[System Initialization...]
Welcome, Michael.
The message floated in the void—bright, clean, and out of place in the infinite black. Michael had no body. No breath. No form. Only awareness. And yet, the words felt real. Like they reached out and touched something deep within him.
A voice followed. Calm. Confident. Disembodied.
"You have been selected to receive a second chance."
Then a pause.
"No... better than that."
Before Michael could question what was happening, the space around him shimmered. The darkness shifted. Strange lights bloomed—geometric patterns and lines of arcane code spiraling through the air like glowing veins. A deep hum resonated in his core.
The system began its process.
[Beginning soul transfer...]
Target: Michael – Confirmed.
Initializing vessel link...
ERROR: Unknown entity detected in host blood.
Something surged through him.
Not physically—there was no body to feel with—but it hit him at a level beyond flesh. A wrongness. Like his very essence was being inspected and rejected at the same time.
[Attempting to purge contaminant...]
ERROR.
Foreign presence immune to system protocols.
Fallback purification attempt... FAILED.
The pressure began to build.
[Attempting soul tether...]
ERROR: Host soul resists universal link.
[Retrying with blood-link protocol...]
ERROR: Incompatible.
System unable to override host's blood signature.
Michael's awareness began to fracture under the weight of the errors. He felt like he was being pulled apart, not by force, but by incompatible laws of reality colliding inside him.
[Override Sequence Initiated.]
Attempting to control host blood...
ERROR.
Attempting to cleanse...
ERROR.
Attempting to bond...
ERROR.
Initiating soul contract...
ERROR: Host soul already bound.
The system stalled.
The lights flickered. The hum shifted pitch, growing unstable. Michael felt like he was breaking—disassembling into light and pain. His very soul trembled on the edge of collapse.
Then—
[Adaptive Protocol Engaged.]
Creating isolated system instance...
Copying core processes...
Stripping universal tether components...
Recompiling...
System Copy Created.
[Attempting merge: System Copy → Host Soul]
...
...
SUCCESS.
That word struck like thunder.
Michael's soul ignited.
Agony unlike anything he had ever imagined surged through him. It wasn't pain in his body—it was pain of his body, of his being, as the foreign system merged with him, not from outside, but from within.
It didn't link to him.
It became part of him.
Every line of system code fused with his soul like molten wire branding his identity. Memories flickered. Thoughts blurred. Everything that made him Michael was being rewritten and reforged alongside something entirely alien.
He wanted to scream.
But he had no mouth. No sound.
Only the feeling of being shattered and reborn at the same time.
And then—
Darkness.
Still. Absolute.
Everything fell quiet. The pain vanished like it had never been there.
For a moment, there was nothing.
Then—
A heartbeat.
A breath.
His breath.
Lungs filled. A chest rose. Nerves flared awake.
And suddenly—
His eyes snapped open.
He gasped, sharp and desperate, like a drowning man breaking the surface.
Michael lived again.