The first sense to return was pain.

It was a dull, deep-burning as if every fiber of his being was being torn and rebuilt at the same time. It was not the pain of a common wound. No. It was something more... ancient, insidious as if something inside him was devouring his own body in an eternal cycle of death and rebirth.

He tried to move, but his body felt heavy, trapped in a viscous liquid that squeezed his chest.

-Where am I, the darkness surrounds me, I can't see anything, I don't know where I am, my memories are blurry, am I alive, I feel a little cold and my body feels damp.

The thought came as a whisper in his mind. His eyelids struggled to open, and when they did, the first thing he saw was a reddish glow, flickering lights reflected on the surface of what looked like... glass?

He wanted to speak, but only bubbles emerged from his mouth, dissipating into the liquid around him. His vision was blurred, but with effort, he distinguished wires connected to his body, inserted in his back, his arms... something was injecting him with a strange fluid.

Fear and uncertainty flooded his being, about what was happening around him. Although it was not easy to distinguish what was beyond the glass, a loud deafening noise that mixed screams, voices, and alarms was present in the place.

He had been in dangerous situations before. He remembered the smell of iron, the sensation of a blade piercing soft flesh, and the last breaths of those whose lives he took without hesitation. But this... this was not what was supposed to happen. He was dead. His memories were slowly coming back with clarity.

The confrontation. The lethal wound. The darkness.

So why was he alive?

A high-pitched beeping echoed in the room. Something had changed. The pressure in his chest eased as the fluid began to drain with a sucking sound. His previously heavy limbs regained mobility. A metallic clang announced the opening of the capsule, and he fell to his knees on a cold, slippery floor.

He coughed. His breathing was erratic as if his lungs did not recognize the air in this place. His hands rested on the floor, and that's when he felt it.

The burning. The rot.

His veins throbbed with a poisonous energy, he didn't know what it was, but he was sure it was something threatening to devour him from the inside. He looked at his hands and saw the marks: reddish scars, patterns that spread like withered roots across his skin. This was his original body, but something different dwelled inside him.

A sound made him look up.

All around him, the room was a laboratory in ruins. Shattered test tubes, some with what appeared to be the same stuff that flooded his body. He could almost recognize it as if it were a part of him, papers scattered on the floor, a chemical smell permeating the air. And in the gloom, shadowy figures watched him.

-It can't be...” whispered a voice in the distance.

He looked up, his eyes burning with a strange light. His rebirth had begun, and with it, the curse he carried.

- “We have to take care of him, the lord told us to investigate him, we can't just leave him here.”-he pointed to one of the figures in the room.

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-You're kidding, we don't know what that guy is, you saw what happened to the last one who touched him,” said one of the scientists, ”we'd better get out of here as soon as possible, they're getting closer.

The two scientists who were in the room run out leaving the man still limp on the wet floor. For a moment the room was filled with a desolate silence, a silence that did not last long.

A crash shook the walls of the laboratory, followed by screams and the metallic sound of clashing weapons. The flickering light from the monitors illuminated corpses strewn across the floor, scientists and test subjects who had not had a chance to escape.

He staggered to his feet, his body still feeling alien. Reddish scars glowed faintly on his skin, and the burning in his veins did not cease.

Another impact. The ceiling shook, and a portion of the wall collapsed, revealing a long, dark corridor. From there, a new sound came: hurried footsteps, agitated breaths... and a stifled scream followed by the wet sound of a body falling to the floor, Something was hunting in here.

Still disoriented, he kept walking. He didn't know where he was or why, but he did understand one thing, when an environment becomes a death trap, the first thing to do is to look for a way out.

With his strength. His bare feet touched the cold, wet floor, sticky with something he didn't want to inspect too closely. He advanced down the corridor, following the only possible direction. Emergency lights tinkled in shades of red and yellow, illuminating from the rocky walls surrounding the place.

As he turned a corner, his foot bumped into something. He looked down.

A body. It was a man dressed in dark clothes, covered with some kind of armored vest. His neck was open from side to side, a precise, clean wound. It was not an impromptu execution. Next to the corpse was a metal bandana with a carved symbol... an emblem he didn't recognize.

He frowned.

-A militia? Soldiers? I've never seen a uniform like that before,” he thought.

He didn't have much time to reflect.

A new sound came from up ahead. His eyes lifted just in time to see a figure moving in the shadows. A man dressed in black, with a white fox mask covering his face, appeared with a kunai dripping blood in his hand.

The man recognized the stance immediately. This was no makeshift criminal. He was a hunter, someone with special training, a similar training he had undergone as a young man in his other life, special training to assassinate people.

The masked man sensing another presence, saw the staggering man holding onto one of the rocky walls. He tensed, with a combat stance that screamed danger.

-A survivor...” he muttered. It was not a statement of relief. It was a confirmation of something more dangerous, a sign that the next victim would be him.

The assassin did not respond.

His body still felt clumsy, but his combat instincts, those that had defined him in his past life, were quickly awakening. If this man was coming to kill him, he needed a weapon.

He couldn't make a move before a second explosion rocked the hallway. Both were thrown backward by the shockwave. The assassin slammed into a wall, his vision blurring for an instant.

The smoke from the explosion was slowly dissipating, leaving behind a trail of destruction. When he managed to get to his feet, he saw something terrifying.

The explosion had blown a hole in the wall, revealing another ruined corridor, and a smell of ash and burnt flesh permeated the air. Dozens of bodies littered the floor, bodies of scientists and men in the same clothing he had seen earlier, some with deep burns, others with clean cuts, many with expressions of horror frozen on their faces.

The assassin blinked, trying to clear his vision. The ninja in the fox mask had disappeared. His gaze swept down the ruined hallway, there was no trace of his body, not even blood. Only ancient corpses and the distant sound of combat elsewhere. Had he fled? Or was he moving in the shadows, waiting to strike again?

He didn't have time to think about it too much, In front of him, someone else had appeared, in the gloom of the tunnel, another figure was standing.

A new enemy was standing in the rubble, not moving. His silhouette was tall and firm, his posture carefree but charged with confidence. His dark hair fell in dark locks over his face, and his tactical vest, similar to that of the fallen ninja earlier, was stained with alien blood. His front shield bore a different emblem than before. the man knew immediately that he should not underestimate whoever was there.

The ninja noticed it too.

-Another one, no one can be left alive,” he mumbled.

But the man did not understand. He didn't know who was an ally and who was an enemy. He only knew one thing, this place was a death trap, and he needed to get out before he got caught in this shadow war.