The first sense to return was pain.
It was a dull, deep burning sensation, as if every fiber of his being were being torn apart and rebuilt at the same time. It was not the pain of an ordinary wound. No. It was something more… ancient, insidious, as though something inside him were devouring his own body in an eternal cycle of death and rebirth.
He tried to move, but his body felt heavy, trapped in a viscous liquid that pressed against his chest.
—Where am I? Darkness surrounds me. I can't see anything, I don't know where I am, my memories are blurry… am I alive? I feel cold, and my body feels wet.—
The thought came like a whisper in his mind. His eyelids struggled to open, and when they finally did, the first thing he saw was a reddish glow, flickering lights reflected on the surface of what looked like… glass?
He wanted to speak, but only bubbles rose from his mouth, dissolving into the liquid surrounding him. His vision was blurred, but with effort, he made out cables connected to his body, inserted into his back, his arms… something was injecting a strange fluid into him.
Fear and uncertainty flooded his being as he tried to understand what was happening around him. Although it was difficult to distinguish what lay beyond the glass, a loud, deafening noise filled the place—an overwhelming mix of screams, voices, and alarms.
He had been in dangerous situations before. He remembered the scent of iron, the sensation of a blade cutting through soft flesh, the final breaths of those whose lives he had taken without hesitation. But this… this was not what was supposed to happen. He had died. His memories were slowly returning with clarity.
The confrontation. The fatal wound. The darkness.
So why was he alive?
A sharp beep echoed through the room. Something had changed. The pressure on his chest eased as the liquid began to drain with a sucking sound. His limbs, once heavy, regained movement. A metallic crash announced the capsule's opening, and he fell to his knees on a cold, slick floor.
He coughed. His breathing was erratic, as if his lungs did not recognize the air of this place. He braced his hands against the ground, and that was when he felt it.
The burning. The rot.
His veins throbbed with a poisonous energy. He didn't know what it was, but he was certain it was something that threatened to devour him from within. He looked at his hands and saw the marks: reddish scars, patterns spreading across his skin like withered roots. This was his original body, but something different now lived inside him.
A sound made him raise his head.
Around him, the room was a ruined laboratory. Shattered test tubes, some containing what appeared to be the same substance, were flooding his body. He could almost recognize it, as if it were part of him. Papers were scattered across the floor, and a chemical stench hung in the air. And in the shadows, dark figures were watching him.
—"This can't be…"—a voice whispered in the distance.
He lifted his gaze, his eyes burning with a strange light. His rebirth had begun, and with it, the curse he carried.
—"We need to deal with him. The master ordered us to investigate him. We can't leave him here,"—one of the figures in the room said.
—"Are you joking? We don't know what that thing is. You saw what happened to the last one who touched him,"—one of the scientists said. —"We should get out of here as soon as possible. They're already getting closer."
The two scientists in the room ran off, leaving the man still weak on the damp floor. For a moment, the room was filled with a desolate silence. A silence that did not last long.
A violent crash shook the laboratory walls, followed by screams and the metallic clash of weapons. The flickering light of the monitors illuminated corpses scattered across the floor—scientists and test subjects who hadn't had the chance to escape.
He struggled to his feet, unsteady, his body still feeling unfamiliar. The reddish scars glowed faintly on his skin, and the burning in his veins did not subside.
Another impact. The ceiling trembled, and part of the wall collapsed, revealing a long, dark corridor. From there came a new sound: hurried footsteps, ragged breathing… and a muffled scream followed by the wet sound of a body hitting the ground. Something was hunting inside this place.
Still disoriented, he kept moving. He didn't know where he was or why, but he understood one thing: when an environment becomes a death trap, the first priority is to find a way out.
Gathering what little strength he had, his bare feet touched the cold, damp floor, sticky with something he didn't want to inspect too closely. He moved down the corridor, following the only direction available. Emergency lights flickered in red and yellow tones, illuminating the rocky walls surrounding the place.
As he turned a corner, his foot struck something. He looked down.
A body. It was a man dressed in dark clothing, wearing some kind of armored vest. His neck was slit from side to side, a precise, clean wound. This had not been an improvised execution. Beside the corpse lay a kind of metallic arm and a white mask shaped like a frog.
He frowned, thinking.
—A militia? Soldiers? I've never seen a uniform like this—he thought.
He didn't have much time to reflect.
A new sound came from ahead. His eyes lifted just in time to see a figure moving in the shadows. A man dressed in black, wearing a white fox mask over his face, appeared holding a large knife, blood dripping from its edge.
The man recognized the stance immediately. This was no improvised criminal. He was a hunter, someone with special training—training similar to what he himself had undergone in his other life, a specialized training designed to kill people.
The masked man sensed another presence and spotted him, staggering and holding himself up against one of the rocky walls. He tensed, adopting a combat stance that radiated danger.
—"A survivor…"—he murmured. It was not a statement of relief. It was confirmation of something far more dangerous, a sign that the next victim would be him.
The assassin did not respond.
His body still felt sluggish, but his combat instincts—the ones that had defined him in his past life—were awakening quickly. If this man was coming to kill him, he needed a weapon.
He couldn't make a single move before a second explosion rocked the corridor. Both of them were thrown backward by the shockwave. The assassin slammed into a wall, his vision blurring for a moment.
The smoke from the explosion slowly dissipated, leaving behind a trail of destruction. When he managed to get back on his feet, he saw something terrifying.
The blast had torn a hole in the wall, revealing another ruined corridor, and the smell of ash and burned flesh filled the air. What drew the most attention were the bodies. Dozens of corpses were scattered across the floor—scientists and men wearing the same uniforms he had seen before. Some bore deep burns, others clean cuts, many with expressions of horror frozen on their faces.
The assassin blinked, trying to clear his vision. The soldier with the fox mask was gone. His gaze swept over the ruined corridor; there was no trace of his body, not even blood. Only old corpses and the distant sounds of fighting elsewhere. Had he fled? Or was he moving through the shadows, waiting to strike again?
He didn't have time to think about it for long.
Ahead of him, someone else had appeared. In the dim tunnel, another figure stood.
A new enemy stood among the rubble, unmoving. His silhouette was tall and solid, his posture relaxed yet filled with confidence. Dark hair fell in thick strands over his face. His tactical vest, similar to the one worn by the fallen man earlier, was stained with someone else's blood. His clothing was slightly different from the previous one. The man immediately knew he should not underestimate whoever stood there.
The soldier noticed him as well.
—"Tch… another one. No one can be left alive,"—she muttered through clenched teeth.
But the man didn't understand. He didn't know who was an ally and who was an enemy. He only knew one thing: this place was a death trap, and he needed to get out before he was swallowed by this war of shadows.