Date: 2742-08-21
Time: 02:32 PM
Location: Old Kyoto Periphery – Abandoned Shinkansen Station
The air smelled like rusted metal and old rain.
Ren stood at the entrance of the derelict Shinkansen station, clutching the straps of his backpack like it could hold his nerves in place. The sun hung low, casting long shadows across the skeletal remains of the city's edge. This place had been silent for years. No trains. No people. Just time bleeding out between the cracks in the concrete.
And yet... it buzzed.
Beneath the silence, beneath the decay — there was something. A pressure. A vibration in his skull. And in his left eye, a flicker.
[INITIATING VORTEX OPTICS INTERFACE...]
Status: Stable. Neural Sync: 81.3%.
Welcome back, Ren Ishida. You're late.
Ren flinched. "What the—?"
Relax. You're not crazy. I'm real. I'm... a side effect. Of Kael. Of you. Of everything.
And right now? You're standing in a collapsed dimensional vein. Lucky you.
His pulse skyrocketed.
"You can... talk?" he whispered, heart racing.
Not in the way you're thinking. This is neural resonance. Thought. Echo. Language wrapped around perception. You see with me now, Ren. And through me... you see everything.
Ren blinked, then staggered slightly as the world snapped into high definition.
The air shimmered. Shadows deepened. And then, they appeared — ghostly figures flickering in and out like broken film: a man reading a paper, a woman pulling her child by the hand, a teenage couple kissing beneath a cracked departure sign. Dozens of them, moving through the station like it was still alive.
"They're not real," Ren whispered.
They were. Echoes. Memories trapped in time. Emotional residue from before the Collapse. Harmless. But real enough for your brain to flinch.
The Optics kicked into full scan.
[Area Scan: Complete]
Spectral Echoes: 42
Threats: None
Anomaly Presence: Faint. Traces only.
Recommendation: Continue search.
A minimap unfolded in his peripheral vision. A top-down projection of the station, with walls, tunnels, and tagged movement. Everyone was green. Safe. Dead.
Ren turned slowly, heart thumping as he stared through layers of ghost-life, wondering if they could see him too.
Then the map pinged.
A single gold thread of energy flickered near the far platform — almost invisible, but glowing just enough to drag his feet toward it.
"That lead anywhere?"
East. Toward Sector 7. Dimensional signature is fading, but it's real. Old Kyoto's heartbeat is bleeding through.
Time to move, Ren. The dead don't wait, and neither does he.
Ren didn't ask who "he" was. He already knew.
Date: 2742-08-21
Time: 04:01 PM
Location: Sector 7 Ruins — Industrial Exclusion Zone
Structure: Abandoned Manufacturing Facility (Classified: WHISPER NODE)
The factory looked like it had been murdered and left to rot.
Twisted steel skeletons, shattered windows, rust bleeding down every surface like old wounds. It stood tall — a monument to entropy — and Ren swore it was watching him.
"Is this it?"
Factory of Whispers. Former conduit site. Rumors say it once built machines to harvest alternate selves. I say it's haunted by the weight of unrealized timelines. Either way, yes — this is it.
He entered.
The moment his foot touched the cracked tile floor, the Optics reacted violently.
[Environmental Instability: 39%]
Detected: Rift Tension. Dimensional Drag Active.
Warning: Timeflow is uneven. Stay focused.
It was like stepping into a bad dream. Every hallway twisted slightly, like the angles were all off by a few degrees. Sounds came from the wrong direction. The air was heavy, charged, but cold.
There. Sub-basement. That way.
The minimap bloomed again — now with red edges, danger-coded routes, and dozens of "?" markers indicating instability.
Ren followed the trail, dodging through collapsed beams, half-melted staircases, and shattered conveyor belts. All the while, the factory whispered to him — not with words, but with memory. Bits of sound. Screams. Laughter. Machinery that had long since died.
Finally, he reached a chamber at the lowest level.
And there it was.
A fragment of the Aetherium Core — cracked, glowing with erratic pulses of violet and black, suspended above a fractured containment ring.
Ren stared. "What the hell is that?"
A shard. Raw. Dangerous. Sentient, in its own way. Don't touch it. It wants you.
But you can destroy it.
Ren stepped forward. His hand trembled as he raised it toward the fragment.
"Okay. Let's end this."
Charging… Synching resonance… Now. Fire.
[DISRUPTION PULSE: LAUNCHED]
A blast of pure white light surged from Ren's eye, striking the core head-on.
It screamed — a high-pitched wail that didn't come from sound, but from inside his own skull.
For a second, it cracked—
And then reformed.
[ERROR: Fragment Not Fully Disrupted]
[WARNING: Hostile Detected]
Location: Below. Movement: Rapid. Not Alone.
Threat Level: UNKNOWN+
The minimap exploded with red.
Something was coming. Multiple somethings. Fast.
"Shit—SHIT!"
Backtrack now! Left corridor. Don't look back. They can sense fear and curiosity. And you're full of both.
Ren ran.
He sprinted up half-collapsed stairs, leapt over decaying equipment, and crashed through a rusted side exit just as the entire building shook with a dimensional pulse. He felt the heat of something ancient slam into the walls behind him — something with claws, and too many eyes, and a hunger that didn't stop at flesh.
He didn't stop running until the factory was a memory behind him.
He collapsed by the old train tracks, gasping, heart hammering, eye burning.
The Vortex Optics dimmed.
…You did well. Not perfect. But you're alive. The core fragment isn't destroyed. But it's weakened.
They know your face now. And they will follow.
Ren wiped the sweat from his brow.
"I failed."
You survived. That's step one. The war isn't won in a day. It's fought in fragments. And trust me... there are more fragments coming.
Ren stared at the blood-orange sky. The quiet of the ruins felt too deep.
He wasn't the same man who entered that station. And he knew it.
"Next time," he muttered, "I won't miss."
Good. Because next time, they won't.