CHAPTER 5 – Reborn in a Dorm Room (With a Voice in My Head)
Rollo wakes like a man being shotgunned back into his body from a thousand feet up—lungs locked, heart stuck in neutral, skin crawling with a static that has nowhere left to run. His eyes snap open to white: ceiling white, wall white, sheets white, all so clean it looks like someone bleach-bombed the room ten times and then buffed it with surgical alcohol. He's on a narrow bed with institutional corners, the kind they force you to make in juvie or rehab. There's a metal locker across from him, door shut, handle greasy from fingerprints. No mirrors. No posters. No Kami.
He jerks upright, expecting to be pinned, but there's nothing holding him down except the ragged breath heaves and the adrenaline jackhammering his chest. His hands fly to his face, then to his crotch, then everywhere at once, as if he's not sure any part of him is still there. The body underneath is… him, technically. Brown skin, mohawk, a necklace of old scars and bad choices—but the colors are off. His chest is dusted in a weird lavender that shifts to blue at the nipples and purples out toward the abs. The tattoos, his old blackwork, have faded into ghostly lines that only show when the light hits them just right, like bruises healing under the skin.
He tries to focus, but the world keeps tilting. Memories bleed over: the sex cave, the alien, the endless cycle of getting fucked and rebuilt and fucked again. The double dick thing. The blue cum. The way it felt to be filled up until he was nothing but nerve endings and static. He half expects to look down and see Kami's face grinning up from his lap.
Instead, there's only a necklace.
It's a thin black band, hard as glass, fused to the notch of his collarbone. At the center hangs a matte obsidian gem, maybe an inch across, cut with a single red slit down the middle. The thing isn't just jewelry; it hums, pulsing in time with his heartbeat. As he watches, a projection floats above the gem, words crisp and merciless:
[Power Level: 1 — Dormant]
He touches the gem. It's warm, like skin. When he presses, the light flickers. Nothing else happens.
He snorts, half laugh, half cough. "Yeah, sure. Dormant."
His voice comes out cracked, deeper than before, with a smoker's roughness. He clears his throat and tries again.
"Is this it? I get abducted, fucked into a science experiment, and now I'm—what? Super Saiyan?" He flexes. Nothing explodes.
He looks around the room for cameras, mics, anything to tell him where he is. All he sees is the bed, the locker, a steel door with a narrow plex window set at eye level. No view outside, just more white.
He stands, careful, expecting his legs to fold. They don't. He's heavier than before, denser, the muscle under the skin compacted in new, angular ways. His feet slap cold against the tile. He's naked, no sheets, no hospital gown, just the body Kami left him with and the necklace branding him as a prototype.
He crosses to the locker, tries the handle. Locked, of course. He considers ripping it open, but the old reflex says wait, scan, don't do anything loud until you know who's watching. He squints up at the ceiling. There, in the far corner, a glassy black dome—camera, or maybe just a sensor. He flips it the finger anyway.
A sharp tingling ripples from his dick. He glances down. Both cocks are still there, one nested against the other like a mutant finger and its angry twin. They're limp, but the skin is weirdly iridescent, the veins running blue-white instead of the usual blood red. He pokes at them. They twitch in unison, then settle. He laughs again, bitter and amazed. "Still double parked, I see."
He shivers, remembering the feeling of both inside Kami, the way she rode him until he thought he'd melt through the bed, the way every orgasm only made her want more. The memory is so vivid it hurts. He half expects to see her step out of the wall, fangs bared, ready to ride him until he's nothing but dust.
Instead, there's a new sound. Inside his head.
"You miss me already?" The voice is Kami's, velvet and razor wire, whispering up the stem of his brain.
Rollo flinches. "Get out of my skull, you freak."
Her laugh is a kiss and a bite. "You'd be dead if I got out. Don't pout. This is just the warm-up."
He looks for her, spinning in place, but the room is still empty. The only glow is the one from his chest, the necklace spitting out the power level like a digital mood ring.
He closes his eyes, squeezes the bridge of his nose. "Okay, fine. I'm talking to myself now. This is how they know you're crazy."
Kami hums, the sound vibrating his skull. "Not crazy. Upgraded. You survived the first cycle. Nobody does that without losing at least half their mind."
He wants to scream at her, to claw the voice out of his head, but it's lodged too deep, woven through his thoughts like a second soul. "What do you want?"
She sighs, mock patient. "You already know. I made you to break the system. But that means playing along, at least for now. Don't worry—your next phase will be fun."
A fresh spike of adrenaline hits, and with it, a new projection appears in his vision, hovering just above his left eye like a HUD in a video game:
[STATS UPDATED]
Kami Sync: 12%
Rizz: 8
Shadow Affinity: 11
Lust Pressure: 10
Pleasure Resistance: 6
Loyalty: 1
Traits:
• Adaptive Lust Core
• Dual-Core Penetration
• Kami Integration Phase 1
[Trait Active: Passive regeneration increased while aroused.]
He reads the list twice. "Rizz? Shadow Affinity?" He wants to laugh, but the implications are too much. The last trait line blinks, then pops up a sub-message: [Recommendation: Immediate application for optimal integration.]
He gets it. He's supposed to fuck someone, or at least think about it, to activate whatever Kami cooked up in his DNA. The thought is almost enough to get him half hard, but then the door clunks and swings open.
Four people stand in the threshold.
At first, he thinks it's a nurse squad. Two in white scrubs, one in gray jumps, one wearing a dark-blue blazer with a patch that says "Prefect." Then he sees their faces: teenagers, his age or close, but way too clean, too confident. Their eyes scan the room, then him, then his crotch, then back to his face.
The one in front—a tall, pale kid with bleached hair and a perfect dentist's-wet-dream smile—chokes on the sight and turns red from the cheeks up.
"Uh… welcome," he says, voice stuttering. "You… uh… dress code is required. You know that, right?"
Rollo grins, shows all his teeth. "Somebody forgot to leave me a uniform."
The second kid, a brown-skinned girl with a linebacker's build and tight cornrows, snorts. "You sure you're supposed to be here? You look… purple."
Rollo glances down. He is, in fact, purple from the nipples down, fading to blue at the knees. It's not subtle.
The third in line, a scrawny blond with glasses, just stares at the necklace. "Is that a Level One? They told us nobody could run those outside quarantine."
Rollo shrugs. "Guess they lied."
The Prefect steps in last, arms folded, sizing him up. His blazer is crisp, his posture perfect, his eyes sharp and mean. "You're Hartmann, right?"
Rollo nods.
"Cassius Vale," the Prefect says, voice pure condescension. "Light track. I run the dorm, and if you want to stay out of trouble, you'll follow my rules."
Rollo smiles wider, lets the fangs show a little. "Or what?"
The Prefect sneers. "Or you end up back in the box. Or dead. Your choice."
Behind them, Kami's voice purrs in Rollo's head: "He's cute. I'd break him first."
Rollo can't help it. He laughs, a sound so raw and unexpected that all four students flinch.
Cassius's eyes narrow. "You think this is funny?"
Rollo shrugs. "I think it's a hell of a lot better than where I woke up last."
The linebacker girl tilts her head, then gestures at the necklace. "What's it do?"
Rollo taps the gem. "Supposed to make me behave, I guess."
She grins. "Doesn't seem to be working."
They all laugh, except for Cassius, who just glares harder.
The scrawny kid, emboldened by the moment, steps forward. "You got a name?"
"Rollo," he says. "Rollo Hartmann."
The kid nods, then looks at Cassius. "We showing him the mess hall, or what?"
Cassius sighs, clearly annoyed at the lack of awe. "Fine. Put on some pants first, Hartmann."
Rollo makes a show of looking around. "Any extras in the house?"
The linebacker girl grabs a pair of sweats from the foot of the bed, tosses them over. He slides them on, careful to tuck both dicks sideways so he doesn't walk with a limp.
He follows them into the hall, the camera above the door whirring as he passes. Kami's voice fades to a murmur, but doesn't leave entirely.
As they walk, Rollo gets his first look at the rest of the place: same white walls, same cheap tile, but lined with doors on either side and a few glassed-in commons. The air is cold, sharp with the tang of sanitizer and ozone. It feels more like a prison than a school.
At the end of the hall, Cassius stops and spins. "You listen, or you die. This isn't some orphanage. It's a bootcamp for people who matter. One mistake and you're gone. Understand?"
Rollo just smiles. "Crystal."
The linebacker girl elbows him. "Don't let him scare you. He's all talk."
The Prefect glares, but keeps walking.
As they turn the corner, Rollo glances back at the glass of a trophy case. He catches his reflection: skin gone pale violet, eyes glowing faintly blue, hair now a wild mess of white and black. The necklace hums in the hollow of his throat. He looks like a monster, or maybe something better.
The message pops up again, right over his vision:
[Passive regeneration increased while aroused.]
He grins, then whispers, "Guess I'll just have to stay hard."
From somewhere deep inside, Kami laughs. "That's my boy."
They walk, and for the first time since he can remember, Rollo feels like the world is finally about to get interesting.
[END CHAPTER]