The classroom's fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as thirty pairs of eyes fixed on me. My small, trembling hands clutched the edges of the wooden podium that rose almost to my chin.

"I'm... I'm Lee Jun-ho," I stammered, my voice barely carrying to the back of the room. "I'm eight years old. I like... reading books."

A snicker rippled through the classroom. In the back row, Park Min-jae, a boy nearly twice my size, made an exaggerated yawning gesture. My homeroom teacher, Mrs. Kim, shot him a stern glance before nodding encouragingly at me.

"Welcome to Seoul Academy, Jun-ho," she said. "You can take that empty seat by the window."

I shuffled to my desk, shoulders hunched, trying to make myself as small as possible. It was a familiar posture—one I'd perfected over many lifetimes.

Yes. Lifetimes.

This wasn't my first life. Or my second. It was my third. And in each one, I'd been cursed with the same frail body, the same weak constitution, the same pitiful fate. A cosmic joke played on me by whatever deity governed reincarnation.

In my first life, I died at seventeen from complications of a congenital heart condition. In my second, I made it to twenty-three before succumbing to pneumonia during a particularly harsh winter.

This third life had started much the same—born premature, constantly ill, always the smallest in class. The doctors gave my parents the same sympathetic looks, prescribed the same ineffective medications. But something was different this time.

The dreams.

They had started on my eighth birthday, three weeks ago. Dreams of endless darkness where shadows moved with purpose. Dreams where I stood atop a mountain of bones, commanding an army of the dead. Dreams where I was not weak, but terrifyingly strong.

I had woken from the most recent dream this morning with a strange, tingling sensation in my fingertips. When I'd reached for my glass of water, the shadows beneath my bed had... twitched.

"Lee Jun-ho!" Mrs. Kim's voice snapped me back to the present. "Please pay attention. We're reviewing multiplication tables."

"Sorry," I mumbled, opening my textbook to the correct page.

The morning crawled by. When the lunch bell finally rang, I stayed in my seat while the other children rushed to the cafeteria. I'd brought a sandwich from home—easier than navigating the chaotic lunchroom where I'd inevitably be shoved aside by bigger kids.

As I unwrapped my lunch, a shadow fell across my desk.

"Hey, new kid." Park Min-jae loomed over me, flanked by two other boys. "That looks good. I'm still hungry."

He reached for my sandwich. Without thinking, I grabbed his wrist.

His eyes widened in surprise, then narrowed. "You've got some nerve for such a runt."

I should have been terrified. Should have surrendered my lunch and apologized. That's what the old Jun-ho would have done.

Instead, I felt something cold and electric pulsing through my veins. The classroom seemed to dim slightly, the shadows in the corners deepening, stretching toward us like curious fingers.

"Leave me alone," I said, my voice lower, steadier than I'd ever heard it.

Min-jae tried to pull his arm away, but my grip remained firm. Confusion flickered across his face, followed by the first traces of fear.

"What the—" he began, then gasped.

A thin tendril of darkness had wrapped itself around his wrist, just below where my fingers held him. It wasn't quite solid, more like concentrated shadow, but it was undeniably there.

I released him, as startled as he was. The shadow tendril dissipated instantly.

Min-jae stumbled backward. "What did you just do?"

"I don't... I don't know," I answered honestly.

He looked at his friends, who appeared equally shaken. "You're a freak," he spat, but there was no conviction in it—just fear. The three boys retreated quickly, glancing back at me from the doorway as if I might pursue them.

I stared at my hands. They looked normal now, just small, pale hands belonging to a sickly eight-year-old. But I had felt it—that surge of power, the shadows responding to my will. It hadn't been just a dream.

The rest of the day passed in a blur. I couldn't focus on lessons, my mind racing with possibilities. When the final bell rang, I packed my bag slowly, waiting for the classroom to empty before making my way home. I needed space to think, to process what had happened.

The schoolyard was nearly deserted as I crossed it. Only a few older students lingered by the gates, paying me no attention. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the pavement.

Shadows. They seemed different now—deeper, more substantial. As I walked, I noticed how they seemed to lean slightly toward me, like plants bending toward sunlight.

I took a detour through the small park near my apartment building. Finding a secluded bench surrounded by trees, I sat down and stared at the ground, at the dappled shadows cast by leaves overhead.

"Come to me," I whispered, extending my hand.

Nothing happened.

I closed my eyes, remembering how it had felt when I'd grabbed Min-jae's wrist—that cold electricity, that sense of darkness waiting to be shaped.

"Arise," I said, the word coming from some deep, instinctual place.

When I opened my eyes, the shadows around me had darkened and congealed. One shadow, roughly the size and shape of a small dog, had detached itself from the ground and now hovered before me, three-dimensional and semi-solid.

My heart raced, not with fear but with exhilaration. The shadow-creature had no discernible features, just a vaguely canine shape comprised of swirling darkness. Yet somehow, I could feel its loyalty, its eagerness to serve.

"Go," I directed, pointing to a nearby tree.

The shadow-creature moved instantly, gliding silently across the ground and circling the tree once before returning to my side.

A laugh escaped me—not the timid sound I usually made, but something deeper, more confident. For the first time in this life—in any of my lives—I felt powerful.

The shadow-creature dissipated when I stood up, returning to its natural state as an ordinary shadow. But I knew I could call it back whenever I wanted. This was just the beginning.

As I walked home, my mind raced with questions. Why now, in this third life? Was it because I'd died twice before? Was there something special about reaching the age of eight? Or was it simply random chance—a cosmic lottery I'd finally won?

I didn't have answers yet, but I knew one thing with absolute certainty: I would never be weak again. Whatever this power was—this ability to command shadows—it would change everything.

My parents greeted me at the door with their usual worried expressions.

"How was your first day, Jun-ho?" my mother asked, feeling my forehead automatically for signs of fever.

"Fine," I replied, gently moving her hand away. "Actually, it was good. I feel stronger today."

My parents exchanged glances—hopeful but cautious. They'd heard similar declarations before, followed inevitably by late-night hospital visits and new medications.

"That's wonderful," my father said. "But remember to take it easy. No overexerting yourself."

I nodded obediently, hiding a smile. If only they knew what I could do now. What I would soon be able to do.

That night, I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, too excited to sleep. The shadows in my room seemed alive now, pulsing gently in rhythm with my heartbeat. I raised my hand slightly, and they responded, coalescing into various shapes above me—first a sphere, then a cube, then a rough approximation of a human hand.

My control was imprecise, but I could feel myself improving with each attempt. The power was like a muscle I'd never used before, growing stronger with exercise.

I thought about Min-jae and the other bullies at school. I could terrify them if I wanted to. Make them regret every snide comment, every push in the hallway. The thought was tempting—intoxicatingly so.

But no. That would draw too much attention. I needed to be smarter than that.

This power was too precious to waste on petty revenge. I sensed it had far greater potential than schoolyard intimidation. My dreams—those visions of commanding armies of shadows—suggested a scale of power I could barely comprehend.

I would need to learn. To practice in secret. To understand the full extent of what I could do.

As I finally drifted toward sleep, a memory from one of my dreams surfaced—a title, spoken with reverence and fear by shadowy figures bowing before me:

*Shadow Monarch.*

Was that what I was becoming? Or was it what I had always been meant to be?

Tomorrow, I would begin finding out. Tomorrow, I would take the first step on a path no one in this world had walked before.

Tomorrow, Lee Jun-ho—the weak, sickly boy who had died twice before—would truly begin to live.