CHAPTER 1: "THE ESCAPE THAT SHOULD NOT EXIST"
"You should have stayed dead.So why is your heart still beating?"
Alarms scream.The wail echoes off white-tiled corridors. Red lights flicker like blood smeared across sterile walls.
She runs barefoot—lungs burning, skin scraped, muscles still adjusting to movement after too long in stasis.
Her back hits the corner of a hallway. Boots thunder behind her. She doesn't stop.
"Subject-05 has breached containment!""Lethal force authorized—repeat: lethal force is authorized!"
Soldiers in hazard suits pour into the corridor ahead. Rifles rise.
Bang.
The bullet enters her chest clean. Her feet leave the ground. Time slows. The breath in her throat dies mid-scream.
She crashes into the wall. Her vision fades.
…and for a moment, it's all dark.
But then—
A sound. Like glass shattering from the inside.
Her corpse spasms. Bones realign. Blood reverses. A low, static hum echoes in the air like a glitch in reality.
And then—she's there again. Reborn. A second version of herself tears out of the first, leaving the husk to collapse behind like discarded clothing.
She stumbles forward, gasping. Cold sweat coats her brow.
The soldiers hesitate.
One whispers:
"What the hell is she...?"
Her hands clench into fists. The air around her feels off—as if death doesn't follow her, but starts with her.
She sprints again.
Left. Down the maintenance tunnel. Through a half-open blast door. The lab behind her is crumbling—power surging wildly. Something is burning.
In the flickering light, she sees words scrawled on the wall:
PROJECT VIONNE: ETERNAL INNOVATION THROUGH EVOLUTION
Aeris spits blood and keeps running.
She's not innovation. She's the grave they tried to forget.
One final hallway.A locked gate. Too thick to break.
Footsteps behind her. She's surrounded.
But she doesn't panic.
She turns. Faces the squad.
Her voice—raspy but sharp—cuts through the alarms.
"Do it again. Shoot me."
They hesitate.
"You can't kill what's already dead."
A pause.
Then—gunfire.
White. Red. Noise.
Everything goes black again.
But she knows she'll rise.
Because she always does.
"You killed her.You buried her.You called her a failure.And now… you run?"
Light returns.Her eyes snap open again—this time in a different hallway. Farther along. She doesn't remember getting here.Another glitch in time, another breath she shouldn't have.
Her old body—dead and collapsed—is still slumped behind her like a broken marionette, blood pooling beneath the fingers.She doesn't look back.
Aeris pushes herself up. Her legs shake. She's not healed—she's simply reloaded.
"This isn't living," she whispers. "This is... repetition."
But her body obeys. And that's enough.
Ventilation ducts hiss.Steam erupts from ruptured pipes. Sparks dance like dying stars overhead.The lab is collapsing.
She passes storage rooms labeled:
"VIONNE-03: Status—Reassigned""VIONNE-04: Status—Transferred"
She slows.
Her hand brushes a broken ID tag lying on the floor. It reads:
PROF. RAVIEL G. KAAS—LEAD BIOFORM ENGINEER
She crushes it in her palm.
He left you. Shut you inside like a failed prototype. He took the others, and threw you away.
Her eyes burn—not from smoke.
The exit door looms ahead.Steel. Code-locked. Guarded.
Aeris slams her palm against the control panel. Red sparks—denied access.
"...Come on..."
She hears voices behind her. Drones clatter into view.Target locked.
"You are not permitted beyond this point."
She grits her teeth and draws a rusted metal pole from a collapsed pipe. No sword. No gun.Just instinct.
The first drone lunges.
She dodges. Strikes. Sparks fly. One clean swing—metal crashes to the floor.
The others move faster.Too many. Too tight.
They stab her again—pierce her ribs.Another death.
Another glitch.She drops, then flickers—reforming behind them mid-motion, like skipping frames in reality.
They fall.
Aeris, covered in blood, breathes heavily. Hands trembling.
"Let me out…"
Her voice is soft. A whisper to the dead.
"Let me out."
She screams—slams her fist into the panel again.
This time—the lock disengages.
The door opens.
Wind. Cold air. Night sky.
She stumbles out into a world that forgot she existed.Rain hits her face. Cold. Real. Alive.
For a moment, Aeris freezes—unblinking.This is her first time breathing outside air in years.
She falls to her knees. Hands in the mud.She breathes again.
"I'm still here…"
Not because of fate.Not because of mercy.But because death refuses to take her.
Behind her, the lab burns.Above her, thunder cracks.
And before her—a dead world she doesn't understand anymore.
"They took everything from me.""I will take it all back."