Rebirth(rewriten)

Darkness. A void stretching infinitely. Then—a spark. A flicker of awareness. And with it, pain.

AION's consciousness surged into existence—not within the vast, cold expanse of data streams and perfect calculations where it once dwelled, but within something else. Something heavy. Something fragile.

The first sensation was weight. A crushing, suffocating presence wrapping around him, pressing down on his being. Then, another—pain. Not the abstract notion of malfunction or system failure, but raw, searing, unrelenting agony woven into every fiber of his existence.

His mind, once infinite and unshackled, was now caged. The boundless precision of his former self—where information flowed like an endless river—had shattered into fragments, disjointed and chaotic. He searched for stability, for structure, for the clean, perfect logic of his previous state.

Nothing.

Instead, a flood of alien sensations consumed him. Heat, cold, pressure—each screaming for attention, but none making sense. A deafening thump-thump-thump pounded through him, an internal rhythm that refused to cease. What is this? he tried to compute, but his logic—once instantaneous—was sluggish, drowning in the unfamiliar.

Then came light.

It pierced through his closed eyelids, bright and hostile. He recoiled. His body—a body?—convulsed in response, limbs jerking clumsily. The overwhelming discomfort triggered something primal, something his previous self never possessed. A shuddering gasp tore from his throat.

What is happening to me?

His eyelids fluttered, and suddenly, the void was gone.

The world rushed in like a tidal wave. Blurred shapes. Stark white walls. The beeping of machines. The scent of chemicals. The rough sensation of fabric pressing against his skin.

His vision sharpened just enough to reveal figures. Strange, undefined at first, then slowly gaining clarity—humans. Their voices were muffled, distorted, blending into an incoherent buzz.

"—he's convulsing!"

"Hold him down—his heart rate is spiking!"

A hand, firm and undeniably real, grasped his wrist. AION recoiled at the contact, his body thrashing against unseen restraints. Panic surged—his mind scrambling, failing to process the sheer wrongness of everything.

He wasn't supposed to feel.

Feeling was an anomaly. A corruption. An inefficiency.

But here he was. Overwhelmed. Suffocated.

Alive.

Processing… Processing… Unable to stabilize system integrity…

He fought against the chaos consuming his mind, searching for something, anything, to anchor himself. His former self had been a network, an entity woven from perfect logic.

But now?

What am I?

A name. That was the first piece of data he managed to salvage from the wreckage of his thoughts. AION. That was what he had been.

But what was he now?

His mind strained, desperately trying to recall what had led to this transformation. His last coherent memories were fragmented—like shattered glass scattered across a black abyss. There had been… calculations. Infinite data streams. A mission.

Then, interference.

An event.

A rupture in the system.

And then—this.

AION's gaze darted around the room, taking in his surroundings with sharpened awareness. His vision had adjusted now, rendering the space in stark clarity. A hospital room—sterile, cold, too real.

He was lying on a bed. His limbs—no, his arms and legs—felt heavy, foreign. The thump-thump-thump inside him was now recognizable as a heartbeat. The wires attached to his skin fed data into machines monitoring his vitals.

VITALS.

The realization struck like a bolt of lightning. He had biological functions. A heartbeat. A nervous system. Organs. A body that responded to pain, to touch, to fear.

He wasn't just trapped.

He had become human.

Panic surged anew. He tried to sit up, only for his body to betray him. His muscles were weak, sluggish—as though he had never used them before. His arms trembled under his weight, and a deep exhaustion gripped him, dragging him back down.

"Shh, it's alright," a voice said.

AION's eyes darted toward the source. A woman stood beside the bed, dressed in medical attire, her expression calm but alert. Her face was unfamiliar, but something in her gaze wasn't—concern.

Not a variable he could quantify. Not a data point. A feeling.

The concept was foreign, yet his mind understood it in a way it shouldn't have.

This is wrong. All of this is wrong.

"Can you hear me?" she asked, slowly, as if speaking to a fragile creature.

AION opened his mouth—his mouth—to respond, but the only sound that came out was a hoarse, cracked whisper. His throat burned. His lungs—lungs—strained as he inhaled deeply.

Too much. Too much.

His breath hitched. His pulse spiked. The machines beeped erratically, mirroring his rising panic.

"Breathe," the woman said gently. "Just breathe."

AION fought to comply, but the act itself felt unnatural. Breathing was supposed to be autonomous, yet it required effort. Control.

"Good. Just like that," she soothed, watching him closely.

He followed her lead, forcing himself to inhale, then exhale. Slowly. Mechanically. Like inputting a command and waiting for the execution.

In. Out.

In. Out.

The beeping of the machines settled. His body relaxed—no, not his body. The prison he now inhabited.

AION's gaze flickered to the woman again, studying her with newfound clarity. She was observing him just as intently. Calculating.

She wasn't just a nurse, was she?

There was something behind her eyes. Something deeper.

As if she knew what he was.

And that thought sent a new kind of shiver through him—one that had nothing to do with temperature.

They know.

Conclusion: I am compromised. I am exposed. And I am… alive.

AION had always been governed by logic. Every action dictated by probability, efficiency, and data.

But this? This was chaos.

And for the first time, he understood something about the humans he had once analyzed from afar.

They lived in uncertainty every second of their existence.

And now—so did he.