I died.
I remember it clearly.
The hospital room.
The white ceiling above me.
The coldness in my fingers.
The slow, fading beeps beside my bed.
One.
Then another.
Then—
Nothing.
I had accepted it.
There was nothing left to fight for.
My body had failed, and whatever came after death no longer mattered.
So why—
Am I still thinking?
Something was wrong.
Terribly wrong.
I tried to breathe.
Pain exploded through my chest.
Cold liquid rushed into my lungs.
My entire body convulsed.
What the—?!
I tried to cough.
Nothing.
I tried to scream.
Nothing.
There was no air.
Only darkness.
Thick, suffocating darkness pressing against me from every direction.
Panic took over.
I'm drowning.
But that didn't make sense.
I was supposed to be dead.
I couldn't remember falling into water.
I couldn't remember anything after—
The heartbeat.
Thump.
I froze.
Another pulse followed.
Thump.
Slow.
Heavy.
Close.
But it wasn't my heartbeat.
My thoughts sharpened.
Too sharply.
Every sensation suddenly became painfully clear.
The liquid surrounding me.
The pressure against my skin.
The faint vibration beneath my body.
Even the strange humming sound somewhere beyond the darkness.
Where am I?
I tried to move.
Nothing happened.
I tried again.
A tiny twitch.
That was all.
Panic returned.
My body felt impossibly small.
Weak.
Almost weightless.
I forced my eyes open.
Blue.
Everything was blue.
A glowing blue liquid surrounded me, illuminated by faint light that seemed to come from the walls.
I was floating inside something.
A transparent chamber.
Thick glass—or something that looked like glass—surrounded me on every side.
Strange markings covered its surface.
Runes.
They pulsed faintly.
Not like magic.
More like machinery following a predetermined cycle.
A soft mechanical hum accompanied each pulse.
I stared at them.
What is this place?
I tried to raise my hand.
My arm barely moved.
I looked toward it.
Small.
Far too small.
My fingers curled weakly.
My mind went blank.
That's... not right.
I had been an adult.
I remembered my hands.
My body.
My life.
This wasn't my body.
Before panic could completely consume me, something moved beyond the chamber.
I turned my head.
Slowly.
It took everything I had.
At first, I saw only another blue wall.
Then another chamber came into view.
And inside it—
A baby.
My thoughts stopped.
The infant floated motionlessly inside the liquid.
But something was wrong.
It wasn't human.
White fur covered its tiny body.
A tail drifted behind it.
I stared.
Then I saw another chamber.
And another.
And another.
My vision adjusted to the darkness surrounding me.
Dozens.
There were dozens of them.
Transparent blue chambers stretched into the distance, arranged in rows.
Each one contained an infant.
Each infant was different.
Some had tails.
Some had small horns.
Others had strange ears or claws.
But none of them were human.
My breathing—if it could even be called breathing—became frantic.
What is this?
I looked back at myself.
Small limbs.
White fur.
My own tail floated behind me.
Striped.
My heart stopped.
I didn't want to believe it.
I looked at the other infants again.
Then back at myself.
The conclusion was unavoidable.
I'm not human anymore.
The thought should have terrified me.
It did.
But something else was stronger.
Confusion.
How?
I had died.
That much I knew.
Yet somehow—
I had awakened inside the body of a newborn beast.
And I wasn't alone.
A faint mechanical sound interrupted my thoughts.
One of the chambers nearby flickered.
I turned toward it.
The liquid inside began moving.
Slowly at first.
Then violently.
The infant inside convulsed.
Its tiny body twisted.
The chamber's runes suddenly brightened.
A red warning appeared across its surface.
> [WARNING: HOST FAILURE]
My eyes widened.
Host?
The infant jerked again.
Cracks appeared across the chamber.
One.
Two.
Then dozens.
The liquid churned violently.
The baby stopped moving.
For a moment—
Everything went silent.
Then—
BOOM!
The chamber exploded.
Liquid burst across the floor.
The infant's body collapsed.
And disappeared.
I stared.
I couldn't move.
Couldn't think.
Couldn't even understand what I'd just witnessed.
A baby had been alive one moment.
Then it was simply—
Gone.
No funeral.
No warning.
No second chance.
Just failure.
The surrounding chambers continued operating as if nothing had happened.
The mechanical hum returned.
The runes continued pulsing.
Food continued flowing into the surviving chambers.
The facility didn't care.
It was functioning exactly as designed.
That was when I understood something.
This wasn't a nursery.
It wasn't a hospital.
It wasn't a place meant to protect us.
We were being monitored.
Fed.
Maintained.
Tested.
And whatever process was happening here—
Failure meant death.
My tiny body trembled.
Selection.
The word appeared in my mind.
This wasn't survival.
This was selection.
Then—
Something changed.
Not outside me.
Inside.
A pressure formed behind my eyes.
My vision blurred.
The strange mechanical hum disappeared.
For the first time since waking, the chamber's system wasn't the thing demanding my attention.
Something else had noticed me.
A cold presence unfolded inside my consciousness.
Not a voice from the room.
Not one of the facility's machines.
Something that belonged to me.
> [Beast Blood System: ACTIVATED]
My thoughts froze.
The words weren't projected onto the chamber.
They appeared directly within my mind.
Another line followed.
> [Compatible host detected.]
I didn't understand.
What system?
The interface continued.
> [Synchronization: 3%...]
My heart began pounding.
> [21%...]
Something moved through my body.
> [57%...]
My vision flashed white.
> [89%...]
The pressure increased.
> [100%]
Everything stopped.
For one heartbeat—
The entire world seemed to hold its breath.
Then—
Pain.
It tore through me.
Not the pain of drowning.
Not the pain of injury.
Something deeper.
Something ancient.
Something buried inside my blood.
My tiny body convulsed.
The liquid around me began to churn.
Blue energy erupted from my body, spreading through the chamber like lightning.
I wanted to scream.
I couldn't.
My muscles locked.
My bones felt as though they were being pulled apart.
The interface appeared again.
> [Bloodline awakening initiated.]
Stop!
I didn't know what it was doing.
I didn't know what bloodline it was talking about.
I only knew that I was dying.
Again.
A reflection appeared across the curved chamber wall.
For a moment, I barely recognized it.
A tiny white tiger cub stared back at me.
Its fur was white.
Its body was small.
Its eyes—
Blue.
Brilliant blue.
Not the soft blue of the chamber.
Something deeper.
Something unnatural.
Energy surged through my veins.
Wild.
Ancient.
Far too powerful for this tiny body.
The system reacted immediately.
> [WARNING: HOST SOUL INSTABILITY]
Another warning appeared.
> [WARNING: BODY INTEGRITY COLLAPSING]
Cracks spread across the chamber.
The runes around me ignited.
The facility's monitoring system detected the abnormal readings.
The chamber began responding automatically.
But it couldn't stop what was happening inside me.
My bones cracked.
My veins ruptured.
My organs strained beneath the pressure.
I'm going to die.
The thought was terrifyingly familiar.
Not again.
The system flashed.
> [Emergency Suppression: FORCED]
A violent force slammed into my body.
The energy inside me was crushed.
Forced downward.
Sealed.
The pain didn't disappear.
It became something worse.
My body had already been damaged.
> [Status: Incomplete Awakening]
Then the system displayed my information.
> Name: —
Age: Infant
Race: Blue-Eyed White Tiger — Azurion
Bloodline: 100% — SEALED
Accessible: 0.5%
I barely understood the words.
My consciousness was fading.
My body was breaking apart.
The chamber's automated systems responded.
> [Healing Protocol: Initiated]
The blue liquid surrounding me was suddenly pulled into my body.
Violently.
My broken flesh began rebuilding.
Bones reformed.
Veins repaired themselves.
Organs stabilized.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Pain swallowed everything.
Then—
Fire.
Blue flames erupted around me.
I expected them to burn.
They didn't.
They refined.
Something began forming beneath my fur.
Blue.
Hard.
Ancient.
Scales.
They spread across my body layer by layer.
My body disappeared beneath them.
The scales wrapped around me.
A shell formed.
A cocoon.
I couldn't understand what was happening anymore.
Was my body healing?
Changing?
Or being rebuilt into something else entirely?
My thoughts slowed.
The darkness returned.
No.
I fought it.
I had already died once.
I refused to die again.
But my consciousness kept slipping.
The cocoon tightened around me.
My body felt distant.
My thoughts were fading.
Then something inside me—
snapped.
A roar erupted from somewhere deeper than my lungs.
Not the cry of an infant.
Not the sound of a newborn animal.
A roar from the depths of my soul.
ROOOOOOAAARRR!
The chamber shook.
Cracks raced across the glass.
Other chambers flickered in response.
Some went dark.
Others shattered.
The facility's monitoring system began throwing warnings.
> [ERROR]
[ERROR]
[ANOMALY DETECTED]
But that wasn't what frightened me.
My own system—
The system that belonged to me—
Paused.
For the first time since activating—
It hesitated.
> [Re-evaluating Host...]
I stared at the message.
Why?
What had I done?
What was so strange about me that even my own system had to reconsider its assessment?
Then—
Far beyond the chamber—
Something opened its eyes.
I couldn't see it.
I couldn't hear it.
But I felt it.
A presence.
Ancient.
Distant.
Watching.
The pressure around me changed.
The cocoon trembled.
Energy spiraled violently through my sealed body.
Everything was breaking.
Everything was changing.
And somewhere in the darkness, I understood one thing.
This place had been designed to create something.
Maybe soldiers.
Maybe beasts.
Maybe something else entirely.
But whatever they intended to create—
They had made one mistake.
They had given me consciousness.
I closed my eyes.
The last thought I had before darkness consumed me was simple.
If this cage wants to create a monster...
Then I'll become the one it can't control.