Night had already claid the city of New Orleans, LA.
The last traces of sunlight bled away behind concrete towers and tangled power lines, leaving the streets bathed in a dull orange glow from flickering lamps. The air was heavy, humid, carrying the sll of exhaust, damp trash, and sothing tallic that never quite went away in cities like this.
Night had fully settled by the ti Atlas stepped out of the subway station.
The city breathed differently after dark—slower, heavier, as if it had shed the mask it wore during the day. Neon signs buzzed. Streetlights flickered. Sowhere in the distance, sirens wailed and faded, never quite arriving where they were needed.
Atlas adjusted the strap of his bag on his shoulder.
Inside were copies of his résumé. Again.
Freshly printed. Again.
Reworded. Sanitized. Again.
He had learned how to remove certain years without lying. How to replace blunt truths with vague phrases. How to explain gaps without explaining why.
"Operational experience" beca "field coordination."
"dical discharge" beca "career transition."
And so interviews still ended the sa way—tight smiles, careful nods, and promises that never ca.
"We'll call you."
They never did.
He walked with a asured pace, shoulders relaxed, head level. His posture was too straight for a civilian, though most people couldn't place why it unsettled them. His right hand hung closer to his side than the left, fingers curling and uncurling slowly, as if reminding themselves they still worked.
They did.
Just not like before.
The interview replayed in fragnts.
The recruiter's eyes flicking—once—to the scar that disappeared beneath his collar.
The pause when Atlas answered a question too quickly.
Too cleanly.
"You've… seen conflict environnts before?" the man had asked carefully.
Atlas had nodded.
That had been enough.
He exhaled through his nose.
A few months ago, he'd been loaded into a helicopter with blood soaking through his chest and arm, the roar of rotors drowning out everything except the dic's voice counting breaths. He rembered light, then darkness, then waking in a place that slled sterile and foreign, surrounded by people who spoke softly and moved fast.
After that ca flights. Hospitals. Surgeries. Paperwork. Boards. Evaluations.
Non-deployable.
Combat ineffective.
dically retired.
All clean words.
None of them explained what it felt like to lose sothing you'd trained your entire body to be.
He turned onto a narrower street, the shortcut ho. Fewer lights. Fewer people. His boots—still habit, not preference—made little sound against the pavent.
Then—
"Aaah—!"
The scream tore through the quiet like a blade.
Atlas stopped.
Not abruptly. Not dramatically.
Just… stopped.
His head turned toward the alley to his right, eyes narrowing slightly as his focus shifted. His pulse didn't spike. His breathing didn't change. Sowhere deep inside, a switch clicked—not panic, not fear, but awareness.
For a mont, he didn't move.
He had heard screams before. In places where no one ca running. In places where sound ant nothing once the mont passed. His body rembered those sounds even if his mind refused to linger on them.
He told himself it wasn't his problem.
Still, his feet carried him closer.
A second scream followed, closer. Raw. Uncontrolled.
Atlas stepped toward the alley and leaned just enough to see.
Four n.
Not two.
Four.
Big. Broad shoulders. The kind of build that ca from labor, violence, or both.
They ford a loose half-circle around a girl pressed back against the brick wall. One held her wrists high above her head. Another stood too close, blocking her knees. The third watched the street, bored. The fourth laughed softly, rolling sothing tallic between his fingers.
She looked young.
"Aaahhhhhh"
Her breath ca in ragged sobs as she struggled, strength already fading. Her eyes darted wildly, searching for sothing—anything—to cling to.
Atlas catalogued them automatically.
Distances.
Angles.
Hands.
The man by the wall had a knife. Cheap. Dull.
The one near the exit had a gun. Old. Semi-automatic.
The others were just weight and muscle.
"Co on," the one holding her said, voice thick, wet with anticipation. "Don't fight it. I'll make you feel real good."
The woman shook her head violently. "Please… I don't want this. Soone—please—help !"
Atlas felt…
He felt the familiar, unwelco thought settle in:
Not my fight.
He had seen this scene before. Different faces. Different streets. Sa fear. Sotis stepping in changed nothing. Sotis it made it worse. Sotis you walked away because you were told to. Sotis because you couldn't save everyone.
He stepped back.
One step.
Then another.
This wasn't his fight.
He stepped back.
His body had already chosen. Turn around. Walk away. Call the police from a safe distance. Let uniforms handle it. That was what people were supposed to do. That was what normal life demanded.
He took two steps away from the alley.
Three.
Then—
"U-Uncle…!"
The word cracked.
High. Thin. Desperate.
Atlas stopped mid-step.
The sound cut through him far deeper than the scream had. Not because of what it ant—but because of who she was.
Not a woman.
A girl.
His jaw tightened.
Behind him, movent.
"Oi," one of the n said. "You see that?"
Atlas felt their attention shift before he turned back. He didn't rush. He didn't flinch. He faced them the sa way he had faced n with rifles pointed at his chest—slowly, deliberately.
Four sets of eyes locked onto him.
"What's this?" the man with the knife sneered. "You lost?"
Another grinned. "Hero type?"
Atlas raised one hand slightly, palm open.
"Let her go," he said evenly. No accent. No shake. "Police are already on the way."
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.
The man with the gun laughed. "You think that scares us?"
Atlas didn't answer his hand move faster than the thugs expected.
The phone left Atlas's hand before the laughter finished.
It struck the gunman square in the face, cracking against nose bone with a sharp, ugly sound. Blood sprayed imdiately, the man screaming as he staggered backward, one hand flying to his shattered nose.
Atlas moved.
Not fast.
Decisive.
The thug pinning the girl reacted a half-second too late. Atlas stepped in close, seized the man's wrist as the knife ca down, and twisted sharply. Tendons popped. The blade clattered to the ground.
The man scread.
Atlas didn't let go.
He drove his shoulder into the thug's chest, slamming him into the wall hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. As the man gasped, Atlas picked up the fallen knife with his left hand—awkward, less precise, but good enough.
He stabbed once.
Low. Under the ribs.
The knife slid in with sickening resistance. The man stiffened, eyes wide, hands scrabbling uselessly at Atlas's arm. Atlas pulled the blade free and stepped back as the thug collapsed, choking on his own breath.
"Aaaahhhhhh"
The girl scread again.
The second thug rushed Atlas head-on, swinging wildly.
Atlas ducked the punch, drove his elbow into the man's jaw, felt teeth break. As the thug reeled, Atlas slashed across his stomach —deep, brutal, severing muscle. Blood poured instantly.
The man went down, howling, hands clutching his stomach as blood and intestines fell out.
Two down.
The third thug hesitated.
That hesitation cost him.
Atlas closed the distance and drove the knife into the man's abdon, twisting as he pulled it free. The thug staggered backward, collapsing against the wall before sliding to the ground, gasping, eyes unfocused.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Gunfire erupted.
The wounded gunman had recovered enough to raise his weapon, face slick with blood and fury. He fired blindly, panic overriding aim.
Atlas turned.
He reached for the man.
His hand didn't answer.
Not fully.
Not fast enough.
That tiny delay—no more than a second—was enough.
The bullet tore into Atlas's chest. Another ripped through his hand, sending the knife clattering from his grasp. Pain flared, sharp and consuming, but his body moved on instinct, montum carrying him forward.
He slamd into the gunman, driving him back into the alley wall.
Bang!
The gun discharged once more into the concrete as Atlas grabbed the man's wrist—his damaged hand screaming in protest—and wrenched the weapon aside.
They struggled.
Atlas felt the weakness in his grip, felt the loss he had been adapting to for months finally betray him. So he changed tactics.
He drove his fingers into the gunman's eye.
"Aaaaaahhhhhhhh"
The man scread.
Bang!
Atlas took the gun and fired once at point-blank range.
The body went limp.
Silence fell.
Atlas stood there for a second, swaying, blood soaking his shirt, dripping steadily from his hand. The alley was a butchered ss—four n bleeding out, the ground slick, the air thick with copper and gunpowder.
The girl stared at him, shaking. "U-Uncle…?"
He looked at her and tried to smile.
"Run," he said quietly. "Go sowhere safe."
She hesitated.
"Now," he added—not harshly, but firmly.
She ran.
Atlas leaned his head back against the cold brick.
His breathing was shallow. Controlled. Every inhale burned.
He wasn't afraid.
He had known, sowhere deep down, that his life would end like this. Not in glory. Not in a uniform. Just a quiet street, a small choice, and Consequences or Karma catching up at last.
His vision dimd.
Atlas leaned his head back.
He sink down against the wall.
Atlas leaned his head back.
The brick was cold. The night air tasted tallic.
He felt strangely calm.
His body was failing, but his mind was clear. Clearer than it had been in years. He thought about all the things he had been told he couldn't do anymore. All the doors that closed quietly when people learned where he had been.
He thought about the unfinished things. The als he never cooked. The shows, movies, and ani he never watched, the gas he never played, the places he planned to visit, and the girl he plans to find. The version of himself he never quite beca.
A strange calm settled over him.
The city lights blurred.
He had survived war.
In the end, he hadn't survived peace.
His breathing slowed.
The streetlights blurred as the mories ca to an end.
And Atlas died the way he had lived—
standing between violence and soone too young to face it alone.
And Atlas was gone.
---
"Ughh…"
The sound was wrong.
Too wet. Too strained. It scraped its way out of his throat like sothing dragged across rusted tal.
Atlas's consciousness surfaced slowly, dragged upward through layers of numbness and confusion. There was no pain—only pressure, like his body had been wrapped in sothing cold and tight. His thoughts ca first, sharp and intact, while the rest of him lagged behind.
'What was that voice…?'
Another sound followed.
"Ughhhhh…"
Atlas snapped awake.
His eyes flew open, pupils contracting violently as harsh white light stabbed into them. He sucked in a breath—or tried to—and whatever passed for air scraped down his throat like sandpaper.
The ceiling above him was unfamiliar.
Smooth. tallic. Broken in places.
Long fluorescent panels were embedded in it, so flickering weakly, others shattered entirely. One hung loose, sparking intermittently, bathing the room in erratic pulses of white and blue light.
Atlas pushed himself up instinctively—
—and froze.
His body responded, but not the way it should have. His movents were stiff, delayed, like commands had to travel through thick mud before reaching his muscles.
'What the hell…?'
He sat up slowly, scanning the room.
It looked like a laboratory.
Not the clean, sterile kind from docuntaries or hospitals—but sothing colder, more industrial. Steel walls reinforced with thick glass partitions. Heavy blast doors embedded with warning stripes. Stainless steel tables overturned or smashed, their surfaces sared with dark, dried blood.
Glass containnt tubes lined one side of the room. Many were shattered from the inside. Cracks spiderwebbed outward, frozen in violent arcs, as if sothing had beaten its way free.
There were signs of a struggle everywhere.
Chairs knocked over. Equipnt ripped from mounts. Deep scratches gouged into tal walls—too wide and too deep to be human fingernails.
Atlas swung his legs over the side of the examination table he'd been lying on.
His boots were gone.
So were his clothes.
He was dressed in a thin, tattered hospital gown stained with old blood and sothing darker.
His chest tightened—not with panic, but with instinctive assessnt.
No restraints. No guards. Whatever happened here… it already ended.
A low, shuffling sound drifted in from outside the lab.
Atlas's head turned toward the glass wall.
Beyond it lay a wide corridor—circular, curving away in both directions. Ergency lights cast the hallway in dim red hues, giving everything a hellish tint.
Figures moved out there.
Slowly.
Erratically.
They walked like drunks—unbalanced, jerky, heads lolling at unnatural angles. So dragged one leg behind them. Others had arms hanging loose, barely attached.
What made Atlas's eyes narrow wasn't just their movent.
It was their injuries.
One man's abdon was torn open, organs barely held in by shredded flesh. Another had half his face missing, bone exposed, jaw hanging loose. Another's skull was cracked wide open, leaving his brain exposed and missing several small chunks.
And yet…
They walked.
They bumped into walls, into each other, barely reacting. One slipped in a pool of blood, hit the ground hard—then pushed itself back up with broken fingers like it felt nothing at all.
Atlas swallowed.
"Where the fuck am I…?"
He tried to say it.
What ca out wasn't language.
"Wughh… tugh… ughh… aumgh…"
The sound echoed weakly in the lab.
Atlas froze.
That wasn't a hoarse voice.
That wasn't shock.
That was wrong.
His hand shot up to his throat on reflex. The skin beneath his fingers felt… strange. Cold. Tight. Less responsive than it should have been.
Slowly—very slowly—he lifted his gaze back to the glass wall.
The figures outside had stopped moving.
Every single one of them had turned toward him.
Heads cocked.
Eyes unfocused.
Mouths slack.
For a split second, a familiar calculation ran through Atlas's mind.
Distances. Numbers. Exits. Weapons.
Then—
Nothing happened.
The figures stared for a mont longer… then lost interest.
They turned away and resud their mindless wandering.
Atlas's breath—if it could still be called that—ca shallow.
'…They ignored ?'
His eyes narrowed.
'They should've rushed .'
His thoughts raced now, sharp and controlled rather than panicked.
Unless…
A sick realization crept in.
Atlas moved.
Not toward the door.
Toward the corner of the lab.
A full-length mirror hung there, its surface sared with blood—but intact.
He stopped in front of it.
And stared.
The thing staring back at him wasn't human.
Greenish, pallid skin stretched tight over bone. Rotting wounds marred his arms and neck, edges blackened and uneven. Veins stood out dark and swollen beneath translucent flesh.
His eyes—
White.
Completely white.
No pupils.
No irises.
Just dead, milky orbs staring back at him.
Atlas leaned closer.
The face wasn't his.
Younger. Narrower. Cheekbones sharper. Shoulders slimr, fra noticeably weaker—like a body that had never seen real physical labor, let alone training.
"This is…" his voice gurgled again, broken and distorted.
He stared at his reflection, oddly calm.
"…so that's how it is."
There was no screaming.
No denial.
Shock ca—but it was muted, processed the sa way he'd processed injuries before: clinically.
Different face. Different body. Sa mind.
Reincarnation.
Transmigration.
Whatever word fit, the conclusion was obvious.
He flexed his fingers experintally.
They moved.
Slowly—but they moved.
A humorless thought crossed his mind.
I survive bullets, surgeries, boards, and paperwork… and wake up as a corpse.
"If I had known," he muttered thickly, "I would've complained less and I would have followed fewer orders to keep my Karma stable."
He straightened.
Despite the grotesque reflection, his eyes remained steady.
"If this is hell," he continued quietly, "it's poorly organized."
'Of all the dog-blood plots, why did I have to transmigrate as a zombie? Sure, I wasn't exactly an unparalleled beauty in my past life, but I was still a handso guy! The Heavens must be blind.'
Atlas lanted his terrible luck as he pieced together his situation. One might ask: how was he so sure this was a soul crossover? The answer lay in the mirror. The rotting face staring back at him—aside from being undead—bore zero resemblance to his original features. And let's not even get started on the obvious age difference.
If the rotting flesh wasn't a dead giveaway, the reflection in the mirror settled it. That visage looked nothing like him. It was undeniable: he had transmigrated into a walking corpse.
A sudden sound cut through the air.
Not from outside.
From inside his head.
[System is synthesizing...]
[1%… 30%… 67%… 90%… 100%]
The voice was chanical. Emotionless. Artificial.
Atlas stiffened.
His back pressed instinctively against the nearest solid surface as his mind catalogued the intrusion.
Auditory hallucination? No. Too structured.
[System synthesis complete.]
[Welco, Host.]
[You have successfully bonded with the Ultimate Evolution System.]
[I look forward to a productive journey.]
Silence followed.
Atlas stood still for several seconds.
Then—
"Gnh… sss-uhm… bruh… SSS—umth-th—th-um!?"
The garbled ss that escaped his throat made him pause. He was so taken aback by the system's appearance that he totally forgot to keep his mouth shut.
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