Pain. That was the first thing he felt.
A raw, searing agony unlike anything he had ever known coursed through his tiny, underdeveloped body. His lungs burned as they struggled to take in air, his limbs trembled, and his mind—his mind was an ocean of chaos, memories not meant for a newborn flooding his consciousness all at once.
He remembered.
He remembered walking home from work, the cold night air biting at his skin. He had been thinking about his tarot readings, contemplating how The Tower had appeared in his last spread—a symbol of destruction, of sudden upheaval. Ironic, considering how his life had ended moments later when blinding headlights filled his vision, followed by the sickening crunch of bones and the rush of weightlessness before oblivion took him.
And now, he was here.
His name, the one he once carried, was gone. In its place, a new identity settled within him like a whispered truth in the dark.
Acnologia Gaunt.
Born too soon, five months too early, torn from his mother's womb in a violent storm of magic and madness. He could feel it within him—the cold, insidious presence of his father's legacy, a fragment of Lord Voldemort himself sealed within his soul, whispering dark truths into his mind. His mother, Terry Ives, had been exposed to forces beyond comprehension—hallucinogenic drugs, eldritch experiments—altering the very fabric of his being before he had even taken his first breath.
And then, it happened.
A scream—a pulse of wild, uncontrolled power. A portal ripped open before him, crackling with dark energy. His tiny body was pulled into the abyss, swallowed whole by a dimension where reality twisted and nightmares walked.
The Upside Down
The world beyond the veil was a land of eternal decay, a mirror of the real world bathed in darkness. The sky loomed overhead, cracked and filled with distant, swirling storms. The air was thick with rot, and the shadows moved, watching.
For days, weeks—perhaps months—Acnologia drifted in and out of consciousness, his body frail but his mind refusing to break. His memories of his past life anchored him, whispering to him that he had lived before, that he had been more than this fragile, forsaken child.
Time moved strangely here. He grew, yet he did not. He learned, yet he remained the same.
The creatures came first. The Demogorgons, snarling beasts of raw hunger, circling his tiny form as if deciding whether he was prey. But something held them back. Something about him made them hesitate.
And then, he commanded them to stop.
He didn't know how, only that he could. His mind reached out, his will imposed itself upon them like an invisible chain. The creatures recoiled, their screeches filled with something he could only describe as recognition. He was different. He was not prey.
His abilities grew. At first, it was small—shadows bending in his presence, the whispers of the void answering his silent questions. Then, it became more. His telekinesis allowed him to shape the decayed remnants of the world into crude shelter. His psionic influence bent the creatures to his will, commanding them like a dark shepherd leading his flock. His dimensional awareness expanded, allowing him to sense the rifts, the thin places where the Upside Down bled into the real world.
He was alone, yet he was not. The shadows became his allies. The crows—black, ethereal, born from his own power—became his messengers, his eyes in the dark.
Time passed. He grew stronger, more attuned to the power within him. He was no longer just a lost child in the dark. He was something more, something the Upside Down itself feared to challenge.
And then, one day, the portal appeared again.
A way out.
Acnologia Gaunt stepped forward, his eyes glowing with power, and walked through—back into a world that had long forgotten him.
He had returned.