The Reborn Young Master's Guide to Surviving the Zombie Apocalypse BL-Chapter 2: Step Two: Wake Up Haunted

Because rebirth doesn’t erase the scars—they just bleed quieter.

She reached for a scalpel and began to slice his arm straight across.

He opened his mouth and the scream tore free this time, hoarse and ugly, as the scalpel dragged down his forearm.

The first cut.

Blood welled up instantly. Warm and red as it dripped onto the table, and the sight made Rene hum in appreciation.

"Already responding. Hmm, as I recalled, you always did heal fast. But now that you’re no longer an ability user, let’s test that out, shall we?"

She reached for a bone saw.

"No," He croaked, but it was barely audible.

Rene didn’t stop.

She never did.

The whir of the saw filled the room like a scream of its own. Metal teeth gleamed as she pressed it gently, and playfully against the fingers of his left hand.

"This little piggy went to market," She sang softly.

"No—!"

"This little piggy stayed home."

Pain. Fire. Agony.

The saw bit into flesh and bone. His vision exploded into white stars. A horrible wet crack followed. The smell of burnt skin.

He was going to pass out.

But he didn’t.

Rene slapped his cheek lightly, lovingly.

"Stay with me, Ash. We’re only getting started."

Tears spilled from the corners of his eyes. Not from fear. Not anymore.

From rage.

This was how it ended?

Chained like an animal. Mutilated by his sister. Betrayed by the family he bled for.

"You want to know the best part?" Rene asked, holding up a small vial to the light.

Inside, sparks crackled faintly.

"They all agreed. Every last one of them. Even James before he died a pathetic death."

Liar.

"Mom said she should’ve drowned you the moment you were born," She sneered.

"Before that slut ran off with the three of you, James, Kieran, and you, the bastard triplets."

She glided closer, voice honed to an icy edge.

"You were never a real Greyson. Just the stain Father kept buried. And that whore? She should’ve stayed gone. But no, she crawled back after five years." Her eyes glittered with malice.

"All because she wanted to return you liked used goods. She despised you, Asher. You are the youngest and the weakest. She returned to dump you, yet your doting big brothers couldn’t bear to be apart from you. Good riddance she’s dead." Her lips twisted into a razor-thin smile.

"And James and Kieran? Your precious big brothers? They signed the release order before your cute little mission. They said it was time to protect the real Greysons."

His heart shattered in his chest.

She leaned close, lips brushing his ear.

"You never belonged."

He closed his eyes.

He could still feel the lightning inside him, like a small ember, buried, strangled and dormant but alive.

But it wasn’t responding to his calls.

He really became a normal person, powerless.

The saw came again.

The second finger.

More blood.

"I’ll make it quick," Rene whispered. "Eventually."

He screamed again. His voice cracked. His back arched off the table.

And then—

Silence.

Not outside.

Inside.

Something uncoiled deep within him.

A pulse. A heartbeat. But not human.

The darkness inside him, the thing that had always whispered in his dreams, opened its eyes.

His mind cracked into fragments as he recalled his pathetic life..

There was a purple moon hanging high in the sky while black rain fell over the corpses.

Zombies crawling from the earth, commanded by the Zombie Emperors whose eyes glowed gold as cities burned.

His hands were drenched in blood.

He saw Caspian’s face, eyes wide with grief as he clutched his cousin’s lifeless body and himself, standing a few feet away. alone, as lightning dripped from his fingers like fire.

Rene tilted her head.

"Asher?"

His eyes snapped open.

And for a moment, just one, his irises went pitch black, consumed by the dark energy.

A crackling pulse scorched through his chest.

And then nothing.

His body went limp.

Rene blinked.

"Did... did you just...?" She stepped closer.

No heartbeat. No breath. She touched his wrist. He was cold. She stood still, frozen.

Then she exhaled, annoyed. "Damn it. He wasn’t supposed to die yet." She tossed the bone cutter onto the tray with a clatter.

A final drop of blood splashed on the curve of Asher’s cheek.

But his lips...

They were curved. Just slightly. As if he’d smiled before meeting his death..

Asher remembered seeing his memories before darkness consumed him. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

He was surrounded by a cocoon of dark energy, the darkness so tightly wrapped around him, it felt as if it was giving him a hug.

Time didn’t move in his cocoon of darkness, as more memories tangled like broken wires, flickering through him in flashesA.

It was of a gloved hand that carrassed his cheek as those silver blue eyes wet with tears made a promise that was never fulfilled and of the man’s saddened words

"You deserve better than to be treated like this by your own family. Wait for me, Spark, I’ll come back for you..."

And then—

Asher’s eyes fluttered open to the faint blush of dawn slipping through the curtains.

The soft rustle of the morning breeze whispered against the windowpane, gentle enough to stir dreams but not yet demand waking.

For a moment, he lingered between sleep and wakefulness, the strange, shimmering world of his dreams still lingering in the edges of his mind.

Then he shifted beneath the warm covers, a familiar restlessness curling through his veins like lightning waiting to strike.

This time, he felt warm.

The scent of antiseptic and blood was gone, replaced by the faint notes of old wood and lavender.

Sunlight spilled across velvet curtains that was pulled open.

He sat up, panting, clutching his chest in confusion.

The scar gained from his first battle with a zombie was still there yet he heard birds chirping outside the window.

The yellow sunlight seeping through his window confused him even more as once the world fell, the once yellow sunlight became red.

It was as if he went back into time, a time before the apocalypse.

’Was it just a dream?’ He wondered

But Asher felt the familiar pulse of lightning underneath his skin and knew this was not just a dream, but he has been reborn.

Looking at the date on the terminal on his wrist, Asher’s breath hitched.

August 1, 2090.

It was four months before the apocalypse.

Four months before the meteorites fell down to Earth containing the deadly Z-virus.

He clenched his fist, nails biting into his palm until blood welled beneath the crescent moons of pressure.

The world hadn’t ended.

Not yet.

But this time, it would end in his way.

His jaw tightened, muscles twitching as memories crawled through him like maggots.

The cold scalpel cutting through his skin and the sound of bone sawing his fingers off.

His sister’s voice, sweet with venom.

The way she laughed as he screamed.

How his brothers, the ones he trusted, let her do it..

He would never forget.

And he would never forgive.

"I’ll bring back the pain a thousand fold, Rene," he growled, voice rough with hate. "You and every fucking Greyson. I’ll make you wish I was never reborn!"

The words weren’t a threat.

They were a prophecy.

He would become something worse than a ghost, something untouchable, unnatural, unstoppable.

A storm with lightning in its veins and death in its hands.

They hadn’t just betrayed him.

They had created him.

The Reborn Young Master back again to deliver justice.

And this time?

He wouldn’t beg for love.

He’d carve his revenge into the ashes of the old world.