The first thing I become aware of is a dull, throbbing ache. It's not sharp, not a stabbing pain, but a deep, smoldering burn, as if hot coals were buried just beneath my skin. It's a stubborn, constant presence, and its very persistence is the only proof I have that I am, against all odds, still alive. Or something close to it.
My eyelids are heavy, sealed shut like gravestones. The first time I try to open them, a shard of white light lances through my skull, and the world dissolves into swirling blotches of black and white. On the second try, my vision clears just enough to make out blurry shapes swimming in the gloom.
Darkness.
Cold.
Damp earth.
I'm lying on muddy ground, a deep, pervasive chill clinging to my bones and seeping up my spine like icy fingers. The air is thick, saturated with the smell of rotting earth and something else—that unmistakable, coppery tang of blood. I don't know if it's mine.
I blink, over and over, trying to clear the fog from my head. And then they come. Not full memories, but fragments. Sharp, broken pieces that dig into my consciousness.
Fragments of another life.
The cool blue glow of a monitor in a dark room.
The frantic, familiar clatter of worn-out keyboard keys.
The absolute silence of a space where even time seemed to have given up.
The crushing weight of existing without a reason.
The endless, hollow feeling…
The image of a young man, slowly crumbling in front of his computer, consumed by routine, by loneliness, by an impossible game that became his only accomplishment. Hollow Exodus: Rebirth Protocol. The name isn't just data; it's a vibration, a truth that pulses in my soul as if it's always been there.
My breathing hitches. Two realities are colliding inside my skull, tearing me apart from the inside. One is the life of that boy: a living ghost, trapped in his room, whose only victory was finishing that cursed game. The other is this: this strange body, this twisted place, this nightmare landscape.
"What… the hell…?" My voice comes out as a thin thread, too high, too young. It's not my voice.
I try to move a hand, and my fingers sink into the icy mud. The sensation is so real, so visceral, that a full-body shudder wracks me. I'm not dreaming. I'm not hallucinating. This cold is real. This earth is real. This body is real.
I push myself up with a groan. Dizziness slams into me like a wave, threatening to pull me under into a mental abyss. I grit my teeth and force myself to stay upright.
That's when I see it.
Around me stretches a twisted, unnatural forest. These aren't trees, not really. Their trunks look like black bones jutting from the corpse of something gigantic. The branches curl inward like desiccated claws, pointing at me from every direction.
There is no wind.
No insects.
Not even the sound of my own breathing seems to fill the air.
It's an absolute silence. A crushing silence. A silence that, by some primal instinct, I know doesn't belong to the world of the living.
My pulse quickens.
And then, a final memory from my other self erupts with violent clarity.
The flickering screen.
The message: «You have completed Hollow Exodus.»
The hollow satisfaction.
The fall.
My body slumping against the keyboard.
The final darkness.
The end…
and then this impossible beginning.
"No… this can't be real," I whisper, staring at my hands, trembling in the half-light.
They're small. Young. But hardened. Covered in fine scars and cuts that tell stories of labor, of blows, of healed-over wounds. These are the hands of someone who carried heavy loads, who worked under the sun, who lived a hard life.
These hands are not mine.
And yet, I can feel the previous owner's memories bleeding into mine like a rising tide. His exhausting days. His hopeless nights. His shattered dreams. His emotions tangle in my chest until I can't tell them apart from my own.
Two lives… fused inside a single skull.
I feel like I'm losing control. Like I'm too much for one body, or this body is too small for two souls.
I'm on the verge of shattering when a faint, azure light glows at the edge of my vision.
I freeze.
My breath catches in my throat.
It's not a floating menu.
It's not an omnipotent voice.
It's not a triumphant message.
It's just a single line of text. Simple. Precise. Unforgiving.
[Status: Concussed. Memory Integration: 12%. Risk of Psychic Collapse: High.]
The words fade like smoke, but the sensation remains, branded onto my chest.
It's not an explanation.
It's not a tutorial.
It's a diagnosis.
A clinical verdict on my sanity.
The full memory of my other self—my human self, my dead self—solidifies in my mind. That empty victory. That abrupt end. The quiet death in a dark room.
That ending… was my beginning here.
And now, with only 12% integration… I can barely imagine what will happen when it reaches 100%.