Happiness had its own scent. The sharp aroma of rosin in my lab and the smell of ozone after a reactor start-up. But I forgot them all the exact moment a bullet shattered my ribs.
I was thirty. In my past life, I was a lead process engineer—the corporation's "golden brain." My life was built on blueprints, and the pinnacle of those calculations was Project "Zenith": a compact thermonuclear core capable of powering an entire city. I loved physics for its honesty—apply force, get a measurable result. No miracles. Just equations.
It all ended on a fucking Thursday. The main stage of the Technology Forum, thousands of cameras, applause so loud it drowned out my own thoughts. I was standing right next to the prototype, explaining the principles of plasma confinement.
I never even heard the shot—supersonic bullets always outrun their own sound. I just felt a crushing impact. It threw me backward, right onto my priceless machine.
Lying there on the stage, I watched panic erupt in the crowd. But my fading vision locked onto the men in expensive suits who were the first to rush the podium. They were reaching for my blueprints and hard drives. That betrayal was the most insulting moment of my short life.
The mere thought that my life was worth less than the patent for "Zenith" made me sick to my stomach.
The first thing you feel when a sniper's bullet hits you isn't pain—it's cold. And then comes the sticky, nauseating warmth of your own blood. The glare of the spotlights turned an unbearable white...
And then, the lights went out.
I didn't die. At least, not right away.
I found myself in an absolute... nowhere.
An endless space surrounded me. The stars weren't distant dots, but frozen flashes suspended in the void. I couldn't feel my body; I felt completely weightless. But I felt a current. Some invisible, intangible force, like a massive ocean tide, was gently but insistently pushing me forward.
My analytical mind refused to accept this. Where was the tunnel? Where was the neurobiological shutdown? Instead, it was just inertia in a vacuum. I drifted with the current, unable to fight it, until a pinprick of light appeared ahead.
Light. Blinding, pulsating. The current itself slammed me into it. The moment I entered the radiance, everything turned pure white. No shadows. No outlines. No sounds. Perfect white noise.
And then the ground—if you could even call it that—vanished.
An abyss opened up beneath me. A deep, pitch-black void, darker than space itself. It was literally calling out to me, pulling with monstrous force. Before I could even scream, I was spun around and sucked into the dark.
Impact.
That's when I came to.
It was the worst "good morning" of my life.
Rot, shit, and stagnant urine. I tried to take a breath, but my lungs flared with sharp pain, and dust scraped my throat. I opened my eyes and immediately winced. The light was too bright, and reality was far too filthy.
I was lying on a pile of garbage. Rotten crates were scattered around, with fat rats scurrying nearby. I tried to lift my hand to wipe my eyes—and froze.
It wasn't my hand.
A bony palm, so filthy that grime had crusted under the fingernails. Thin wrists—just skin wrapped over bone. Where were the calluses from years of working with tools? Where was my watch? I frantically felt my face. A teenager's face. Fifteen, tops. What the fuck? A consciousness transfer into a different biological vessel? A hallucination of a dying brain? Even now, my mind was desperately trying to classify this madness.
"Well, look at that—the runt's awake!" a voice rasped right above me.
I looked up. There were three of them. Dirt-caked vagrants. The biggest one, wearing a tattered leather vest, kicked me right in the ribs.
The impact nearly made me black out.
"Hey... trash. Got any coppers?"
"He's empty, boss."
"What? Empty, you say?" A faint smirk crept onto his face. "Then finish him off. Just make it quick."
Panic set in, and I started shaking. My brain instinctively began calculating: targets—three. Total mass—roughly two hundred and fifty kilograms. My mass—forty, tops. There was only one option: run.
And then, something clicked.
[SKILL ACTIVATION: WILL TO LIVE]
It felt exactly like an operating system booting up.
A ringing hum filled my ears. My vision sharpened instantly. I saw, in excruciating detail, the guy in the vest winding up for another kick. The tension in his muscles. The shift of weight to his right foot.
I didn't wait. I lunged forward and sank my teeth into his ankle, right through the filthy fabric of his pants. He howled in pain. Using the momentum of his stumble, I rolled away and bolted down the alley.
My legs were giving out, my heart was hammering against my ribs, and my lungs burned—but I kept running. I tore through that godforsaken labyrinth of an alley, leaping over piles of refuse until I finally burst out onto an open square.
I doubled over, wheezing and gasping for air. Blood dripped from my nose. My hands were shaking uncontrollably.
Okay, I thought, spitting blood into the dirt. I'm in a different world. In someone else's body. Gravity is relatively comparable to Earth's. The atmosphere is breathable. That means physics still applies. And as long as that's true, I can survive.
I looked up and saw two moons hanging in the sky.
Two fucking moons.
Astrophysics can go straight to hell.
Fine. I'll work with what I've got.