In a room bathed in twilight, stars decorated the ceiling.
Gaming light strips traced the walls. Neon blue. Vibrant red. Soft purple.
The glow shifted slowly, painting the darkness.
Koda Jackson sat in her recliner chair, hair just past her shoulders, eyes fixed ahead.
On the table before her, a holographic display projected upward—two figures locked in brutal combat.
SMASH—
One fighter slammed the other into the ground. The crowd roared.
Koda leaned forward, attention caught by the fight's intensity.
[--Message from Felix--
Hi.. koda..
Did you find hunters i ask for..]
She glanced at the notification floating in her peripheral vision.
Without a flick of her fingers, she transferred the list just from a thought.
Koda forwarded the names without comment, but her mind circled the request.
Why did he need this many hunters? Is he trying to break in somewhere?
The question hung there, unanswered.
Whatever Felix planned, it wasn't good.
She returned her focus to the match, but the thought remained, persistent as a shadow.
In the Fold days turned into weeks.
Every morning began with bone breaking, followed by Darius's careful healing that left the bones stronger than before.
After the first few days Darius added new exercise to Theon's routine.
Started with regular push ups.
Theon's body transformed into a living bow, right arm bending deeply as the left clawed into the ground with unyielding tension, then arms slowly shifted with precision, again and again.
"You could do it faster," Darius's voice came from the air.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Theon's palms slammed against the dirt, sweat dripping from his chin.
Push ups finished in the air, launching his whole body a few inches above the ground.
In the evening he had to run up a hill with a log on his shoulders.
His body felt like it was burning, legs screamed.
Ha… ha…
He stopped mid-hill, dropping the log.
"No worries, you can always stay here forever," Darius said.
Every time Theon failed to do something, Darius said something similar.
After the first three weeks exercises became much harder.
Darius added exercises focusing on each part of the body.
Theon failed in every exercise when it came to advanced levels.
This will take years, what will happen to them by then?
Theon imagined Mom, Luna, and Nora's faces in the night sky.
One day, Darius took Theon deep into the forest to a place he had never been before.
There, he found a massive tree with glowing crystals embedded in its trunk and branches.
"Harmonic Core is inside that tree," Darius said.
"It's what we use to collapse the Fold, protecting your body and mind."
Theon frowned. "It gives off a strange vibe… like it's breathing."
Darius studied him. "I think your current struggles with physical strength might be related to that thing in your brain.
It's not biological—I sensed it when I healed you."
"That's my NIP chip," Theon explained about the chip to Darius.
"Interesting. Human technology took another path then," Darius's face showed surprise.
"It's blocking your natural energy flow, that's why you cannot improve beyond a limit."
"Then can you remove it?" Theon asked immediately.
It felt like good news but at the same time it didn't feel so good.
The reason for his failing was not him but the chip, yet everyone else was much stronger.
"But everyone else has it..?" Theon's mind is filled with questions.
"If it's done for generations, people will evolve to it and flow will be restored but it still won't be the same," Darius began to explain.
"Human body is a marvelous thing. It has a perfect energy flow, we can use it in different ways.
Like me, that's how my abilities work."
"But humans have to go through a process called awakening to have abilities.
Are you saying you had them naturally?" Theon asked curiously.
"In my Era everyone had some kind of ability.
Everyone's energy flow is different and the way they harvest it is also different."
Darius settled onto one of the massive tree roots that came out and went back inside the ground.
"I have never heard something like that. How long have you been here?"
Theon quickly went through every history data that his chip had stored and tried to remember anything he learned that mentioned something like that.
"Luckily with me you have a solution," Darius said with a small smile, quickly changing the conversation.
"Really, how?" Theon's heart again filled with hope.
"In my Era there was meditation technique.
Someone who masters it can bend the energy flow to his will," Darius's voice carried old wisdom.
"How can I master it? Can you teach it to me?" Theon quickly asked.
"Yes, I can teach. Normal humans took at least 80 years to master it," Darius said, waiting for Theon's reaction.
Theon's smile faltered for just a second, eyes dimming as if the light behind them had flickered out.
As Darius expected, "Oh don't worry. I mastered the technique a bit longer than normal humans.
I can push your flow a little bit and this tree will help you focus your mind and speed up the process, but still you have to do it by yourself."
Then Darius instructed Theon to sit in meditation and close his eyes below the large tree.
"Calm your mind, then bring your focus into one place.
Do not think about anything else than my voice and the point.
Create a point in your mind, now everything will be silent after so now only keep the focus on the point that you imagine, only the point."
Darius then went silent.
Theon had a hard time focusing but as time passed he slowly did that for a few minutes, then again and again he tried.
Once he managed to focus a bit longer he started to feel the energy of the tree slowly enter his body like light bending and twisting like continuous flow.
He lost sense of time. When focus broke, energy flow reversed.
But he set his mind to it and did the same hundred times then thousands until his body filled and overflowed with energy.
Now he could slowly bend the tree's energy flow, creating a large circle around him with it.
First vertically, horizontally, and then he slowly changed the shape to a sphere.
Now he could feel his energy flow within the tree's energy.
Finally he found the small anomaly in his energy flow, like a dent in a smooth surface.
He tried to fix the dent outward little by little; now it was much smaller but much harder to bend.
"Theon.. Theon.."
Theon started to hear Darius's voice slowly.
"Now come out of it." Theon slowly opened his eyes.
Theon now felt some weight removed from his body.
The fatigue and pain he felt were all gone.
"Why did you call me? I was so close to fixing the flow," Theon said in a bit of a disappointed tone.
Darius replied with a smile, "I never thought you could do it in one go.
Do you know how long you sat there? Look at your body."
Theon now saw his body had suffered muscle loss like he was in starvation.
"You were in there for over a week. If I did not wake you now you could die," Darius's words filled with pride.
In his mind, Theon never had this much hope.
He could have power; the world would accept him.
More than that, he could protect and take care of his family, so he carried out tasks that Darius said continuously without stopping, falling again and again.
"The energy flow that came into my body felt familiar. Do you have something to do with it?"
Theon asked Darius question after question.
He did not have any instructions but he knew what to do when the energy entered the body.
"Yes, that's me. I controlled the tree's energy and sent it to you, and then I taught you to control the tree's energy by tapping into your energy flow.
That's how you knew what to do without knowing.
But remember the feeling, never forget it, the flow is not perfect, so you have to do it again and again next time alone with your own energy."
After that Theon's strength started to increase rapidly.
Theon continued the meditation by himself with his own energy flow every day as the morning sun began to rise.
Days went by.
Every day is filled with harder exercises.
Every night spent in tired, dreamless sleep.
Meditation techniques helped lower the pain much more but pain never truly went away.
Theon learned to embrace it.
Pain meant healing. Pain meant strength. Pain meant life.
"One-forty-eight... one-forty-nine... one-fifty…"
With a single hand, Theon thrust himself off the ground, his entire body lifting into the air.
By the sixtieth day, he could run for hours with a large log on his shoulders.
By the hundredth, he could lift boulders that would have crushed him before.
His thoughts stayed on survival, on getting back to his family.
The combat exam, the officer's familiar face, all of it faded behind the training and pain.
Through it all, Darius guided him, teaching him how to fight too.
Theon leapt in place, fists flying at invisible enemies.
SWISH! WHISH! BAM!
His eyes tracked imaginary opponents, ducking, weaving, striking.
Every jab echoed with purpose. Every kick twisted the air.
Sweat flicked off his fists like bullets.
As Theon trained, he couldn't help but ask about Darius's past.
But Darius never gave a straight answer.
All Theon knew was that he had been trapped here by accident—a long time ago.
Most likely thousands of years.
After 157 days, Theon had reached a level of strength he never thought possible.
His body moved with power and skill beyond anything he had imagined.
Next evening, Darius called him to the great tree where the Harmonic Core rested.
"The time has come for you to go home," Darius said, a rare smile on his face.
"You achieved this much faster than I expected… You're quite the relentless one."
Theon hesitated before asking, "What happens to you when the Fold collapses?"
Darius exhaled slowly, looking up at the glowing crystals.
"I've been stuck here for a long time. Before that, I lived in a beautiful world, happy… free.
I tried to leave once, but I wasn't strong enough then.
Now, with my body gone, my will shall fade as well.
But in another sense… I'll finally be free."
He turned to Theon, eyes steady.
"You're still young. Live your life. Go and be free."
He chuckled softly. "I'm glad that the last thing I do is saving you."
Theon's chest tightened.
He had spent months with Darius, training, learning, surviving.
And now, this was goodbye?
When the world had rejected him, laughed at him, pushed him aside—this unknown man had saved his life.
And now he would sacrifice himself.
The pain in Theon's heart cut deeper than any broken bone.
Sharper than any training wound.
This stranger cared more than those who should have.
Darius placed a hand on his shoulder. "Sit at the base of the tree. Meditate."
Theon did as instructed, lowering himself into a meditation position.
Before closing his eyes, he bowed his head slightly. "Thank you… for everything."
A deep hum resonated through the ground as the tree began to glow.
Light surged through the trunk, the crystals pulsing in unison.
Then, pain—searing and massive—shot up from the base of Theon's spine.
He clenched his fists, gritting his teeth, but unlike before, this pain was bearable.
The world around him blurred. A brilliant flash erupted.
Then, everything turned white.
"Sir! Over here! I found someone!"
The voice seemed to come from far away, filtering through layers of consciousness.
"It's a kid! Under the concrete!"
Rough hands pulled at debris. Voices shouted for medical assistance.
Theon opened his eyes to dust and sunlight and faces staring down at him in amazement.
"He's alive!" someone shouted. "Get a medic! Now!"
As they lifted him onto a stretcher, Theon caught a glimpse of the devastation around him.
The laboratory building was gone—reduced to twisted metal and shattered concrete.
Rescue workers swarmed the area, pulling bodies from the rubble.
Did I cause this? All these people... because of me?
Guilt washed over him as he saw the extent of the destruction.
The blast that had thrown him into the Dimenzia Fold had clearly been devastating.
As they carried him toward a waiting ambulance, a soldier leaned close.
"Kid, you shouldn't be alive. That wall should have crushed you flat. How did you survive?"
Theon closed his eyes, his body weak once more. "I had help," he whispered.
The soldier shook his head in disbelief. "Well, you're the luckiest kid alive. The blast killed hundreds."
As the ambulance doors shut around him, Theon stared at the ceiling, a heavy guilt settling in his chest.
His thoughts drifted to his family—his mother, his two younger sisters.
He should be relieved to have survived, but instead, he felt… lost. Weak.
Yet, deep down, he knew. He wasn't the same as before.
Even if he was weak again, something had changed.
He had the potential to become more.
And now, he knew the path he had to take.
__________
The Harmonic Core - The Harmonic Core powers the ChronoDrive, which accelerates time flow within the Dimenzia Fold. Though resembling a crystal, the Core channels temporal energy.
Power Decay - The Core gradually loses power through continuous use. Initially creating a 200x time acceleration, this ratio steadily decreases as power depletes. The decay accelerates when operating at maximum capacity, eventually reaching a point where time acceleration stops completely.