Day 1

Sixty-one years. That’s how long I had been alive for when I lost control over my bodily functions. I wasn’t able to move or talk, I couldn’t even blink. Not of my own volition at least.

‘Huh?’

The last thing I remembered was that I had been in the hospital. It was for a routine procedure. The guy before me now did not look like a doctor, however. I wasn't religious, but if I had to say, he looked like a priest to me.

‘What is going on...?’

The presumed priest stepped closer. I tried to speak, but nothing came out. I tried to move, but nothing happened. My head moved by itself and my eyes fell on the priest’s face.

“I didn’t notice any signs indicating what Calling you received, but the shard has disappeared and the look on your face tells me the ritual is over. Please tell me the Calling the gods saw fit to bestow upon you.”

Calling? Gods? What...? And why can’t I speak!?

‘Hello!?’

Suddenly, a voice did leave my mouth, but it wasn’t mine. It sounded like a teenager, and he seemed confused as well.

“W-was the ritual really a success?” the voice said.

Weird room, an altar, a “priest”...

I wanted to get a better look at my surroundings, but all I could do was stare at whatever my head decided to stare at. It was unnerving to say the least.

The priest and “I” talked about some kind of ritual failing. But while the voice sounded confused at first, I started to feel like its owner was hiding something from the priest. The outburst about wanting to help its mother seemed a bit forced. The priest believed the voice, however. The boy... Me?

No, I had to realize. This clearly wasn’t my body. I was seeing through someone else’s eyes as we turned around, walked out of the room we had been in, walked past dozens of people, and exited the building.

‘What the fuck!?’

We were walking through a large town square, surrounded by buildings. Most were two or three stories high. Some looked kind of medieval-esque, while others appeared a tad more modern. It was a strange mix. Not to mention the large, solid stone wall that appeared to surround this town in the distance.

There were a lot of people out and about who were dressed equally mixed. Some were clad in simple cotton clothes, while others wore more or less elaborate suits. And then there were the guards, in armor and chainmail.

My mind swam, as we left the street we had been walking along on and headed into an alleyway. We apparently sat down and stared at the floor.

Was this a dream? Maybe I was in a coma? Can someone please get me out of this? I thought.

‘Hey! Can anyone hear me!?’

We stood back up and kept walking down the street, then we took a turn down a side street. After a while we arrived at a simple house built from wood. We walked through the front door and a middle-aged woman in an apron came out of another room.

“Tomar!”

Is that the boy’s name?

“I... I received the Mad Calling, mom.”

Tomar sounded like these were the worst news anyone could ever deliver to someone. His mother’s reaction was on the same level. She was shaken deeply. They started talking about “Callings” and “rituals” as well, until Tomar said something of vital importance to me.

“Mom... I’m hearing a voice in my head...”

‘You can hear me!? Please talk to me, what is going on here!?’

That’s how I met Tomar and Phiona. By all appearances I was stuck in the boy’s body for the moment. The two of them didn’t know how to get me out of here, and the people who might know would apparently kill us at the mere mention of Tomar having a disembodied voice in his head. I didn’t know how credible these two were, but they sounded genuine. I didn’t have much of a choice but to trust them for now, begrudgingly.

I quickly hit it off with Phiona, however. She had been the one to suggest talking to me and she was more than willing to shower me with information about this place I found myself in. She seemed knowledgeable and intelligent. At least in comparison to her supposedly fifteen year old son, who, honestly, seemed a little slow on the uptake at times. As they told me more about the Callings and how they gave people knowledge, I assumed that was the reason. If you get all that for free, there’s not much reason to study. Guess that makes sense.

The kicker was when they mentioned that the ritual had been at noon however, and that Tomar had arrived just on time, at strike eight o’clock. The date and time system they were using was weird.

They explained that an hour consisted of sixty-four minutes, a day of sixteen hours, a week of eight days, a month of thirty-two days, and a year of eight months. It seemed like a prank by some computer nerd.

If I had to guess, I would say a minute felt about the same as a minute I was used to. But given the other numbers, a fifteen year old would not have been alive for the same amount of time as a fifteen year old in my world. Instead, it would be about half that. In a way, Tomar is only seven and a half years old... I thought.

I didn’t understand much about this world yet, but I started to grasp the vital importance of Callings to these people. The world was dangerous, and kind of medieval in parts. Citizens had to do their part. For that, they were expected to start working at fifteen, but that would only be truly viable with the Callings. Can’t build a society on the backs of people that are mentally seven.

As it was in my best interest to help Tomar with this problem, I agreed to attempt to fake a Calling. Unfortunately, I had yet to see a single piece of advanced technology here, and Phiona didn’t know what a computer was. However, over the course of my life I had developed programs for hundreds of companies, in dozens of fields. I had collected a lot of theoretical knowledge. Additionally, I had one more strength. Math. Then the cruel nerd’s jokes continued.

I was a mathematics major and had been a programmer for almost forty years, but I had never needed to calculate in octal before. I found it beyond hilarious.

‘Hahaha, octal? This is amazing.’

And they were deadly serious about it. When the neighbor, Gean, strolled in and demanded we solve problems, he expected us to even calculate floating point numbers. In octal. That one had thrown me off a little momentarily, but I managed somehow.

The last test he gave us made my imaginary eyes go wide. For the first time all day I had seen characters I was familiar with. They were part of an esoteric programming language called Omega, that uses elaborate drawings and diagrams to design programs that kind of look like magic circles.

He said he wanted us to solve the equation. Its structure was a little weird, but I understood what the mix of math and Omega script was supposed to do. However, I had my doubts that he actually wanted us to solve it. Gean had come over here as soon as he had heard about Tomar and I was sure he was suspicious about something. Then he threw a bunch of math questions at us, but they were normal enough. The last one felt like a test, however, and I told Tomar to feign ignorance.

Even though it had been the right choice, I later learned that they do actually use Omega for something here, which threw me for a loop once more. My answer being correct was pure luck. I had assumed he wanted to test us by showing us this, waiting for me to reveal myself. But since Omega existed here, it could’ve gone either way.

The Callings, the rituals, Mad Ones, and Omega, they all appeared connected somehow. And maybe they would be my way out of this.

Night 1

When we got home, Tomar fell onto his bed and was out like a light. With his eyes closed I was “sitting” in darkness, waiting to become drowsy myself. However, that never happened. At one point I heard the front door open, followed by the door to Tomar’s room. His mother had presumably come home, but she let him sleep.

After what felt like hours, I got really bored. Just out of curiosity, I screamed ‘Hey!’ in Tomar’s mind, but he didn’t react. More time passed, until I finally noticed something. Whenever I was bored, I would play around with my hands. Maybe fold them, drum on the table with them, and I realized Tomar’s hands were moving. I willed them to stop and they stopped. I tried to open Tomar’s eyes and slowly but surely, his room came into view. It was dark, but dimly illuminated by the moon’s light shining through the window.

I tried to get up, but I was struggling. Moving this body was incredibly awkward. For one, it felt different from moving my own body somehow. It wasn’t as intuitive, as I had to deliberately control every action at first. The other part was that Tomar’s body proportions were nothing like my own. He was maybe 1.80 meters in height, scrawny, and young. It was a stark contrast to my old, old body. I had been almost 2 meters and was very “dedicated” to my job, making my body more chubby than anything else. It felt like nothing was where it was supposed to be.

Eventually I did manage to rise up out of bed, however, and started looking around. Tomar’s room was very simple. A bed, a wardrobe, and a desk. That was about it.

After getting used to moving around a little, I started examining my surroundings in more detail. I walked out of Tomar’s room, checked the rest of the house, looked out the windows, and took a peek at some cupboards and drawers.

When I found a mirror, I stared into it for minutes, an unfamiliar face looking back at me. Despite their weird time system, Tomar did look like a fifteen year old. And Phiona had looked her age as well.

I touched my face, trying to determine if this was real. I had been here for hours and everything was so vivid and detailed that I could only come to one conclusion. This isn’t a dream.