Marcus Reed woke up slowly, as if his body were fighting against the idea of being alive.
Pain greeted him before his thoughts did. It rolled through him in waves—dull at first, then sharp, then crushing. His chest felt tight, like something heavy was pressing down on it, and every breath scraped his lungs raw. His fingers twitched weakly, and even that tiny movement sent a jolt of agony racing up his arm.
A low groan slipped from his throat.
His eyelids fluttered open—then slammed shut as blinding white light burned his vision. When he tried again, he squinted, forcing his eyes to adjust.
The ceiling above him was unfamiliar. Too clean. Too white. Long fluorescent lights stretched across it in perfect lines.
Hospital.
The realization sent his heart racing—and immediately, pain exploded in his ribs. He gasped, sucking in air through clenched teeth. Tubes were taped to his arms. Wires clung to his chest. Somewhere beside him, a monitor beeped steadily, slow and rhythmic, like a reminder that his body was barely holding together.
He tried to turn his head.
A mistake.
Fire shot through his neck and spine. His vision swam. His hands clenched into the bedsheets, knuckles whitening as he fought the urge to scream. His entire body felt shattered—bruised, cracked, forced into stillness rather than healing.
"What… happened…?" he whispered.
His voice was dry. Hoarse. His throat burned as if he hadn't spoken in days.
Fragments of memory hovered just out of reach. Shadows. Voices. Laughter that didn't belong in his head. His pulse quickened, breathing uneven, as something dark stirred inside him—anger, raw and heavy, bleeding into the pain until he couldn't tell them apart.
Marcus lay there, staring at the ceiling, sweat soaking into the sheets beneath him.
He wasn't sure how long he stayed like that.
All he knew was that waking up hurt almost as much as whatever had nearly killed him.
Then—
Everything went silent.
Not the monitor.
Not the beeping.
Everything.
The hospital room vanished.
The white walls. The smell of antiseptic. The tubes. Gone.
In their place floated a translucent blue interface, hovering in midair like a projection meant only for his eyes. Lines of text scrolled smoothly across it—sharp, precise, mechanical.
A cold, emotionless voice resonated directly inside his skull. No inflection. No humanity.
[Initializing…]
The light stabilized.
The text locked into place.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
HAREM ASCENSION SYSTEM
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Host: Marcus Reed
Status: Registered
Physical Condition: CRITICAL
Mental Stability: UNSTABLE
Survival Probability: 12%
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
CORE RESOURCES
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
System Points (SP): 4
Cash Balance: $0
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
UPGRADE PATHS
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Look & Presence: 0 / 5
Body & Endurance: 0 / 5
Seduction Control: 0 / 5
Power & Protection: 0 / 5
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
SYSTEM DIRECTIVE
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Second chance protocol activated.
Host viability under ongoing evaluation.
Weakness will not be tolerated.
Failure carries termination.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Marcus's breath hitched.
"This…" His voice came out thin. "This isn't real."
The interface did not flicker.
It did not respond.
It simply waited.
A flat, mechanical tone sounded again.
[Host performance will determine continuation.]
Second chance…?
Marcus swallowed hard. His eyes traced the glowing text, his mind scrambling for logic. A hallucination. A coma dream. Some cruel trick of a broken brain.
He let out a shaky, bitter laugh. "Yeah… right. A second chance. Like that's supposed to mean anything."
The void around him remained silent.
Doubt crept in, cold and sharp. What if it was lying? What if believing it was the real trap? His chest tightened—not from pain this time, but uncertainty.
For the first time since waking, Marcus didn't feel relief.
He felt weight.
The weight of being alive without knowing why.
Three Days Earlier
The cafeteria buzzed with careless laughter and clinking trays—a paradise for the privileged.
Marcus Reed moved along the edge of the room, tray in hand, head down. At Cresthaven University, being unnoticed wasn't safety. It was an invitation.
The shove came out of nowhere.
His shoulder slammed into a table. The tray tipped. Food scattered across the floor.
"Nice going, loser."
Brody Kingston stood over him, smiling. Jaxon Pierce and Chase Armstrong flanked him, their smirks practiced and cruel.
Marcus's face burned—not just from humiliation, but from months of swallowed anger.
"You're a joke, Reed," Brody said quietly. "Everyone knows it."
Marcus clenched his fists. He wanted to say something. Anything.
But he was outnumbered.
Outmatched.
Alone.
"Leave me alone," he said, forcing the words out steady.
Brody's grin widened. "You think that changes anything?"
Later that night, in a shadowed campus parking lot, the world became pain.
The first punch crushed the air from his lungs. Then another. And another. Ribs. Jaw. Gut. Every blow stole something from him—strength, breath, pride.
Blood blurred his vision.
By the time he hit the ground, Marcus understood the truth he'd avoided for years.
He was powerless.
And no one was coming to save him.
Marcus gasped.
The void snapped back into focus.
His hands trembled.
"So that's it," he said quietly. "Power… or nothing."
The interface pulsed once.
SP Available: 4
His gaze locked onto the attributes.
Body & Endurance.
Look & Presence.
Weakness had nearly killed him once already.
Never again.
And if he was going to survive people like Brody… he needed to stop looking like an easy target.
"…Fine," Marcus whispered. "Let's see what a second chance costs."
2 SP allocated to Body & Endurance.
2 SP allocated to Look & Presence.
[Upgrades applied.]
[Host stability marginally improved.]
Marcus sucked in a breath—and this time, it didn't tear his chest apart.
The pressure crushing his ribs eased. Not gone, but no longer overwhelming. His heartbeat steadied, slower and heavier, as if his body had finally found a rhythm it remembered. When he flexed his fingers again, the pain answered—but weaker. Manageable.
Something else shifted beneath the physical relief.
His spine straightened without him thinking about it. His shoulders settled back, posture aligning naturally instead of curling inward. For the first time in as long as he could remember, Marcus felt… solid.
Like he occupied space properly.
The sensation was unsettling. Quiet. Controlled.
Then, in the same flat, indifferent tone:
[Prepare for first task.]
Marcus swallowed.
"For what?"
The interface dimmed slightly.
[Task incoming.]