The alley smelled like old rain and regret.
Miles Vane gripped the strap of his old backpack, the rough fabric grounding him in the deepening shadows.
The quiet noise of the city surrounded him honking cars, footsteps on wet pavement, a distant dog barking all of it strangely muted, like the alley had slipped away from the rest of the world.
Streetlights blinked on and off a block away, their faint buzzing filling the quiet like static from an old TV. They threw long, thin shadows that moved across the alley, twisting and shifting as if they were alive.
The weak evening light colored everything in soft gold and dark purple, like the last light of day fading into night.
He just wanted to get home.
The library had been its usual quiet self, a sanctuary of paper and dust where he could pretend to be just another student. He'd stayed too long, again, absorbed in ancient texts and theories most people wouldn't care to understand, much less read. But books didn't talk back. They didn't judge. They didn't see the hidden cracks beneath his carefully assembled mask.
Academically brilliant but otherwise invisible.
That was his camouflage, his shield. He wore it every day at Northwood High like a second skin.
He preferred it that way.
Anonymity was safety.
A sudden, heavy shove from behind sent him stumbling forward, his sneakers scraping against the gritty pavement.
"Well, well, well."
The voice was greasy, thick with unearned confidence.
"Look what we got here, boys."
Miles turned slowly, his heart thundering in his chest like a trapped bird. Every instinct told him to run, but he was already too late.
Three of them.
They loomed like broken statues, built like busted refrigerators, all wide shoulders and menacing grins. The kind of people who thought violence was a language and they were fluent.
They wore jackets with a stitched symbol of a red snake curled into a coil.
The Crimson Serpents.
Low-level street thugs who thought they owned this part of the city.
"Just another bookworm from Northwood High," the leader sneered, cracking his knuckles with a sound like gravel being crushed. "Probably got some money from mommy and daddy for good grades."
Miles stayed silent. His mind raced, calculating exits, estimating distances, cataloging escape routes.
There were no good options.
The alley was a dead end.
He was trapped.
"I don't have any money," Miles said, his voice quiet but steady. He hoped it sounded more confident than he felt.
The leader laughed, a sharp, ugly bark. "That's what they all say."
"Let's just check for ourselves."
The first punch came without warning. A fist, hard and merciless, slammed into his jaw, and a starburst of white-hot pain exploded behind his eyes. The taste of blood sharp, metallic coated his tongue.
They moved quickly after that. His backpack was yanked from his shoulder and tossed to the ground, its contents spilling like trash: textbooks, notes, a half-eaten sandwich wrapped in wax paper.
A kick to the stomach sent him folding inward, gasping like a fish pulled from water.
He crumpled, curling into a defensive ball as boots rained down on him. Steel-toed, heavy, unrelenting.
It was a symphony of violence.
Pain was a fire, consuming everything.
One rib gave way with a sickening, wet crunch.
His vision blurred.
The edges of the world began to gray and dim, like a screen losing signal.
This is it, he thought, his mind drifting as the pain dulled into something strangely distant. This is how it ends. Not with a bang. Not in battle. But with a beating in a forgotten alley, alone and unseen.
"He ain't got a wallet," one thug grunted, annoyed.
"Waste of time," another spat.
"Leave him," the leader said coldly. "Let him bleed."
Their footsteps faded, retreating into the night like ghosts satisfied with their cruelty.
Miles lay motionless.
Every breath was a dagger. Every heartbeat a cruel reminder he was still alive.
He tried to move, but even blinking felt like too much.
Darkness beckoned.
Not just unconsciousness, but something deeper.
Colder.
Quieter.
And then something new bloomed behind his eyes.
A pain that wasn't physical. A sharp, electric presence humming just beneath the surface of his thoughts.
It was not the pain of broken bones.
It was activation.
Something was waking up.
[CRITICAL TRAUMA DETECTED]
A voice.
Not spoken aloud. It echoed inside his skull, crisp and digital, overlaid with a whisper that felt warm and terrifyingly familiar.
[HOST VITAL SIGNS FAILING]
[INITIATING ECHO PROTOCOL]
What the hell? he thought weakly. A concussion with a user interface? Perfect.
[SYSTEM BOOTING... 10%]
Suddenly, a storm of information surged into his brain a torrent of numbers, code, unreadable symbols flowing across the inside of his eyelids.
[...25%]
[LINKING SOUL SHARD TO NEURAL PATHWAYS]
The pain grew worse ice and fire stabbing into every neuron.
A scream rose in his throat but never made it out.
Then
A memory.
Not his.
A woman's face.
Eyes full of fierce, desperate love.
Mira Vane.
His mother.
"It's okay, my sweet boy," her voice echoed through the static. "You will be strong enough."
He saw a man's hands, steady and sure, holding a strange, glowing syringe.
Dr. Alaric Vane.
His father.
"This is not an end," his father's memory said, proud and unyielding. "It is a new beginning. We made you to defy death itself."
[...50%]
[MEMORY FRAGMENT 1/25 UNLOCKED: 'A Parent's Love']
Tears slipped down Miles' face, mingling with the blood and grime.
The warmth of the memory was a cruel contrast to the freezing reality.
[...75%]
[CORE COMBAT PROTOCOLS OFFLINE]
[SURVIVAL SUB-ROUTINES... ACTIVATING]
[...100%]
[ECHO PROTOCOL... AWAKENED]
The voice vanished.
But something inside remained humming, watching, alive.
He could feel everything.
Not emotionally.
Literally.
He could feel the fracture in his rib, the slow trickle of blood in his abdomen, the exact angle of swelling in his throat, the drop in his blood pressure.
He was dying.
And for the first time, he understood every single cause.
"Hey, look!"
The greasy voice broke through the trance.
"The little roach is still twitching."
Miles turned his head slowly. The effort was monumental.
The three thugs stood at the alley's mouth again, shadows draped around them like cloaks.
"Maybe he had one of those fancy looking phones," one said, licking his lips.
"Let's check his pockets for real this time."
They started moving toward him again, steps slow and sure.
Predators circling a wounded animal.
He had nothing.
No strength.
No escape.
No chance.
Just as the last flicker of hope guttered out, the voice in his head returned no longer a boot-up sequence.
But a command.
A purpose.
A single, clear, undeniable directive that resonated through every fiber of his being.
[DIRECTIVE: SURVIVE]