A mechanical chime echoed inside his skull, sharp and alien, like nothing he'd ever heard before.
[System Download... Complete]
The words formed without sound, yet they pressed against his thoughts, insistent.
[Female-Only Massage Specialist System Awakened]
Another pulse, colder this time.
[Satisfy women to become stronger]
Kael groaned, the sound raw in his throat. His head throbbed, a dull ache spreading from behind his eyes.
What the hell are those noises? He shifted, or tried to, his body heavy, unresponsive at first, like he'd slept wrong after a long night kneading knots from some client's back.
He cracked his eyelids open. Light stabbed in, fierce, burning brighter than any morning sun through his apartment window. He slammed them shut again, breath catching in his chest.
Why is there light? The question twisted in his gut, a knot he couldn't press out.
Forcing his eyes open a sliver at a time, he blinked against the glare. No ceiling stared back. No walls. Trees loomed instead, thick trunks stretching up, branches weaving a canopy that filtered gold-speckled light. Sky peeked through in patches, blue and endless.
A forest? Kael can't help but think that.
"Where am I?" The words slipped out instinctively, but he froze mid-breath. As the voice. It was different, Deeper than his own, rumbling low like thunder trapped in his chest.
He tried again. "Hello?" The same depth, the same strange echo in his throat. His heart pounded harder now, a steady thrum against his ribs.
My voice. What's happening?
Unease coiled tighter in his belly. He pushed himself up, muscles protesting with a strength that felt off, too much, like he'd bulked up overnight without the soreness.
Looking down. His hands... no, paws? Massive, clawed, covered in thick black fur that gleamed under the dappled light. His arms, his chest, all of it rippled with muscle, a form that screamed predator, more beast than man.
Breath came short, chest tightening as if bands squeezed around it. Panic clawed up his throat, hot and insistent, fingers... claws flexing involuntarily into the dirt. This can't be. I was just... massaging that client, her shoulders so tense, and now...
A needle-sharp pain lanced through his skull, cutting off the thought. He gasped, doubling over, hands pressing to his temples. The world blurred, forest sounds fading as something flooded in. Not pictures. Not stories. Lives. Moments he felt in his bones, as if he'd breathed them himself.
Cold pavement under tiny feet. Hunger gnawing constant in a belly too small. Abandoned at four, or less, in slums that reeked of rot and smoke. No parents, no pack. Just survival, day by blurred day.
Rejection hit like fists. Humans spitting "monster" as they shoved him away. Beastmen turning their backs, whispers of "savage" trailing him. Living on edges, scraps from trash, hiding in shadows where the cold bit deepest.
A name surfaced, warm against the chill: Adwaana. Rumors whispered in dark alleys, a place that took everyone, no questions, no hate. It burned in his chest, that dream, pulling him forward through years that stretched like wounds.
Growth came in aches, body stretching taller, stronger, fur thickening. Nineteen now, hardened by fights and famine. Closer to Adwaana, so close, the air tasting of promise.
Then the bite. Venom searing through veins like fire, legs buckling just steps from safety. Darkness swallowing everything, regret heavy in the final breath.
The flood receded, leaving Kael gasping on the forest floor. Leaves whispered around him, wind cool on his fur. The body wasn't foreign anymore. It was his. Inherited from the dead werewolf, along with the echoes of that life.
He sat there, claws digging into soil, heart still racing. I'm... this now. A beast with a man's mind.
----
Kael sat there on the damp earth, the coolness seeping through his skin like a persistent whisper. His chest tightened, a slow squeeze that made each breath feel heavier than the last.
Memories flickered up unbidden, sharp as a blade's edge. Her voice, light and teasing. "Work on the glutes too, they're killing me."
He had nodded, fingers pressing into the muscle, feeling the tension give way under his touch. Conversation flowed easy, her laughter soft against the hum of the room's air.
Then the door slammed open. A figure, face twisted, shouting something Kael couldn't quite catch.
The crack of gunshots echoed in his skull, louder than they had been. Warmth spreading across his chest, sticky and hot, pooling under him on the floor.
Her screams, distant, like they came from another room. Vision narrowing to a pinprick, the world tilting away.
Suddenly, his throat closed up, a lump forming that he couldn't swallow down.
The thought hit like a fist to the gut, leaving him hollow.
Gone. All of it, the life he knew, snuffed out in a mess of blood and noise.
Silence stretched, his mind going blank, wiped clean like a fogged mirror.
No point chasing the ache. He told himself. As, he shoved himself up, dirt clinging to his palms, the ground unsteady under feet that felt too large, too wrong.
"Time to go," he muttered, voice rough, barely his.
Afternoon light dappled the path ahead, warm spots breaking through the canopy, pulling him forward.
No more on the death. Too raw, like pressing on a fresh bruise. Instead, Adwaana tugged at him, a faint pull from this body's echoes. The only thread that made sense, a place that might hold something solid. Answers, maybe. Or just a direction.
As he pushed through the underbrush, branches brushing his arms with a soft scratch, the memories of those voices crept back in. The strange announcements in his head, cold and mechanical.
Real? Or just the shock of waking up like this, mind scrambling to make sense.
Novels had stuff like that, he thought, a spark flickering in the emptiness.
He stopped, heart picking up a notch, the wind whispering through the trees like a held breath.
Worth a try. He cleared his throat, spoke firm into the quiet.
"Status."
----
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