Resonance.

Darkness. Uninterrupted, solid, pitch-black darkness. 

Unlike the previous time however, Kair did not have an ethereal body. No, it was just his consciousness this time around. 

Suddenly, a bright flash of light engulfed him, causing him to clamp his eyelids shut. 

'Oh, I have eyes.' 

Without pause nor warning, Kair's consciousness was forcefully thrust forward. The light still blinding him, it took his eyes a moment to readjust to the scene around him. 

When they finally did however, he felt like someone had doused him in ice-cold water. 

A car speeding towards him, a drugged out driver piloting it. Pedestrians, eyes wide in terror, staring at him. At last, he glanced down to find his own body, in the exact same position he remembered being at the time of the accident. 

However, this time was different. Unlike being frozen like he was originally, Kair wasn't shackled by his body's inability to move. Rather this time, it was as if Kair was both inside his physical body and at the same time, wasn't. 

It felt surreal, but also harrowing. 

Being in your own body, yet being wholly incapable of moving or doing anything other than observing really served well to mess with one's senses. 

Not noticing that time had been paused, it suddenly lurched forward, not allowing Kair even a minute of rest before he was rammed by the car. 

Truthfully speaking, he had gotten quite lucky at the time of the accident. Since his brain had died prematurely, Kair had been able to escape the pain and torment that one would have felt after being struck by a car roughly 2 metric tons in weight. Going a step further, he could avoid the feeling of having his entire body be disfigured, dismembered and lit aflame. 

As if the universe were playing a joke on him though, this time he didn't get to bask in the luxury of escaping torture. 

Instead of being greeted by the arrival of nothing, the scene continued on without any signs of stopping. 

And, the moment it crossed the mark where Kair should've died, his 'eyes' widened as realization blasted his mind. 

BOOM! 

The car rammed into him and for a moment, Kair felt nothing. The feeling of having his entire body bent out of shape sent shivers coursing through him. 

Then, a violent tidal wave of agony suddenly rampaged through his whole body. 

Kair tried to scream, his entire body being wracked by unimaginable levels of pain. The feeling of his spine piercing his back, his face ramming into the car's hood, his foot being sliced off...

Kair's mind was going haywire. He didn't know how he was experiencing these things, nor did he know why. Right now though, he didn't have the capacity to pay heed to any of those things. 

His body was being dominated by the feeling of indescribable levels of agony which coursed through him, wreaking havoc everywhere they went. 

He didn't even realize what happened next as his body was rammed between a concrete wall and the car, crushing and mutilating him even further. Not expecting the pain to get any worse was his biggest mistake. 

Feeling his hips and legs be wholly crushed by the impact was a disgusting feeling in itself, and the pain that came after seemed to have made it its mission to mentally scar Kair for life. 

Through the sheen of red came another wave of terror; the car catching on fire. The flames, exploding in his face. Then, slowly, burning and charring his entire body, letting it go up in a cloud of ash as his bones were the last thing to remain. After the final act was complete, Kair's vision finally went black, allowing him to pass out. 

His consciousness' state was still a mess, the harrowing experience firmly rooting itself in his mind. 

It had to be remembered that though Kair had seen what happened to his body right after his death, he hadn't experienced it. Sure, seeing one's own body bein mutilated wasn't exactly a pleasant sight, but it was nowhere nearly as bad as being subjected to the pain one's body would have felt had the person not died. 

This time, he felt all of it. 

---

"AHHH!"

A scream resounded, followed heavy panting and rustling of bedsheets as Kair opened his eyes and sat up straight. 

His eyes were wide, blood-shot as his body continued to tremble from him reliving his death. 

His brain was currently a jumbled mess, thoughts whirring and zipping through it a hurricane was currently rampaging through it.

Thud! 

The door to the room finally opened, and in burst a nurse. 

"Hey! What's wrong?!" She asked, her rapid breathing indicating her urgency as she quickly approached Kair. 

Kair, both his hands in his hair as they tightly gripped his head, tried to calm down for a moment. 

The nurse, not receiving an answer, immediately looked at the displays lining the walls next to Kair to check is vitals. 

'Elevated heart rate. Profuse sweating. Mana state incalculable.' 

Confusion stirred in her mind. 

'Mana sate incalculable? Never seen that before...' 

She turned to the desk next to her and grabbed a syringe which was filled with light green liquid, emitting a soft glow as she uncapped it, revealing the needle. Turning back around to Kair she forcefully grabbed him, bending him forward for him to reveal his nape.

Once she had successfully removed the strands of hair she plunged the syringe in with incredible precision, piercing the vein and injecting the liquid inside. 

Almost immediately, Kair's vitals started falling back down, his heart rate reducing as his pores slowly closed. However, weirdly enough, his mana was still incalculable. Kair slumped backward, falling onto the pillow as the nurse draped the disheveled blanket back over him. 

Making a mental note to complain to the hospital for not having the malfunctioning equipment replaced, she turned back around as she walked back out the room, softly closing the door behind her with a click. 

'I'll check up on him in a couple of hours. Probably trauma from the Nox attack.' 

Amanda reached into the back pocket of her jeans, pulling out a tiny device. Channeling her mana into it, a holographic display only visible to her appeared on front of her eyes. 

Navigating to the recent patients admitted after the Nox attack, she quickly found Kair's file. Her brows scrunched up slightly at the peculiar name. 

'Kair Rivia? What a weird name.' 

Scrolling down, her confusion deepened. No information about the patient. Medical records, admission records, nothing. Hell, he didn't even have parents! 

After reading for a moment though, her confusion waned slightly. He had been attacked in the Beast Domain, his belongings reportedly snatched up by whatever creature had decided to terrorize him. 

To further prove his story, he had brought with him what seemed like a baby eagle. A Starry Eagle, to be exact. Her brows rose in surprise. 

'Starry Eagle, huh? Those birds usually are really hard to spot, even more so to capture or communicate with. How did he find one, a little nestling, at that?' 

Pushing those thoughts with a tinge of envy aside, she stowed the device away. Immediately entering another room, she presented her beautiful smile to the patient needing attendance. 

---

Back inside the confines of his mind, Kair's thoughts had calmed down a bit. They had subsided enough for Kair to carefully pick them apart and arrange them in a way that made sense. However, after trying his best to organize everything, he came to the following conclusion:

It didn't make any sense! 

From what he could piece together, he had been reincarnated. Why? Well, after witnessing his gruesome death and his body's mutilation, he was certain that there was no way he was still alive. At least on earth. This was, of course, assuming that the 'memories' were real, which he had no way of proving. 

However, from his experiences in this world, he was creeping even closer to accepting the fact that maybe, just maybe, he had been reincarnated. The concept was baffling and unrealistic, but there was no other explanation. 

The main thing however, that prevented him form fully giving into his giddy delusion, was the fact that the place he had reincarnated into was, in fact, his novel! The mentioning of Cilica City, the Nox attack, and the way Cilica City itself was built vaguely resembled the picture he had had in his mind whilst writing the novel. 

Of course, he hadn't noticed this as he had first seen Cilica City after barely escaping with his life and a baby eagle, but after he had entered the city he was convinced that this was, indeed, eerily similar to his descriptions of the protagonists' home.

Still being on the edge yet a little more accepting of his circumstances, his mind slowly began to accept that his death on earth had occurred, and that he had been thrust into what he assumed to be a world of his own manufacturing.

"I've reincarnated..."

Silence. 

"As fucking if!"

All his work for the past hour was washed away, his mind stubbornly not giving way to the idea that he had been reincarnated, not willing to accept it. 

'You know what, fine! If I can channel mana, I'll give in! If not, I'll jump from a building, or something. If it's a dream, I'll wake up either way.' 

As if striking a deal with his mind, in other words striking a deal with himself, the gateways blocking the idea of having superpowers slowly opened. Just on time, a bright flash of light blinded him. 

'How the hell am I being blinded, aren't I in a dream?' 

Before getting another chance to question literally everything he had experienced so far, vertical curtains opened up, allowing him to see a bland, white ceiling above him. 

'Oh, I opened my eyes.' 

Feeling really dumb, Kair sat up straight, looking around the room for the first time. 

It was a hospital room, and a wave of nostalgia overcame him. The huge holographic displays lining the wall, the small desk with a chair right next to him and the entire room being illuminated by a cool white light seemingly coming from nowhere.. was exactly how he had imagined a medical room looking like in this day and age. 

He pushed himself backward on his bed, solidly leaning against the pillow which was backed up against the wall. Then, Kair closed his eyes, his hands resting on his thighs with his legs crossed over one another.

Before he could delve into a state of meditation however, the same nurse from before burst into the room. A curtain of black, messy hair covered her head with droopy grey eyes that seemed devoid of life, lingering eyebags clearly visible from her hectic schedule. 

A soft white doctor's gown was draped over her, a badge reading 'Amanda' pinned on her left sleeve. 

She looked quite disheveled, but the moment she saw him awake she sighed in relief, putting a hand to her chest. 

"Oh, thank god you're awake." She said letting out a long breath, a tinge of exasperation creeping into her tone. 

"Your mental break a few hours ago gave us quite a scare." She walked over to where Kair was sitting, and extended her hand. 

"I'm Amanda, your assigned nurse. How are you feeling?"