air thick and suffocating. He could feel it before his eyes fluttered open—the taste of ash and iron still lingering on the back of his throat. His breath was shallow, like it had been drawn through the ragged remnants of a life already consumed.

But it wasn't supposed to be like this.

He tried to move. His fingers twitched, then clenched. The smooth, familiar sensation of cold steel was missing. His right hand, once a master of the sword, felt strange and unburdened. His body didn't ache, didn't feel the weight of age or the cruel wear of endless battles.

Arius opened his eyes.

The world was wrong. Not in the way that it was broken—ruined, blood-stained, and shattered by the great war he had fought in—but in a far more unsettling manner. A cruel irony to the situation seeped into his consciousness like a slow-moving poison.

The sky was too blue.

He blinked, unsure of what he expected to see. His last memory was that of a battlefield, stretching to the horizon with bodies strewn across the land, like lifeless husks in the wake of the storm. He had felt the heat of battle—the sweat, the blood, the stench of death—as if he was drowning in it. The cries of the dying had been the last thing he heard before his own breath had faltered, stolen away by betrayal.

But here?

Here, everything was wrong. The sky was a violent shade of blue—too alive, too vibrant, as though mocking him. He could feel the sharp scent of earth, the kind that comes after a thunderstorm, mixed with the crispness of a morning wind. A morning wind that carried with it no trace of war, no hint of decay.

He sat up slowly, cautiously, as if afraid that the very act of moving might snap the thin thread that held this strange reality together. His fingers brushed the soft grass beneath him, then his face—smooth, unmarred by the scars of battle or the weight of time. His skin was… young. Too young. He ran his hands over his features, the same features he had worn ten years ago.

No.

Impossible.

He had died. He knew he had died.

The betrayal—the treachery by his own comrades. The final battle. The last breath taken as the light drained from his body. The screams of his soldiers, the ones who had followed him, who had believed in him, now nothing but distant echoes of a life that had ended in failure. His failure.

His gaze snapped around, searching for the telltale signs of death—the twisted bodies of men, the broken weapons, the charred earth. But there was nothing. Nothing but rolling hills, stretching far beyond what his eyes could see, the land as fresh and untouched as it had been when he was a boy.

In the distance, he could see the towering structure of the city of Narathos—the seat of his power, the kingdom he had been so proud to command, now so far from his reach. It was a sight he had seen countless times before, in his first life. But this time… this time it was different.

It was not yet the ruin he had watched burn in his final days. It was not yet the hollow shell of a kingdom torn apart by war.

It was alive.

A peaceful morning. The sun had barely risen, and the streets of Narathos were still calm, still asleep. Arius's heartbeat quickened as the weight of the situation settled over him. This… this could not be happening. He had failed. The kingdom had failed. His people had failed. There was no return from the abyss that had consumed his soul. And yet…

Here he was.

Arius staggered to his feet, his legs weak beneath him, the confusion in his chest growing heavier. His breath came in shallow, rapid gasps, the steady rhythm of his pulse at odds with the storm of questions raging inside his mind.

What was happening? How was he here? What madness had cursed him to return to this moment?

He had been a man of war, of conquest, driven by ambition. He had risen to the height of power, only to see it all come crashing down in the end. He had been a fool—believing that by wielding a sword, by fighting wars and wearing a crown, he could protect the things that mattered. He had been betrayed by those closest to him, stabbed in the back, his life extinguished by the very hands of his trusted comrades.

Arius pressed a hand to his temple, trying to steady his thoughts, but his mind felt as though it was unraveling. How? Why?

There was no answer. No rational explanation for this insanity. His memories—the memories of his past life—tugged at him, and yet he could not escape them. His own failure. His mistakes. The faces of the fallen—his comrades, his soldiers, his family—flashed before him like the cruelest of specters, silently accusing him, condemning him for his weakness.

"Why am I here?" he muttered under his breath, the words a prayer to no one.

The silence that followed his question was deafening. The world around him remained still, as though it had been suspended in time, waiting for something to break the tension. Arius took a step forward, then another, his feet unsteady on the familiar soil beneath him. His eyes scanned the land around him, desperate for some sign, some indication of what was to come.

But there was nothing.

Only the innocent calm of a world untouched by the devastation that had once consumed it.

A gust of wind blew through the tall grass, and with it came the distant sound of laughter. He froze. His heart stopped, then raced, as the voices grew closer. He knew those voices. He knew them all too well.

The laughter. The warmth of it. The familiarity.

Children.

Arius's eyes widened in horror as he turned to see a group of children running through the fields. Their faces were innocent, unscarred by the horrors of war. They ran barefoot, laughing, their carefree smiles utterly foreign to the man he had become. They were so full of life, so full of hope—hope that he had long since abandoned.

One of the children, a young girl with dark hair, caught sight of him. Her eyes widened in surprise, but there was no fear, no recognition. She didn't know him. To her, he was just another stranger in a peaceful world. She waved, her voice carrying over the wind.

"Good morning, mister!" she called cheerfully. "Are you lost?"

Arius's throat tightened, and for a moment, he couldn't speak. His mouth was dry, his body paralyzed with a strange mixture of rage and grief.

"Lost?" he whispered, his voice hoarse.

He wasn't lost.

He was broken.

He was a man who had failed his kingdom, his people, his very soul—and yet here he was, in this idyllic world that shouldn't exist. This world that shouldn't matter.

A world that would eventually be destroyed.

Without a word, Arius turned away, his fists clenched at his sides. The laughter of the children echoed in his ears as he began to walk, step by painful step, toward the distant city. His eyes never wavered from the horizon, his heart a stone in his chest.

The war had never truly ended.

The betrayal had never truly been avenged.

His kingdom was still doomed, and so was he. The sins of his past would forever be his chains.

And this second chance, this twisted curse, would only drag him deeper into the abyss.

To be continued...

Reflection:

This long opening chapter introduces Arius Volkris to his second chance at life, but it's anything but a hopeful resurrection. He's thrown back into a world that's just on the verge of its fall, where he knows every detail of its collapse but feels utterly powerless to stop it. The key theme here is the crushing weight of fate and the existential despair that comes with knowing you can never truly change the past.