Reborn

Marcus Crassus woke up feeling confused. His head pounded like a drum.

He opened his eyes to a dim, dusty room. The ceiling had cracks, and cobwebs hung in the corners. He didn't know where he was.

"Where am I?" he whispered, his voice raspy.

He tried to sit up. His body felt frail and weak. Every movement hurt. He groaned and fell back onto the bed.

He took a deep breath and looked around. The room was small and run down. Old medical equipment surrounded him. Machines beeped softly.

"This isn't Rome," he muttered.

His mind was racing. How did he get here? The last thing he remembered was the battlefield outside Rome, the sharp pain, and then darkness.

He blinked hard, trying to clear his thoughts. He needed to orient himself, to understand this new reality.

"Focus, Crassus," he told himself. "Figure this out."

He lifted his hands and looked at them. They were thin, almost skeletal. His skin was pale and looked unfamiliar.

"This isn't my body," he realized. "What happened to me?"

He felt a wave of panic but pushed it down. Panicking wouldn't help. He needed a plan. First, he had to get up.

His stomach growled loudly. He was hungry, desperately hungry. He needed food and water.

"One step at a time," he thought.

Marcus gritted his teeth and tried to move again. He slowly turned to the side and pushed himself up with his arms. Every muscle protested, but he managed to sit up.

He paused, catching his breath. The pounding in his head grew worse, and the room spun a little. He closed his eyes and waited for the dizziness to pass.

When he opened his eyes again, he looked down to see odd tubes sticking into his flesh on his arm, a feeling of confusion and panic spread throughout him until unfamiliar knowledge seeped into his mind.

These were medical tubes, helping to clean his blood he remembered but it was not a memory of his own.

As reality set in, so did the relentless noise—a mixture of high pitched buzz, clinking metal, and distant shouts—plunging him back into a warzone of an entirely different nature. 

Marcus took in his holding environment and dressed plainly in tattered clothes. Sparse though they were, they marked the basest rung of society—economic destitution on a backwater planet. 

Marcus blinked as he realized he knew things about things he never knew existed.

It was then that it all clicked, and Marcus remembered the events leading up to his current state. He was no longer in Rome, but on the backwater planet called Centari-IV. Humans had long since expanded their reach beyond Earth and had colonized countless planets throughout the galaxy.

Long gone was the Roman Empire of his memories.

A whisper circumvented the noise cutting off his thoughts—a message mentally inscribed:

[SYSTEM INITIALIZING: Automation Design System activated.]

Marcus blinked as more words appeared in his visual cortex, overlays projected onto his sight.

[Welcome, Marcus Valerius Crassus, to your new pitiful existence. I leave you with the Automation Design System, use it as you will. Entertain me well fool.]

Marcus stared at the words, confused and angry. Who was addressing him? And what did they mean by his "new pitiful existence?"

His stomach growled again, and he winced.

[Warning. Extreme malnutrition and dehydration detected, estimated death in (2) hours.]

[Recommended action: find nourishment.]

The monotone voice rang out in his head and text flashed just within his vision which dissipated when he blinked. Marcus was curious but he could feel his body failing and he had no time to waste.

"Food and water. Focus on that," he told himself.

Marcus Crassus sat on the edge of the bed, feeling weaker than ever.

His head ached terribly, and the room blurred in and out of focus. He needed food and water, or he wouldn't last much longer.

He looked across the room and saw an old fridge in the corner. It seemed so far away.

"Just get to the fridge," he told himself.

He tried to stand up, but his legs were too weak. They buckled under his weight, and he fell back onto the bed.

"Alright, crawl it is," he murmured, determination in his voice.

Marcus slid off the bed and onto the floor. The cold surface felt rough against his skin. He started to crawl and winced as the needles pulled out from his arm.

Each movement was a struggle. His arms and legs felt like lead.

He inched forward, the hard floor scraping his knees and elbows. Marcus could feel bruises forming, but he pushed through the pain.

As he crawled, memories of his early days as an orphan flashed through his mind.

Days spent scrounging for scraps, crawling through the dirt. The hunger, the cold - it was all familiar.

"Survive. Just like before," he whispered, the words giving him strength.

Every few feet, he had to stop and catch his breath. His vision grew darker, the dizziness intensifying. But he couldn't give up.

The fridge was his only hope.

When he finally reached it, his body was trembling. He pulled himself up using the handle. His hand fumbled for the door, and he managed to open it.

A foul odor hit him, making him gag.

Inside the fridge were only moldy, rotten food remnants.

No fresh food. No water.

"No… No…" he said, desperation flooding his voice.

He felt tears well up in his eyes. His body could take no more. The world spun faster, and his headache pounded like a war drum. Was this how he was going to die? Reborn just to die from hunger in some run-down apartment!?

[Warning! Warning! Extreme malnutrition and dehydration detected, estimated death in (0.5) hours, unconsciousness imminent in (1) minute]

[Recommended action: seek aid.]

"Help... anyone...." Marcus croaked weakly, ashamed at needing to beg but then he remembered, this body had no family left, they had already died to the same sickness left behind. Marcus laughed weakly and collapsed to the floor.

The last thing he saw was the door to his apartment opening and a large figure stepping in.

Then, everything went black.