Not Alone

Wes felt tired and warm—so warm that it was hard to stay awake. His mind wandered, and he gave a mental yawn before letting himself drift back into slumber.

An unknown span of time passed before he stirred again, still cradled by that same, comforting heat. It was strange—he could physically feel the warmth all around him, yet everything else seemed distant, almost nonexistent. He tried to flex his arms, his legs… anything, but a deep fatigue clung to him.

"Damn it," he thought, frustration bubbling up. He wanted to move, to understand, to do something. Anything. But his body was weak, barely responding. The only thing he could rely on was his soul.

Running from that cursed sphere had taught him a thing or two. If he couldn't act physically, then he'd act spiritually. He blocked off a section of his soul—not leaving his body, but enough to stop being affected by the overwhelming tiredness.

He focused, peeling a sliver of his consciousness away, just enough to observe. The world around him remained dark, but not empty. The warmth wrapped around him like a blanket, and a steady, rhythmic thrum echoed in the background—a heartbeat, though not his own. The space pulsed gently, filled with a soothing, liquid embrace. He felt cradled, protected, and more than a little confused.

"Wow," he thought in awe, "when they said new life, they really meant it."

Somehow, impossibly, he was getting a second chance at existence. He was a baby—an unborn baby—nestled safely within a womb.

Wes didn't know whether to laugh or cry. His life had always been odd, but this turn felt beyond surreal. "There's no possible way this could get worse," he told himself.

Then he heard it: laughter. A low, eccentric laugh that sent an uncomfortable shiver through his fragile soul. It was the laugh of the man who had sent him to the void.

"What the hell…" Memories began to trickle in, the pieces falling into place.

He recalled his last moments—the sphere, the halfling's mana ideal. It had struck him, and then the sphere…

Mana had a fingerprint, a signature, and he'd recognized it. Before he died, the halfling had used her mana to clear his throat of blood.

Then, the sphere had struck him, piercing his soul, and he'd let his soul get pulled into that black seed.

He'd heard that same laughter in the void when the sphere had first appeared, but he'd brushed it off as a hallucination—a dying mind's cruel trick. But now, as he looked inward, scanning his soul and his body, he saw it. The seed, nestled deep within his soul, and the laughter… it was coming from there.

"No… what's going on?" Wes thought, his mind racing.

A voice answered, light and almost cheerful, as if discussing the weather. "Hey, kid! Good news—you get a guide! And I volunteered since, you know, we're such good friends!"

"Friends?" Wes bristled. "I don't even know you!"

A deep yawn echoed in his mind, lazy and unconcerned. "Well, that's not very friendly of you. Look, here's the deal—your body's kinda fragile right now. I mean, I'd be more worried if it wasn't, considering you're, what, eight weeks old? Anyway, I don't think it's ready for a second soul to be operating along with this nifty void seed, so we're just gonna snooze for a bit. Catch you in a decade or two."

"What are you talking about, you crazy bastard!?" Wes's soul flared with frustration, but the only response was a soft snore, followed by a silence so complete it was maddening.

"Dammit," Wes thought, his exasperation settling in as a dull ache. "Just my luck…"

And then Wes noticed he wasn't alone. His soul's perception, still hazy and dreamlike, reached out and brushed against something… someone else. A presence. Small, warm, and rhythmic, echoing the same comforting heartbeat that surrounded him.

"What the—" Wes's thoughts stumbled. He focused, sending a cautious tendril of his awareness toward the other presence. It was similar to him—fragile, developing, but undeniably alive.

"Oh, hell," he muttered internally. "I'm not alone… I'm a twin!"

The realization rippled through his mind. There was another life here, sharing this strange, warm world with him. He didn't know how or why, but the truth was undeniable. His twin's presence was quiet, barely more than a soft pulse of life, but it was real.

He wanted to laugh, but his exhaustion ran too deep. Instead, he let out a mental sigh. "Great. Just my luck. I bet you get the normal baby experience, and I get… whatever this is."

With nothing else to do remove the block in his soul, Wes let the warmth pull him back under, his mind a swirl of half-formed thoughts and an unsettling feeling that this new beginning was just the start of something even stranger.