Rain lashed against the orphanage window, mirroring the storm inside Chase's tiny room. He gasped, bolting upright in his threadbare bed. His heart hammered against his ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the silence of the sleeping children around him.Pain. A searing, blinding pain. It wasn't a memory, not exactly. More like an echo, a phantom limb throbbing with agony. He clutched his chest, feeling nothing but the thin cotton of his nightshirt.He didn't know why, but he felt wrong. Terribly, fundamentally wrong.Chase was seven years old, an orphan with mousy brown hair and eyes the color of a stormy sea. He'd been at the orphanage as long as he could remember. But tonight, something had shifted. The world felt… different.He remembered… something. A flash of blinding light, a voice like thunder, and then… nothingness. But the memory was fractured, incomplete, like shards of glass reflecting a distorted image.He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to grasp the fleeting images. Power. Immense, terrifying power. And then… a feeling of utter annihilation.He shivered, pulling the thin blanket tighter around himself. He was just a boy, a small, insignificant boy in a world that didn't care. Gods were distant figures, worshipped in grand temples, their influence felt only in the changing seasons and the occasional miracle. They didn't concern themselves with orphans.Did they?The thought, unbidden and terrifying, settled in his mind. He didn't know why, but he felt a connection to that blinding light, to that voice of thunder. A connection that whispered of something far beyond his understanding.He was Chase now. But something inside him, something ancient and powerful, was stirring. And he had a feeling his new life was about to be anything but ordinary. The rain continued to fall, washing the world clean, but the echoes of his past, whatever it was, remained. They clung to him like shadows, promising a future filled with both wonder and unimaginable danger. He just didn't know it yet. He only knew he was awake, and the world felt wrong.