1 Return from Dead... into the dead.
There he was… staring at his own lifeless unmoving body, smeared with blood, lying in front of his eyes. It was bone-chilling watching his own dead body, but for some reason, Atlas wasn't scared; instead, he was confused.
A weird serenity clouded the heart of Atlas Alazar despite all the confusion he was going through at the moment. He found himself calm even after witnessing his own tortured dead silhouette.
Even though his body was lying only ten feet away from him, that mere distance felt no less than a heavy thousand feet. Momentarily, he even wondered if he was in a dream imagining his death.
His body laid in the middle of all the blood that had formed a puddle under him. The body had bled too much, draining every ounce from his lifeless silhouette, making it a gruesome sight for him.
There remained a few questions in his mind unanswered. How was he able to look at his own body from a distance? Was he already dead? Was it his spirit, or was it truly a dream?
Reflexively to confirm his speculations, he tried touching his face. As soon as his fingers touched his cheeks, Atlas felt the cold touch over his skin. It became clear to him that he wasn't a spirit. He was in the flesh but not on his own.
He lowered his gaze slowly and quizzically observed his unfamiliar cold hands.
"My hands! They are different. They are longer and slightly bigger."
He shifted his focus down even more to notice his feet. The sense of being a stranger in that flesh made him panic inwardly.
"My legs are also longer. Just what is happening?"
He realized that he was sitting inside a beautiful silver coffin kept in a room that was mostly dark. There were strange markings all over the walls, which seemed to appear to be some ancient letters. They formed a certain pattern, but he couldn't comprehend even a single word.
The silver coffin was so shiny that Atlas could even look at his reflection on the surface. He gazed upon his face only to infer that even his face was different now. The realization slowly began to dawn upon him, which was unbelievable.
In the past, he used to have deep blue eyes as clear as the sea, but now his eyes were a beautiful shade of green like the purest form of nature.
His hair was silver and shorter than he used to have before, only coming down to his neck now. His skin seemed pale, similar to how his real malnourished body used to look, but there was an innate difference.
His real body was pale because of the lack of blood and the torturous conditions he had lived in. On the contrary, this body looked perfectly healthy, as if this person didn't need to struggle for food even a single day of his life. That's why nothing made sense to Atlas regarding what had just happened.
He could see that his real body was still in the clothes that he was wearing before. The clothes were already covered in blood; it was hard to guess what their real color used to be before all the blood painted them red. The new body, on the other hand, had a different set of aristocratic clothes.
The new clothes looked more luxurious. Unlike the clothes on his real body, there wasn't even a speck of dust on these clothes. In fact, these clothes looked even more luxurious than anything he had ever seen before. He had seen a lot of Noble Vampires before, but none of them had clothes as elegant.
"My face, my body, my clothes, everything is different. Could it really be that… I woke up in a different body. Meanwhile, my real body is left behind, dead. But how is this possible? Body jumping? How can it happen?"
"Could it be really possible!? Did my soul jump bodies?"
That was the biggest question in Atlas' head. He believed it had the highest probability of being true unless he was dreaming. However, even in dreams, he was sure that he wouldn't have thought of something so bizarre.
"How is all this possible?"
He slowly stood up and took his first step out of the lavish silver coffin to lay his feet on the dust-covered ground on which he had taken his last breath.
While the coffin was spotlessly clean, seemingly made from the purest of silver, the ground underneath it told a completely different story.
Looking at the dust-ridden surroundings, Atlas was sure that nobody had come there in the last few years at least. However, for some reason, the silver coffin was immaculate and clean. The room didn't have much light, but oddly he was still able to see everything, even in the dark.
He slowly headed towards his original dead body, which was lying in the puddle of blood. He expected to be scared of the bizarre sight, but his emotions seemed to have gone numb.
Unbeknownst to him, another shadow came out from his Shadow, splitting up from the main shadow. The second shadow followed him, slowly getting bigger. The shadow kept getting bigger and bigger and only stopped as it reached the exact height of Atlas' shadow.
"Greetings, Master. Finally, after centuries of slumber, you woke up."
The feminine voice reverberated in the quiet room, startling Atlas.
"Hmm? What is that voice?"
Stunned, Atlas turned around, trying to find the invisible source of the voice as soon as he heard it.
It sounded like the voice of a woman who was warm and cordial towards him. However, even though he looked everywhere to find her, he failed even to see a glimpse of that woman. There was nobody present in the room except him.
"Master, why are you looking like that? It's me, Lilith. Don't you recognize me?"
The voice again came from nowhere, making Atlas alert. There was definitely someone here!
"Who is it? Come out!"
He didn't know any Lilith and couldn't understand why someone would address him as master. He had lived his life like a mere invaluable slave; why would someone call him with the utmost respect?
"Are my ears ringing? I'm hearing voices when no one is here." Atlas shook his head, rubbing his eyes to dismiss the thoughts. "Am I going crazy?"
"Wait a minute! You….you aren't my Master!" The warm and friendly voice soon became stern and angry. "I can't feel his aura from your soul! Who are you?! How did you enter my master's body?!"
The shrill scream of the voice was enough to send an agonizing sensation in Atlas's ears. Still, he was more concerned about the origin of the voice. Where was it coming from?
"Are you a spirit who knew the owner of this body?" he inquired, hoping to get some answers about his new identity.
"I don't know how I ended up in this body either. I'm Atlas Alazar, and that is my body right there!" He pointed toward his original body, which was covered in blood.
One thing was certain to him that whoever this voice belonged to, she knew he wasn't the owner of the body he was currently inside. Since she knew the truth, he didn't even attempt to lie to her. In any case, he wasn't responsible for what happened.
"That body?" The shadow which was behind Atlas moved towards the dead body of a sixteen-year-old boy.
"Wait. Are you this shadow?!" As the shadow moved, Atlas finally got a glimpse and exclaimed.
"Shut up! Don't say anything!" The shadow yelled before she hovered over the dead body to inspect the possibilities of the unnatural mishap.
"This body! It's the body of an ordinary human! You aren't even a Witch! And even if you were a Witch, it should have been impossible for you to enter the Master's body! Who are you?!"
The shadow freed the dead body and turned to Atlas, becoming aggressively inquiring. However, Atlas was genuinely clueless regarding the whole incident.
"I told you. I have no idea what happened. The last thing I remember was that I was trying to drag my half-dead body down the stairs to avoid those Vampires! I just wanted to survive and nothing else! Because of blood loss, I probably lost consciousness. The next thing I remember is that I woke up here, inside this body."
Atlas pointed out toward his new body while trying to sound convincing. He required answers, and only that mysterious shadow could provide him some explanation.
"You! Your story….this….this doesn't make sense! This doesn't make sense at all! How can it be? How can someone enter my master's body and control it? How?! Where is the Master then! How are you inside?! Arghh!" The shadow started yelling in rage as if it was going crazy.
"Oh god, why are you screaming? Don't you know where we are? You are going to get both of us killed. Keep your voice low. If Vampires heard us, they would kill us on the spot. I barely escaped them at the cost of my life! I don't want to die again before rescuing her!"
The shadow suddenly became silent, wondering upon Atlas's words.
"Vampires? Those pesky things? They dare lay a hand on my Master's body!? Do they not want to live anymore?" Lilith snapped, leaving Atlas stunned with the insult she just daringly spouted for those deities.
"They won't hurt your master?"
The mere sentence raised numerous questions, and an influx of questions bombarded his mind.
"Hahaha! Them hurting my Master?" A condescending laughter of Lilith filled the room. "You are such an idiot. You don't even know the person whose body you are occupying? What nonsense! This makes me even more surprised that someone like you who knows nothing managed to end up in this body!"
Atlas seized the opportunity to throw another question at her. He straightforwardly asked about his new identity. "I don't understand. Who is your Master? Whose body am I inside?"
Lilith was talking so proudly about the person whose body Atlas was inside; he couldn't help but wonder who this guy was.
It was certain that he was not a Vampire because he didn't have those bloodthirsty crimson eyes, the peculiar trait of Vampires. And even if the body he was inside belonged to a Vampire, why would the other Vampires be scared of him?
"You naive human, I pity your ignorance!" Lilith snorted. "You don't even know that you are inside him! You are inside the person that shook the entire world once upon a time!"
Lilith emphasized every single achievement of the body's owner as if it was her own. "You are inside the person who was the true definition of terror! You are inside, my master! You are inside the person that even gods and demons would have been afraid of! You are inside the body of…."
