The first memories that surfaced in my mind were of the void—empty, endless. But slowly, they stretched further, unraveling beyond the darkness. A chamber. Sterile, artificial. The kind you'd find in a laboratory. A biological chamber, designed to create life, to forge something that should not have existed before.
The memory felt both ancient and new, a contradiction that unsettled me. And yet, deep in my soul, I knew it was real. I could feel it.
A tangle of emotions stirred within me—uncertainty, fear, recognition, and something else. Something deeper. In the memory, I watched as they filled me, as they gave me life. Or rather, as they forced it back into me.
But it wasn't just me.
Somewhere beyond myself, beyond the singular existence I once thought I had, I felt something more. I wasn't alone. I had never been alone.
Then, a truth revealed itself—a whisper from the depths of my soul. I had been created in the void, stitched together from death itself. I had died. And yet, someone, something, had reached into that abyss and rebuilt me. Not just my body, but my very soul. As if both had been chosen—deliberately, precisely.
The memory deepened, shifting between real and fabricated, past and present. I saw further. Countless souls, extracted and emptied. Hollowed. Used as vessels. And within them, their very essence was processed, reshaped, combined—until they became something… new. Something that would become me.
A crimson light pulsed inside the chamber, weak at first, then growing stronger, brighter—until it consumed everything. Until it burned itself into my mind.
And then, I opened my eyes.
Reality crashed down on me, suffocating in its weight. My own personal hell—or perhaps something even worse. But I wasn't alone. I never had been.
I had always known the truth. I was an amalgamate. A being of many, bound into one. And yet, despite that, despite all the horrors of my creation, I forced myself to set it aside. To focus on who I was. Because no matter how I had come to be, no matter what I had become… I was still me.
But history?
History never changes.
Not unless you do.
No matter the world, no matter how many times you are reborn—if you remain the same, your story will remain in an endless loop. Every tragedy, every emotion, every pain will repeat itself. Over and over. Forever.
This time was no different.
I was filled with something beyond mere determination. Something deeper. And with it came the weight of consequences I could barely comprehend. A fate I would soon come to understand was far more terrifying than I had imagined.
The process had been long. Brutal. Excruciating.
But in the end?
It had been worth it.
Because no matter what it took, no matter how much suffering it required…
I had become who I was always meant to be.