The rain had been falling for hours.
It beat softly against the windows of Nolen Ash's apartment, casting streaked shadows over the piles of takeout containers and his half-dead houseplant. He barely noticed. His gaze was glued to the screen, eyes half-lidded, body slumped like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
Another sleepless night. Another forum rabbit hole about reincarnation, simulation theory, and lucid dreams that promised more meaning than his grey reality.
Nolen coughed. His chest ached — nothing dramatic, just that tight, hollow pressure from too much sitting and too little life. He closed his laptop, letting the screen fade to black like a curtain falling on an unfinished act.
And then, in that brief silence, something whispered.
Not in his ears. Not even in his mind. It was under everything — under the hum of the fridge, the patter of the rain, the tired thump of his heart.
"Awaken."
He blinked.
The room around him folded like paper. Not violently — no tearing or screaming — just folded, as if reality itself was quietly excusing itself from the stage.
The floor dissolved beneath him. A sensation like sinking, but not down. Inward.
Darkness enveloped him. Not empty, but watchful. He wanted to scream, but his body no longer existed in a way that made breath or sound possible. He wasn't even sure if he was dying. Or being born.
"We have waited long, O Wanderer of the Fallen Sky."
A voice. Ancient and layered — as if multiple throats, some human and some most certainly not, had spoken at once. Words brushed against his mind like static wrapped in reverence.
Light bloomed.
It wasn't sunlight. It was something purer — gold-white and vast, washing over everything. His body reformed under it, shaped not by biology but memory. Fingers. Toes. A breath. A name.
Nolen Ash.
He collapsed onto a field of tall, silver grass that shimmered like moonlight even under a pale blue sky.
He gasped.
The air was sharp, clean, and almost sweet. The scent of rain clung to the horizon. Strange trees with braided trunks reached toward a sky where three suns glowed in a lazy arc.
Above him, winged creatures soared, trailing ribbons of light behind them. Not birds. Not machines. Something else entirely.
He pushed himself to his knees.
That's when he saw them.
Figures — tall and robed, their faces veiled in gold cloth. They stood in a semicircle around him, silent and motionless, like statues. But he felt their eyes. A dozen of them. A hundred, maybe. Watching.
One stepped forward and knelt.
"Divine One..." the figure said in a trembling voice. "You have descended at last."
Nolen stared.
"What...?"
The figure bowed, forehead pressed to the glowing grass. "Forgive our unworthy soil for bearing your weight."
Another voice joined. "We are but dust, O God of Flesh."
A third: "You are the last, the one foretold in the Sky-Chant."
His heart thundered. "Wait. Hold on. I'm not—what the hell are you talking about?"
The one who knelt looked up.
A single eye was visible through the veil — pale and luminous like moonstone. "You are human, are you not?"
He blinked. "Yeah?"
They fell completely prostrate, robes billowing in the wind.
Gasps and cries followed.
"The gods live again."
"The prophecy was true."
"We are saved."
Nolen stumbled back. "No. You're making a mistake. I'm just—"
Then he caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection of a shallow pool nearby.
His eyes were glowing.
Not metaphorically. Literally. A pale, white light pulsed in them like twin dying stars. His skin looked untouched by time. His form leaner, stronger. Otherworldly.
He stepped closer, hand trembling.
Was this really him?
Was this what a human was in this world?
His voice came out a whisper. "Where... am I?"
A voice behind him, gentle but firm, replied:
"The world of Nareth. A realm forsaken by your kind. And now... returned to it."
The crowd began to chant.
"Ash-born. Ash-born. Ash-born."
Nolen flinched as the chanting grew louder.
"Ash-born. Ash-born. Ash-born."
The grass beneath him shimmered with every word. The very earth seemed to respond to the voices, pulsing with quiet light like the heartbeat of a living world. His knees weakened.
He didn't feel divine.
He felt like a guy who used to work night shifts at a gas station and once cried over a dead virtual pet.
A gentle touch landed on his arm.
He turned. The veiled figure who had first spoken to him was standing again — tall, serene, and unnaturally still. Their voice was a soft hum in the wind:
"Forgive us, Divine One. We understand the reawakening is... disorienting. We shall move slowly."