"Strange to be born twice... and stranger still, to wish that death hadn't given you another chance."
– From Kain's reflections
The sky was gray, laced with the scent of rain, smoke, and farewells.
He felt nothing when his heart stopped beating… no pain, no regret, just a void resembling the end he had always mocked.
His name was ordinary, his life even more so—just a young man suffering from life's disappointments and fate's mockery. The streets he crossed, the dreams he built—they all turned into faded memories in a fleeting moment.
A car crash? A sudden illness? It didn't matter… What mattered was that he died.
Then… darkness.
But it wasn't the eternal darkness he had always imagined.
There was something else… a voice, faint whispers in the distance… systems activating, calculations running:
"Reincarnation in progress,"
"Spirit path: non-traditional,"
"Due to delayed activation, compensation will be granted later" ...
Huh… Compensation?! What is happening??!
Then came another voice, soft, and he felt as though his soul was being drawn toward it. It said:
"Live fully this time… don't forget your purpose… I'll always be with you, as I was and will be… and know that the system always remembers."
Always with me?! What system?!
And then...
A baby's cry.
I opened my eyes for the first time again.
The light blinded me, the air was cold and strange… many sounds around me: crying, heavy breathing, I didn't understand anything… I just saw a face forming gradually before me. A young woman, her eyes teary, her cheeks flushed with effort, but she was beautiful, warm in an oddly comforting way.
Then she said softly and lovingly:
"Welcome to this world, my little one… Kain."
Kain? Kain? Is that my name?
It sounds… kind of nice.
But wait… her face… her name… the echo of her voice when the doctor called her earlier:
"Renée, breathe slowly!"
Renée? That name sounds very familiar…
At first, I wasn't sure of anything.
I was a baby, an infant. I couldn't even control my eyelids, let alone my tongue or muscles.
But inside… there was awareness, memories, an adult moving inside a helpless small mind.
I thought I had been transported to a fantasy world, or a realm completely different from my old one, but… nothing here was strange.
No violet skies, no dragons, no magical towers…
Everything looked like our world.
Until I heard her name.
Renée… Renée.
Swan?
My heart—if it could be called that in this tiny body—almost stopped.
I had been a fan of the Twilight series.
Read it all, memorize its details by heart.
And the name "Swan" wasn't ordinary.
Renée's name used to end in "Swan," but after the divorce, it became "Dwyer."
It couldn't be just a coincidence.
Was I…?
Was I in the Twilight universe?
No… I couldn't be sure yet.
But each passing day, doubt slowly turned to certainty.
A middle-aged man… thinning brown hair, eyes like my mother's. I watched him silently, though he rarely spoke. They said he was my father. Could he be… Charlie?
Charlie Swan?
It was hard to be certain, especially since I couldn't even crawl, but bit by bit, names started adding up, small details becoming clear.
I was sure… It really was Charlie.
I was in the *Twilight* universe.
And that… was a problem.
Years passed, slowly, heavily.
I grew up… or rather, my body did. As for me, I was imprisoned in it.
A child with the memories of a dead man… or rather, the haze of memories—I couldn't remember how I died, and every time I tried, that damned pain came to stop me.
But I could remember everything else just fine. I was a man in his thirties, single, worked as a software engineer. They said I was successful… so successful, I even won the Nobel Prize in 2050. You could say I was a damn genius.
And still, my name had been Kain. That was… kind of odd.
But all of that was in the past.
I had to focus on the present.
The world of *Twilight* isn't safe—it's chaos filled with vampires, werewolves, and merciless supernatural forces.
And I… was the weakest of them all.
I was just like the rest of the "normal" kids in this world.
Nothing special about me.
No powers, no fangs, no mysterious transformation.
Just a human body… fragile and weak.
And every day… I waited.
Where's the system?
Where's my chance?
Where's my compensation?
Wasn't something supposed to appear? When?
The waiting was silent torment.
Every moment that passed weighed heavier on me.
I lived a double life: a child in the eyes of others, and a man awaiting a light that fate once promised in death.
I would wake up and go to sleep hoping to hear that voice… the voice of the system. But nothing.
For years, I convinced myself that the activation wasn't forgotten, just… delayed.
Despite this, my appearance in this new body was quite attractive.
Jet-black hair with a single blue streak since birth, sea-blue eyes, a gentle face, and a near-perfect body. I was 1.80 m tall, weighed 75 kg.
Today: September 5.
I've lived a normal life until now.
No system, no cheats… and also, no vampires.
Which, in itself, is a good thing… to an extent.
My relationship with my new family in this world was… relatively normal.
After our parents' separation, I stayed with my father, "Charlie," here in Forks, the small town that sleeps under the rain and wakes to the fog.
As for Bella, she grew up with our mother, "Renée," in sunny Phoenix.
We weren't close… not out of hate or conflict, but simply because life took us down different paths.
We met sometimes, talked a bit, then everything returned to its usual silence.
Then, Bella decided to come live with us.
But I know it wasn't out of genuine desire…
Her stepfather, "Phil," a baseball player, started traveling a lot, and his constant moves made it hard for her to stay with him and our mom steadily.
So, for her mother's comfort, Bella decided to return to Forks.
This time, unlike in the original story…
She transferred at the beginning of the school term, not in the middle.
As if fate was giving us a full beginning, not just a late attempt to rejoin a life that had already changed.
It wasn't easy for her.
Moving from a warm city to a gray town she didn't know since childhood, a house she wasn't used to, and a brother she barely knew.
As for me?
I'm Kain… seventeen years old.
Today, high school starts again.
My mother once told me:
"Every new beginning is a chance, even if it doesn't seem like it."
But… Do I believe that?
Or am I just repeating her words to comfort myself… in a world I don't belong to?
And before I took that first step toward my fate… something happened.
The air stopped.
Time itself halted.
People slowed down as if caught in a cinematic shot.
Birds froze midair.
The sounds of cars vanished.
Even my own heartbeat fell silent.
Then…
[Ding!]
[Evolution System – Delayed Activation]
🌀 *End of Chapter One*
✦ Next Chapter: "Opening the Gate… and Receiving the Gift"