The Stranger in His Own Skin

Lieutenant Darren Cole stood in the hospital corridor, arms crossed, staring at the closed door of Jack's room. His jaw was tight, his mind replaying the incident over and over again.

Jack had been young, but he was steady beyond his years. A damn good firefighter—brave, level-headed, never reckless. The kind of guy you could trust to have your back no matter how bad things got.

But that night had changed everything.

They had gone in together. A two-story apartment, fire raging through the lower floors. The last report said there was a victim still inside. Jack had been the one to find them—a young woman, barely conscious, trapped beneath fallen debris. He had radioed in, voice steady.

"I've got her. Need a hand getting out."

Then everything had gone to hell.

The floor beneath them groaned. Before anyone could reach him, it collapsed, swallowing Jack and the victim in a cascade of fire and rubble.

For a few agonizing seconds, there was nothing but static on the radio. Then a garbled cough. "Still here," Jack had managed, strained but alive.

It took seven minutes to reach him, to uncover him. The longest seven minutes of Darren's life.

Relief had been short-lived.

By the time they reached him, he was down. No pulse. His mask had been removed—his last breath given to the victim.

No hesitation, no second-guessing. They worked as fast as humanly possible to get Jack and the victim out of the inferno. Flames licked at their gear, smoke clawed at their lungs, but they didn't stop.

By the time they were clear, paramedics were already waiting. Chest compressions. Oxygen mask. Defibrillator charging.

Darren barely remembered the ambulance ride, only the suffocating weight in his chest as he watched them fight to bring Jack back. It took six shocks and relentless CPR before they got even the faintest rhythm.

Then came the frantic race to the hospital.

And now, after all that, Jack didn't even know who he was.

Darren exhaled sharply, running a hand over his face.

Dr. Carter had gone over the details earlier. The fact that Jack had survived at all was nothing short of a miracle. Thirty minutes without a pulse—most people wouldn't come back from that. If they did, they wouldn't be the same.

"Memory loss isn't uncommon," Dr. Carter had explained. "But he's coherent, physically capable, and able to form new memories. We'll need to monitor him closely, but overall… this is the best possible outcome."

Best possible outcome?

Jack had run out of the hospital barefoot, convinced they were impostors. He had looked at them like strangers, like enemies.

Darren wasn't sure what scared him more—that Jack had forgotten them, or that something deeper had changed in him.

He sighed, shaking his head.

-----

Jack—no, the Hero—sat in silence, his back against the stiff pillows of the hospital bed, staring at the sterile white walls. The room smelled of antiseptic and faintly of artificial flowers left on the nightstand.

It had been days since he woke up here. Days of doctors asking the same questions. Days of men calling themselves his friends, their faces familiar but their voices foreign. Days of feeling like a ghost inside his own body.

He exhaled slowly, rubbing his arms. Real or not, this body felt solid. The world around him obeyed all the rules he knew. But was that enough to prove it was real?

If this was an illusion, it was a masterfully crafted one.

But the possibility that this wasn't just a trick, that this was a completely different world, was something he couldn't ignore either.

After all, he had heard of such things before.

"You know, sir Hero," the wizard had once said, hunched over a book so ancient its pages crumbled at the edges, "The world we walk is just one of many. The ancients called them the Spheres of Life, and each one is separated like islands in an infinite sea."

The hero had laughed at the time, shaking his head. "Sounds like something a scholar would make up to sound important."

The wizard had just grinned. "The deity of time and space, Althusia, was said to guard these spheres. There were those who worshipped him—an ancient sect, long before even the oldest kingdoms rose and fell. They believed that sometimes, people could cross between the spheres. Not by magic, not by will, but by something… greater."

The Hero had scoffed at the idea. "And you believe that?"

The wizard had shrugged. "Believe? No. But I don't dismiss it either. If there is one thing I know, it's that the world is far stranger than we think."

Now, sitting in this hospital bed in a world that didn't feel quite right, he wasn't so sure he could dismiss it either.

He flexed his fingers, feeling the slow, steady thrum of his pulse. He had died—he was certain of it. He remembered the flames, the dragon's breath, the searing heat that had melted him to nothing.

So why was he here? And more importantly—where was here?

This place, this hospital, was unfamiliar, yet its purpose resonated with him. In his world, healers worked in sanctuaries devoted to the gods, using magic, alchemy, and medicine to mend shattered bodies. Here, though, there was no magic, no priests invoking divine blessings. Instead, machines hummed softly, blinking with strange symbols, operating without anyone actively controlling them.

It seemed impossible, and yet, the logic of this world accepted it as ordinary. The Hero scoffed softly, imagining his old companion—the wizard—going utterly mad with curiosity at the sight of such wonders.

And beyond these walls…

The sky was clearer than he had ever seen, a perfect blue stretching endlessly above. The buildings towered unnaturally high, scraping the heavens like the ancient spires of a lost empire. It was so different from his own world, and yet, not entirely alien. Suffering still existed here. No matter the world, the wounded still needed tending, the lost still needed saving.

But despite everything, he was a prisoner. The wardens of this place—doctors, as they called themselves—had forbidden him from leaving. For his own safety.

He exhaled, his thoughts circling back to the name they had given him.

Jacob Turrin. Jack for short.

That was who he was supposed to be. A firefighter, a man who risked his life to pull others from the jaws of death. A noble calling. They told him he had sacrificed himself for another, had been pulled back from the brink after defying death itself.

But the Hero knew the truth.

He was not Jack Turrin.

He had no memories of this man, no connection to his past, no sense of the life he had lived. The real Jack was gone. His soul had moved on, leaving this empty vessel behind.

And somehow, he had taken his place.

A knock at the door pulled the Hero from his thoughts. A moment later, it creaked open.

"Hey, Jack."

Three figures stepped inside. Jack's family. His mother, Ellen. His older brother, James. His younger sister, Andrea.

Right. Jack had a family.

The thought sat strangely in the Hero's mind. Family was an unfamiliar concept to him. In his old life, he had been an orphan, raised within the austere walls of the church. Trained as a knight. Forged into the Hero, the last defense against the demon invasion.

But Jack Turrin had not been alone. He had belonged to these people.

Ellen stepped forward, wrapping her hands around his. Her grip was firm, warm—steady in a way that surprised him.

"How are you, Jack?" she asked softly.

There was weariness in her eyes, a quiet uncertainty in the way she spoke his name. And yet, beneath it all, there was something else.

Concern. Care.

A love unlike anything he had ever known.

A mother's love.