It was raining for three days.
The cold mountain path was mixed with mud and cold blood. A body lay face-down beside the road, his fingers half buried in the wet earth, with breathing so faint it barely qualified as living.
His name was Alpha.
At least, that was what his mother used to call him - before she died, Before everything else went wrong.
A wooden cart rolled past, splashing dirty water across his torn clothes. No one stopped. No one slowed. On this road, corpses were a common sight. The body of a half dead boy was not worth any attention.
The boy tried to move.
Pain answered him immediately. Sharp, deep pain everywhere. He could not feel his shattered ribs. One leg no longer obeyed him. Blood filled his throat with every forced breath.
So this is how it ends. He thought to himself.
There was no fear in his thoughts. Only exhaustion.
Sixteen years of life, filled with nothing but misery.
Born during a famine. Orphaned young. Sold to a minor sect as a servant.
He had worked harder than anyone else. Endured all the hardships, the hunger, the insults, the beatings.
He saw a spark of hope, when the sect tested disciples for cultivation talent.
That hope was shattered by the word "barely passable"
He was not useless enough to discard, and not talented enough to be nurtured.
They sent him on errands no one else wanted.
"Deliver the supplies through the Eastern path" the elder said calmly. " if you're late, don't bother coming back."
The eastern path was famous for its bandits.
He got caught by them at dusk. They took everything. They laughed at him after slashing him. It was carefully designed slash, enough to cripple him and allow him bleed to death.
Cold seeped into his Bones, His vision blurred as the sky darkened.
As his conscious was slipping away, a strange sensation started to stir within him
It wasn't fear or pain; But familiarity.
This..... feels familiar.
The thought made no sense. But somehow, deep in his heart, a heavy certainty formed.
It was inexplicable, He had died like this before.
A raindrop struck his eyelid, and then another. It continued to rain In his final moments.
Alpha felt something brush past his soul, something cold, distant and indifferent.
And at this moment darkness swallowed him.
Some time later....
Alpha awoke to pain.
He screamed.
The sound came out thin and broken. The woman nearby gasped. Voices started to rise in panic.
"He's alive!"
"He's breathing!"
"Quick, wrap him!"
Light attacked his vision, Air burned his lungs, and his limbs flailed uselessly.
He didn't understand.
But deep within his soul, something echoed.
a single truth; He was alive again.
And he felt somewhere unseen, an ancient tally continued to count.