I woke up to the taste of blood and rust.
My body felt wrong—too heavy, too slow. My limbs didn't move the way I expected them to, like I was wearing a suit two sizes too big. A sharp pain pulsed in my skull, behind my eyes, like something was trying to force its way into my brain.
I... I didn't know where I was.
I didn't know who I was.
The only thing I knew was that I was cold, lying on damp concrete, rain drizzling down from a sky that buzzed with neon light. The air reeked of oil, metal, and something rotting nearby.
"What, urgh..."
I tried to push myself up. My arms trembled. My head swam.
Then I heard the voices.
"Think he's dead?"
A rough, rasping chuckle. "Who cares? If he's got anything on him, he won't be needing it."
Footsteps.
I lifted my head, vision swimming. Two figures stood at the mouth of the alley, silhouetted against flickering neon. One of them dragged something along the ground—a metal pipe, scraping against the pavement.
I could feel it. Danger.
Something in me whispered: Get up. Move.
And I tried to just do that, I put my hands under me, tried to push off the ground—my arms buckled. I barely caught myself before my face hit the pavement.
"Still breathing," one of them muttered. "Bet we can wake him up real good."
The other one laughed. The sound felt a shiver up my spine.
I had to run.
But my body wasn't listening.
My fingers dug into the ground, and something sparked at the edge of my mind—a memory - or something like it. A flash of movement, shadows cutting through light, a figure standing tall and silent. A gloved hand gripping a blade.
The image vanished as quickly as it came, slipping through my fingers like smoke.
"Alright, buddy," one of them said, stepping closer. "Let's see what you've got."
A hand grabbed my collar and yanked me up. My legs nearly gave out, my body sagging against him. He laughed, like he'd just picked up a sack of garbage.
Then, without thinking, I moved.
It wasn't skill. It wasn't instinct. I was panicking.
I lashed out—punched him in the ribs. He barely flinched. His friend barked out a laugh.
"Look at this guy!" he sneered. "He's got some fight in him!"
I tried swinging again at him. This time He caught my wrist and twisted. Pain shot up my arm. I gasped, my knees hitting the ground.
I wasn't strong enough.
I should have been.
Somewhere, deep inside, I knew I was supposed to be faster than this, stronger than this, deadlier than this.
But right now, I was just a half-dead man getting beaten in an alley.
The one holding my wrist twisted harder, making me grit my teeth. "Don't go passing out on us now." He said with a sneer and unkind eyes
His friend raised the pipe.
I couldn't let this happen.
Something inside me screamed.
Not a voice. Not a thought.
The feeling.
And before I could even process it, my free hand shot up and clawed at his face. My thumb jammed into his eye. He screamed.
The grip on my wrist loosened.
I took my chance and yanked free, I Staggered back. My vision spun, my legs barely keeping me up.
"You little—!"
The pipe swung. I tried to dodge—too slow. It caught my shoulder, and pain exploded through my arm. I hit the ground hard.
I gasped for air. My entire body burned.
The two men loomed over me, one clutching his bleeding eye, the other raising his pipe for another swing.
I wasn't going to win this.
But I wasn't going to die here, either.
I forced myself up. My body screamed in protest, but I ignored it. My mind was a mess—flashes of something familiar, something I should know, but I didn't.
And then—
Another voice.
Not from the men standing over me.
Not from inside my head.
From above.
"Hey."
The two scavengers freeze.
Footsteps. A shadow moved at the end of the alley. Someone tall, broad-shouldered. Their face hidden by a mask.
"That guy yours?" the newcomer asked, voice smooth, calm.
The scavengers glanced at each other. One of them sneered. "What's it to you?"
The masked figure didn't respond. They just reached for something under their coat.
The air changed.
The scavengers felt it too. The one with the pipe took a step back.
"Shit," his friend muttered. "Let's go."
They bolted. Gone in seconds.
Silence.
The figure in the mask turned to me. I tensed, but I could barely stand, let alone fight.
They tilted their head slightly, like they were studying me.
"So at the end of the day, you're not a complete failure, huh? Don't disappoint me."
Then, they turned and walked away,
One step.
Two steps
And he was gone. Like he was never here to begin with.
Leaving me alone in the rain, with nothing but a throbbing skull, a battered body—
And a growing sense that I was supposed to be someone else.
I finally looked at myself and saw that I was wearing what looked like a medical gown and nothing else, I tried to stand up and with the support of the wall I managed,
"Fucking hell...just where am I?"
My eyes finally felt like they stopped trying to kill me and I took the chance to actually look at my surroundings, and what I saw didn't really please me.
I was in a dark, filthy alley riddled with trash bags that was very poorly illuminated by some nearby flickering neon lights, I saw a rotting arm sticking out of one of the trash bags
"...Now I know from where the rotting smell came from."
I wiped a hand over my face, smearing blood and grime across my cheek. My shoulder throbbed where the pipe had hit me, and my head still felt like it was packed with broken glass. But I was alive.
Somehow.
I glanced at the alley entrance. The masked figure was gone, like they had never been there. I didn't know who they were, what they wanted, or why they had called me a failure—but right now, that wasn't my biggest problem.
I needed to get out of here.
I pushed off the wall, my legs barely cooperating, and stumbled out of the alley.
---
The streets weren't much better.
The flickering neon lights above me buzzed, casting sickly green and red hues over cracked pavement and old stains that I didn't want to think about. The buildings were tall, crooked, stacked on top of each other like they had been thrown together without a plan. Somewhere in the distance, I heard yelling, metal clattering, the occasional gunshot—just far enough away to not be my problem.
Not yet, at least.
The air smelled like oil, blood, and something foul that had been left to rot in the rain. Even through the haze in my mind, I could tell this place was wrong.
It wasn't just the filth.
It was the weight of the air, the way the city itself seemed to press down on me. Like I had been dropped into a world that was decaying from the inside out.
I needed clothes. Food. A place to think.
And, most importantly—
I needed to figure out who the hell I was.
---
I walked until my legs stopped shaking.
The streets twisted in ways that didn't make sense—alleys leading into half-collapsed tunnels, staircases that climbed into nothing, rusted-out bridges that looked like they'd been abandoned for decades.
I didn't recognize anything.
Not a single building, sign, sound.
Not even the sky.
The clouds were too thick, barely letting any real light through, and even though I knew it was night, the air had an eerie glow, like the whole city had been dipped in chemical waste.
My stomach growled.
Right. Food.
I caught movement out of the corner of my eye—a market stall, tucked into a narrow corner between two rundown buildings. A hunched man sat behind the counter, lazily flipping through a magazine, his face hidden beneath a ragged hood.
I approached, doing my best not to look as broken as I felt.
The vendor barely glanced at me. "You buying or wasting my time?"
I opened my mouth.
Paused.
I had nothing on me. No money. No weapons. Just a stolen knife from an alley fight and a medical gown that barely kept me warm.
I needed another approach.
"…I need work," I said.
The vendor snorted. "Yeah? You and half the damn city."
I clenched my jaw. This wasn't going to be easy.
I forced myself to stay calm. Getting pissed wouldn't help. I had no money, no connections, and no idea how this city worked. If I wanted food, I had to get it somehow.
The vendor sighed, tapping his fingers against the counter. His hood shifted slightly, revealing a face lined with scars and tired eyes that had seen too much. He was older than I expected, his voice carrying the weight of someone who had survived Hole longer than most.
"You really want work, huh?" His voice was slow, deliberate. "Not just another dumb bastard looking for a free meal?"
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak.
He eyed me for a long moment, then jerked his head toward the alley behind his stall.
"See that crate back there? Someone was supposed to pick it up. Never showed."
I glanced back. A rusted metal crate sat at the edge of the alley, covered in rainwater and grime.
"You want a job?" the vendor continued. "Take it to the scrapyard. Tonkachi's place. If he doesn't cave your skull in for showin' up empty-handed, maybe he'll let you work for a meal."
I exhaled slowly. Wasn't much of a deal. But it was better than nothing.
"…Fine," I muttered.
"Good. Now get outta my sight."
And as I prepared myself to get the crate he called me.
"Catch" he then threw me a dirty shirt and some pants that looked like they had seen much better days.
"Go change your clothes, or don't, if you like flashing people your bare ass." He then shrugged and went back to reading his magazine, completely ignoring me.
I then reluctantly went to some dark corner to put them on and finally regain some sense of decency.
---
The crate was heavier than it looked.
I nearly staggered forward the moment I lifted it, my arms burning from the effort. I was still too weak. Whatever had happened to me before I woke up in that alley had left my body in worse shape than I thought.
I gritted my teeth and forced my legs to move.
The streets of Hole were no better in daylight.
People barely looked at me as I walked, too busy dealing with their own problems. A man in a ragged coat counted bloodstained coins in his palm. A group of kids fought over a half-eaten scrap of bread near a rusted-out bus. Somewhere down the street, I heard screaming, followed by a heavy thud—and nobody reacted.
This place was a graveyard that hadn't figured out it was dead yet.
And I was stuck in it.
After some time of walking aimlessly I realized I didn't know where that scapyard was supposed to be, meaning that I was walking around with a heavy ass crate for nothing.
After going back to the amused and mocking vendor he told me where it was located.
By the time I reached the scrapyard, my muscles were screaming.
---
The yard was massive, a sprawling mess of twisted metal, broken machines, and rusted-out cars stacked like a junk monument. Sparks rained from a platform above, where a huge, broad-shouldered man worked a welding torch, face hidden behind a metal mask.
I set the crate down with a thud, trying not to collapse next to it.
The man didn't look up.
"You the replacement?" His voice was deep, rough, like someone who had been breathing in metal dust for too long.
I hesitated. "I—"
"Doesn't matter." He cut me off, tossing the torch aside and jumping down. He was massive up close, built like he could break me in half without trying. "You move metal, you don't talk, and you don't steal. You do those things, I'll pay you enough to eat."
I swallowed. "…That's it?"
He snorted. "What, you want a contract?"
I didn't argue.
Because this was what I needed.
Work.
Food.
And maybe, if I was lucky—a way to figure out what the hell happened to me.