Vincent Marr came back to life in the hum of refrigeration and stale bleach. Not in a cradle of light, not with a choir of angels, but on a slab. Skin cold. Memory fractured. Rage, intact.
Above him, a hospital bulb sputtered with an arrhythmic pulse. It wasn't the light that hurt: it was the knowledge beneath it. He'd been here before. Different world. Different language. Still Roman. Still betrayed.
His fingers twitched. Muscles remembered what the mind refused. His name. His purpose. A whisper met him like a breath against his spine. Words carved in silence.
You have returned, Tiberius Marcellus Varan... but now you are Vincent Marr. And your scripture is unwritten.
He sat upright, cold vinyl peeling from his back. A glyph pulsed against his palm, circular, crimson, breathing with him like a parasite made of ink. No pain. Just presence.
When he thought of escape, the world responded. A translucent frame hovered just past his right eye, drifting into focus as if summoned by will. Letters stitched themselves into place.
NexScripture: SYSTEM ONLINE
No speech. No input. Pure thought. The interface waited. Blood Points: zero. Kill Mandate: pending. Knowledge Grid: locked. Reflexively, he clenched his fist and the glyph stung with heat.
The door hissed open. No footsteps. No warning. A man stepped inside with mop and bucket, dressed in white. Middle-aged. Distracted. A nametag dangled from his chest, already forgotten by his employer.
Vincent didn't speak. He observed. As the man bent to adjust the mop hinge, the system chimed in his head, quiet but absolute:
Mission active. Target: Orderly. ID #739B. Method: Silent. Improvised. No witnesses.
Vincent looked down. The mop bucket was dented near its base. A rusted bolt wobbled where a castor had sheared loose. The metal lip curved inward like a sharpened crescent.
He moved without hesitation. No rage. No cruelty. Just design. The bucket tipped. The bolt slid free. His grip closed around metal. In two strides, he was behind the man.
He braced the chin. Drove the edge beneath the jaw, up and in. A hiss of air escaped, wet and final. The man's body folded neatly, slumping against the cleaning cart as though exhausted.
Vincent stepped back. Breathing slowed. No alarms. The glyph on his hand brightened, flickering once before steadying.
Blood Points registered.
The Knowledge Grid stirred.
He peeled the ID from the dead man's shirt, clipped it to his own. In another life, he would have felt shame. Now, there was only clarity.
"Lesson one," he murmured to the corpse. "I still remember how to learn."
He opened the door and stepped into the corridor. The Scripture had begun.