1 Chapter 1: Neo

"Ah, I'm so tired. Boss has been giving us hell ever since the outbreak. What time is it?"

"Hm, if you take a cab you should get back before midnight."

"You know I walk."

"There, there. Clark, you coming?"

"You guys go ahead without me. I forgot my phone back in the lab."

"I'll see you tomorrow, then."

"Yeah, goodnight!"

Re-entering the laboratory, Clark sees another figure still working in the corner of the facility. He grabs the phone he had left inside the pocket of his lab coat and calls out to the figure.

"Neo, aren't you going home?"

"Huh?"

A man wearing a lab coat turned to his colleague, disheveled and looking like he hadn't seen the outside world in the past six months.

"Dude," Clark sucked in a breath, staring at the pair of downturn eyes, rust-brown in color, that might have been attractive if not for the dark circles lining them.

Well, the man is still attractive, but now in a sickly-way. Does that really make things any better?

"You look like shit."

The man raised an eyebrow, his face stuck firmly with an unimpressed look. "Thank you for your astounding observation, Clark. Is there anything else you would like to tell me about my immaculate appearance?"

A sigh. "Neo, when was the last time you went home?"

"Hmm... I think I was home on Sunday..."

"Neo, that was a week ago."

He frowns. "Oh."

Another disappointed sigh. "I know you've been working hard, but we can't have you working yourself to death."

The man averted his gaze, not willing to make eye contact with this colleague of his.

"The world won't stop just because I'm resting."

"It also won't stop if you're dead."

Silence stretched between them.

Clark shook his head. Ah, this stubborn brat. "I would suggest going home, but I know you won't listen to me. So please, at least take a nap."

"That's what the couch is for."

There was a pause.

And then, "Don't tell you've been sleeping on the couch."

No answer.

Clark wanted to smack this idiot in the head.

"Goddammit! Fine. Whatever."

Clark stormed to the door. However, before he leaves, he turns around and gives the man a piercing look in the eye.

"Take a nap. If I see your dead body in the morning, we're donating it to science."

The edge of the man's lips twitch, indicating amusement at Clark's words, but he nods his head obediently, nonetheless.

"Good."

Clark leaves the lab with a huff, shaking his head at the cheeky brat.

Prodigy, his ass. The full grown man can't even understand the limits of the human body.

The man sits alone in the lab, hunched over as he poured all his energy into his work. In front of him was a petri dish he had been observing, a sample of a cultivated vaccine swimming inside. He had been checking on the growth and immunity of the vaccine and lost track of time.

The man sighs, remembering Clark's words. Maybe he should take another short nap. He hasn't slept for the last two days, and the duration of naps he has taken lasted for only an hour or two at most.

The couch is also starting to look more appealing as he begins thinking about it...

Mind made up, the man stands up and instantly regrets it.

A rush of dizziness suddenly attacks him. He squints a little, his sight becoming foggy. Black spots start appearing in his vision, and the brightly lit laboratory begins to darken little by little. He feels his body swaying. Everything was moving slowly.

What...?

The last thing he remembers is getting closer and closer to the spotlessly white laboratory floor.

---

When he opens his eyes to a lavish bedroom, he knew he was back.

Back to the beginning; to the life before his last.

Before he became Doctor Neo Overland and regretted all the evil deeds of his past, trying to redeem himself of his sins.

He is no longer in that strange new Modern world.

Neo stared at the ceiling, the dim light in his eyes boring apathetically into the distance, thinking of nothing and everything.

Of what he had lost. Of what he had just gained. Of what he had become.

It hit him so quickly, he barely had the time to process his emotions.

He couldn't help the tears suddenly welling up in his eyes. They blinded him and blurred out his vision, becoming two leaky faucets. The rancid feeling that soured his noses made him sniff involuntarily.

"Sorry..."

Amidst the morning sun and the singing of birds, you could barely hear the sniveling sound of a boy as he cried for those he had left behind.

"Sorry..."

Once again, he is Nazareth Everette Odum, the son of a dead whore and an illegitimate child of the Odum family.

Once again, he is the sinner with blood on his hands and a short life deemed both fruitless and irredeemable.

The path he walked was a lonely trail. Behind him laid the bodies undeserving of their fate, and before him stood something so brilliant, he could never touch it with those filthy hands of his.

After his death in this lifetime, Nazareth found himself in that modern world.

He was reborn as an orphan, abandoned at the orphanage as a baby and adopted by an elderly couple.

The elderly couple were not rich. They were ordinary, middle class, and lived in a small home that was just enough for a family of three. But it was enough.

It was enough to feed him, clothe him, and allow him to go to school. It was enough for the three of them to be happy.

He was loved. He knew he was loved despite the lack of materials and riches he had grown up in, in his last life.

In that new life, he worked hard and studied even harder.

He studied seriously, unlike in his past life, in order to help the elderly couple and the society of that world. He wanted to repent for his crimes and wicked deeds. He had thought he had time to repent for all his mistakes.

He studied medicine and became a medical researcher. He was helping people every day and giving back what he can to the elderly couple. He was making vaccines and studying the human body. He worked himself as hard as he could.

And now he is most likely dead.

Can you die of exhaustion? He realized that he could. He just died of overwork, inside a laboratory all by himself without realizing it. He didn't rest and take care of himself like what the elderly couple and his colleagues had occasionally nagged him about. He should have listened.

What's the use of him if he was dead?

Neo Overland died, leaving behind the elderly couple and that world, which desperately needed medical help and vaccines. He left behind millions of people who needed the vaccine and abandoned them.

A new type of exhaustion flooded his body, now that his bitter tears ran dry and the snot in his nose stopped leaking. He was tired of this. Very, very tired.

He could only lay on his bed like a salted fish.

"Screw that." Or not.

Neo crawled out of bed and went to stand in front of his dressing mirror.

He was sixteen again.

This was around the time that he entered his second year of senior high, approximately two years before the day he died.

The pale youth in the mirror had the same vermillion eyes he once despised, and long, black hair that reached the middle of his back, tangled and knotted, and looking like a mop.

As Nazareth, Neo remembered that in order to look more similar to his father, the Duke of Odum, he had grown it out. But instead of look dignified, he appeared more like a wraith since he never learned how to maintain the wild mane.

As for his eyes...

Neo couldn't help but turn melancholy.

They were the only features he gained from his mother, a whore his father had slept with during a drunken exploit into the red light district in his youth.

These eyes made him into the black sheep of the Odum family. From the duke to his two younger siblings, all of them had sapphire blue eyes that were incomparable to any other shades of blue. He desired those blue eyes in the past and hated those who had eyes that were similar.

However...

Neo smiled fondly at his reflection.

Perhaps he will bring some flowers for his mummy's grave this lifetime. She might appreciate it.

Aloysia Webbers was a charming woman, and one of the most beautiful and talented prostitutes in the red light district. But, her whore-status did not gain the heart of the Duke after he was conceived. When she died of illness, Nazareth was taken to the Duke's Household, and by then, the Duke had already married. It was there that Nazareth met his two younger half-siblings.

Most of Neo's past memories were full of hate and envy. He was a resentful and hate-filled young boy who grew up to be a wicked and scheming villain.

Perhaps he hated the Duke for not coming for his mother and letting her die. Perhaps he simply hated the fact that he was a whore's son and bastard child.

Neo couldn't remember the reason for his hatred, but one thing was for sure. What he most desired was to be the Duke of Odum.

And seeing a little boy no more than a year younger than him become the center of the Duke's world--his successor, his beloved son, the talented second Young Master--turned him cruel.

Nazareth was a person that was no longer human. The more he continued on his path of anger and spite, the more everyone resented him and wished for him to die. He harmed people and destroyed lives during the one-sided rivalry he held between him and his brother.

He was hated and unloved, and he didn't care.

Alas, people only knew Nazareth as a scummy troublemaker who foolishly plotted against those he should not have.

If only he didn't.

There was a young commoner who came to the noble academy during Nazareth's third year of senior high. He was transferred into the second year with his younger brother.

This commoner was the trigger of his demise.

A timid but hard-working youth. That was what Neo thought when he remembered him. He tormented him so much because by hurting him, he was able to harm his brother.

Nazareth was envious of this boy.

A commoner, not even a half-blooded noble, yet, he gained admiration and respect from all those around him. His brother and his friends loved him. His sister and her friends adored him. Nazareth wanted him dead.

But, thankfully, the boy did not die. Nazareth was caught, in the end.

Neo recalled that on a stormy night, he took the boy from the academy and attempted to toss him down a steep cliff into the roaring waters.

It was the day before graduation. Nazareth was leaving the academy soon.

He was desperate to kill that commoner.

It was a sword that saved the boy. Specifically, it was his brother's sword, with the emblem of the Odum family engraved into its handle, which pierced his chest and saved the boy.

His younger brother looked at him as if he was looking at a demon.

He and his friends, they all looked at him as if they finally managed to exterminate an evil demon who had tormented them for many years.

They saved the commoner boy.

Nazareth was left to bleed out.

In the cold stormy night, he bled slowly in a pool of blood. He remembered feeling a lot of regrets. And guilt. And only wished that in the next life, he can pay back his sins.

It took him a long time to die.

It was barely midnight when his brother and his friends saved the youth, but it was dawn when he finally, finally, took his last breath.

After that, Nazareth's saw light.

And then he became Neo.

Neo opened his drawers and found a pair of scissors. He was going to look different. Nazareth is long dead and he swears he will not become Nazareth again.

Sorry, Mummy, but your taste in names was a little too interesting if I'm being honest.

He looked at his reflection.

Goodbye, Nazareth.

Taking a piece of his hair, he began to cut.

Snip, snip, snip.

Locks of black hair were cut one by one with precision.

They landed on the floor like a black whirlpool, becoming bigger and bigger as Neo cut them down.

There was no hesitation.

In the quiet bedroom, the only noise consisted of scissors.

He chopped and chopped until he was satisfied.

Until he can look decent in his own eyes.

A quarter of an hour later, Neo finally put down the scissors.

He stared at the mirror.

What looked back was a neat and clean-looking youth.

It was very satisfying.