The world smelled like rot. Ash, blood, and something far fouler, something that made his stomach twist in a way he hadn't felt since… forever. He opened his eyes to a ceiling half-collapsed, gray light filtering through the cracks, dust dancing lazily in the air. Silence, broken only by distant, guttural moans.
He tried to remember where he was, how he got here. But his mind was a tangle of fragments—faces he didn't recognize, battles he shouldn't have fought, a crimson eye burning in his memory. That eye… no, not a memory. A warning.
He sat up, wincing as a shard of glass grazed his hand. His clothes were torn, his skin scratched, and his chest tightened as panic rose. The streets outside were littered with overturned cars and bodies slumped in unnatural angles. A shadow moved—or was it two?
Then he heard it: a low, desperate groan from beyond the broken wall. His pulse accelerated, but something strange settled in him—a calm, sharp focus, the same he had known in a life that seemed impossibly distant. The Sharingan.
His eyes flickered red for a fraction of a second. Patterns, visions, a rush of instinct: danger approaching. He blinked. The world snapped back, gray and hollow, like someone had drained the color out of it.
From the alley came three figures, ragged, armed with makeshift weapons—pipes, knives, anything that could be swung at the living dead that roamed these streets. Their eyes widened when they saw him.
"Who… are you?" one of them demanded, voice trembling.
He stared at them, confusion twisting his expression. Who was he, really? Madara… Uchiha… something from another life, another world. And now he was here, surrounded by chaos he didn't understand.
"I… I don't know," he admitted, the words strange on his tongue. "I… I just woke up here."
The survivors exchanged wary glances. Fear radiated from them, a thick, suffocating thing he could almost taste. And yet… they weren't monsters. Not like the things moaning outside.
Then the first walker stumbled into view, dragging itself across the cracked pavement. One of the survivors screamed. Madara's mind went blank for a heartbeat, and then instinct kicked in.
He raised his hand, and the Sharingan flared again—not enough to kill, not enough to terrify—but enough. A subtle, almost imperceptible influence. The fear in the survivor's eyes softened. The aggressiveness of the approaching walker slowed, just a fraction.
"What… what did you do?" the survivor whispered.
He shook his head. He didn't know either. All he knew was survival, and a strange, undeniable urge to protect those who couldn't protect themselves.
Hours—or maybe minutes, time had lost meaning—passed in a haze of scavenging, hiding, and quiet observation. The world was harsh and unrelenting, and yet, beneath it all, a flicker of curiosity sparked. Why here? Why now? And why him?
That night, as he sat on the rooftop of a collapsed building, watching the city shudder under the distant groans of the undead, his mind wandered to another time, another life. Faces of people he once knew flashed behind his eyes. Friends, enemies… and someone named Andrea.
He didn't understand why her memory surfaced now. Maybe it was a warning, maybe a tether to something he had lost.
But one thing was certain: he had been reborn into this world, and whatever remnants of his old power remained, he would need them. He would need them to survive—and to understand.
The city waited, silent and hungry. And he, the boy who should not belong here, the reincarnation of a legendary warrior, was just beginning to remember who he was.
Ps. I Changed Andrea name to Lyra. Didn't want to confuse u guys with the original character from the walking dead from my oc