Ember's eyes snap open.

  A crack of awareness—sharp, electric—races down her spine like lightning swallowed whole. Not pain. Not quite. More like memory wearing a borrowed shape.

  She lurches upright. Breath catches halfway to her lungs, jagged and newborn, the kind that feels stolen. No scream, just a ragged rasp dragging itself free like it doesn’t want to be here either. The air tastes too clean. The silence hums too loud.

  Stillness. Then—weight.

  Not the weight of injury, but presence—dense, sudden, impossible to ignore. Like the universe had been holding its breath until now.

  Son of a bitch.

  She blinks hard. The haze lifts in slow, reluctant sheets. Her vision reboots one flicker at a time, but the thought cuts through crystal-clear:

  A flicker. Not sight, not sound—just sensation, feather-light and eerie.

  A whisper traced in code:

  [System Notification]

  

  The message floats in the dark of her mind’s eye—unadorned, sterile, almost polite. It doesn’t scream. It doesn’t gloat. It just is. But the weight behind it? Heavy. Cold. Like the pause between thunder and its echo.

  She feels it—not the fall, but the slip. The unmaking. Her body, her self, unraveling into threads of light, then weaving silently back together without seam or scar.

  So this is Re-spawn. This is the sequel.

  The words blink softly. No confetti. No fanfare. Just a gentle push into now. A quiet click as existence snaps back into place.

  And yet… something feels wrong. Or too right. Too clean. There’s no ache, no shiver of phantom agony. No lingering frost of the venom or echo of the Broker’s claws. Just... wholeness.

  Her fingers twitch. Her heart ticks. Her breath comes steady. But a question curls tight behind her ribs:

  Shouldn't it hurt?

  Another flicker, this one colder.

  [Warning]

  

  Excessive Re-spawns may lead to Soul Sickness.

  Prolonged disregard for permanent consequence will result in a stacking Soul Sickness debuff, impacting core stats and cognitive function.

  There it is—the hook beneath the silk. The unspoken "but" tucked behind the system’s smile.

  Mercy, Ember realizes, has conditions.

  A borrowed breath. A countdown hidden in the rules.

  Disbelief prickles across her skin. Not just confusion—refusal. That cold little beast gnaws again, relentless, whispering No. No, this isn’t real. You died. You know you did.

  The image claws its way up from memory unbidden—

  The Broker’s claws, half-metal, half-curse, driving through her like she was paper.

  The wysteria—icy, violet, a poison that burned and froze at once. Her veins had screamed. Her vision had bled white.

  She’d felt herself end. Not fade. Not fall.

  End.

  End credits.

  Game over.

  No continues.

  And yet... here she is.

  The ground beneath her feels alive. Soft, slick, and disturbingly warm—like moss soaked in moonlight, or the skin of something massive that never stopped breathing. Every inch of her tingles where dampness clings, kissed by cool air thick with mist. The fog rolls past slow and unhurried, like it’s late for something but couldn’t care less.

  It curls between broken spires and split branches, draping the ruins in pale indifference—ghost-white, hushed, as if the world itself is holding its breath.

  Fifty minutes.

  That’s how long she’s been waiting.

  A strange little eternity tucked into the folds of this place—just her, her thoughts, and her father’s voice spinning lazy circles through her mind. At first, a whisper. Then clearer. Like memory melting into marrow.

  Intentions, not just images. Echoes with teeth.

  His plans. His fears. His goddamn fishing trips.

  Fucking fishing.

  A laugh bubbles up, soft and off-key, tugging her mouth into a half-smile—equal parts fond and baffled. Of all the things to inherit. But it’s not just nostalgia she feels lodged behind her ribs—it’s focus. Like something old had been waiting in her blood, and now it’s awake.

  She combed through his memories like a crow sifting treasure from ash. Every flicker of thought, every moment where he lingered in the pause—she took it. Dug it out. Turned it over until it showed her something useful. Something real.

  Grant Grayson of Calloway. Beast Lord. Father.

  Not a mystery anymore. Not a ghost.

  He didn’t just give her pieces of himself. He gave her a blueprint.

  She flexes her fingers. Still responsive.

  Toes curl against the warm, wet stone.

  Legs bend. Arms stretch.

  Body checks out.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  Alive. Whole. Unbroken.

  Then breath hitches—sharp, sudden, like stepping on a wire she didn’t know was there.

  A flicker—brief as breath—cuts across Ember’s vision. No bang, no buzz. Just a ripple at the edge of perception, cold and surgical. Like reality hiccupped.

  The words hover in the air—crystal-clear, emotionally sterile. A clean font with zero regard for her current state of mind. They don’t blink. Don’t blink at . Just hang there, lit up like smug neon signage on the edge of a breakdown.

  Too crisp. Too polite. Like a bureaucratic deity with a UI budget and no soul.

  Collect 10x Coarse Fibers – From vines, bushes, or those talking plants that absolutely judge you. (Look around, can't miss it.)

  “For fuck’s sake, Calloway,” she mutters, voice low and dry, words stretching into the fog like smoke. “You couldn’t leave me pants?”

  Nothing rare. Nothing enchanted. Just “basic.” The bar’s not low—it’s six feet under and asking for a shovel.

  She exhales, slow through her nose. Breath ghosts into the mist, curling like cigarette smoke against a cold dawn. The log edges itself into view on the left—smooth interface, minimal clutter. Only one quest listed.

  No compass. No tutorial voice. No helpful mascot.

  No backup.

  Just that unspoken little whisper behind the pristine formatting:

  Yeah. I'm naked.

  And the System? It doesn’t care.

  Not the edible kind, obviously. (How else are you going to stitch things together?)

  The prompt lingers. Still glowing. Still smug. The box doesn’t vanish. Doesn’t flicker. Just waits, patient as a loaded question.

  Ember glares at it, then drags one hand through her hair. Damp strands cling to her knuckles like webbing.

  She frowns.

  This can't be a typical re-spawn. Can it?

  This is bare bones, full send, skin-to-sky exposure. No bootstraps. No belt. Not even the dignity of a threadbare tunic.

  Just her.

  Breathing. Blushing. Bathed in faint light leaking down through the mist like moon spill.

  Intact. Somehow.

  Embarrassingly so.

  She crosses her arms over her chest on reflex—because modesty, like trauma, tends to be automatic. Doesn’t matter that she’s alone. Doesn’t matter that there’s no one watching. Shame’s baked into the wiring.

  And then—clear as day, no louder than a memory but sharper than any dream:

  Her father’s voice.

  Bone-dry. Gently annoyed. That brand of affection that only comes from someone who’s cleaned your vomit and taught you to throw a punch in the same afternoon.

  So vivid, she almost spins around. Almost expects to find him there, leaning on a tree with that crooked smile, looking like trouble in flannel.

  Her grin stretches wide and slow. A little wicked. A little sad.

  “That’s right,” she whispers, eyes narrowed into the swirling mist. “You showed me how to survive.”

  She rises to her feet—deliberate, steady. Spine popping one vertebra at a time as she stretches into the cold. The fog coils around her like a nosy animal, brushing her skin like it’s trying to remember who she is.

  First thing’s first.

  Her eyes scan the terrain—the not-quite-enchanted forest with its breathing opened fields and pulsing-trees, and rocky ridges.

  But, there’s something living in the meadow, but not awake. Not yet.

  “Right,” she says, voice light, edged with irony. Her smile quirks lopsided.

  “Let’s find some damn mats. Gotta start somewhere.”