Darkness wasn't just the absence of light anymore — it was the air they breathed.
Three centuries had passed since the sun last rose. People no longer remembered its warmth, only the legends whispered in forgotten tongues and old recordings buried in rusted machines. The world had collapsed into a slow, frozen death. And yet… life, stubborn and broken, still crawled beneath the ash.
Kael stood alone on the edge of a ruined city, his boots crunching against debris and bone. A broken skyline of jagged towers loomed around him, silhouetted under the eerie glow of the auroras that had replaced the sun.
His breath fogged as he pulled his tattered scarf tighter over his mouth. The silence was thick — almost sacred. This place, the heart of what was once Luminas, had been dead for over two hundred years. No one came here. Not unless they were desperate.
Kael was desperate.
He stepped through the shattered archway of a collapsed skyscraper, flashlight flickering weakly in his gloved hand. What he searched for wasn't fuel, or food, or even shelter — it was a myth. A whisper.
A Memory Core.
A fragment of the old world. A piece of truth.
And somehow, deep down, Kael felt drawn to it. Like it was calling him.
Thirty minutes in, buried beneath layers of ice and steel, he found it.
A spherical device, no larger than a human heart, nestled in the skeletal remains of what might've been a technician. Its surface pulsed with dim light, like a fading heartbeat.
Kael knelt down, hesitant.
"Could this be it…?" he whispered.
His fingers hovered over it — trembling. And the moment he made contact—
THRUM.
A shockwave of light surged out. Kael reeled backward, shielding his face. The air rippled. And then — a hologram, faint and glitching, shimmered into existence.
A female voice, synthetic yet sorrowful, echoed:
"You are the last. The Awakening Protocol must begin… before it's too late."
Kael's heart pounded. He didn't move.
"What… was that?" he muttered. "Who are you?"
But the projection faded. The Core pulsed brighter now, synced to him — as if recognizing something ancient buried in his DNA.
Then — everything changed.
From the shadows behind, a low metallic growl echoed. The floor trembled.
Kael turned.
Emerging from the black, its armor cracked and glitching, came a monster — part machine, part phantom. Its single eye burned red. A forgotten guardian of the old world — corrupted.
"Intrusion detected," it spoke. "Anomaly must be neutralized."
Kael's breath caught. He ran.
End of Chapter 1