The shower's hum was a lifeline, water cascading over Haki's shoulders like Neo-Atlantis was trying to rinse off his past. Steam coiled around him, a fleeting shield against memories that hit harder than a gravity chamber. He stared at the white tiles, not really there. His mind spiraled back to a life so distant it felt like a bad holo-drama.
At eighteen, he wasn't Haki. He was David, a reckless nobody drowning in Lower Neo-Atlantis's neon swamp. The city pulsed with automated pleasure dens—glowing booths promising escape but delivering despair. David was their poster boy: overweight, apathetic, chasing fleeting highs like a drone stuck in a loop. His body was soft, his mind a fog, his spirit a cracked screen flickering with static.
'What a loser,' Haki thought, smirking. 'Bet I could bench-press that kid's entire vibe now.'
Back then, Lower Neo-Atlantis was a maze of holographic billboards and synth-liquor bars, Yoctobots scrubbing grime off streets that never slept. David drifted through it, a ghost in a city that didn't care. He'd binge dreams—virtual sims, cheap neural highs—never daring to chase them for real. Each night left him emptier, a void no amount of neon could fill.
Hell Dave's gruff voice cut through, half-black aura snarling in Haki's mind. 'Hmph! That kid was a walking surrender. Should've punched his way out.'
'Easy for you to say,' Haki shot back. 'You'd have started a war with a vending machine.'
Kevide chimed in, all 'lone wolf' swagger, voice like velvet over steel. "He had no presence. Could've owned those dens with one look. Pathetic."
'Zip it, suit-guy,' Haki thought. 'You'd have charmed the bots into a revolt.'
Yet, even in those darkest days, something stirred. A flicker of purpose, buried under layers of self-inflicted ruin. One night, teetering on the edge of a pleasure den's roof, David stared at the city's spires piercing the smog. The void stared back, but for once, he didn't blink.
"Enough," he whispered. The word carried regrets, years wasted, but also a spark of resolve. Rock bottom wasn't just a place—it was his launchpad. His solid ground.
He stumbled home, head buzzing with synth-liquor and defiance. His apartment, a cramped cube in a hive-block, was a shrine to sloth: empty nutrient packs, a couch with his ass-print etched in, a holo-screen looping ads for "Instant Abs!" David ignored it, as fake as that ad sounded, it truly worked instantly. Apart from the fact that only rich kids could afford such, David wasn't looking for cheap tricks. He would forge himself. He conjured a virtual screen with a shaky gesture. Blue light flared, displaying his first act of rebellion—a workout schedule:
[Monday] 100 Push-ups
[Tuesday] 50 Ab-Crunches | 50 Leg Raises | 100 Side-Crunches
[Wednesday] Shadow Boxing | Rest
[Thursday] 100 Bicep Curls | 100 Tricep Dips
[Friday] 100 Towel Back Extensions or 100 Pull-ups
[Saturday] 100 Squats | 500 Calf Raises
[Sunday] Shadow Boxing | Rest
'Amateur hour,' Haki thought now, lips twitching. 'Bet Acca's got a spreadsheet for my sweat drops by now.'
Acca's nerdy voice piped up, glasses glinting in Haki's mind. "Optimal muscle growth requires 48-hour recovery cycles. Your initial regimen was… inefficient."
Gee, thanks, Professor Obvious, Haki retorted. I was eighteen, not running a lab.
That first day, the push-ups were a war crime. David's arms buckled at ten, face-planting into the floor. Muscles screamed, lungs burned, and his couch looked way comfier. But he crawled back up, fueled by spite. One rep became two, then ten. By week's end, he hit twenty, then fifty. Pain was a teacher, and David was a stubborn student.
He didn't stop at push-ups. Shadow boxing came next, clumsy fists cutting air in his cube. He mimicked holo-fighters, dodging imaginary jabs, sweat pooling like a crime scene. Lower Neo-Atlantis's gyms were too pricey, so he rigged weights from scrap—nutrient cans, busted drones, anything heavy. His neighbors banged on walls, yelling about noise. David just cranked the music louder.
Someone was Awakening. A beast. A monster.
Something stirred inside him that day… someone. Instinct was born, a result of Haki's relentless discipline … and delusions, silver aura flickering in Haki's mind, silent but guiding. It had nudged David then, counting breaths in fives and sevens, a rhythm that steadied his chaos. "Didn't even know you existed back then," Haki thought. 'Sneaky bastard.'
Heavenly Dave's soft voice countered, white aura glowing. "You were lost, but never alone. That spark was us, even then."
"Spare me the poetry," Haki said, but his lips twitched. "I was just too pissed to quit."
The shower's water slowed to a drip. Haki clenched the ledge, fingers tightening as the weight of that journey hit. "Three hundred and thirty-two years of hell, and here I am," he muttered, voice tinged with bitterness and pride.
He turned off the water, droplets trailing down his sculpted physique—each muscle a testament to years of grinding. Not vanity, but necessity. His body was a tool, his will the real weapon. Stepping out, steam billowing, he grabbed a towel, wiping his face with a flick.
The AI chip hummed. [Would you like to review today's metrics?]
"No," Haki said curtly. "I know 'em." Heart rate, neural activity, muscle recovery—second nature after decades of obsession. He moved to his bedroom, a minimalist void free of distractions. The bed adjusted to his form, walls shifting to optimize focus.
Bet David would've sold this bed for a sim-hit, Haki thought, smirking. 'Kid had no chill.'
He opened a hidden wall panel, scanning the glowing interface. Four googolbytes of data—enough to dwarf civilizations—hummed within. He deleted the day's mental cache, clearing space for tomorrow. "Mom still thinks I need an upgrade," he muttered. "As if I'm not lapping her designs."
His mother, a 600-year-old geneticist, still saw him as a fixer-upper. 'Lady, I'm a whole spire ahead of your gene-splicing,' he thought, lips twitching.
Outside, Neo-Atlantis sprawled, Yoctotech spires gleaming under a synthetic aurora. Drones hummed, anti-grav cars blinking like fireflies. A perfected world, yet hollow. Haki's chest tightened—not sorrow, but a void no discipline could fill. The webnovel flickered in his mind—that "Ritual of Unbeing" nonsense. David would've laughed it off. Haki saw a spark. Not alchemy. Strategy. Science.
Acca chimed in. "The novel's 'soul-binding' resembles quantum consciousness mapping. If that temporal signal's real, it could—"
'Save it,' Haki cut off. 'I'm not brewing elixirs. I'm building a legacy.'
"Plus, we already have immortals … well, some called them immortals—sort of." Those who hit their lifespan's limit used quantum voodoo to cheat death, re-encoding their brain's neural patterns into a digital codex. Thoughts, memories, quirks—all compressed into a data lattice. Yoctotech then sculpted new bodies, atom by atom, grafting the codex into fresh neurons. The result? A "person" whose actions mirrored their past life, like a sim running old code.
Two camps split the galaxy: one swore these were living souls, indistinguishable even to themselves. The other—Haki's side—called it nonsense.
'They're dead,' he thought, just ghosts in Yocto-shells, grasping at straws to dodge the void. He'd seen their eyes—perfect, yet hollow. No tech could fake a soul. Haki wasn't here to play eternal rerun; he'd rewrite existence on his terms, not recycle it.
Tomorrow was his birthday, or rather 'countdown till death' day—another year survived, another step toward the collision. David's spark had ignited a fire, and Haki wasn't letting it die.
Not to a galaxy, not to anything.
Not even himself.