I woke up in a plain, run-down room unknown to me. It was nearly empty, save for a cot and a flickering candle. The roof above was crumbling, but the room was clean, like an untouched canvas.
I'm scared.
My arms, smaller than the branches of winter trees and paler than a snow fox, struggled to budge. I could smell the metallic scent of blood mixed with the damp, musty odor of decay.
My body ached.
I didn't know what had happened. The last thing I remember was dying.
I was a genius.
My name, Markhem, was known to all. There was not one child that had not read of me in their books.
Known for perfecting nuclear fusion, solving world hunger, and discovering life in the cosmos, I had not yet turned eighteen.
I was a legend. But my life was anything but legendary. Born to an impoverished family in the sprawling urban slums, my existence was a struggle from the start. My factory worker parents toiled endlessly to keep food on the table and a roof over my head. Education was but a luxury we couldn't afford.
Yet, I was different. From an early age, I devoured any scrap of knowledge I could find, piecing together books salvaged from dumpsters, listening to lectures through the cracked windows of the run-down neighborhood school, and scribbling formulas on discarded papers.
By the time I was six, I had outpaced the neighborhood schoolteachers. By seven, my inventions and innovations had drawn the attention of officials. My life changed drastically when the government came knocking at our door. They called it a "gift," an opportunity for me to contribute to society and bring honor to my family. My parents, blinded by desperation, greed, and pride, signed the papers without hesitation.
They essentially sold me.
I was taken to a sprawling facility, a fortress of glass and steel, where I was told I would live, learn, and work. My family received monthly stipends, enough to elevate them to a comfortable life where they never had to work again, but I never saw them again.
The first few years were tolerable. Given access to resources beyond my wildest dreams—labs, supercomputers, libraries, and mentors—I fed my curiosity, achieving more than I had ever imagined. By the time I was eight, I had designed energy systems that revolutionized the city grids. At ten, my breakthroughs in bio-engineering eradicated diseases that had plagued humanity for centuries.
But the more I achieved, the more they demanded.
Sleep became a rare luxury. Mistakes were now met with corporal punishment, not encouragement. I was no longer treated as a human, let alone a prodigy; I was just a tool. My successes were celebrated publicly, I was praised by many as a saint, yet treated as a demon. Behind the doors, I was a prisoner. Every innovation came at the cost of my freedom, my childhood, and eventually, my will to live. The greater my success, the greater their greed and the worse my life. By fourteen, the weight of expectations had crushed me. I was no longer viewed as a human.
The wide-eyed boy eager to learn and create no longer existed. I was a machine, churning out solutions to problems dictated by others. My handlers monitored my every move, ensured I stayed compliant, and reminded me constantly of the "honor" I was bringing to my family and the "consequences" I would have to face if I ever protested.
"Honor." What an empty word.
One night, after a particularly grueling day of work, I managed to sneak into the reactor core. It was a system I had designed myself, a testament to my genius and also my curse. I ordered the operators to turn it on over the radio.
I stood there, watching the hum of energy that represented humanity's progress, and decided to end it all.
As the reactor began to glow, I felt the heat sear my skin. However, rather than pain, for the first time in years, I felt free. Free from expectations, free from manipulation, free from life.
But here I am.
Did I fail? Will I be taken back?
The panic started to set in, but then, strange thoughts began to fill my head, overriding my fear. Memories of a world I did not know of.
The world was comparable to medieval times. However, unlike Earth, it possessed magic, mana, aether, and beings like Beastmen, Elves, Dragons, Spirits, Dwarfs, Demigods, demons, Mermen. I was no longer Markhem.
I had undergone what the Buddhists called the 'cycle of rebirth.'
I was no longer a slave; rather, I was now a clean slate, free to build my life.
I was reborn.