Darkness cracked apart in sharp pulses of agony.
Donte's eyes shot open—vision blurred, swimming. Pain flared in his chest, hot and raw, an ache so fierce it stole his breath. Blood coated his tongue. Warm. Metallic. Thick. It pooled in his mouth and soaked the pavement beneath him.
He lay sprawled on damp concrete, barely able to move. A sticky warmth spread under his ribs.
Voices echoed nearby, distorted through a high-pitched ring that pulsed in his ears.
"What did you do, Marcus? You weren't supposed to kill him!" a voice hissed—sharp, panicked.
"I—I didn't hit him that hard," came the reply, higher-pitched. Marcus. Shaking. "He's always weak. It wasn't supposed to—"
A groan escaped Donte's lips.
Instant silence.
"H-He's alive? That's impossible!" A third voice now. Younger. Trembling. Terrified.
Donte's thoughts tangled.
Two memories. Both vivid. Both wrong.
He remembered this alleyway—the reek of oil and trash, the fists, the mocking laughter. The beatings, relentless and cruel. The hopelessness.
But underneath that—deeper—there was something else.
Faint. Fragmented. Like voices behind thick glass.
Images of machines. Hands working beneath flickering lights. Blueprints, alien in design, flashing across glowing screens. His fingers, moving with practiced ease. Schematics danced before his eyes.
That life… felt distant. But not false. Like something he'd lived once. Somewhere else.
"He's moving! Run!"
Marcus again—his fear cutting through everything else.
A burst of footsteps. Dozens. Scrambling. Fleeing. Within seconds, they were gone. Shadows swallowed their retreat.
Donte was alone.
Gasping.
Bleeding.
Alive.
Above him, fractured neon flickered against the sky—deep violet and carbon-gray. Towering buildings loomed high, their sleek edges cutting through the dark like silent blades. The glow of holograms shimmered off metal walls. This place felt… off. Advanced. Cold.
Futuristic.
Unfamiliar.
Painfully unfamiliar.
Slowly, he forced himself onto his elbows. The effort left him shaking. Pain lanced through his side, sharp and immediate, but he grit his teeth and pushed through it.
His hands came into view. Bloodied. Trembling.
His. But not his.
They were too small. Too thin. Too soft. They looked… young. Weak.
Wrong.
Panic surged in his chest. His mind screamed. The confusion rose like a wave, slamming into him over and over. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
And then came the clarity—cutting through the chaos like a blade.
The boy who had lived in this body before was gone.
Dead.
Donte knew it. Felt it. The memories he carried weren't his. They belonged to another—a boy named Donte, too, but not him. Not really.
Somehow—somewhere between that final blow and this moment—he had taken over.
The original had died.
And something else had stepped in.
Him.
He clenched his fists.
Tight.
Blood slicked the cracks in his skin. His jaw locked, and his teeth ground together.
Anger burned through the fog. Anger at the pain. At the world. At the cruel twist of fate that had thrown him into someone else's misery. This wasn't his life. It wasn't his body. But now, it was his problem.
Donte rose slowly.
Shaky.
Breath ragged.
Each movement sent a fresh surge of pain through his limbs, but he didn't stop. Couldn't.
He stood there, swaying slightly in the middle of that cold, metallic alleyway. Light from a neon sign buzzed above, flickering just enough to cast jagged shadows across the wall behind him. He stared up at the city—at the sprawling towers and humming lines of light—and realized just how far from home he truly was.
Wherever this was, it wasn't familiar.
And it wasn't forgiving.
But Donte had survived worse. He would survive this too.
Even if it meant tearing himself down and rebuilding from scrap.
Piece by piece.
One step at a time.
Some assembly would definitely be acquired.