The boy who lived......

Troy lay still, his heart pounding in his chest, the weight of the maternal voice's words echoing through his mind. Humanity needs you. He felt the energy coursing through him, his thoughts sharper, more coherent. But before he could fully process the revelation, a sharp, cold pain tore through his body.

"Vitals collapsing," the assistant tech muttered, tapping away at his console. Troy's heart was faltering again, his body reaching the edge of its resilience. The lead technician leaned closer, his eyes narrowing as Troy's brainwave readings dropped dramatically.

"He's finally breaking," the tech said, more to himself than anyone else. "Even anomalies have their limits."

Troy's chest tightened, and his vision blurred. He had held on for so long, but now it felt like everything was slipping away. The spark inside him flickered, fighting to stay alight, but the pain was overwhelming. The machines screeched one last time, the sounds mingling with the steady hum of the lab, before everything went dark.

He was dying.

No, not just dying. Dead.

His consciousness ebbed away, slipping into the familiar coldness that had greeted him at the end of every revival. But this time, something felt different. The voice that had once comforted him, the spark that had flared so brightly—it was dimming, fading away, along with him. The last thing he heard before the darkness swallowed him whole was the distant muttering of the technicians.

"Flatline. This one's done for real this time."

The room fell into silence, save for the quiet beep of the heart monitor confirming his death. The lead technician stood still for a moment, staring at the lifeless form of Troy, his body slack, still strapped to the cold metal table.

"Well, that's it," the lead tech finally said, his voice devoid of emotion. "Thirty-two revivals. An impressive run for a genetic failure."

The assistant glanced up from his screen, his brows furrowing. "Are we disposing of him with the others?"

The lead tech nodded. "Standard procedure. Prep him for Disposal."

Hours later, Troy's body was unceremoniously dumped into the Disposal Zone—a vast, desolate pit filled with the remains of hundreds, if not thousands, of discarded subjects. The stench of decay filled the air, mingling with the acrid smoke from nearby incinerators. Bodies lay in twisted heaps, some only partially intact, others little more than skeletal remains. Troy's body, like so many before him, was nothing more than material to be disposed of, a failure in the endless pursuit of perfection.

The zone was a cold, industrial wasteland, where broken lives were incinerated without ceremony. Automated cranes moved silently, depositing the dead into massive furnaces that belched thick clouds of smoke into the sky. Troy's lifeless form lay among the corpses, unmoving, discarded like the rest of the genetic inferiors. The scientists had already moved on to their next batch, their focus elsewhere.

But deep within the dead flesh, something stirred.

At first, it was barely noticeable—a faint flicker of warmth deep within the cold shell of his body. Then, slowly, a spark ignited. The energy that had once been siphoned from him, the power that had surged in his final moments, began to return, though faintly. The maternal voice, barely audible now, whispered through the void of death, coaxing him back to the edge of consciousness.

"Wake up, Troy."

It was no longer a request, but a command.

In the stillness of the Disposal Zone, Troy's chest gave a shallow, stuttering rise. His fingers twitched, a faint movement, followed by the tightening of his muscles. The warmth grew, spreading through his veins, bringing with it the sharp sting of life. His eyelids fluttered open, revealing the dull, smoky sky above.

He was alive.

His body felt heavy, sluggish, the weight of death still clinging to his limbs. The smell of rot and ash assaulted his senses, and he coughed weakly, his throat raw and dry. He tried to move, but his muscles screamed in protest, stiff and unresponsive. Around him, the bodies of other failed subjects lay in grotesque heaps, silent witnesses to his resurrection.

For a moment, Troy simply lay there, the enormity of what had happened settling over him. He had died. They had discarded him like waste, dumped him here to be forgotten. And yet, somehow, impossibly, he had come back. But it wasn't the lab's machines this time. No revival tech had brought him back. It was something else. Something inside him.

"You are not like the others," the voice whispered, more distant now but still present. "You have always been more."

Troy struggled to his feet, his legs trembling as he forced himself upright. His vision swam, but he fought against the dizziness, leaning on a rusted pipe for support. His body, though weak, was still intact. It was as if something within him had repaired the damage, had brought him back from the brink without the need for the lab's technology.

He looked around the pit, his eyes scanning the desolate landscape of discarded bodies and machinery. The cold, industrial space seemed even more lifeless now, but Troy wasn't afraid. If anything, he felt an odd sense of clarity.

The voice had been right. He was different. He was meant for something more.

"Why?" Troy rasped, his voice barely a whisper. He didn't know who he was asking, but the question burned in his mind. Why had he been brought back? Why him, when so many others had simply died and been forgotten?

But the voice did not answer.

Instead, as Troy began to walk, he felt something new stirring within him. His memories were still fragmented, his mind clouded with the fog of so many revivals, but there was something deeper—an instinct, a connection to something ancient. He could feel it now, pulsing beneath the surface, like a power that had been locked away, waiting to be unleashed.

And with it came a growing certainty: the life he had lived in the lab, the endless cycle of revival and death, was only the beginning.

Troy glanced down at his hands, flexing his fingers. He could still feel the energy coursing through him, a raw, untamed force that hadn't been there before. Whatever had changed in him, whatever had sparked this revival—it was powerful. And it wasn't going away.

A distant rumble shook the ground beneath him, the furnaces roaring to life in the distance. The incinerators would soon begin their work, reducing the corpses around him to ash. He needed to move—needed to escape before they came for him again.

With newfound determination, Troy began to limp away from the pit, his legs still weak but his mind focused. He didn't know where he was going, but one thing was clear:

He had cheated death once. And now, he was going to make them pay for everything they had done to him.

The gods, the scientists, the ones who thought they controlled the fates of the weak—they were all wrong.

Troy was no longer just a failed experiment.