Darkness. Cold. The weight of ages pressing down like a tombstone.
He awoke to the scent of damp stone and rusted metal, his lungs burning as if he had not drawn breath in centuries. His fingers twitched against something smooth—glass? No… crystal. A thin layer of it cracked beneath his touch, brittle with time. A slow, painful inhale. Air rushed into his chest, sharp and heavy, like breathing in dust and decay. His muscles ached, his body alien yet familiar. Memories flooded in, a clash of swords, alchemical formulas, screams of beasts in the dark. None of it was his. And yet… it was.
His eyelids fluttered open, revealing a cavernous room lit by the dim, eerie glow of alchemical runes carved into the walls. Broken tables. Rusted tools. Shattered vials of thick, congealed liquid. An abandoned laboratory, untouched for centuries.
And in the shattered reflection of a nearby mirror, he saw himself.
A scarred face, pale from a lifetime of war. Red Cat-like eyes, slit-pupiled and glowing faintly in the gloom. His hair was unkempt, red as the fire, though he could not recall if it had always been so.
He took a step forward, muscles stiff, bones creaking. Then he saw them—the others.
Glass pods lined the far wall, some cracked, others intact, filled with murky liquid. Shadows of figures within, motionless. Forgotten. Failed. A whisper of memory surfaced. "Prototypes…"
A sharp pain shot through his skull, forcing him to his knees. Flashes of another life, another world, his world. Streets paved with iron beasts, cars, buildings touching the sky. A world without magic, without monsters… without Witchers. But he was here now. And something had brought him back.
A distant sound echoed through the ruin. Footsteps.
Something else was waking up.
The footsteps were slow, deliberate. Not the hurried clatter of a terrified scavenger, nor the heavy march of armored soldiers. Something was hunting.
His instincts screamed at him to move, but his body resisted, stiff from centuries of stillness. He clenched his jaw and forced himself upright, muscles trembling as he staggered forward. His boots scraped against the stone, and the noise sent a shiver down his spine.
Too loud.
He needed a weapon.
His gaze flicked to the rusted remains of a witcher's silver sword resting on a nearby worktable, its blade dulled by time, its runes long faded. Useless. He searched for something else—anything. His hands brushed over old tools, shattered glass, broken alchemy kits—nothing that would help him if whatever was coming decided he was prey.
The footsteps grew closer.
He pressed his back against the cold stone wall, steadying his breath. He had no idea what he was up against, but deep within his mind, something stirred—the instincts of a hunter, the memories of a witcher who had lived and died centuries before.
The door at the far end of the chamber creaked open.
Through the dim alchemical light, he saw it.
A twisted, emaciated figure, hunched and wrong, as if someone had taken a man and pulled him apart, stretching sinew and bone until it barely resembled a living thing. Its skin was mottled, gray with patches of black rot, and its fingers were too long, too sharp. It moved in jerks, like a puppet with frayed strings, its head twitching toward him, lips parting to reveal jagged, yellowed teeth.
A drowned one? No. Too human.
A ghoul? No. Too intelligent.
Then it spoke.
"Failed… yet awake… still… hunting…"
The voice was a dry rasp, hollow and wrong. His blood ran cold. It knew him. No time to think. The creature lunged. He reacted on instinct, dodging to the side just as claws scraped against stone, sparks flying. Pain shot through his body, too slow, too weak. He wasn't at his full strength, not yet.
Move.
His eyes darted across the ruined lab, searching, mind racing through centuries-old memories that were not his own—formulas, bestiaries, battle techniques.
Then he saw it.
Atop one of the shattered tables, resting in the grip of a long-dead skeleton, was a witcher's dagger. Black steel, small, but still sharp. Deadly. He dove for it.
The creature howled, its limbs cracking as it twisted toward him, but he was faster this time. His fingers closed around the dagger's hilt, and as the creature lunged again, he drove the blade into its throat. A sickening gurgle. It spasmed, clawed at the dagger embedded in its flesh, but he twisted it deep, slicing through whatever cursed thing kept it moving. It fell. The silence that followed was thick, oppressive. He stood there, chest rising and falling, blood pounding in his ears.
And then, as the last traces of its unnatural life faded, he felt something stir within himself. A memory—not his own.
A name.
A past that belonged to the Witcher whose body he now wore. He breathed the name out, testing the weight of it on his tongue.
"Kael."
And with that name came a realization. Whoever he had been before no longer mattered. Because now, he was a Witcher.
And the hunt had only just begun.