The city breathed in the crisp, morning air, exhaling the low, steady rumble of awakening traffic. Luo Feng, eighteen and with the weight of a first year biology major on his shoulders, moved with the current of other early risers on the sidewalk. His backpack was a familiar anchor, stuffed with textbooks whose titles, Principles of Genetics, Organic Chemistry, felt both weighty and full of promise. Nestled safely within, a blue plastic container held the real treasure, his mother's pork and chive dumplings, a taste of home to break up the monotony of campus food.
He'd spent the weekend at home, a brief respite filled with his mother's constant, clucking worry and the familiar silence of his father's presence. Their relationship was a mural painted in muted tones, a series of quiet moments and unspoken understandings. His father, a man carved from quiet diligence, was always gone before Luo Feng woke and returned long after he'd retreated to his room to study. Their most meaningful conversations often happened through intermediaries.
"Your father fixed the leaky faucet in your bathroom," his mother would say.
Or,"Feng,your dad left some money on the counter for your new books."
Just last night, as Luo Feng was packing his bag to return to the dorms, his father had emerged from his home office. He held a small, plastic wrapped package.
"Here," his father said, his voice a low rumble. He thrust the package into Luo Feng's hands. It was a set of high quality highlighters, the expensive kind with dual tips. "Your mother said you were using cheap ones. These are better for your eyes. For annotating."
Luo Feng had taken them, their weight insignificant in his palm but heavy with meaning. It was his father's language. Not hugs or proud speeches, but practical, quiet support. A solution to a problem he had not even known was a problem.
"Thanks, Dad," he'd said, the words feeling inadequate.
His father had just given a single, sharp nod, his eyes, tired behind his glasses, holding Luo Feng's for a fleeting second before he turned and walked back into his study. The conversation was over. Luo Feng had stuffed the highlighters into his backpack, assuming, as all young people do, that there would be a next time, another chance to find the right words.
Now, on the sidewalk, his phone vibrated, pulling him from the memory. He did not need to look to know.
Mom (8:14 AM) Did you eat a proper breakfast? Do not just get a pastry. The dumplings are in the blue container. And please, Feng, be careful crossing the streets. The news said there is more traffic now.
A fond, slightly exasperated smile touched his lips. Her love was a constant, gentle pressure, like the atmosphere. He typed back, his thumbs swift on the screen.
Feng (8:15 AM) I ate, Mom. Stop worrying. I have the dumplings. Love you.
He hit send, the message flying into the digital ether, a mundane, everyday interaction between mother and son. He slipped the phone back into his pocket, the ghost of the smile still on his face. The highlighters pressed against his spine through the fabric of his backpack. I should text Dad later, he thought vaguely. Just to say thanks.
The crosswalk was just ahead. The signal across the street glowed a steady, reassuring white. The pedestrian symbol, a stylized man in mid stride, seemed to beckon. He was running a little late for his 8:30 AM lecture on vertebrate zoology. He adjusted the strap of his backpack, feeling the solid comfort of the dumpling container, and stepped off the curb.
It started as a distant sound, wrong for the rhythm of the morning, a high, desperate squeal of rubber fighting against asphalt.
It was a sound that did not belong. Luo Feng's head began to turn, his brain sluggishly processing the threat. The squeal became a twin set, sharper, more panicked.
The world exploded.
The initial impact was not a shove, but a total, catastrophic dismantling of his physical self. It was a symphony of breaking things, the sickening sound of his own bones, a sound he felt more than heard, deep and internal and final. The driver's side headlight of a white delivery van, veering wildly from the intersection, caught him square on. The force was astronomical, lifting him from the ground as if he were made of straw.
For a single, horrifyingly lucid moment, he was airborne. Time did not slow, it fractured. He saw the sky, a pale, indifferent blue. He saw the stunned, gaping face of a woman on the opposite curb, her hand flying to her mouth. He saw the spiderweb crack radiating across the van's windshield, a frozen explosion centered on the place where his body had been.
Then he landed. The sound of his body meeting the unyielding road was a brutal period at the end of a very short sentence.
The pain was all consuming. It was a white hot fire that started in his side and radiated outwards, swallowing his legs, his chest, his arms. It was a pain so absolute it was a new state of being. He tried to gasp, but his lungs would not obey. A coppery, thick warmth flooded his mouth, trickling down his chin. His vision swam, the world tilting on its axis, colors bleeding into a nauseating swirl.
"OH MY GOD!" a voice screamed, shrill and jagged with panic.
"Someone call an ambulance!"
"Do not move him Do not move him!"
The voices swirled around him, muffled and distant, as if he were submerged in deep water. He was aware of shapes gathering, of shadows falling over him, blocking out the sun. The pain began to recede, not because it was lessening, but because the signals were failing. A strange, heavy numbness was creeping in from his extremities, a cold tide washing in. The fire was being smothered under a blanket of ice. He could not feel his legs. He could not feel his arms.
Mom… The thought was a weak spark in the growing dark. The dumplings… they will be crushed.
The absurdity of it did not register. It was just a fact. His mother's gift, destroyed.
A man's face, pale and terrified, swam into his blurring vision. "Stay with me, son! Help is coming! Just stay with me!"
But Luo Feng was already leaving. The numbness was spreading to his core, a profound coldness that was somehow more terrifying than the pain. He thought of his father's face last night, the tired eyes, the unspoken words hanging in the air between them. The highlighters, brand new, still wrapped, were digging into his back. I never said thank you. Not properly.
The background noises, the sirens wailing in the distance, the frantic chatter of the crowd, the shaky reassurances of the man leaning over him, all began to fade, distorting into a long, fading echo. It was like a radio losing its signal, the voices stretching and melting into a meaningless drone.
The world was narrowing to a single, dim point of light. The cold was complete now, a final, peaceful emptiness. There was no more pain. No more sound. Just a deep, overwhelming regret for all the things left unsaid, and a final, fading pulse of love for the parents he would never see again.
His consciousness, untethered, drifted in the silent, dark void.
There was no time. No space. Only a lingering awareness, a collection of memories and emotions without a body to contain them.
Mom... Dad... I am sorry...
The concepts formed from the last embers of his identity.
Then, a presence. Vast, complex, and utterly impersonal. It was not a voice, but a series of fundamental statements that simply were.
[Lifeform Status: Terminated. Biological functions ceased.]
[Consciousness Cohesion: Anomalously Stable. Residual emotional energy high.]
[Assessing Transmigration Viability...Parameters met. Viable.]
No, the spark of Luo Feng protested, a final, weak flutter. This is a mistake. I have to… I have to go home. My class… Mom is waiting…
This was wrong. His life was a half finished drawing, a song cut off before the chorus. It was meant to be filled with boring lectures, the struggle to understand complex formulas, the quiet pride in his father's eyes when he graduated, the sound of his mother's voice on the phone.
[Proposal: Integration into New Biological Vessel.]
[Destination: Primeval Jungle Biome.Species Reptilia, Juvenile.]
[Auxiliary System: Ultimate Evolution Granted.]
A torrent of alien sensation flooded his awareness, not memories, but experiences. The crushing vulnerability of a tiny body. The constant, gnawing ache of hunger. The taste of fear on the air. The sight of shadows that meant death. It was a hell of instinct and desperation, a million miles from the quiet, orderly world of textbooks and crosswalks.
He recoiled with every fiber of his being. This was not a second chance, it was a horrific perversion. A lonely, terrifying existence in a body that was a walking meal, in a world without dumplings or highlighters or his mother's voice.
[Choice A: Accept integration. Continue existence in new form.]
[Choice B: Consciousness dissolution.Return to void. Final cessation.]
To choose B was to truly die. To let go. To allow the memory of his mother's smile to be extinguished forever. To let the image of his father's tired, caring eyes fade into nothing. It was the end of Luo Feng.
But Choice A was a living nightmare. To become that? To forget what it felt like to be human? To live every moment in terror?
His consciousness, stripped of everything but its core loves and regrets, hovered on the precipice. He saw his mother's face, imagined her receiving the phone call, the world collapsing around her. He saw his father in his silent study, the unopened package of highlighters on his desk, a monument to a conversation that would never happen.
A desperate, aching will flared. It was not about wanting a new life. It was about refusing to let the memory of his old one die. If this was the only way to hold on, to still be Luo Feng in some small, essential way, to still remember them, then he had to take it. Even as a ghost in a lizard's mind, he would carry them with him.
With a final, silent cry that contained all his love, his regret, and his apology, he made his choice.
[Acknowledged.]
[Initiating Soul Transference...]
[Memory Compression Required...Retaining Core Identity and Affective Imprints...]
[Integration Commencing...]
The void collapsed into a crushing, suffocating pressure. A frantic, rhythmic thump thump that was not his own heartbeat pounded in his awareness. The brilliant, painful mosaic of his human life was compressed into a single, dense spark, a jewel of grief and love, and buried deep within a new, burgeoning, primal consciousness.
There was a tearing, a breaking free. Then, light. Overwhelming, brutal, terrifying light. Sound, a cacophony of chirps, rustles, and distant screeches. Smell, a thick soup of rot, pollen, and damp earth.
His first breath was a ragged, instinctual gasp. His first feeling was a hunger so profound it eclipsed the fading echo of his human sorrow.
The system's voice was the final, cold thread tethering the spark to the beast.
[Ultimate Evolution System Online.]
[Welcome,Luo Feng.]