His name had once been John, a very common name.
He vaguely remembered living in a little village outside Greyrock Castle.
The house was drafty, his mother had a terrible cough, and his father had died the winter the mine collapsed.
Then came a famine, and people in the village began sending their children to the "Mercy Garden," saying they could at least eat their fill there.
He was among the last batch sent there. By then, his mother was barely clinging to life. She told him to behave and stay alive.
After arriving, he did enjoy good food and drink for a while. Back then, he still believed the people in white robes beneath the lamps were kind.
Until one day, he was pinned to a metal table.
Cold instruments, restraints, needles piercing his spine... His screams were forced back down his throat, as though he had been sunk underwater.
Later, even his voice disappeared.
His sense of pain was severed, his memories hollowed out, his name erased.
Only a number remained: No. 2371.
His world was whittled down to just a few words.
Climb, kill everything in the way, destroy...
Early that morning, he was dragged from his cage. A metal tube was inserted into the port between his breastbone and collarbone. As the drug was injected, his entire body felt as though burning coals had ignited it from within.
A vial of dark red potion, murkier than any he had received before.
The tubing trembled beneath his skin.
It felt as though something foreign had been poured into his blood.
His heartbeat was forcibly accelerated, his stomach spasmed, and his senses of smell and hearing dissolved into chaos.
He was merely a specimen that had undergone the final procedure.
An order buzzed inside No. 2371's mind: *Climb,