A sudden rush, like the jarring sensation of falling in a dream had jerked Ampelius awake. His breath came sharp and uneven as he took in his surroundings. He was lying on a hill, the cool earth beneath him damp with morning dew. In the distance, the city of Vetera burned. Flames licked at the skeletal remains of buildings, casting an orange yellow glow against the darkened sky. Smoke curled upward in thick plumes, swallowing the stars.

  He didn’t know how he got here. His last memory was of being restrained of cold, alien hands, a needle piercing his skin before darkness swallowed him whole. Now, explosions thundered in the distance, punctuated by bursts of gunfire. The battle hadn’t ended. If anything, it had only escalated.

  How much time has passed? He had no way of knowing. His mind felt fragmented, his thoughts slipping like sand through his fingers. Had it all been real? The Zavons, the experiments, the eerie voices speaking of transformation? Or had he simply been knocked unconscious, his mind crafting a nightmare in the void?

  "I can assure you, you are not dreaming," Casper’s voice chimed in, cool and detached. "As the first phase of your transformation begins, you will experience confusion and lapses in memory. You were only gone for a few hours. It is early morning. The sun will rise within the hour."

  As he pushed himself upright, something felt wrong. His body didn’t just ache, it thrummed, each muscle flexing and retracting as if testing itself. He could feel his blood pumping, every pulse a rhythmic force moving through his veins. The sensation was unnatural, like his body was no longer entirely his own. Instinctively, he checked himself. Hands ran over his arms, chest, and face, searching for deformities, scars, protrusions, anything that marked him as changed. But there was nothing. No obvious mutation, no sign of what the Zavons had done to him.

  He lifted his gaze back to Vetera and the world shifted. His vision sharpened instantly, almost unnaturally so. He could see too much, details that should have been blurred at this distance became crystal clear. He spotted movement within the ruins, shadows slipping between shattered buildings. The fires raging in the city weren’t just flames, he saw heat signatures within them, living things moving inside the inferno.

  Then came the buzzing, not in his ears, but inside his skull. A deep, warping hum, like tinnitus stretched into a wavering siren. It started crackling, shifting through frequencies like a detuned radio.

  Then, through the static, a voice emerged.

  "Move. Vetera. Zavon."

  The words were blunt, imperfect, as if spoken by something unfamiliar with speech.

  Casper’s voice cut through next, clinical and unbothered. “The Asventi are attempting to communicate with you directly. It will learn to speak more fluently, but I can provide translation if necessary.”

  “I’m not going to Vetera. I’m not looking for a Zavon. You can’t make me.” Ampelius said, his voice firm—but his stomach twisted with doubt.

  He turned away, forcing himself toward the tree line, each step heavy with defiance. If he could just get away, if he could find some shelter, maybe—

  A wave of euphoria washed over him. Sudden. Overpowering. It hit like a drug rush, flooding his veins with warmth, his mind drifting, unfocused. He had felt this once before, many years ago, when he had experimented with something illegal, something that made the world feel distant yet perfect.

  He barely noticed when his feet pivoted on their own. When he looked up, he was walking toward Vetera. His mind caught up but no, he had turned away. He was sure of it.

  "Listen. Move. Vetera. Zavon."

  The words slithered into his thoughts, like radio static shaping itself into language. It wasn’t a command spoken to him. It was a command that his body had already accepted.

  A flicker of light zipped in front of him. Casper.

  "The Asventi can and will control your body," the AI stated, hovering at eye level, its glow flickering like a heartbeat. "You are a puppet, Ampelius. They only let you live because they need you. If you were useless, you would already be dead."

  The euphoria faded, leaving a cold, hollow sensation in its wake.

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  Alive. But not in control.

  "Ampelius. Your name. Yes?"

  The voice shifted, evolved. Less static, more deliberate. The words carried weight now, shaping themselves into something almost human, but still wrong.

  Ampelius didn’t answer. He didn’t know how to answer.

  Casper hovered beside him, unbothered. "You don’t have to speak. They can translate your thoughts."

  A cold wave ran through him. Even his thoughts weren’t safe.

  Don’t think.

  He tried to silence his mind, to force himself into blankness, but his body betrayed him again. Trying not to think was still a thought. The act of resisting itself was a signal to them.Then it hit.

  A surge of electricity coursed through him, from his skull down to his toes in a numbing shockwave, like his entire body had fallen asleep at once. His limbs tingled, then turned heavy, distant, disconnected. His knees buckled as the world tilted. He then collapsed and darkness swallowed him whole.

  When he came to, Casper was staring down at him. The AI’s glow flickered, pulsing like an artificial heartbeat.

  "Fight all you want," Casper said. "They will punish you in ways you never thought imaginable."

  Casper hovered in front of him, its glow pulsing steadily.

  "There is a lot you don’t know, and a lot that you don't need to know. But I will tell you this."

  "The Asventi will rewire you, piece by piece."

  "How much free will you have is entirely up to you."

  "The more you resist, the less control you will have."

  "Every time you fight back, you accelerate the process."

  "And soon…" Casper paused, almost as if to let the words sink in. "You might not even remember that you were supposed to fight back at all."

  He stared at his hands.

  Did it even matter if he fought back?

  His body was not his own. Not anymore. He had always been rebellious, defiant to the core—but what did rebellion mean when there was no way to win?

  The crackling static returned, wavering at first, then smoothing into something more coherent.

  "Casper... helps. Translate. Us."

  The voice slithered into his mind, no longer just fragmented noise—but intent.

  "Hate Rome. You do?"

  A pause. A slow, calculated pause.

  "Let help us."

  Casper’s voice came next, smooth and logical.

  "You hate the current ruling Empire of this world, yes?"

  It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. A fact.

  "So do the Asventi."

  Casper drifted closer; his glow steady, unwavering.

  "They want your help to destroy them."

  The words sat heavy in the air. Ampelius swallowed.

  "They want humans as allies. But Rome makes humanity an enemy."

  Casper let the thought linger, just long enough for Ampelius to consider it.

  "You want to help your people, right?"

  Ampelius felt a flicker of intrigue, like, for the first time, he could actually make a difference. As a child, he had watched the Romans tear his family apart. His father was taken and never seen again. Rumors spread that they were enslaving the population, starting with the men. The women and children were mostly left alone, but ever since that day, a deep hatred had festered inside him.

  And now, for the first time, he saw an opportunity to do something about it. But as the moment settle, a strange weight pressed on him. For years, he had hated Rome for what they did to his family. He had dreamed of payback. But now, that chance was right in front of him, so why did it feel wrong?

  Why did it feel the same?

  His fists clenched. His voice came out low, edged with suspicion.

  "The Romans control people, just like you're doing to me. What makes you any different from them?"

  Casper began to glow and pulsed slightly, as if processing the question. When he finally spoke, the tone was neutral and calculated.

  "This is a false comparison Ampelius. The Romans take without offering. The Asventi also take, but they provide something in return."

  Then, suddenly something shifted. His glow flickered again, the voice softening as if amused.

  "You are angry, I can see it. Rome stole from you, crushed you under its boot. Now, you have the chance to return the favor."

  Casper drifted lazily around him, like a fly. His voice returned to its cold, emotionless tone.

  "Either way, resistance is meaningless. You've been chosen, its up to you to embrace it willingly, or have it forced upon you. The Asventi are giving you this chance to decide."

  Ampelius understood that the Asventi were only providing the illusion of choice. In reality, he had none. Whether he liked it or not, they would use him as a tool against the Romans.

  But… why fight it?

  The thought lingered, a question forming in his mind—but before he could speak, Casper interrupted.

  "If you embrace it, you will have autonomy. If you don’t, you’ll be nothing more than a puppet. A lifeless puppet."

  He carefully considered those words. But something about the "lifeless puppet" lingered in his mind, raising a question he hadn’t yet formed. Before he could ask Casper, the Asventi’s voice slithered into his thoughts.

  "Death, yes."

  Suddenly, Ampelius' vision warped. A distorted, fractured memory flooded into his mind, a memory that was not his own, yet somehow intimately familiar. He wasn’t just seeing it, he was inside it. He stood within another body, looking through another’s eyes. The world around him flickered, its edges blurred and unstable.

  Before him stood a figure: stripped of all will, barely human, yet still walking. Their movements were mechanical, empty, their body obeying commands without hesitation. Their eyes still alive, but devoid of control. Then the Asventi’s voice slithered into his thoughts.

  "This is what you will become… if you resist."

  He realized that resistance didn’t mean dying, it meant becoming something far worse. A fate beyond death. The thought chilled him to his core, because for the first time, he feared something more than dying. And worse still... what if it had already begun?