The first thing that hit me was the light.
Warm, blinding, intrusive—it leaked through the curtains and painted my eyelids gold. I groaned, shifting, but the sound caught in my throat. My tongue was dry, metallic, like I'd been chewing copper.
I forced my eyes open. The ceiling above me wasn't familiar—smooth white, with recessed lights and molding like something out of a luxury hotel brochure. For a second I just lay there, dazed, until a sticky heat dragged my attention downward.
My head… it clung to the floor. When I shifted, it peeled free with a soft, tearing sound, and I froze. My palm brushed through something tacky, still half-wet. Blood.
Not a smear, not a drop. A pool.
My stomach turned instantly, and my breath hitched into short, shallow bursts. I scrambled backward, my heart pounding, until my back smacked against a glass table. My hands shook as I wiped them on my shirt, but the red only spread, painting streaks across the fabric.
I glanced around, wide-eyed. The room was immaculate—expensive furniture, minimalist art, polished black floors, and a city skyline framed by tall windows. But none of that mattered. Not compared to the fact that I was lying in a puddle of blood. My blood? Someone else's?
A folded slip of paper rested beside me, edges curling slightly from the damp floor. I hesitated, my breath catching in my throat, then forced myself to reach for it. My fingers smudged the corner red as I unfolded it.
Four words.
Too painful. Forget it.
My pulse roared in my ears. Forget what? How did I even get here?
The last thing I remembered…
Water. The kitchen. The flickering light. That awful dream—no, nightmare. My parents asleep. Sophia—
My chest tightened as the memory slid away like oil, refusing to be caught. My brain itched with absence, like I'd lost something vital.
I clutched the note tighter, staring at the crimson stains spreading beneath me. My voice came out hoarse, broken.
"…What the hell happened to me?"
I staggered through the unfamiliar room, every step awkward. My legs felt like they belonged to someone else—longer, heavier in some places, lighter in others. I cursed under my breath, trying to make sense of anything. The floor stretched ahead, pristine, yet I couldn't recognize anything: no doors where I expected, no furniture familiar. Panic drummed in my chest as I finally spotted a door with a faint icon of a faucet etched on it—bathroom, I hoped.
I pushed it open, and a soft click sounded. The light flickered on automatically, bright and clinical, washing over me in a way that made my skin crawl. My hand trembled as I stepped inside.
Water gushed from the showerhead. I flinched at the ice-cold spray, but it didn't matter—every nerve felt like it was on fire anyway. I let the water run over me, trying to shake the tremors from my body, to feel normal. But normal didn't exist here.
And then I saw it.
The mirror.
I froze, every muscle taut. The reflection staring back was not mine. Not the Marcus I had known.
Short, white hair curled around my head, the strands soft yet wild, framing a face that seemed almost… sculpted. Two pairs of eyes—vivid purple, layered one over the other—blinked back at me. My mouth went dry.
I stumbled back, gripping the sink for support. My voice came out as a cracked whisper.
"…What… what the hell?"
The bathroom air felt heavier, charged. Then the notification appeared, floating in the corner of my vision, glowing faintly like it had always been there:
[WELCOME TO CYCLE 01]
I blinked, rubbed my eyes. It had to be some kind of trick. A screen overlay, something from a game or one of the novels I'd read, something I'd seen in VR—but it wasn't in my glasses, it was real. My pulse accelerated, shaking with disbelief.
"What… which cycle? What is this?" I whispered to myself, voice shaky.
I reached up, running my fingers over my face. Smooth. Perfect. Taller. Leaner. Muscles that felt like they had been carved by someone else's life. Not my short, curly black hair, not my brown eyes, not the body I had known—this was… something else.
The cold water ran over my skin, but it felt irrelevant. My body was no longer mine. My reflection wasn't mine. And the purple eyes in the mirror—the second set, blinking in unison—stared back with a calm I didn't feel.
Every instinct screamed at me. Panic clawed up my throat. And yet… a part of me couldn't look away.
I was Marcus… and I was not.
I stepped out of the bathroom, still dripping from the icy water, muscles tense, eyes wide. Every step felt strange, my new body moving with a grace and strength I didn't recognize. My fingers brushed over the walls, trying to find something familiar, anything to anchor me.
The room I entered wasn't the same as before—doorways led to spaces I couldn't place, furniture polished to perfection—but something on the desk caught my attention. My heart stuttered.
A photograph.
I approached cautiously, as if touching it might shatter reality itself. There, captured in a still moment, were three people. The first was a man—tall, strong, black hair slicked back, features so sharp and striking they could have been carved from marble. Beside him, a girl, older than me, with long black hair like his and eyes deep, dark pools of emotion. Both of them radiated a beauty so pure, so impossible, that even models in magazines couldn't compare.
And sitting between them… a boy. Or rather, the body I now inhabited. White hair framing his face, curls soft and perfect, eyes a brilliant purple—just like the reflection in the mirror.
I froze.
This was me? Or… the person I was inhabiting?
Gratitude mixed with panic. I hadn't expected anything familiar in this strange, luxurious, impossible place, and yet there it was—a fragment of reality I could cling to. The boy in the photograph looked peaceful, happy even, surrounded by those two who must have been his family.
I ran my fingers over the edge of the frame. My new hands felt impossibly delicate and strong all at once. My chest tightened.
I wanted to touch it. To memorize it. To know this was real.
But questions bubbled up faster than I could breathe. Who were they? Why did they look like this? Why did I… feel like I belonged here, even though my mind screamed that I didn't?
For a moment, I just stood there, staring. The room around me—luxurious, cold, unfamiliar—faded into the background. All that existed was the photograph and the impossible notion that this, somehow, was my life now.
A voice whispered in my head—or maybe it was just the echo of my own racing thoughts:
"You are not who you were. And you never were."
My pulse jumped. My legs wobbled under me. I gripped the desk, knuckles white.
I didn't know where I was. I didn't know whose body I had, or whose life this was.
All I knew was that, for the first time since waking, a flicker of something human had returned: awe.
And a terrifying, lingering dread.
I stepped closer to what looked like a wardrobe, still unsteady from the shock of the photograph and the strange new body I inhabited. The polished doors reflected my pale face and the strange, sharp angles of my hair. I hesitated for a second, then pulled them open.
Inside, neatly folded, was a simple black hoodie and matching pants. Nothing fancy—yet they felt… familiar, somehow. As if they belonged to me, or the person I now was.
Before I could even reach for them, a sudden glow appeared at the corner of my vision.
A status panel. Words scrolling too fast to blink:
[INITIALIZING SYSTEM VERSION 2.88
FAILED!&#@"@'@-@+
FAILED!@#@@#@
FAILED!?@?@??_
ERROR — NO SYSTEM INHERITOR DETECTED
CLOSING CONNECTION TO ??????]
My chest tightened. My legs buckled. The wardrobe swung closed behind me as I staggered backward, every instinct screaming. I barely made it to the bed, collapsing onto the soft mattress.
My hands shook, and I pressed my palms against my eyes, trying to shut it all out. It felt… unreal. Like I'd slipped into a story I'd read somewhere, but now it was my life—and I didn't know the rules, or the system, or even what that notification had meant.
The bed sagged under me as I lay there, heart hammering, staring at the ceiling. Questions swirled in my head faster than I could catch them:
Who was I now?
What was this body?
What was this "Cycle 01"?
And what did that failed system mean?
I swallowed hard, the hoodie and pants still hanging in my peripheral vision. My pulse slowly began to settle, though a tremor lingered in my limbs.
The world outside the wardrobe was quiet—too quiet. Too perfect. Too artificial.
And yet… somehow, I felt it waiting. Watching.