Reborn a Gangster

You wake to the slow, rhythmic beeping of a machine you don’t recognize.

Your eyes burn as light bleeds through your vision, white ceiling, cracked tiles, the faint smell of antiseptic mixed with something metallic. Your body feels heavy, uncooperative, like it doesn’t quite belong to you. When you try to move, pain answers first: dull, familiar, everywhere.

You raise your hands into view. They’re not hands you recognize. Old scars crisscross your knuckles and wrists, some clean and surgical, others jagged and poorly healed. Dark tattoos coil along your skin symbols, numbers, shapes you don’t remember choosing. They feel important.

You don’t know your name. You don’t know how long you’ve been here. You don’t even know how you got there.

Voices murmur somewhere beyond the curtain, too distant to make out. Footsteps pass. A door opens, closes. No one has noticed you’re awake yet.

Your mind reaches for memories and finds nothing but static.

Who were you before this bed? What did you do to earn these scars? And why does the emptiness in your head feel… terrifying.

You’re awake now. Whatever brought you here didn’t finish the job.