The light, what little there was, bled through the high, barred slit of a window—a sickly, pale grey. I blinked, and the grainy focus of my vision was met with the horrifying immediacy of damp, slimy stone. I tasted iron and mold.
I didn't recognize the smell, the thick, clotted stench of a hundred desperate men locked in this hole. My nose still expected the sterile chill of a server room, the metallic tang of liquid nitrogen, and the constant, high-pitched hum of the main power grid.
But there was no hum. Only silence. And the smell of rot and filth that immediately churned my empty stomach.
I tried to sit up, and a wave of nausea nearly sent me crashing back down. My muscles felt like cheap, frayed cables. They didn't obey. This wasn't my body. My body was used to seventeen hours a day hunched over a keyboard, fueled by caffeine and pure spite. This body was weak. It was starved.
I finally managed to brace my back against the wall. The rough sackcloth tunic felt wrong on my skin. I instinctively reached to rub the sleep out of my eyes, and my hand drifted past my line of sight.
That's when I saw it. The brand.
A raised, angry helix pattern, burned deep and dark into the forearm. It wasn't a tattoo; it was a scar. It looked like a terrible, grotesque logo.
What the hell is that?
I ran my other hand over my face. The cheekbones were too sharp. The jawline too narrow. My fingers traced the outline of a young man I had never seen before—a stranger.
The truth hit me with a physical force that squeezed the air from my lungs. I wasn't just in a prison; I was in someone else's life. My old world, my identity, my name—Kael—was gone, wiped clean. I was an intruder wearing a stolen skin.
A total security breach. A catastrophic failure to my physical platform.
I swallowed, the sound loud and pathetic in the cell. I had to focus. Panic was a DOS attack; I needed a clean boot.
Where am I? What's the objective?
My gaze fell on the front of the tunic, right where the light caught it. Stitched crudely into the cloth was a name.
Zayn Vyrn.
The name felt alien, like a corrupted file. My name was Kael. But my status was Zayn. This was the first, terrifying data point.
I was contemplating this new, terrifying existence when the pain started—sharp, sudden, and originating not from my body, but from the center of my consciousness.
Codex Initialized
It felt like a forceful firmware update running without consent. My skull was a vice, squeezed and twisted as a wave of high-frequency static crashed through my neural pathways. I cried out, a thin, choked gasp that only confirmed my powerlessness.
As the pain peaked, reality itself seemed to flicker. The stone walls shimmered, and for a fraction of a second, I saw a ghostly overlay—not the granite, but a structure of impossible, complex geometry, woven from black shadow and pulsating crimson light. It was a terrifying, beautiful machine.
The pain vanished instantly, replaced by a frightening, clear-headed calm. It was as if a new operating system had been installed, running silently in the background, overriding my panic.
Then, the overlay appeared. A clean, data-driven display that only I could see, shimmering in the dusty air. It wasn't emotional. It was just information. Gamey and precise.
[Codex Active. Veilbreaker System Initialized.]
[Host Name: Zayn Vyrn. Status: Veilmarked (Debuff: Social Pariah, Physical Weakness).]
[Mission: Survival Quest. Objective: Escape Ashenhold Prison before Dawn. Reward: Unknown. Failure: Death.]
The sheer pragmatism of the floating text was chilling. It didn't care about Kael's fear or Zayn's despair. It only cared about the Objective. It was a game interface for a life-or-death scenario. I clung to that cold logic. I knew how to play.
I pressed my ear against the wall, listening to the heavy, predictable sound of the patrolling guards. Data gathering. I needed external input.
"...told you, stay away from the Ebonscar entrance," one guard grumbled, his voice low and riddled with fatigue. "That place is leaching something. It's been glowing brighter the last few nights. They say the voids are stealing the dreams of any poor soul who sleeps near it."
"Superstitious nonsense," the second guard scoffed, though his lack of conviction was evident. "It's a Tech-demon ruin, that's all. Means the Black Swords will be here soon, and we get our hazard pay."
Ebonscar. Voids. Tech-demon ruins. New variables. A glowing nexus of power. A mental attack vector. And a military cleanup crew arriving soon. My deadline was firm.
I was focused on the simple iron bolt of the door lock, calculating the best moment to make my move, when the air turned hostile.
The temperature in the corridor dropped so fast and so violently that I felt a nauseating chill crystallize in my lungs. It wasn't natural cold; it was the cold of a vacuum.
The guard's footsteps stopped. Their voices cut out, mid-sentence.
The sudden silence was immense, heavy, and alive. It was the sound of a predator freezing before a pounce.
My new body—Zayn's body—was locked rigid by terror. My own mind was screaming: What is this?!
Then, the whisper. It didn't enter my ear; it bypassed all physical organs and resonated directly in my consciousness, a deep, resonant vibration that felt like velvet-wrapped dread.
"...Kael."
The whisper faded, leaving behind a cold, psychic residue.
My heart seized. Not from fear, but from the shattering realization: the cosmic, alien threat that infected this world—the Void—didn't recognize Zayn Vyrn. It had seen right through the stolen skin. It knew the name of the hacker from Earth.
I was exposed. My disguise was useless. They hadn't chosen this body randomly; they had identified the parasite within.
I forced a deep, rattling breath, fighting the paralysis. Fine. The game knows my identity. Then the rules of engagement just changed.
[Survival Quest: Escape Prison – Objective: Escape Ashenhold before Dawn.]
--------------
Decision Point: The Void has confirmed its awareness. The guards are frozen, paralyzed by the immediate supernatural cold. This is the only window of opportunity. Should Zayn exploit this moment for a quick, low-resource escape, or a high-risk gamble for essential gear?
A) Hide (Focus on pure stealth, use the paralyzed guards as cover to pick the lock quietly and slip away into the deeper prison shadows.)
B) Fight (Create a quick, aggressive movement to snatch the nearest guard's keys and knife, maximizing resources before the supernatural paralysis wears off.)