An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
In which something goes wrong with the transmigration process and instead of swapping places Cale and Kim Rok Soo end up becoming voices in the mind of eleven year old Cale Henituse — who suddenly remembers entirely too much death and apocalyptic nightmares to come away unscathed.
“Out of curiosity is everyone I know secretly a trained killer?” Cale asks. ‘Of course not!’ Cale, apparently from the future, snaps back. ‘Maybe?’ the man named Kim Rok Soo hedges. “Huh.” Cale pauses to consider two sets of similar, yet diametrically opposed memories of his life. “And there’s going to be a war?” ‘I don’t remember being this dense as a child,’ Cale, the jerk, snarks. ‘Yes, war, the White Star, potentially the end of the world, other terrible shit. So wake up and do something about it!’ ‘He’s seven,’ Kim Rok Soo say disapprovingly. ‘This really isn’t something you should be putting on his shoulders.’ “I’m eleven,” Cale corrects for what feels like the hundredth time. He doesn’t know why the ghosts who have taken up residence in his head keep insisting he’s seven. He isn’t that small.
