Somewhere deep underground, there was a room. The room was a cube of sterility and silence. No windows, no clocks. Only four steel-gray walls interrupted by pipes that slithered out of the corners like cold arteries, and wires that pulsed faintly behind grated panels.
The lighting was a detached, clinical blue, artificial and cold, the kind that didn't warm skin or illuminate truth. It simply existed, as if to say: you are here, and nowhere else.
In the center of the room, on a thin cot with a stiff plastic mattress, lay a young man.
His eyes burst open as if torn from a nightmare.
He gasped violently, his lungs struggling to remember how to breathe. His body jolted, fingers twitching, legs spasming once before stillness returned.
Then, as his mind caught up, he cried out, an incoherent jumble of panic.
"—hhhnk—gah! Where—what—what the fuck is—!"
His voice echoed sharply, trapped within the unyielding walls.
The silence that followed was dense. Then came the voice.
"Well," said a voice, calm, intimate, familiar. "This is... an intriguing development."
The young man froze.
His wide, bloodshot eyes darted across the room. "Who said that? Who's there?"
"Who else would it be?" the voice replied. "It's me, Sym. It's Sage. Still connected. Still with you."
Sym blinked. His breath slowed, but only slightly. A chill ran down the back of his neck.
"...Sage?"
"Yes."
He sat upright, eyes wide with disbelief. "Did you... Follow me? To heaven?"
A pause.
"This is not heaven," Sage said. "Not even close. Based on what I can access, you've been relocated—your consciousness transferred to a different host body after the asteroid collision. An unexpected outcome... but not without precedent."
Sym rubbed his face with unfamiliar hands. The skin was rougher. The bones felt wrong. The muscles didn't twitch the way he remembered. He was foreign to himself.
"This is... so weird," he whispered. "I never thought... this is what the afterlife would be like."
Sage, ever rational, asked: "Would you consider this an afterlife, Sym?"
Sym stared into the ceiling, blank, smooth, unforgiving. "I... don't know."
His face tightened.
He swung his legs over the bed's edge and placed his hands in his lap, examining them with growing discomfort.
They didn't belong to him. Not truly. The skin tone was slightly different, more tanned. The nails were barely cleaned.
There was a faint, crescent-shaped scar just beneath the wrist, unfamiliar, yet now his.
He took a slow breath, then spoke with sudden clarity. "Sage. Scan this body. Access its memories. Filter everything. Erase the emotions, the attachments. Don't let that person's self contaminate mine. I only want what I need to survive."
A pause. Then, with clinical efficiency:
"Initiating full scan. Integrating memory data. This will take some time."
Sym nodded and lay back down. His chest rose and fell slowly.
"I'll play dead. Let them think I'm still waking up," he said. "Until I know more."
He stared upward, trying to sink into stillness.
Then he saw it.
A box-shaped camera like object mounted in the corner of the ceiling, half-blended into the walll. Its red sensor glowed faintly, unblinking, staring directly at the bed. Watching and gathering some sort of data.
His blood chilled further.
Sym's lips curled into a slight, bitter smirk.
"Right," he muttered under his breath. "Of course I'm not alone."
He closed his eyes. Beneath the surface of his thoughts, Sage worked, scanning, slicing, dissecting the past of a stranger whose body he now wore.
The room returned to silence.
But Sym was already planning.
Time passed, slow and heavy like oil dripping through fractured machinery. Sym lay on the narrow bed, his eyes half-lidded, his breathing steady, but his mind aflame.
Sage worked in the background, silent and methodical, as it peeled back the layers of the young man's memories. And Sym, the real Sym, absorbed it all.
What he saw inside the stranger's life unsettled him.
The boy's name had also been Sym.
The coincidence, or design, made his stomach turn.
But this Sym had grown up in the rusted veins of civilization, born into a world ruled by factions, stratified by power and purpose. Life seemed bleak, and opportunities were rare. People rarely made it past 35.
The foster system had chewed him up and spat him out like spoiled meat.
No family, no protection. Just endless gray walls and shivering cold nights.
By the time he aged out, he was already another ghost in the system. No skills. No status. And most damning of all, not Awakened. On Top of the fact that in zone 9, there was hardly any security, he knew he could lose his life any day.
Sym felt the echo of the boy's shame, not through emotions, but instead through his decisions.
The desperation. The raw, bitter hunger for something more. Even a death with meaning.
And so, the boy signed the contract. Willingly.
An experimental consciousness meddling program.
Authorized by the Power Research Group, a private faction clawing for status among the elite of zone 9.
The promise was simple and cold: if you survived, you became one of the Awakened. You were paid, housed, and respected. You had value, for two years at least.
Even if the wage was meager compared to the already-established Awakened, it was more than the boy had ever imagined. To him, this wasn't suicide; it was salvation.
Sym stared at the ceiling, jaw tense.
"He gave himself to this," he muttered. "Walked into it willingly."
"Yes," Sage replied in his mind. "Informed consent was obtained digitally. Although the fine print was intentionally obfuscated. The statistical probability of survival was listed as zero-point-three percent."
Sym exhaled, a bitter laugh escaping. "And he still signed. Gods."
He sat up, the cot creaking beneath his weight.
"All this... and he barely knew what an Awakened was, apart from the fact that they had money, power, and food security."
"Correct," Sage said. "The information was not part of his accessible data sphere. From context, the term refers to individuals who have undergone an anomalous transformation. Possibly metaphysical. Likely extra-scientific."
Sym frowned. "You mean... magic?"
"That classification would be imprecise," Sage said, almost reluctantly. "But within range of interpretation. Whatever governs the status of 'Awakened' sits outside the scientific models we are familiar with. I have insufficient data."
Sym ran a hand down his face. The skin still didn't feel right.
"Can you scan the facility?"
"Not at this time," Sage said. "My systems are heavily limited. Network access is improbable. Sensory feeds are local-only. Surveillance interception is restricted."
"Wonderful," Sym muttered. "Then what can you tell me? What else did you find in... him?"
There was a pause.
Then Sage replied, voice lower. "The subject has a healed incision at the base of the neck. Approximately one point four centimeters. Likely surgical. It may relate to the experiment's initial cognitive port."
Instinctively, Sym's hand rose. His fingers brushed the back of his neck and stopped.
He flinched.
A slight ridge of scar tissue. Smooth. Cold.
Not his.
He winced and lowered his hand slowly.
"Is that all?"
"No," Sage replied. "There is one more discovery. It resides within your consciousness, not your body."
Sym blinked. "What?"
"A foreign construct. Shaped like a gemstone. Approximately the size of a grain of rice. It is... embedded in your mind."
"In my mind?" Sym was shaken.
"Correct. It does not exist physically, but as a nonmaterial imprint within the construct of your self-awareness. It is... stable. But unlike anything I have encountered."
Sym's throat was dry. "What is it?"
"Unknown. It resists analysis. I believe it is connected to the process of Awakening. But it is inert."
A pause.
"Would you like me to stimulate it?"
The question dropped like ice into Sym's chest.
He looked up, eyes landing once more on the camera in the corner. Watching. Waiting.
His fingers twitched.
Sym moved and sat on the edge of the cot, elbows on knees, eyes locked on the cold floor tiles.
The silence in his head felt deceptive, too calm, too still, as though the moment was holding its breath.
Stimulating the gem sounded... wrong.
Even Sage's voice, usually so confident, had carried an undercurrent of uncertainty.
Sym narrowed his eyes.
"Could it kill me?"
"Unknown," Sage replied. "I am unable to determine the nature of this construct. I cannot predict its response."
Sym sighed, dragging a hand through his hair.
Everything was strange here. The laws of nature had changed the moment he'd arrived.
He stared at the cold walls. "Maybe I need to stop thinking in old paradigms," he muttered. "This world doesn't care about the science of my old world. Maybe it never did."
He looked toward the camera in the corner again, still watching, still silent.
Then he said, "Do it."
A second later, deep within his skull, something clicked.
Ting!
The sound was crisp and clean, like striking a tuning fork in an empty cathedral.
And then, it appeared.
A screen, floating in front of him, some inches from his face. Transparent but solid, outlined in a soft luminescent white.
The glyphs on it shimmered slightly, text forming in a language he didn't recognize at first... and then suddenly could.
Sym's eyes widened.
"…What the hell?" he whispered. "This... this looks like..."
He tilted his head. The design reminded him, uncomfortably, of the holographic overlays from his ship. But this was more personal, more aware. Less utility, more... observation.
"Sage," he said slowly. "What do you make of this?"
"Uncertain," came the response. "This world appears to operate on rules that include metaphysical data structures. The format is reminiscent of fictional constructs known as 'video games.'"
Sym raised an eyebrow. "I've seen them. On old data archives. Training sims. Entertainment programs."
"This seems similar, but functionally real. I require more environmental data to make a comprehensive analysis."
Sym exhaled through his nose. "What can you do right now?"
"Minimal support functions," Sage answered. "I can assist with motor control, protection, basic memory analysis, limited interface interaction, and management of the embedded gem. Additionally, I may analyze external entities if proximity permits. In addition to a few more things…"
Sym blinked.
"You can scan people?"
"Correct. I can offer limited informational overlays, comparable to the interface you now see."
That... could be useful.
He looked back at the screen. It hung there, still and waiting. Text was forming across it, clean and deliberate.
[Name: Sym]
[Level: 1]
[Skills: Sage's Assistance, Boost]
[Achievements: A Whole New World]
...
Sym stared at the words. His name, plain and stripped of origin. His level, Level 1, as if he were just starting out in someone else's narrative.
"Sage's Assistance," he murmured. "That's you."
"Correct. A direct interface channel. Allows me to function as an auxiliary system during moments of stress or combat."
"'Boost'?"
"Unknown. It appears to be a latent function of the gem. Activation parameters unavailable."
And then his gaze landed on the final line.
Achievement: A Whole New World.
There was no explanation.
"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked aloud.
"I cannot say. But if this follows any logical structure, it may be a reference to your survival of the consciousness transference. Statistically improbable. Perhaps the system acknowledged it."
Sym leaned back, lips pressed tight. He was trying to process it, but the truth was, he wasn't sure what to feel. Relief? Fear? Excitement?
He had died. Or come close.
Now he was here, in someone else's body, in a world of strange rules and buried power. And something had changed inside him. A gem. A screen. A path.
But to what?
"I need more information," he said, mostly to himself.
"Then we begin gathering it," Sage replied.
The screen faded.
The camera above still watched.
And Sym was quiet and deep in thought.