Reality crashes over me like a cold blade.

  The room. The bed. The scent of aged wood and worn-out sheets. The distant sound of roosters crowing in the early morning, just as they always did at my grandfather’s farm.

  This is not a dream.

  But… how?

  My hands tremble as they touch my own face. The texture of my young, smooth skin, free of time’s marks. My fingers trace my round cheeks, my undefined jawline. My eyes meet my own in the mirror—the same weary, heavy gaze, burdened with a pain that never healed.

  It’s me.

  The same short, overweight boy I once was.

  The same failure as always.

  The same empty shell that crawled through childhood, crushed by humiliation and loneliness.

  My mind screams. My lungs contract, desperately searching for air, as if drowning in an invisible ocean. I pinch myself hard, but nothing changes. No distortion. No sudden awakening. No sensation that this is just a cruel illusion.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  It’s real.

  But… what happened?

  I’m not religious. Never was.

  I believe in God, yes, but not in the one shaped by human minds—the being men have turned into a justification for their weaknesses and sins. The God I imagine has no temples, accepts no prayers, guides no one to salvation.

  So if it wasn’t Him… what brought me back?

  My eyes fall upon my finger.

  The ring.

  That cursed golden ring.

  Its glow seems to pulse as if it were alive. A hidden heart pumping something far beyond my comprehension. The memory of a voice echoes in my mind, distorted, profane, whispering through the shadows of forgetfulness:

  “For his sake, we interfere.”

  What?

  Who?

  My head throbs. As if something is trying to take root inside my brain, forcing memories, feelings, sensations that don’t belong to me. Something is watching. Something is here.

  I take a deep breath, trying to organize my thoughts.

  If this is reincarnation… why? What is there to fix? I failed in my life, that’s a fact. But why give me a second chance?

  If I have merely gone back in time… then… can I change things?

  Can I stop being the weak boy I once was?

  Can I prevent the failures that condemned me to ruin?

  My fists clench.

  Doubt still consumes me, but there’s one thing I can’t deny: fate has thrown me back into the past.

  And I will not waste it.

  But as this thought takes root within me, as the idea of rewriting my story takes shape, a shadow seems to crawl across my room—unseen by the eye but as present as my own breath.

  I am not alone.

  Something brought this ring to me.

  Something brought me back.

  And whatever it is… it is still here.