My first life is not worth talking about. Really, I’d rather not discuss it. It was a life full of being trampled on and being forced to trample on others. An unfulfilling life where I drifted from day to day without much purpose.

I met my end when trying to rescue a stray kitten in a dimly lit back alleyway. It was a scraggly-looking thing with patches of fur missing at its scruff, but I still thought it was adorable and in need of saving. If no one would love it, I would.

When I reached for it, it bit me and ran off. A few days later, I was sick with fever. A day after that, I was dead. Rabies. Yes, I know. It’s quite funny.

It’s even a bit funnier when I try to think of what my funeral was like. I’m sure people were more annoyed to have to be there than sad. I don’t think I was able to touch the lives of anyone I knew in any meaningful or helpful way. 

When I was granted a second life, I felt truly blessed.

It was not long before I discovered that this second world was much different from my own. Here, magic was not a fairy tale. It ran the world. Here, knights in shining armor tore through castles to save damsels on a daily basis. Here, goddesses would bless those who swore faith to them with protection and good will. Here, I would start anew. 

I was born to farmers in a small town on the border of two large nations. My mother was kind but fierce, and my father was strict but doting. It was a simple and happy life. I tried my best to help around the village. To give my second life some meaning. To touch the lives of those around me. The villagers found my attempts more cute than helpful, haha. 

I was six when I first discovered my affinity for healing magic. 

A soldier from a nearby country stumbled into our village at the crack of dawn. He was gravely injured and nearly dead when he fell onto our doorstep. 

My mother had screamed for a doctor while my father screamed in general. The soldier looked very lonely there on the dirty ground, so I squeezed in between my parents to hold his hand. I clung to his hand even as my parents tried to pull me away. Even as light began to emerge from my hand that held his, I did not let go.

I don’t quite remember what happened next but when I woke up the soldier was gone and my parents were saying that I’d been blessed by the goddesses. 

The soldier returned a week later with his superior who took one look at me and told me I was destined to serve a cause bigger than myself. To save people. My parents did not want me to go and desperately clung to me as I wiped their tears. To save people, to reach out for others -- wasn’t that the reason for why I'd been blessed with this second life?

After promising to return at least twice a year, I departed for the military academy at the heart of our nation Yin.

I’m not sure how or why but my grades soared at the academy. Probably because of the lifetime of schooling and classes that I had behind me. For some reason when I told my classmates that my secret for getting good grades was this, they laughed at me good-naturedly and called me strange. 

The academy was a fun time. I think it was the first time I’d ever had fun in an academic setting. Probably because for once I was chasing one of my passions instead of following along a path already set out for me.  

It was during my second year at the academy that I learned my healing magic was something special. 

“You aren’t so much as healing people,” Professor Hargeon said as he stroked his beard, “as reversing the damage done.”

Time magic was what it was. The ability to reverse time.

Professor Hargeon told me that my ability could be used for better things than healing but I refused to pursue the dangerous practices he nudged me towards. 

"With great power comes great responsibility," I told him.

"With great naivety comes great stupidity," he returned. 

After I graduated from the academy, I spent some time at the Church of the Goddesses to refine my skills. Here, priests, priestesses, paladins, and holy knights would gather to perform libations and gain blessings from their respective goddesses. 

Here, I met my best friend. Oros Sateen. He was an extroverted paladin who liked making jokes and chasing after women. His goddess was Satene, the goddess of sunlight. He picked her because she was the most beautiful goddess, in his opinion. Apparently, when he told her this she had bestowed him many blessings -- more blessings than any paladin had ever received.

I wondered one day if I could somehow choose all of the goddesses because it felt wrong to exclude any of them. Wouldn’t their feelings be hurt? For some reason, Oros slapped me upside the head and called me a strange idiot when I told him my thoughts.

In the end, I couldn’t choose a goddess.

Two years after that, the two of us joined the battlefield. Oros would protect me from oncoming blades and arrows while I would heal him from the damage of blades and arrows. We worked in synchronicity. They even called us the Twin Lights. 

For some reason, whenever we’d stop by a village, I’d be showered by both men and women with flowers and letters. I didn’t quite understand it nor did I feel comfortable with the attention so I would just wave and offer my thanks. Surely, in this land, their actions were just a show of gratitude. For some reason, Oros would glare at me whenever this happened before asking me to at least hook him up. When I told him I didn’t understand what he was referring to, he smacked me upside the head. It was routine for us.

Some times, in secret and in the midst of battle, I would heal our enemies. Especially if they were children. I could not help myself. To see a child laying out on the cold, empty, desolate ground like that when they could be playing out in open and grassy fields? I couldn’t help but think of that stray kitten in my previous life.

Needless to say, my actions were called attention to and I was soon sent a letter from the military board to report to the capital.

“You’re an idiot,” was all Oros said to me as he smacked the back of my head.

But I never got the chance to follow through with the letter.

They called him Wrath the Blood Knight. 

He tore through the battlefield like a bullet mercilessly slaughtering people left and right. They said his bloodlust was so great that at the end of a battle his face would be undiscernable beneath the heavy coat of blood drenching his body. Some said that he was not even human. A demon summoned by the neighboring country of Yang to annihilate us.

It was raining when he came to our camp. He did not carry any weapons with him. Only the stench of iron and dirt.

“Monster!” One of the knights cried as they charged at him. In the blink of an eye, the knight was torn in two.

I healed him almost immediately but he did not lunge forward again. Instead, he stared with tear-filled eyes at the Blood Knight before him. I didn’t blame him. The aura that the Blood Knight carried with him was certainly one of death.

Oros charged at him next and swung his blessed blade at the knight’s throat. The Blood Knight dodged his blow easily and struck Oros at the head. I healed the wound before Oros hit the ground, and Oros lunged. This caught the Blood Knight by surprise, and the blade found itself wedged in the Knight’s leg. Stuck.

Grimacing, Oros took a step back. The Blood Knight regarded him in turn before he suddenly blinked out of existence. No, that wasn’t right. In the blink of an eye, the Blood Knight had slipped past Oros and was now standing right in front of me. Without hesitation, the Knight reached out and grabbed my throat. Squeezed.

It hurt. I couldn’t breathe. 

Distantly, I could hear Oros scream.

But still, I stared into his eyes wondering what in the world brought him to us. Through the haze of suffocation, I found myself thinking--

That surely was a human face.

In this sort of blur, I died. 

Or so I thought. 

When the darkness came to claim me it came paired with a speck of light in the distance. I remembered this light well. It was the light that I followed into my second life. The light at the end of the tunnel. Hesitantly, I followed it. Was this it then? Was this the end? Had I lived my life well enough and touched the lives of others?

When I reached the end of the tunnel, I found myself in a brightly lit room that looked as if it belonged in a mansion. The bed I was laying in had sheets of satin silk. It even looked as if it were laced with gold. What luxury! Even when I’d been invited to royal balls in the past, I’d never seen anything like this. This? What was this even?

Had I not died then? What about Oros? Where was he? The rest of the soldiers? Were they all alright?

I stumbled out of bed and to a mirror on the opposite side of the room. I needed to assess the damage done.

I think I screamed.

Staring back at me from my reflection was the Blood Knight’s face.  

What a terrible third life start.

CLASS CHANGE: [ healer ] > > [ blood knight ]