A searing ache gnawed at Elias. Every muscle screamed in protest, a chorus of bruises and stiffness. His throat felt like sun-baked clay, parched and raw. A tremor wracked his frame, cold sweat slicking his skin despite the ambient warmth, a feverish chill deep in his bones. “Ngh… What is this agony?” Elias groaned, the sound thin and unfamiliar. A weary sigh escaped him. “Did I catch something? Antibiotics, antipyretics… where are my meds?” Forcing heavy eyelids apart, Elias blinked. Sunlight, filtered through a canopy of unfamiliar foliage, painted the world in dappled golds and greens. A gnarled branch loomed close, its leaves a vibrant, unearthly azure. The air, surprisingly warm against his skin, carried the scent of rich earth and exotic blossoms. ‘A sabbatical year,’ he remembered, a sudden clarity amidst the fog. ‘Medical aid in the forgotten territories. Arid lands, not… this.’ His brows furrowed. No such forest existed near their desert camp. Only sand and rock. Confusion mounted, a dizzying spiral. Where was he? What happened? His last memory was a blur of dust, shouts, and the desperate clutch of a small, trembling hand. Taking a ragged breath, Elias tried to calm the frantic beat of his heart. Panic served no one. Slowly, sensation returned, pushing back against the oppressive pain. The tremble in his limbs subsided. A strange, invigorating energy began to pulse beneath his skin, alien yet welcome. He attempted to move, but his legs remained stubbornly unresponsive, heavy as lead. Only a slight twitch rewarded his effort. “A dream,” he whispered, the words tasting like ash. “Must be a fever dream.” Light broke through the clouds, illuminating the clearing in stark relief. His breath hitched. Around him, everywhere he looked, were corpses. His legs locked, rooted to the spot. Reaching up, Elias pinched his forearm, hard. A sharp, undeniable pain lanced through him. “Not a dream.” The whisper was barely audible. His legs finally found a fraction of strength, allowing him a slow, uneven turn. The scene before him was no mere nightmare. This was real. The stench of blood, metallic and cloying, was too vivid, too authentic. He knew that smell. Had lived with it for decades. But this… this was different. ‘Postmortem rigidity hasn’t set in,’ his clinical mind noted, automatically assessing. ‘Less than two hours since death. Wounds are clean, precise. Incised, not shattered. No blast trauma, no… projectile wounds.’ Their attire was equally unsettling. Fabrics he’d never seen, styled like illustrations from ancient, fantastical texts. Elaborate tunics, ornate sashes, gleaming armaments he couldn’t identify. As Elias absorbed the horrifying details, a profound lightness settled over him. The bone-deep ache, the feverish chill – it had vanished, replaced by an unsettling vigor. He gazed down at his hands. Small. Unblemished. Not the calloused, scarred hands of a veteran surgeon. He felt his face, smooth and unlined. His shadow, cast long by the Veridian sun, was that of a child. ‘If I were dreaming of being a child in a fantasy novel, I’d at least be on a quest for something… not stranded in a slaughterhouse.’ Elias bit his lip, a familiar knot of grim determination tightening in his gut. His early life, a relentless climb from nothing, had forged an iron will. He had seen too much, fought too hard, to yield to despair now. The massacre site was vast. Dozens of fallen. Three shattered sky-galleon carriages lay overturned, their polished timbers splintered. Some bodies were severed clean, impossibly bisected with a single blow. ‘What blade cuts human bone and muscle with such impunity?’ He looked again at his small, blood-splattered hands. They weren't his. This wasn't his body. ‘Possession, then. Like those bizarre webnovels my interns used to read.’ A strange, dispassionate clarity settled over him. He was no longer Elias Thorne, Professor of Surgical Oncology. He was… someone else, in someone else’s child-body, in a world utterly alien. Feeling his new body, he found no valuables. The attackers, whoever they were, had taken everything. ‘Bandits, then. Or mercenaries. Nothing to steal from the dead, save for what little life might cling to them.’ He sighed, a sound far too deep for a child’s chest. The memories flooded back, sharp and painful. The roar of rifles, the frantic grip on a small, frightened child. A flash of red. The child’s terrified scream, “Doctor! Doctor!” Then, an encroaching darkness. ‘My life… What a cruel jest. From orphanage to medical school, professor, surgeon, finally volunteering… only to die holding a stranger’s child in a warzone. And now this.’ Elias stared at the ground, then back at the carnage. He was used to death, used to blood. It was his daily landscape. But this… this was different. His clinical detachment, a shield honed over decades, kept the true horror at bay. For now, he focused on the facts. The circumstances of his demise. The undeniable reality of his new existence. After a long moment, a second sigh, even heavier, escaped him. “Right. Stay calm. I don’t know how, or why, but I can’t just stand here.” Just then, a faint, ragged sound cut through the silence. “Urgh… help… please…” Elias’s head snapped up. Someone was alive. He moved, the child’s body surprisingly agile, bounding towards the source of the plea. A man, middle-aged, with a thick, tangled beard, lay slumped against a fallen carriage wheel, trembling violently. His eyes, glazed with pain, found Elias. “Boy… take this… to my wife… I’m done for, but… she’s with child…” He held out a blood-soaked leather pouch. Elias ignored the pouch. Instinct took over. He knelt, his small hands reaching, touching the man’s wound. The man stared, surprised, then his grip weakened, the pouch falling to the ground with a soft clinking of coins. Elias paid it no mind. His fingers probed, assessed, a dance performed countless times on operating tables. He pressed firm, direct pressure on the gaping wound. “I’ll stop the bleeding,” he stated, his voice calm, steady. A guttural scream tore from the man’s throat. A good sign, Elias thought grimly. A sign of life, of strength to endure. ‘A long laceration, yes. But thankfully, no visible evisceration, no internal organs protruding. The wound is vast, though. He’s lost too much blood already. If it’s not closed quickly…’ The man’s abdomen was split lengthwise, a gruesome chasm revealing crimson muscle, but by some miracle, the deeper structures seemed untouched. ‘There has to be a way…’ Elias scanned the debris-strewn clearing, desperate. No sterile instruments, no sutures, no disinfectant. Nothing. His eyes fell on the discarded pouch. ‘Something. Anything.’ He plunged his hand inside. His fingers closed around small, embroidered baby shoes, a square of delicate silk cloth, and a finely wrought hairpin, clearly a valuable trinket. ‘A needle.’ He pulled it out, intricate silver gleaming dully. ‘But no thread…’ His gaze darted back to the man’s matted, long hair. ‘Perfect.’ He plucked a few strands, surprisingly strong, and quickly threaded them through the eye of the hairpin. “This will hurt, old man,” Elias muttered, though the patient was already slipping in and out of consciousness. “But you must endure it if you want to live.” No coherent response. The man’s breath came in shallow, rattling gasps. A textbook sign of impending circulatory collapse. ‘No other choice.’ POKE. The improvised needle pierced flesh, the skin surprisingly resilient. The man groaned, a low, pained sound, but Elias’s hand was steady. His movements were precise, economical, years of surgical muscle memory guiding his child-like fingers. ‘I’d heard tales of field surgeons using hair as suture material in dire emergencies. Never thought I’d be doing it myself. No sterilization, either. Infection is a near certainty. But without this, he’s dead.’ The wound closed, stitch by crude stitch, a lifeline woven from silver and hair. The man gasped, a fuller breath this time, as the gush of blood slowed, then ceased. Emergency measures complete. Elias craved proper bandages, clean dressings, but found only rough, torn fabric among the wreckage. He tore a strip from a shattered sailcloth and bound the wound tightly. The man mumbled, faint words of gratitude, barely audible. Elias retrieved the coin pouch, placing it back in the man’s trembling hand. “Deliver it yourself,” he instructed. “When you leave this place alive.” Elias didn’t believe in celestial interventions. Patients died, regardless of prayer. But he believed in the human will, in the desperate, burning desire to return to a pregnant wife. Finished, Elias slumped back, exhaustion finally claiming him. The unreality of his situation, coupled with the profound demand of saving a life under such impossible conditions, left him dizzy. Then, a chilling thought. ‘More survivors.’ He pushed himself up, his new body protesting with residual aches. He needed to look. A quick scan of the immediate vicinity. Yes. Faint breaths. Whispers of life among the dead. Not many, but enough to stir a flicker of hope, and dread. ‘I can perform emergency first aid. But can I truly save them? Even with basic care, without proper medical attention, without supplies, they will… eventually succumb.’ He gritted his teeth. ‘Later. Think about that later. Now, I save who I can.’ Elias moved with renewed purpose, the child’s body navigating the grim landscape with an eerie grace. His surgeon’s eyes scanned each body, triaging, categorizing. Distinguishing between those whose flickering life could be fanned, and those whose flame had already guttered out. ‘This one… too much blood loss. Unsalvageable.’ A man with half a leg severed, his exposed femoral artery a crimson fountain that had long since emptied. Under modern conditions, a tourniquet, rapid fluid resuscitation, immediate surgery. Here? Impossible. His heart grew heavy, but his face remained a mask of professional calm. The doctor could not afford sentiment, not now. Other emergencies awaited. No time for delay. He turned, already moving towards the next faint whisper of life.

A Surgeon's Awakening in a Scarlet Wood