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Chapter 1: The Devil's Oath
> "Some oaths are etched in blood. And some... in the agony of a thousand deaths."
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Years ago, humanity launched an all-out arms race — not to destroy, but to conquer death.
When life became... something you could back up.
The ultra-rich were the first to crave immortality. Governments weren't far behind.
A top-secret project was born — with a beautiful name: Second Life.
The idea was simple: when the human body could no longer be saved, just transfer the mind to another one.
But reality... had other plans.
No one volunteered to be a lab rat.
Except… prisoners.
They were taken to a secret facility. No name. No maps. No one ever came back alive.
Bodies twisted from radiation, chemicals, and experimental drugs never approved by any system.
They died in agony.
Slowly.
Methodically.
The project collapsed. Public outrage exploded. The government announced it had been "terminated."
But...
Disappearances continued.
The homeless.
Criminals.
The unlucky ones.
No one remembered their names.
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I was a soldier.
Fighting, as always, in some nameless war in the desert.
We died for fertile ground. For water. Oil. Minerals. Orders.
I stopped caring why.
I only knew how to take.
We attacked like rabid dogs — storming village after village buried in red dust.
I watched comrades die.
Young soldiers — barely past childhood — fell like autumn leaves.
I remember the sniper...
I tracked them. Took down their crew. I crept up — ready to pull the trigger...
And then—
It was a girl.
Her face — smeared with dirt, wide with terror. A child forced to carry a rifle.
I hesitated.
Then came a blow to the back of my head.
Everything went black.
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I woke up.
My skull felt like it had been split open.
Screams. Begging. Gunshots.
I jolted off the freezing floor. Through the dim light, I saw...
A figure dash past my cell.
BANG!
Gunshot.
The figure — barely more than a kid — collapsed.
Blood poured under the door.
Frozen in terror.
Then, silence.
Dead silence.
I turned.
On the bunk bed, someone was still sleeping.
— "Huh...? What the...?" — he muttered groggily.
THUMP!
— "Ow…" — he fell off the bed, rubbed his eyes, and looked around.
— "Where the hell are we...?"
I didn't get to answer — footsteps.
A group of men in identical uniforms, blank-faced, dragged the body away.
Then a voice:
— "Welcome to my lab."
He stood behind a glass wall, smiling a smile no longer human.
I shouted:
— "Where the hell are we?! Who the fuck are you people?!"
Laughter.
Not one person — but many.
— "This place... will be your testing ground."
His voice echoed like a machine.
A figure approached. The number 25 on his chest.
He walked past me — glanced briefly... then looked away.
He dragged someone out of the cell across from mine — a man laughing like a maniac.
— "Come on. No talking."
CRACK! — he punched the man in the throat and yanked him away.
Then a whisper near my door:
— "Heh... lucky bastard."
I leaned closer — a man with spiked hair, eyes wide from laughing too much.
— "Everyone who asks 'Where are we?'... dies."
— "You're one of the lucky ones. For now."
Laughter echoed again.
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Where am I?
What the hell is going on?
I looked at my hands.
Veins. Pulse. Flesh.
Still me… right?
But deep down, I knew:
I was no longer myself.
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