Chapter 1: ATTEMPT #Betrayal
In a very dark room, there is nothing but silence. Suddenly, a mysterious man takes a deep breath and yawns.
Mysterious Man (thinking):
"F*ck, how did this happen? I thought I got it this time for sure. Should've expected the king was already brainwashed."
He sighs deeply, rubbing his eyes.
Mysterious Man (thinking):
"So what do I do now? Anyway, let’s check the previous notes to find the mistake."
He claps his hands twice, and the room lights up. It looks like some kind of combination of a laboratory and a bedroom. He walks to the table, searching for something. Suddenly, he curses.
Mysterious Man:
“Should’ve checked its eyes before storing it…”
He leaves the room to find something else, muttering to himself.
Mysterious Man (muttering):
“Gotta get some glasses for the damn corpse.”
As he heads back to the main room, something catches his attention—there’s an odd feeling in the air. He stops in his tracks and notices something strange. It looks like someone has broken into the basement.
Mysterious Man (thinking):
“Someone’s here? What the hell?”
He rushes to the core of the basement, checking every security camera.
Suddenly, an intruder’s voice breaks through the silence.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Intruder (over the comm):
“Hands up! Where did you hide the artifact, b!tch?”
Mysterious Man (grinning):
“Haha... Now you’re threatening me? Let me guess, you’re Mr. ‘Brain-dead never betrays the king’?”
Intruder (angrily):
“Shut up! Someone like you has no right to badmouth the king!”
Mysterious Man (laughing):
“Are you crazy? Do you have any idea who you’re talking to?”
The mysterious man steps back, his voice dripping with sarcasm.
Mysterious Man:
“SELF-DESTRUCT—CAGE #267.”
Siren blares. The building begins to tremble. The intruder looks around, his panic escalating.
Intruder (shouting):
“You’re insane! You’ll die too!”
Mysterious Man (calmly):
“I’ve died dozens of times already. One more doesn’t matter.”
The room shakes violently as the explosion rips through the facility, consuming everything in flames. The world goes silent.
---
Elsewhere…
A cold, dark room flickers with the glow of a console screen. The message appears on the terminal:
“Memory Reinitialized. Preparing for new vessel.”
A sealed pod labeled Cage #268 hums to life. Inside, a fresh body awaits—new, but ready to be filled with the soul of the mysterious man once again.
---
The man’s body stirs in the pod. His eyes slowly open, blinking as memories flood back like shattered fragments reassembling themselves.
Mysterious Man (thinking):
“Different body. Different plan. Different outcome.”
He opens the pod and steps out. The cold air hits him as he takes his first breath in the new vessel. His body feels different—new—but he knows it well. A shell, nothing more, just a vessel for a soul stuck in an endless cycle.
His eyes scan the room. It's familiar yet different—his personal lab, now marked by the chaos of the recent explosion. Papers are scattered. The faint scent of burnt metal lingers in the air.
Mysterious Man (muttering):
“This time… I failed again. The burn in my chest says I was too slow—and the flicker in my gut says I’ll be too late next time, too.”
He moves to the terminal, his fingers dancing over the keys as he pulls up his latest data log, searching for any clue that might help him break the cycle.
---
Meanwhile, in a distant corner of the world...
The intruder stirs. Bloodied but alive, the wreckage of the facility surrounds him, but he’s not dead.
Intruder (grinning maniacally):
“That bastard... This isn’t over. I’ll find him. No matter how many times I have to die...”
He stumbles toward a dark corner of the ruined facility, pulling out a strange device from his pocket. A communicator. He presses a button, and a voice crackles through.
Voice (static):
“Report. What happened?”
Intruder (with malice):
“The bastard activated the self-destruct... But he’s not dead. We need a new plan.”
---
Back in the lab, the mysterious man continues his work. He’s been here before, too many times. Each cycle, each attempt... they never quite seem to get him any closer to his goal.
Mysterious Man (thinking):
“Why? Why does this keep happening? What’s the flaw? There has to be a way to...”
His train of thought is interrupted by the sudden sound of an alert on his console. He frowns, checking the source.
Mysterious Man:
“Not again...”
The camera feed blinks to life, revealing an image of the intruder, alive and well, making his way through the wreckage of the facility. The man’s blood runs cold.
Mysterious Man (quietly):
“I didn’t expect him to survive. It seems... I underestimated him.”
He stands, walking over to a different console and pulling up a list of coordinates. A plan begins to form in his mind.
---
Elsewhere…
The intruder contacts his superior, still grinning despite his injuries.
Intruder:
“I’m coming for you, traitor.”
---
To be continued...
