Darkness did not come all at once.
It crept in slowly, like a tide reclaiming land that never belonged to the living.
The first thing he felt was weight.
Not pain. Not fear. Weight.
It pressed against his chest, his limbs, his skull — thousands of invisible hands pinning him down. The air was thick, stale, heavy with rot and damp wood. Every breath scraped his throat raw.
He tried to inhale deeper.
His lungs burned.
I'm alive.
The realization came before panic.
Alive — but not free.
Memory returned in fragments.
A ceiling of polished wood.
Murmurs. Crying.
A scream tearing through silence when his fingers twitched.
The funeral.
His funeral.
The coffin.
His eyes snapped open — and met nothing but pitch-black confinement.
The world had closed again.
For a moment, confusion overwhelmed him. Had it been a dream? A hallucination born from death's last cruelty?
No.
His body answered before his mind could deny it.
The tightness of the coffin hugged him too perfectly. The stiffness of formal clothing clung to his skin. The smell — earth, polish, decay — was unmistakable.
They had buried him.
Again.
A hoarse sound clawed out of his throat. His hands jerked instinctively, slamming into the coffin's interior. The impact sent splinters biting into his knuckles.
No response.
No echo.
Just the dull thud of wood smothered by layers of soil.
Panic surged — sharp, primal, merciless.
His chest constricted. His breathing turned erratic. Every movement stole precious oxygen.
Calm down.
He forced the thought into place like a blade wedged between ribs.
Panic kills faster than suffocation.
He froze, muscles trembling, heart pounding so violently it felt like it might shatter his sternum.
That was when the memory sharpened.
The chaos.
Hands dragging him out.
Voices shouting over one another.
A doctor's frantic tone.
"It's a reflex—post-mortem spasm—nothing more!"
Cold instruments. Harsh lights.
Then darkness again.
They had explained it away.
A mistake.
A final twitch of a dead man.
No one wanted to believe the impossible.
And so, when silence returned…
They sealed the coffin.
Buried the error.
Buried him.
A bitter sound escaped his lips — half laugh, half sob.
So this was the truth.
He hadn't risen fully at the funeral.
He had flickered.
Awareness without strength. Consciousness without control.
A spark — then extinction.
Until now.
Something shifted inside him.
A subtle warmth spread from his chest, flowing through his veins like molten iron tempered with ice. His heartbeat steadied. His breathing slowed.
Then—
[SYSTEM NOTICE INITIALIZED]
The voice did not come from outside.
It echoed within him.
Clear. Emotionless. Absolute.
His body locked up.
Not from fear — from recognition.
So it's real.
[Host consciousness stabilized.]
[Biological revival: 41% complete.]
[Oxygen deprivation detected.]
A faint blue glow shimmered before his eyes, hovering in the darkness like a phantom screen.
He stared at it, stunned.
I died… and something followed me back.
[Emergency Survival Protocol available.]
His instincts screamed.
"Yes," he whispered hoarsely. "Activate."
The coffin creaked.
Heat surged through his arms, not like adrenaline, but something denser — heavier — deliberate. His muscles tightened, fibers screaming as strength poured into them unnaturally.
He slammed his fists upward.
CRACK.
Wood splintered.
Loose soil poured through the rupture, spilling onto his face, filling his mouth. He coughed violently, choking, but his hands kept moving, tearing, clawing, ripping the coffin apart like wet paper.
His fingers struck dirt.
Cold. Damp. Endless.
Terror flared again — but this time, it was controlled.
He dug.
Not wildly.
Purposefully.
Each movement fueled by the system's steady hum. His arms burned. His nails split. Blood mixed with soil, but he didn't stop.
Minutes blurred into agony.
Just as darkness began creeping at the edges of his vision—
His hand broke through.
Air rushed in.
He gasped, dragging oxygen into his lungs like a drowning man breaching the surface. With a final, guttural roar, he forced himself upward.
The earth collapsed around him.
He emerged into the night, coughing, shaking, coated in mud and blood beneath a moonless sky.
Gravestones loomed like silent witnesses.
The cemetery.
He lay there for a moment, chest heaving, staring at the stars as if seeing them for the first time.
I came back.
Slowly, painfully, he pushed himself to his knees.
The blue screen reappeared.
[Biological revival: 73% complete.]
[Primary Objective Assigned.]
The text shifted.
SURVIVE.
REMEMBER.
RECLAIM.
His jaw tightened.
They had mourned him.
Buried him.
Moved on.
But death had rejected him.
And whatever this system was — conscience, curse, or judge — it had chosen him.
He rose to his feet, unsteady but standing.
"So this is my second life," he murmured.
The night answered with silence.
Somewhere far beyond the graveyard, the world slept — unaware that the man they buried twice was finally awake.
And this time…
He wasn't going back into the ground.