The city smelled like rain and exhaust.

  Ethan, age twenty, thumbed through his phone, dodging a woman with three shopping bags and a kid yelling about ice cream. His screen lit up with Elena's contact photo—an old shot from years ago, back when she still smiled for cameras.

  ETHAN (texting):

  Did you eat?

  He waited. Three dots appeared, then vanished.

  The world had gone insane two months ago.

  That's when the Awakening started—when people began remembering lives they'd never lived. Heroes. Warlords. Poets. Killers. All of them clawing their way back through the veil of reincarnation, flooding minds with centuries of memory.

  The media coined a term for them: the Awakened. People who remembered being someone else. Someone important. Someone dead.

  Everyone else? They got a label too: New Humans. Normal people. No past lives. No memories of ancient battlefields or royal courts. Just regular humans trying to survive in a world that had stopped making sense.

  The UN called it a "global psychological phenomenon." The WHO said it was mass hysteria triggered by collective trauma. The internet said it was the end times—proof that reincarnation was real, that souls had been recycled for millennia, and now the system was breaking down.

  Governments struggled to respond. Some countries tried to register the Awakened. Others tried to weaponize them. A few tried to pretend it wasn't happening at all.

  None of it worked.

  The world kept fracturing. Awakened versus New Human. Believer versus skeptic. Chaos spreading like wildfire.

  Ethan just wanted his sister to eat dinner.

  His phone buzzed.

  ELENA:

  I'm fine.

  He frowned.

  ETHAN:

  That's not what I asked.

  ETHAN:

  You're 30. Act like it. Eat something real.

  ELENA:

  Stop.

  He pocketed the phone and kept walking.

  A crowd had formed around the massive LED screen bolted to the side of a shopping complex. Twenty, maybe thirty people, all staring. Some filming. Most arguing.

  On screen: a young guy in a cheap Napoleon costume, tricorn hat slightly crooked, standing in what looked like a studio apartment. The chyron read: STREAMER CLAIMS: "I REMEMBER WATERLOO."

  "I'm not lying," Napoleon said, voice cracking with desperation. "I felt the mud under my boots. I saw the cavalry break. I—"

  Someone in the crowd laughed. "He needs meds."

  "Shut up," a woman snapped back. "My cousin's one of them. He remembered being a blacksmith in—"

  "Oh, so now everyone's special? Everyone's some king or warrior? Bullshit."

  "It's real, dumbass. They tested it. Brain scans don't lie."

  "Brain scans show what people believe. Doesn't make it true."

  Ethan walked past. He'd heard this argument a dozen times. Hell, half the city was having it.

  Posters plastered every lamppost. AWAKENED SUPPORT GROUP – TUESDAYS. Someone had scrawled FREAKS across one in red marker. Another, older and peeling: IF YOU REMEMBER, REPORT IT. HOTLINE: 1-800-RECALL.

  Police tape cordoned off the entrance to a subway station. A cop stood guard, scrolling his phone, bored. Ethan didn't ask. He'd seen three closures like this in the past week.

  A bus rolled past, its side wrapped in an ad: REAPER: MYTH OR THREAT? Below it, a grainy photo of a warehouse on fire, bodies blurred out.

  Someone nearby muttered, "Government won't say shit."

  "Because there's nothing to say. It's a gang. Just a gang with a stupid name."

  "You believe that? After Prague? After Singapore?"

  Ethan's phone buzzed again. He pulled it out.

  A news alert: REAPER STRIKES AGAIN – 3 DEAD IN BERLIN METRO BOMBING.

  He swiped it away. Overhead, a helicopter circled low, searchlight sweeping the skyline. Normal now. Everything was normal now.

  He turned the corner, cutting through the garden district. Shortcut to the grocery. Faster. Quieter.

  The garden was almost empty.

  Too quiet for this time of evening. Ethan slowed. The path ahead stretched between trimmed hedges and benches—a fountain sat dry in the center, coins glinting at the bottom. A jogger passed, earbuds in. A couple sat on a bench, not talking, just staring at their phones.

  His stomach twisted.

  Sharp. Sudden. Vicious.

  "Shit—"

  He stopped, hand pressed to his abdomen. The pain coiled tighter, hot and urgent, like something inside him had knotted itself wrong. He scanned the area, breathing shallow.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  There—a public restroom near the fountain. Squat brick building, half-hidden by trees.

  He moved fast.

  The door groaned open. Inside: two stalls, a flickering fluorescent light casting everything in sickly green-white. The smell hit him—bleach and rust and something older, something that never quite washed away.

  Ethan shoved into the first stall, locked it, leaned against the cold tile wall.

  Breathe.

  The pain eased. Slowly.

  He exhaled, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

  A voice drifted from outside the restroom.

  Faint. Muffled through the brick wall. But close enough.

  Low. Calm. Almost conversational.

  "…I am Merlin."

  Ethan froze.

  The voice continued, quiet but deliberate, like someone reading coordinates off a map.

  "Bus stop. Five minutes."

  Silence.

  Then:

  "Target is the strategist."

  Ethan's pulse hammered in his ears. He held his breath, straining to hear through the wall.

  "Bring the dog into it. That's the variable."

  A pause. The faint crackle of a phone line.

  "Use the stolen bus."

  The words hung in the air like smoke.

  Ethan's mind raced. What the hell—?

  The voice stopped. A faint click. Phone pocketed.

  Then footsteps—moving away from the restroom, crunching on gravel.

  Ethan didn't wait.

  He unlocked the stall, rushed to the sink, and splashed cold water on his face. His hands trembled as he gripped the porcelain.

  Bus stop. Five minutes.

  Target is the strategist.

  Use the stolen bus.

  He turned and bolted out the door.

  Ethan burst out of the restroom, cool evening air hitting his face like a slap. He scanned the garden—left, right—and caught movement near the treeline.

  A man.

  Standing behind a tree, half-hidden in shadow, facing the bus stop thirty meters away.

  Ethan's stomach dropped.

  The man turned his head, looking in the opposite direction.

  Ethan followed his gaze.

  A bus.

  Speeding down the street. Too fast. Way too fast.

  No brake lights.

  Ethan's mind went blank. Pure instinct took over.

  Run.

  He bolted toward the bus stop, legs pumping, lungs burning. A dozen people stood there—waiting, scrolling phones, oblivious. A kid sat on a bench swinging his legs.

  Behind him, near the treeline, Merlin's hand slipped inside his coat.

  His fingers wrapped around cold metal.

  He drew the pistol smoothly. No hesitation. No theatrics.

  Just necessity.

  The prophet's eyes tracked Ethan's sprint. Saw the trajectory. Saw the interruption.

  Can't risk it.

  This was supposed to be a clean test—measure the strategist's response time, assess his tactical value, maybe even kill him if fortune allowed.

  But this boy—this New Human—was about to ruin everything.

  Merlin raised the gun. Aimed.

  Exhaled.

  "MOVE!" Ethan's throat opened. "GET OUT OF THE—"

  CRACK.

  The sound split the air.

  Fire exploded through Ethan's left hand.

  He stumbled, vision blurring, mind scrambling to catch up. What—?

  Another step. His legs gave out.

  He hit the pavement hard, shoulder first, head bouncing off concrete. The world tilted. His left hand—he couldn't feel it. No, wait, he could. Too much. Burning. Wet.

  Gunshot.

  I was shot.

  Am I dying?

  His breath came in shallow gasps. The world narrowed to a tunnel. He tried to move, tried to push himself up, but his arm wouldn't respond.

  Where did it hit? Where—?

  Terror clawed up his throat. Cold. Spreading.

  I'm going to die here.

  The gunshot echoed across the garden.

  At the bus stop, a man's head snapped up. Mid-thirties, sharp eyes, dressed in plain clothes. A border collie sat at his feet, ears perked.

  The man's gaze flicked to Ethan—collapsed on the path, bleeding.

  Then to the bus.

  Speeding. Seventy kilometers per hour. Maybe more.

  No driver.

  The crowd hadn't noticed yet. They were looking at Ethan, confused, some starting to panic.

  The man moved.

  "Cookie—bark."

  The dog exploded into sound—sharp, relentless, cutting through the confusion like a blade. Heads turned. Eyes locked on the dog instead of the bus.

  "Wall! Now! Move to the wall!"

  His voice carried command. Not loud. Certain.

  People hesitated for half a second, then scattered. Parents grabbed kids. A teenager dropped his phone. They pressed against the concrete barrier beside the stop, bodies tight, eyes wide.

  The man reached behind his back and drew a pistol. Compact. Practiced.

  His eyes tracked the bus. Twenty meters. Fifteen.

  Empty driver's seat.

  REAPER.

  Ten meters.

  The man shifted, angling himself between the crowd and the impact zone.

  Five.

  The bus didn't plow straight in.

  It swerved—hard right—and slammed into the bus stop at an angle. Metal shrieked. Glass exploded. The shelter crumpled like tinfoil, benches torn from their bolts and flung across the pavement.

  But the crowd was safe. Pressed against the wall. Untouched.

  The bus shuddered to a stop, engine ticking, smoke rising from the hood.

  Silence.

  Then screaming.

  Ethan didn't faint.

  He lay on the pavement, hand clutched to his chest, blood soaking through his jacket. His vision swam, but he stayed conscious. Barely.

  Footsteps.

  Slow. Measured.

  A figure stepped from the treeline, staying just beyond the reach of the streetlights. Tall. Thin. Face obscured by shadow.

  "You were lucky this time, young man."

  The voice was smooth. Amused.

  "Despite being a New Human."

  Sirens wailed in the distance. Red and blue lights flickered at the far end of the street.

  The figure tilted his head, as if considering something.

  "Next time won't be so easy."

  Then he was gone.

  Not running. Just… absent. Swallowed by the dark.

  The man with the dog holstered his weapon and sprinted to Ethan.

  He dropped to one knee, hands already moving—checking the wound, applying pressure with practiced efficiency.

  "Stay with me. You're okay. You're going to be okay."

  Ethan's vision blurred. He tried to speak, but his mouth wouldn't cooperate.

  The man looked up, scanning the treeline. Confirming.

  REAPER was gone.

  He pulled out his phone, still keeping pressure on Ethan's hand.

  "This is Ming. Harvest-7. Code Red at Glenway Garden. One civilian down, gunshot wound. REAPER confirmed on site—Unknown. Subject fled. Requesting immediate medical and tactical support."

  He pocketed the phone and looked down at Ethan.

  "You did good, kid. Real good."

  Ethan's eyes fluttered.

  The last thing he saw before the world went dark was the border collie sitting beside him, calm and watchful, like it had seen this all before.