Chapter 4 – A Second Chance
The exam results appeared on the hovering holoscreen with a single soft chime.
Names and scores scrolled in columns of electric blue, a storm of numbers and reputations.
Students craned their necks, gasps rippling across the hall like a wave.
Liora stood at the center of it all, hands tucked calmly behind her back, but inside her chest the mark pulsed with a quiet, eager rhythm.
Kane, Liora — Rank #1.
The letters glowed like a promise.
Mina would have squealed. Her old classmates would have cheered.
Liora simply exhaled, slow and steady.
In her last life, she'd barely scraped into the Rift Division.
Now she stood at the top without breaking a sweat.
This is the difference knowledge makes, she thought.
This is the power of rebirth.
"Whoa," someone muttered nearby. "First place? I didn't even know she was competing."
"She hacked the system," another whispered, half-joking.
Let them talk.
Their doubts were a gift.
In the chaos to come, she would need them to underestimate her.
---
Kai found her outside the hall, leaning casually against a pillar of shimmering glass.
The morning sun painted his smile in gold.
"Rank one," he said, holding out a hand in mock salute. "Should I start calling you Captain?"
Liora arched a brow. "You could. Or you could just train harder."
His laugh was warm, unguarded.
It hurt more than she wanted to admit.
In her memory, those same lips had once whispered forgive me as a blade slid into her heart.
But today they curved into the boyish grin of a nineteen-year-old with no blood on his hands.
"Guess I owe you that coffee," he said. "Celebration's mandatory."
Liora hesitated.
Every instinct screamed to refuse.
The less time she spent with him, the easier it would be to keep her heart armored.
But information was power—and Kai, whether he knew it or not, held keys to the apocalypse.
"Fine," she said at last. "But only one drink."
His grin widened. "Deal."
---
The café near the east docks smelled of roasted beans and sea-salt wind.
It was one of the few places in Orion untouched by corporate sterilization—warm wood tables, uneven brick walls, an old analog jukebox humming softly in the corner.
Kai ordered two caramel lattes before she could protest.
When he slid into the booth across from her, the late-afternoon light caught in his hair, and for a dangerous second he looked exactly like the man she had once loved.
Liora wrapped her fingers around the cup, grounding herself in the heat.
"So," he said, leaning forward. "How did you do it?"
"Do what?"
"Top the exam like it was child's play. You solved that Rift-vector equation in under a minute. I've seen professors choke on it."
She took a slow sip, letting the sweetness coat her tongue.
Truth hovered on the edge of her lips—I've lived this life before—but she swallowed it with the coffee.
"Maybe I just studied," she said lightly.
Kai smirked. "If you're hiding a quantum calculator under that jacket, I won't judge."
Her mouth curved despite herself. "What makes you think I'd tell you?"
He leaned closer, voice dropping to a conspiratorial murmur. "Because we're friends?"
Friends.
The word sliced sharper than any blade.
Not this time, she told herself.
Friendship was the first step toward love, and love had cost her everything.
Still, her heart betrayed her with a treacherous flutter.
---
As they left the café, the sky over Orion glowed with the first hint of evening.
Hover-bikes zipped past in streaks of neon.
Dockside vendors lit their stalls with flickering lanterns, their laughter mingling with the hum of engines.
Liora walked beside Kai in silence, mind racing.
Every scent, every sound, every shadow felt sharper, more fragile.
This world was alive, unscarred by the virus that would soon devour it.
She would save it.
She had to.
The mark beneath her shirt warmed, pulsing in time with her resolve.
A second chance was not a gift.
It was a weapon.
---
That night, back in her room, Liora spread a holographic map across her desk.
Her fingers danced over the interface, pulling up data she had memorized from her past life—locations of secret labs, underground shelters, black-market networks that would one day become lifelines.
North Sector Labs: the birthplace of the Rift virus.
Government safehouses: hidden bunkers that would collapse under monster swarms.
Smugglers' routes: vital for moving weapons before martial law.
She marked them all, each glowing pin a silent promise.
Her eyes burned, but she didn't stop.
Every plan she made tonight was another life saved tomorrow.
A soft chime interrupted her focus.
[Incoming Transmission: Unknown Source]
The hologram blinked, then stabilized into a single line of text:
We know what you are.
Liora's breath caught.
Another line followed:
The mark will awaken. Meet us at the Black Spiral before the next moonrise if you want answers.
The message vanished.
The room fell silent except for the pounding of her heart.
Someone knew.
Someone else had seen the mark.
The glow beneath her collarbone flared, hot and eager, as if answering an invisible call.
Liora stared at the fading message, a thrill of fear and anticipation twisting through her veins.
A second chance had given her time.
But time, she now realized, came with a price.
And the game she thought she controlled had already begun.