Kellan tried to look around, but the fragility of his neck stopped him, limiting his movement to a meager 180 degrees at most.
He winced. What in the world had happened? All he had been doing was scavenging for extra rations in the abandoned museum—a granola bar, maybe. A fruit cup would have been a jackpot. Now, he was a helpless infant, unable to do much of anything.
The woman picked him up with surprising ease, cradling him as if she'd done this a thousand times before. She froze for a moment, her nose wrinkling, before turning her head sharply. "Oh! I need to change your diaper."
Kellan's entire being cringed. If the ground could have swallowed him whole, he would have welcomed it. Once, he had been a grown man, traversing the ruins of a fallen world in search of hope. Now? He had become nothing more than a glorified poop dispenser.
How embarrassing, he thought, the words echoing in his mind like a cruel taunt. He couldn't decide what was worse: the indignity of his current state or the fact that he could do absolutely nothing to change it.
The woman carried him over to a makeshift changing station, humming a light tune under her breath. Her casual demeanor only made it worse. For her, this was just another routine task. For Kellan, it was a new low in a string of humiliations.
He turned his gaze away, or at least as far as his limited range would allow, trying to block out the reality of what was happening. Instead, his mind drifted back to the museum, to the artifact he had touched in desperation. He had thought it might hold answers or power—anything to give him an edge in this bleak world. Instead, it had cursed him, trapping him in this ridiculous form.
"There we go, all clean," the woman said cheerfully, snapping him back to the present. She lifted him up again, holding him close. "You're a cute little guy, you know that?"
Kill me now, Kellan thought bitterly. He wanted to scream, to tell her that he wasn't some adorable baby but a full-grown man trapped in this nightmare. But all that came out was a soft, pathetic coo.
The woman's smile widened. "Aww, you're sweet. Don't worry, little one. I'll take good care of you."
Kellan's internal monologue turned into a string of curses. He didn't need to be taken care of. He needed to fix this. He needed to find a way back to his real body before he lost what little dignity he had left. But for now, all he could do was endure—and plot his next move, however impossible it seemed.
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"Kellan, where are you?" Ayana's voice echoed through the house as she paced back and forth, her tone somewhere between worry and exasperation. "Where did he go? I've checked everywhere. Unless he's..."
Her steps quickened, and she headed toward the home library. Sure enough, there he was—his tiny, fragile body barely noticeable beneath the open book he was desperately trying to read.
"There you are!" Ayana scooped him up like he was a rogue puppy caught chewing a shoe.
Kellan wanted to protest, really, really wanted to, but what could he do? His body—a glorified potato with limbs—refused to cooperate. All he could muster was a sigh, which, to his horror, escaped his lips as a soft coo.
Great. Just great.
As Ayana carried him away, Kellan mulled over his predicament. Being reborn—or whatever this was—had taught him a few startling truths. First, magic existed in this timeline. Real, honest-to-God magic. He'd seen Ayana conjure a light with a flick of her wrist just the other day. It was like watching Harry Potter come to life—only instead of being impressed, Kellan was mostly annoyed. Where was this when he'd needed it back in the real world?
Second, his older brother didn't exist here. That particular detail gnawed at him. He wasn't close with his brother before all this, but his absence made everything feel... wrong, like a puzzle missing a crucial piece.
And then there was The Wretched.
Kellan shook his infant head, which only made him feel dizzy. The Wretched... The very name sent chills through him. Cursed beings, born from humanity's insatiable greed for artifacts. These artifacts weren't just ancient trinkets—they were everything. Energy sources, medical breakthroughs, weapons, even tools for modifying the human body. Humanity had breached every moral and ethical boundary in its hunger for power, and The Wretched were, apparently, divine punishment for their hubris.
They had come from the ground one day, without warning, and they didn't discriminate. They tore through society, faster and stronger than anything humanity had ever encountered. Kellan had survived the apocalypse through sheer luck, scavenging and hiding while everyone else fell.
He didn't know why he'd been spared when so many others hadn't. Sometimes, the guilt felt heavier than his memories of the world that had been.
"Stop squirming," Ayana said, adjusting her grip on him.
Oh, sure, Kellan thought, let me just relax while you haul me around like a bag of groceries. This is my life now.