Then came the pain.
A sharp, searing agony split through her skull as if her very mind was being torn apart. She gasped—or at least, she felt the urge to—but no sound escaped. Memories that weren't hers flooded in, rushing like a violent current through her consciousness.
Towering structures that defied nature, machines that pulsed with eerie blue light, voices speaking in tongues she couldn't comprehend. The images flickered in and out, fleeting yet overwhelming, like glimpses of another life she had never lived.
Then, silence.
The air around her felt thick, charged with something unnatural—an invisible hum, a presence she couldn't place. She tried to move, to sit up, but her body did not respond. Her limbs—once small and frail—were strong, steady, and precise.
And they moved without her will.
Then came the cold.
Not the crisp, playful bite of an autumn breeze rustling through the trees of her family's estate. Not the cool caress of morning dew as she ran through the gardens. No, this cold was suffocating, lifeless—a metal chill that pressed against her back, wrapping around her like a steel coffin.
Her heart pounded.
Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.
She struggled, but her body remained unyielding. Panic flared inside her like wildfire, consuming the last remnants of the dream—or was it a dream? She could feel. She could see.
And what she saw made her breath catch.
Flickering lights, their glow casting eerie patterns across dark metal walls. Rows of symbols—harsh, foreign, unreadable—scrolled across a screen before her, their sharp angles a stark contrast to the delicate script she had spent years mastering with quill and ink. The scent of oil and machinery filled her nose, thick and cloying, so different from the lavender perfumes and fresh-baked bread she was used to.
Something heavy pressed against her shoulders. She tried to raise her arms, but the sensation was foreign, wrong.
These… are not my hands.
Gloved fingers, calloused and firm, curled around twin control sticks, gripping them with confidence and purpose. She could feel the weight of them, the smoothness of the metal against her skin. But she hadn't moved them.
A sharp, suffocating terror clawed its way up her throat.
She was trapped.
Not in a darkened room. Not in a nightmare.
She was trapped in a body that was not hers.
Her own small, delicate frame—the one that had danced across polished ballroom floors, the one that had clutched a doll close to her chest during thunderstorms—was gone. In its place was something foreign, something powerful.
A woman.
A body honed by discipline, muscles taut with strength. A heartbeat steady, unshaken. A presence that did not tremble in fear.
A voice crackled through her ears, sharp and commanding.
"Marshal Aeri! The left flank is collapsing! We need orders now!"
Marshal.
The word sent a shiver through her. A marshal. A leader. Not just any leader, but a woman of rank, a commander of soldiers, a figure in the heart of war.
No, no, no, no…
Her stomach churned. War. War.
She had read about war in books, listened to her father discuss it in hushed voices with other men over brandy and cigar smoke. War was something distant, something fought by men in crimson coats and brass buttons, their cannons booming across faraway fields.
But war was here.
And she—they—were in the middle of it.
The body she inhabited moved without hesitation.
"Deploy the secondary unit to reinforce them. Bring the eastern artillery online. We push forward—no retreat."
The words left her lips—not her lips, Aeri's—with absolute certainty. But inside, the girl screamed.
No! Stop! I don't know how to fight! I don't know how to lead a war!
But she had no voice.
No control.
The machine around her, the monstrous mech, rumbled to life. The ground shook as it took a step forward. On the screen before her, a battlefield unfolded—a nightmarish landscape of fire and ruin.
The fields she once danced in were gone, replaced by crumbling towers and shattered roads. The air was thick with smoke, the sky alight with streaks of plasma fire.
And the giants still moved.
Towering war machines, their steel bodies painted in the colors of different factions, clashed with deadly precision. Some were humanoid, armored like knights of iron, wielding massive rifles that roared with energy blasts. Others skittered across the battlefield, insect-like, their limbs launching barrages of missiles that painted the night in fire.
And she—they—were in the very heart of it.
Tears burned in the little girl's eyes.
She wanted to go home. She wanted her mother. She wanted to wake up in her warm bed, hear the comforting creak of wooden floors, smell the fresh linen of her sheets.
But home was gone.
Wait… home?
How? How did I get here?
Mom…
She reached for the memories, but they were shrouded in an endless fog. And beneath that fog, something stirred.
A whisper of clashing swords. The distant echoes of voices screaming. The sensation of running—feet pounding against the ground, breath hitching in her throat.
But no memory to explain it.
And with each second, the unease inside her grew, gnawing at her mind like a creeping shadow.
She had forgotten something.
Something very important.