Healing Skills

Chapter 1: Crawl to the Light

Chapter 1: Crawl to the Light

Piss and rain and the breath of died men full had made the alley.

And Kael, who had been once a sniper, soldier, and nobody, was bleeding into that stink, as though it had been waiting on him.

He did not merely suffer. He was crushed. Bones right through the flesh, legs deformed, nerves screaming without speaking. His lips parted in an eloquent howl, which had no sound. No sob. No scream. Nothing but gasping, and tightening of the mind with every beat of the heart.

Not through suffering. No, Kael could bear pain. It was fate that he could not take, that paralyzed him more than the loss of blood.

He had screwed up. Monumentally.

This was not the first time.

He had previously worked as an Arabian prince guard. Fat money, an easy paycheck. The work of ex-military mercs such as he prided himself of at half-decayed glory bars. The highest place, the finest chance, the eyeballs on all the dangers. Every danger... except the closest one.

The aide.

The old, true, kiss-ass knife-behind-a-smile.

That knife was going through the chest of the prince, says Kael, like it was a part of him. Then the bullets, and too late. The traitor had been covered by the bodyguards with holes, but the damage had been done.

And cocksucker Kael had seen it all in his scope.

He did not miss because he did not succeed. He erred in having faith. He forgot that deception always dons the same old clothes.

He went to the safehouse of the employer with blood on his boots and his eyes in shame. The greeting? A gun to the head. Then, black.

He woke up to a new kind of silence. Not the battlefield kind. A crueler one. One that stretched down into his throat and dug out his voice like a parasite. His vocal cords were shot. Medical damage, they said. Permanent. Lifelong.

Mute. Not quiet.

Just gone.

From there? He spiraled. Alcohol. Pills. Escorts who took his cash and pretended he was still human for fifteen minutes at a time.

Then came her.

Legs that lied. Eyes that didn’t blink when they saw his mess of a life. She walked in like a siren, and Kael, the fool, opened the door and let damnation sit on his lap.

She was beautiful. And she had a brother. A mob boss.

Kael never stood a chance.

Turns out, throwing someone off a fourth-floor window is a pretty effective way to say "stay away from my sister."

Now here he was: legs shredded, lungs aching, face scraped with alley grime, and not a single soul giving a shit.

‘Fuuuuck…’ Kael groaned in his mind, dragging himself by the elbows like some rejected horror movie creature.

His exposed femur snagged on something — maybe glass, maybe God’s last joke — and the pain made stars burst behind his eyes.

“Fucking day just keeps getting better,” he spat mentally, grabbing a nearby empty bottle and flinging it at the wall. The smash barely echoed.

He flipped over, chest rising like a dying fish, limbs giving out beneath the weight of it all.

The bottle shattered.

No one came.

Kael lay there, arms trembling, brain screaming, mouth cursed by silence.

The prostitute’s face lingered in his thoughts. Not for her beauty. Not for her betrayal. But because of what she triggered: the end of the line.

Her brother had hands like wrecking balls. No words, just violence. Kael couldn’t even explain he wasn’t a threat. To the boss, he probably looked like a junkie spy or a rival gang’s mute snitch.

‘I’m fucked,’ Kael thought with an eerie calm. He could barely turn his head. The street was right around the corner, full of life, full of people who wouldn’t even notice a dying man ten feet away.

If he could scream…

If he could move just a little further…

But the blood loss had turned his limbs to smoke.

Kael pressed his hands together — mock-prayer style — and looked up into the polluted sky.

“Oh great heavens or fucking whatever,” he thought, “just strike me down already. Send a bolt, make it quick.”

No thunder. No mercy.

Only the city. Still. Loud in its silence.

His mind wandered. To his father. To the grave where his mother coughed her last breath while he was out pretending to matter with a rifle.

He never visited. Never wrote. Never showed his face again once his voice was gone. What kind of son comes back broken? What kind of man shows up mute, drunk, and crawling?

“I’m sorry,” Kael mouthed. Not to anyone specific. Just… to everything.

He closed his eyes.

And then —

Ping.

A soft hum of light opened in front of him. Blue. Neon. Glitchy.

Like something out of a game he didn’t remember playing.

Do you wish to start anew?

Two options blinked beneath it: Yes and No.

Kael blinked.

Hallucination? Delusion? Death joke?

He couldn’t lift his arms anymore, but his eyes locked on Yes. His thoughts screamed it.

Yes. Yes. Fucking yes.

Darkness swallowed everything.

Silence again.

Then:

Kael opened his eyes.

But it wasn’t the alley.

It was a room — sterile, clean, lined with bunk beds and folded blankets.

He blinked slowly. Sat up.

Then — throb.

A headache slammed into his skull like a wrecking ball. His hands clutched his head, knuckles white, gritting his teeth until one word escaped:

“Shit.”

His voice.

His fucking voice.

"...I can talk?"

He passed out.

⟡

Darkness again.

It was not nothing this time. This time it was... moving.

A huge screen floated before him. Flashes of memories ran. Some his. Some… not. Yet he knew them nevertheless.

Then —

SYSTEM

The word flared on the screen.

Then he woke up again.

The orphanage.

Wait. What?

He possessed parents.

He was not brought up in an orphanage.

What the fuck…” Kael grumbled and turned to the bunk beds.

System, he said.

No response.

He scowled. Embarrassed. “Figures.”

Then —

[Greetings, Host. You are now well again.]

A voice. In his mind. Peaceful. Easy.

Kael shrieked, fell out of the bunk.

Thud.

Right on his ass.

“Who are you!?” he barked, eyes darting, fists raised.

Host, calm down. I am not your foe.

Kael squinted. I told him who the hell are you?

I am the System. Tied to your soul. Among the advantages of a new beginning.

Start anew.

The screen.

The choice.

This was not a dream.

So what is a system? Kael said, voice leveling.

A helper. A machine of people of other worlds. I am... more developed. Sentient. Smarter. No machine. A partner.

Kael was sitting on the bunk with his mind working.

I have memories that are not mine.

Wrong. They are yours. You were born in this world. The memories are of the past eight years of this body. Your soul was unsteady when you came in. I closed the memories until your mind was ready to take them.

It was a perverted kind of logic.

The system responded: Say Status.

Kael drew a breath. “Status.”

In front of him a glowing window flared to life.

━━━━━━━━━━━

Name: Kael

Age: 8

Race: Human

Class: Healer [Common]

Level: 0 [0/100 EXP]

Titles:

• Born Anew [Unique] [Temporary]

— Increases EXP gain by 50% until Level 10

Stats:

HP: 110/110

MP: 150/150

STR: 4

END: 2

AGI: 2

INT: 10

CHA: 5

Skills:

• Hand-to-Hand Combat [Lv.5] [Common] [Passive]

— +5% STR in unarmed combat

• Discipline [Lv.4] [Uncommon] [Passive]

— 4% resistance to mental magic

• Shooting Mastery [Lv.6] [Uncommon] [Passive]

— +6% projectile velocity

• Heal [Lv.0] [Common] [Active]

— Restore 50 HP

— Cost: 25 MP

━━━━━━━━━━━

Kael stared. He recognized his skills. They were fragments of a past life, carried over like scars you couldn’t see.

But then he frowned.

“Why the fuck am I a healer?”

Because of how you lived. Not what you did, but what you felt while doing it.

“I killed people,” Kael snapped.

Yes. But you regretted it. Deeply. If you had enjoyed it, your path would be different.

The system’s voice softened — unnervingly gentle.

Isn’t that why you hesitated? Isn’t that why the prince died?

Kael flinched. His breath caught. He clenched his fists.

“…No point dwelling on the past.”

Correct.

Kael stood up, legs shaking a little. Walked back to the bunk.

“So what now?”

Rest. Your body is still healing. Tomorrow, we begin.

Kael didn’t argue. He didn’t even pretend to be okay. He just laid down, stared at the ceiling, and let sleep drag him away.

He had a voice again.

He had a system in his soul.

He had a class.

He had a second fucking chance.

⟡⟡⟡