The world was a blur when I first opened my eyes. It wasn't like waking up from a long sleep—it was more like being thrust into existence, like a spark igniting in the darkness. I could feel my tiny fingers, my small chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. But it wasn't until I heard the muffled voices that the reality of it all truly hit me.
"Look at him, he's perfect."
"He has Scott's eyes, don't you think?"
"It's a miracle, truly. After everything…"
The voices were distant, like I was hearing them through water. But even though my body was new, there was something about those words that tugged at me. They felt familiar, like I had heard them before. Hadn't I?
I tried to focus, to make sense of it all, but the world was still hazy, my newborn senses not yet attuned to the flood of information surrounding me. The warmth of the room, the soft rustling of sheets, the smell of antiseptic mixed with something faintly floral. I knew nothing about where I was, but everything felt so… right.
A shadow loomed over me, blocking the faint light streaming through the window. The voice that followed was warm, filled with emotion I couldn't fully understand.
"He's going to be just fine."
A hand gently cupped my head, and a face appeared in my line of sight. Dark brown eyes stared back at me with concern, and a smile tugged at the edges of his lips. He looked… familiar. More than familiar. This man—he was important. But why?
My head was swimming with half-formed memories and emotions, each one slipping away before I could grasp it. The sensation was disorienting, like trying to hold water in my hands. But I couldn't help the overwhelming sense that this world, these people, and everything around me was something I had lived through before—or at least, something I was supposed to.
The man's voice broke through the fog of my thoughts. "I'm going to call him Ethan."
Ethan. The name clung to my mind like an anchor. It was my name. It had to be. But that wasn't all—there was something else, something deeper. I was Ethan, but there was more. The feeling gnawed at the edge of my consciousness, something I couldn't fully reach. I wanted to know, needed to know, but the answers refused to come.
As days passed and the fog of my newborn existence began to lift, I started to take in more of the world around me. I had a mother and a father. A brother. The boy who seemed to stand out more than anyone. His name was Scott, and it didn't take long for me to realize that he was my twin. My other half.
The strange, unshakeable feeling that I wasn't entirely of this world began to grow. There was an odd sense of déjà vu whenever I looked at Scott—like I had seen him before, somewhere. It was like an echo of a life I had lived long ago, one that was now slipping through my fingers, but so painfully close to my grasp.
We grew up side by side, as any twins would. But there were moments when I felt like I was living two lives. Scott was my brother, yes, but somehow, the bond felt deeper than that. He was my anchor, my connection to this new world, even if he didn't know it. He was the one person who didn't make me feel like an outsider.
"Ethan!" Scott shouted from across the room, snapping me from my reverie. He was holding up a soccer ball, grinning ear to ear. "Come on! Let's go outside and play!"
I smiled, feeling that familiar warmth spread through me. This was good. This was normal. For a brief moment, I allowed myself to be present, to just be the older twin—if only by a few minutes—and run outside to join Scott.
But even as I kicked the ball back to him, my mind wandered. I didn't remember the game we were playing. Not exactly, anyway. The names and faces of the people I knew felt distant and incomplete. I could see them, hear them, but the memories themselves were like wisps of smoke, vanishing the moment I tried to grasp them.
"What's up with you, Ethan? You're acting like you've never played soccer before." Scott's voice was teasing, but there was an edge of concern in his tone. He kicked the ball toward me again, but I was too distracted to catch it.
"I'm fine," I said quickly, recovering the ball and tossing it back to him. "Just… tired."
He raised an eyebrow. "Tired? We've only been out here for five minutes."
"I didn't sleep well," I said, brushing it off, though the truth was, I hadn't slept much at all. The strange dreams were growing more vivid, and with each one, I was left with an even stronger sense that I was not just Ethan McCall. I was someone else. Someone who had lived before, someone who had been… connected to something bigger. But what? And why couldn't I remember more?
The answer was just out of reach, like the fleeting memories of another life, but I couldn't help but sense that everything was leading up to something. Something I wasn't fully prepared for.
That evening, as the sun began to set and the sky turned a brilliant shade of orange, I found myself staring at my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I hadn't noticed it before, but there it was—a small scar on my wrist. It wasn't from anything in this life. It was too clean, too precise. I traced my fingers over it, the sensation of deja vu washing over me.
I was so lost in my thoughts that I didn't hear my mother approach until she gently touched my shoulder.
"Ethan?" she said softly. "Are you okay, sweetie?"
I turned to her, my mind still racing. "Yeah, just… just thinking."
Her smile was warm, though it didn't fully reach her eyes. She seemed worried, though I couldn't understand why. "Well, try not to think too much. You've had a long day."
I nodded and gave her a faint smile before heading to my room, my mind still churning with unanswered questions.
I had been given a second chance—a new life as Scott McCall's twin. But why did it feel like I wasn't truly alive here? Why did everything feel like a memory of something that had already happened?
I didn't know yet, but I would. I had to. Because in this strange, new life, I knew one thing for certain: something big was coming, and I was somehow a part of it.