A sudden rush, almost like the jarring sensation of falling within a dream, 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. Below, the city of Vetera still burned. The flames licked at the skeletal remains of buildings, casting an yellowish glow against the darkened sky. Black and white smoke curled upward in thick plumes, swallowing the stars.

  He didn’t know how he got here. His last memory was of being restrained, and of cold, Zavon hands that injected a needle which pierced his skin, before darkness swallowed him whole again. Now, he heard the rumble of explosions that thundered in the distance, with bursts of gunfire mixed between. It's apparent that the battle hadn’t ended. If anything, it had only escalated.

  How much time has passed? Ampelius thought to himself. He had no way of knowing. His mind felt fragmented, as if his thoughts were 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, with his mind crafting a nightmare while he was out?

  "I can assure you, you are not dreaming," Casper’s voice chimed in. "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, like each muscle flexed and retracted as if testing itself. He could feel his blood pumping, every pulse a rhythmic force moving through his veins. The sensation was unnatural, as if 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, or anything that marked him as changed. But there was nothing. No obvious mutation, no sign of what the Zavons had done to him.

  Then he looked back at Vetera, and his world shifted. His vision sharpened instantly, almost unnaturally so. He could see too much, details that should have been blurred at this distance, but 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 just 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. They 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 and overpowering. It hit like a drug rush, flooding his veins with warmth, then his mind drifted, becoming unfocused. He had felt this once before, but it was 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 breath caught. 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."

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

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

  Alive. But not in control.

  "Ampelius. Your name. Yes?"

  The voice shifted like it evolved within seconds. There was less static and more direct communication. The words carried weight now, shaping themselves into something almost human, but still felt wrong.

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

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

  Then 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, which felt like a numbing shockwave, as if his entire body had fallen asleep at once. His limbs tingled, then turned heavy and distant, like they disconnected.

  His knees buckled and the world tilted. He collapsed as his vision went dark and 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 continued to hover in front of him, patiently waiting.

  "There is a lot you don’t know, and a lot you have no 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. But the more you resist, the less control you will have. And 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.

  "Hate Rome. You do?"

  A pause. A slow, calculated pause to let the words sink in.

  "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.

  "They want your help to destroy them."

  The words sat heavy as Ampelius swallowed hard.

  "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, as if 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 settled, there was this strange weight that pressed on him. For years, he had hated Rome for what they did to his family. He had dreamed of payback.

  Now, that chance was right in front of him, why did it feel wrong? Why did it feel the same?

  His fists clenched. Then his voice came out low, but edged with a hint of 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. The glow flickered again, then the voice softened 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, high pitch and 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 this Asventi power 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 that made him think, a question that formde 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 his mind, but 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 was a figure, a figure stripped of all will, barely human, yet still walking. Their movements were mechanical and empty, like their body was obeying commands without any hesitation. Their eyes though, they were still alive, but devoid of all control.

  The Asventi’s voice slithered into his thoughts again.

  "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?