Nҽɯ Lιϝҽ, Jυʂƚ Aʂ Sԋιƚ.

Everything that happened began with a gunshot.

My brain scatters like pages torn from a book. Pages by chapter flutter out behind my mind like a novel in motion. At some point in time, I can't grasp how long, I come to realise It's my life burning out in thought and colour.

Fear corrupts my body as the pain in my chest dissipates from the new-found adrenaline that has been caused by my realisation.

'I am going to die!'

I hear the convenience store door chime through the ringing of my ears as my aggressor comes to the same realisation of what he has done. I look into his eyes for something, anything to grasp this situation to make it untrue. But a monster doesn't have a soul, so all I see are black empty eyes and a jaw locked in that of annoyance like my dying is an inconvenience for him.

Well, I guess it is... but that was a dumb mistake on his part.

The assailant ditches his weapon and grabs the money he doesn't deserve behind the register. I hear him yell the last of his profanities as he makes a bolt out of sight.

"Oh god... OH DEAR GOD NO!"

The convenience store clerk lets out a broken scream as she finally comes back down into our reality. She doesn't hesitate to grab my hands with her trembling ones to put pressure on the gaping wound in my chest. The blond clerk drags me into her arms, wrapping herself around me as she gives hopeless promises that it would all be okay! That she needs me to hold on so that she can thank me for saving her life when I make it through this! Crying desperately through shuddering sobs, she calls 911.

Watching her once bright and clear blue eyes turn into pools of deep water, burning the rims of her eyes and cheeks a nasty red like the tears that fall are actually hot coals of lava. I also notice the dark velvet blood that stains her hands and mine as she begs into the phone.

'There's so much...blood, is that my blood?' Impenetrable doom begins to cloud my mind, and all sanity I had left begins to scatter away into confusion, panic and hopeful delusion. That this sweet but ignorant thought, that it's not death that's claiming me in its arms.

But it is, and unexpectedly its embrace is warm and weightless. The last of what I can see in this world is the sorry face of the woman beside me, as she fades from view. Nothingness can never be described by my feeble brain but still, it whispers and I hear it echoing everywhere but nowhere in between. I'm fading, I'm mixing and shifting, expanding and shrinking. I can't seem to take control of myself but have I ever really had control? Then as clear as day and night I hear it, or more correctly him! Cold hands take my shape as I question reality.

"Death is the inevitable Ceasless one, but some stories are not meant to end so soon."

Be it as it may I see divinity, I see light!

TEN YEARS LATER: Sun Of The Western Sol Empire

Any idea of my existence, any process of understanding I thought I had, died the day I was reborn into my second life ten years ago. Second-firsts have now become this continuous theme in this newly appointed life of mine, although having the mind of a thirty-three-year-old in the body of a ten-year-old, well, that's a first!

It wasn't always like that though. Being born in a body so young, my motor functions and brain still needed a lot of time to develop, despite my soul's original age. So it came to be about two years of intense disorientation until I was able to understand my situation, granted it took its toll.

I came to realise three things as time went by leisurely. One of which being I was given another chance at life, two being I'm not human this time round, and three, well, wherever the fuck I was, it was most unnervingly not the world I was accustomed to! Although as I grew so did my knowledge of this new world around me.

This Planet I now inhabit is known as Sol and its inhabitants are known as Solesters!

Solesters aren't the only species of alien on this planet of sand, for space travel has long since existed before I came into being.

From what I gathered, aliens of all shapes and sizes know of this planets dark secrets and riches, making use of it's land like a hunting ground for the wicked and vile. What I don't gather is how a species so royally enchanting like the solesters could be so darkened with their greed.

The people of Sol are not that far off human beings in regards to looks. If it weren't for the tan skin that gives off an golden glow in the deepest of nights, the pointed ears that represent their prideful arrogance or the hard sharpened nails that look more like claws because of the slight tilt at the ends, and of course the fact that the average hight of a solester for both men and women is sixft. There really is not too much of a difference.

What really stands out about this race is the distinct white hair and golden eyes that have no whites, sometimes if you stare long enough into a Solesters eyes you will find they shimmer and swirl like fairy dust in a lake.

When I was much younger in this new body, the mother that had birthed me, had the most striking eyes I had ever seen. Although hers was the same gold as everyone else. Something about them were deeper, as if they held more shades of the same colour.

I always felt as if she could see right through me, as if she knew I'm not just her son, as if she knew I don't belong here.

But this life has given her a reason to think so, due to the fact that I do not look like the normality of the sol race. Because my eyes shimmer silver and my hair is stained a raven inked black as well as the fact that my skin is painted the colour of the moon in spite of the harsh burning suns that plague the Lands of Sol.

The world around me was shocked by my differences as they were unkind.

She was no different when she did nothing but stand by and watch as my father sold me to the shalmaneser slave trade at the age of six! I was the exchange for land and an easy supply to water that's hard to come by in this vast dry desert land I've come to despise.

Since then the eyes I thought were the most beautiful became the eyes of a betrayer and the hatred that seethed my soul ran as dark as a night without stars. I knew abuse in my last life, I've felt betrayal and I've died a cold painful death.

I should be void of all feelings by now, but I still run hot. That day I vowed I'd break from these chains that bind me, just to despite her wish for my misery.

And that brings us to now as I stand on the risen stand amongst my fellow slaves with my hand tied above my head. The gold like steel substance collar cuts into my neck that hangs heavy. Its Metal burns into my skin leaving it red and raw from the relentless suns that beams at their highest. My shoulders strain in endless pain by being held up by a weighted ball and chain for hours that I don't care to count anymore.

This is the life of a slave.

Only a few thoughts cross my mind and keep me sane in the years I've been sold and brought, bashed and degraded.

I've chanted these words like a prayer on my cracked and dried lips.

'I am Ludachel Archel'

'I've defied natures law.'

'I will not break or crawl.'