I died on a Wednesday. Shot twice in the chest outside a broken pub in the rain. The man who pulled the trigger didn't look at me. He just turned and walked off. I remember the gunmetal, the sound, the heat in my ribs. Then the cold.
Then black.
Then breath.
I came back choking. My mouth filled with rot and mud and something like ash. The sky above me was copper, full of smoke and clouds that didn't move. I was lying in an alley, naked, with blood that wasn't mine soaking the dirt. The buildings leaned in too close, as if they'd been punched and hadn't stood back up yet.
I sat up fast. My head spun. My chest didn't hurt. No holes. No blood. My heart pounded, but not from fear. It was alive again. Stronger.
I looked at my hands. They were mine. Thicker, maybe. My nails looked sharper. Dirt under them. I didn't know where I was, but I knew what had happened. I'd been killed, and now I was somewhere else.
A sound clicked behind my eyes.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING...]
[QUEST: SURVIVE THE NIGHT.]
[REWARD: UNKNOWN.]
I didn't know what the words meant. They weren't in the air, but they were there. In my skull. Like remembering something you never learned.
I stood up. My legs worked fine. I was taller. Heavier. Something inside me hummed. I didn't know how to describe it. It felt like a furnace in my chest, lit but not roaring. Yet.
Then I heard it.
The scraping of claws on brick.
It came from the dark part of the alley. The part where light didn't touch. I turned and saw eyes. Six of them. Low to the ground. Gleaming like old coins.
The thing stepped forward. Its skin was stretched wrong. Too tight. Like wet leather nailed to bone. It had too many limbs and none of them walked right. Its mouth split down the middle. Teeth like nails. It smiled like it had seen me before.
I didn't have a weapon.
I didn't have clothes.
I didn't even know my own name.
But I had the furnace in my chest.
The thing lunged. I didn't think. I moved. I grabbed a rusted pipe off the ground, the kind that used to belong to the wall before the wall gave up. It was heavy in my hand. I swung it.
The sound it made when I hit the thing wasn't right. Wet and sharp, like meat tearing off metal.
The thing shrieked. I didn't stop.
I swung again. And again.
By the time I was done, its head was pulp. The pipe was bent. My hands were shaking.
I stood there for a while. Breathing hard. Blood—black, oily—dripped off my arms.
[QUEST COMPLETE.]
[REWARD: +1 Strength. Skill Unlocked: Ember Core Lv. 1]
The words again. Clearer now. The furnace in my chest flared. I felt it stretch through my ribs. Like a second heartbeat.
Then the body hissed.
Smoke rose from it, and then it crumbled. Bone to ash. Skin to smoke.
I was alone again.
But not really.
Something inside me was awake now. Watching.
I looked down the alley. The buildings leaned and the sky stayed copper. But I knew I couldn't stay here.
I walked. No plan. No direction.
Just a pipe in my hand and fire in my chest.