The next day, Kael woke up to silence.
He blinked, staring at the ceiling. The veins beneath his skin pulsed again—in rhythm with his heartbeat.
"What the hell…" he rasped, voice dry and unfamiliar.
He raised his trembling hand. The red tendrils that had once crawled up his arm were gone, leaving behind faint, dark lines that disappeared beneath his wrist. His chest still ached, but the pain had dulled— reduced, like someone had turned the pain down to a low hum.
Kael pressed a hand to his chest. The plugs were gone. The machine that had been fused to him—gone.
Which meant the thing that had attached itself to him wasn't just a device.
It was a heart.
He didn't understand how. He didn't care to. As long as he didn't have to drag that hunk of metal around anymore, it didn't matter.
"Aargh," he groaned as something seared through his head—a memory that wasn't entirely his forcing its way in.
"In case you escape," a voice echoed—cold, clinical. "This will act as a temporary heart. But it won't last more than three months."
He sat up slowly. The machine that had been his lifeline now lay in pieces beside him, its once-pulsing lights flickering weakly before going dark. The wires that had tethered him like a marionette were now limp and lifeless.
Whatever that device had done… it had replaced the machine.
Kael pressed a hand to his chest and felt a steady rhythm. Not a heart, but solid. Artificial. Mechanical, yet alive.
"The next thing is to figure out the requirements for that thing I was supposed to get."
The laugh that escaped him was low, tired—and hollow.
He tried standing. His legs were unsteady, but they held. Every movement felt foreign—like this body wasn't quite used to him being in control.
He stumbled toward a cracked mirror propped against the wall. Dust clung to the edges, the glass splintered in a spiderweb pattern.
A stranger stared back at him. So this was his new body.
Tall—too tall. Lean figure, not too skinny but wouldn't win in a fight. His hair was a tangled mess, his face shadowed by dirt and exhaustion, wasn't bad. He didn't recognize a single feature. Not the scars. Not the eyes. Not the way the veins along his neck pulsed faintly red when he breathed.
"Damn…" he whispered, reaching out to touch the reflection, but stopped midway. His fingers were shaking.
"For someone experimented on, he was not bad looking." Kael muttered.
Still looking at the mirror, he heard it.
A soft click.
He froze.
Another click. Closer this time—metal shifting against metal, deliberate.
Kael's head snapped toward the sound. The fridge door—wide open. He could've sworn he closed it earlier. Inside, the remaining cubes were gone, every one of them.
Something moved in the shadows near the bathroom.
"Who's there?"
Silence.
Then—a faint hiss. Not human. Mechanical.
The bathroom door creaked open, slow and uneven. From the darkness floated a small drone, its surface scarred, its lens cracked down the middle. It hovered uncertainly, the blue light beneath it flickering weakly as it scanned the room.
Kael tightened his grip on the chair leg, every nerve on edge.
The drone beeped erratically. Static filled the air before a flickering projection appeared between them—glitching lines of symbols rearranging until they formed words:
IDENTITY RECOGNIZED. SUBJECT: KAEL-09. STATUS: REACTIVATED.
DIRECTIVE: SURVIVE.
MISSION DATA: RETRIEVE.
Kael frowned. "Mission data? What mission?"
The drone buzzed louder, stuttering midair. The projection shifted again.
ACCESS DENIED. DATA CORRUPTED. RESTORE CONNECTION AT TERMINAL NODE 45-B.
WARNING: THREATS ACTIVE IN SECTOR. PROCEED WITH CAUTION.
Before Kael could respond, the drone crackled. Sparks jumped from its frame, the lens flaring white for an instant before the whole thing detonated with a sharp pop. Shards of metal and glass scattered across the floor.
Kael ducked, shielding his face. His heart—whatever it was now—hammered against his ribs in a strange, uneven rhythm.
When the smoke cleared, the room was silent again.
He crouched and sifted through the debris. Among the wreckage, something small pulsed faintly—a data chip, barely the size of his thumb. He turned it over, noticing an emblem etched into the surface: a circle intersected by three vertical lines.
It wasn't familiar. But something in him recoiled at the sight. The memory wasn't his, but the fear was. Whatever this chip is, clearly contained something dangerous for this body to fear it instinctively.
"Terminal Node 45-B…" he murmured.
Maybe it was a lead. The only one.
He walked toward the cracked window. The city stretched below—towering spires and glowing signs swallowed by fog and neon. Airships drifted through the haze like shadows, and steam hissed from vents lining the streets.
The world was alive in a way that felt wrong, like it had evolved past the people living in it.
It looked more advanced than earth and yet it looked behind at the same time.
He slipped the chip into his pocket and caught his reflection in the glass.
The man staring back looked half-human. Veins glowed faintly beneath the skin, red lines tracing his neck and chest like molten circuitry. His eyes shimmered with a metallic gleam that caught the dying light.
And his eyes. Red and blue.
Whatever they'd turned this body into, he'd finished the transformation.
"Guess we're both monsters now," he muttered to the reflection.
Kael ducked into the alley, adjusting the cloak over his shoulders. He didn't notice the faint flicker on the drone's shattered screen lying behind him in his apartment—a single line of text that blinked before the sparks fizzled out completely:
REQUIREMENTS 1: COMPLETED
But Kael didn't see it.
Only when he left the place did he exhale.
He was alive. For now.
Outside he could finally see this world. It looked different from the view yesterday night.
There was no sun, just light, he wondered how it was possible.
This world had a moon yet no sun.
The Houses here were made of scraps of metal, not sand or cement and were smaller and less sophisticated than houses on earth
He stepped onto the street and realised that he didn't have a plan.
He didn't have money. No allies. No directions to guide him.
The original Kael was experimented on so he had limited knowledge on the world outside the lab.
The only thing he had was a chip, he had no idea what it contained, a temporary heart with a due date
Knowledge that he had a mission, he knew nothing about but was connected to a terminal and was gonna be so dangerous.
And he was to survive.
"Yeah," he muttered, bitter and dry. "So easy."