It was quiet. Not peaceful quiet—more like too quiet. The kind that comes after something breaks and nobody's there to fix it.
I didn't know where I was. Or how I got here. Actually, now that I thought about it… I didn't know much of anything.
Great.
I tried opening my eyes. Nothing happened.
Tried moving a hand. No response.
That's fine. No need to panic. Probably just temporary.
...Right?
I waited. Listened. Thought. The usual tricks for sorting out disorientation—except none of them were working. My thoughts felt sharp but disconnected. Like I was here, but not all the way… assembled yet.
Then I felt something—heat, centered low in my chest. A pulse. Not a heartbeat, exactly. More like a... signal. Rhythmic. Alive.
And then a voice—not from outside, but inside. Cold. Calm. Utterly indifferent.
[Genesis Core detected. Reinitializing.]
What?
Who said that?
No one. It wasn't speech. It was more like a notification inside my head—words appearing where thoughts should be.
I tried to sit up.
This time, something moved. My fingers twitched. Elbow bent. Muscles that felt dusty came back online. My lungs expanded. Air burned on the way in—real air. Dry. Metallic. Like breathing through a broken vent in a furnace.
Eyes opened.
The world was… wrong.
Gray sky. Bones of buildings. Shattered concrete veins crawling through blackened ground. The horizon looked like someone had dropped a city from space and left it there to rot.
What happened to this place?
What happened to me?
Another pulse from my chest. I looked down. Nothing visible—but the warmth was there, steady and bright like it belonged.
[Genesis Core status: stable. Memory integrity: incomplete.]
No kidding.
I couldn't remember my name. Or my face. Just flashes. A voice. A fall. Lights. A sense of something ending—and something else beginning.
But here I was.
Breathing.
Alive.
Waking up in a graveyard of a world.
And somewhere inside me, something new was already awake.
I pushed myself to my feet—slowly, like I'd forgotten how. Every joint ached like it had been frozen in place for years. My balance wobbled. Legs stiff, breath shallow. But still—standing. That felt like progress.
The sky above looked bruised. Red light leaked through clouds that didn't move, like time itself had gone stale. In the distance, the skeleton of a tower leaned sideways, cables and stone spilling from its ribs like snapped tendons. Wind swept across the ruin field with a low, whistling moan.
I didn't recognize any of it.
Not the landscape, not the way the air felt dense with energy, not the strange sensation coiling inside my chest like a second heartbeat.
[Genesis Core: Synchronization at 26%.]
I exhaled. "Yeah, okay. That's still happening."
Hearing my own voice for the first time startled me more than it should've. It sounded... normal. Human. Not hollow or robotic. I ran a hand over my arms, my torso, my face—still skin. Still me. Whoever that was.
I started walking, or stumbling, whichever came first. There was no obvious path—just shattered terrain and twisted metal. As I stepped over a cracked pipeline, something shifted in the distance. A flicker. Movement?
I froze.
Not a person. Not an animal. More like a shimmer—like heat distortion, but it had shape. A faint outline. Humanoid.
I squinted, heart starting to thrum. The shimmer tilted its head.
[Warning: Unregistered Entity Detected.]
[Activate Reflex Protocol?]
Yes / No
What?
I blinked, and the words were gone. No one else seemed to notice them—assuming there was anyone else. My fingers twitched instinctively toward some kind of weapon I didn't have.
"No," I muttered, answering no one in particular. "Not until I know what's going on."
The shimmer disappeared—no sound, no motion. Just… gone. Like it had never been there.
[Reflex Protocol declined. Passive analysis continuing.]
"Yeah," I said under my breath. "You do that."
Whatever this "Genesis Core" was, it was watching. Processing. Learning.
And so was I.
Because if this place was any kind of home now, I needed to figure out the rules before I ran into something that didn't ask nicely.
I moved carefully. Each step felt like a negotiation between my body and the ground. My boots crunched over broken stone, rusted metal, and glass warped by heat. Nothing looked fresh. Everything here had been ruined, and not recently. This was old destruction—ancient, even. The kind of broken that had settled in and made itself at home.
I passed the charred frame of a vehicle I couldn't name. It looked like it once had wings—or maybe legs? Hard to say. Its shell was scorched black, half-melted into the road. Vines had wrapped around its bones like they were claiming it for nature, though nothing else seemed alive here.
Up ahead, the remains of a building slumped sideways into the dirt. One wall still stood—barely. An exposed console flickered at its base, long-dark glass pulsing weakly with red light. As I approached, the flickering grew steadier.
Then the Core pulsed.
[Resonance detected. Genesis signature identified.]
The console blinked to life.
Lines of data scrolled across the cracked screen in a language I didn't recognize. But somehow, I understood it. Or… the Core did. My mind filled in the blanks like it was running translation software I hadn't installed.
"WELCOME, PRIMARY UNIT."
"CORE LINK CONFIRMED."
"INITIATE SYSTEM REBOOT?"
Yes / No
I hesitated. Every instinct screamed don't touch the ancient mystery tech, but what else was I supposed to do—leave it here, blinking alone in the ruins?
"…Yeah," I whispered. "Let's see what happens."
I reached out and placed my hand on the console.
It was warm.
Not the heat of electronics—but the kind of warmth that suggested life.
The screen glitched. A low hum rose from the machine's core. Dust blew sideways as something deep underground stirred. Lights blinked to life all around me—soft blue bands embedded in the cracked stone, leading away from the console like veins.
Then, something spoke. Not the system. Not the Core.
A voice.
Faint. Male. Distant.
"System online… User confirmed… Status—unknown. You're… finally awake."
I backed away from the console.
"Who's there?" I called out. "Show yourself!"
Nothing.
Just wind. Dust. And the lingering sense that I'd just knocked on the front door of something ancient—and now, whatever was inside knew I was here.
[Genesis Core synchronization: 33%.]
I swallowed. Hard.
"Okay," I muttered. "That's fine. Everything's fine."
Which, if we're being honest, was a complete lie.
The lights spread outward like ripples, carving lines into the stone. A path, maybe. A warning. Or both.
I followed.
My footsteps echoed in the ruins, quiet but sharp. Nothing else stirred. The air was still dry, heavy with dust and old static. Whatever system had activated, it was buried deep and had waited a long time for someone—me—to wake it up.
I didn't know if that was a good thing.
The lights guided me into what looked like a collapsed structure. A tunnel, or maybe the foundation of a larger facility. One of the walls had split open, revealing metal ribs beneath layers of stone. As I moved deeper, the heat returned—radiating faintly from the walls, the floor. Not enough to burn, just enough to remind me that this place still had a pulse.
Then I reached it.
A sealed door. Wide, reinforced. Half-covered in ash and old roots. Faint symbols lined its frame—techno-magical runes, glowing faintly now under the Core's influence. At its center, a small recess pulsed softly.
It looked like a place where a hand would go.
[Access Node recognized. Core presence confirmed.]
[Do you wish to unlock this chamber? Warning: Site integrity compromised. Unknown contents.]
Yes / No
I stared at the prompt.
My hand hovered over the recess. The warmth in my chest intensified, like it wanted this. Like it already knew what was behind that door.
But the warning didn't inspire confidence.
"Unknown contents," I muttered. "Why is it never anything good?"
I paused. Thought about turning back. But let's be honest—if I did walk away, I'd probably just find more broken towers, more unanswered questions, and more voices in my head asking me to pick between "Yes" or "No."
I pressed my palm to the recess.
There was a deep click.
A hiss of escaping pressure.
The door unlocked.
And behind it… something moved.
Not a voice. Not a console. Something alive.
I took a step back, heart climbing into my throat. The chamber lights flickered on, weak at first, then steady—illuminating a space full of cables, containment pods, and… shapes.
Human? Not exactly.
Some of them were shattered. Others were still sealed.
But one stood at the center. Upright. Cracked but whole.
And it was opening.
The pod split down the middle with a sound like ice breaking underwater.
Steam hissed from the seams. Pale light bathed the figure inside, washing over frostbitten skin stretched too thin across bone. At first glance, they looked human. Tall. Male. Bald. Wearing what might've once been a uniform—now faded, torn, and fused to the flesh in places.
Then he opened his eyes.
They glowed.
Not like mine. Not warm.
Cold. Fractured.
The man staggered forward, bare feet dragging across metal. His movements were stiff, too controlled, like someone pulling strings behind his skin.
[Genesis Core signature detected: Corrupted.]
The message hit like a warning bell.
He looked up at me, and in that moment, I knew—he wasn't really here. Not fully. His mind had either been lost or rewritten, and what remained was... incomplete.
Then he spoke.
"Why… are you stable?"
His voice was hoarse, like a machine grinding through a memory of speech.
I took a cautious step back. "I—I don't know."
His head tilted, too far. "It rejected me. It cut me open from the inside and—"
static
"—so bright. I tried to hold it. I tried."
He stumbled, hands twitching at his sides, as if grasping for something that wasn't there anymore.
[Warning: Host displays unstable Genesis Echo. Containment recommended.]
"Wait," I said. "I'm not here to fight you."
He looked at me. Through me.
"No," he whispered. "You're here to finish it. Aren't you?"
I didn't have time to answer.
He lunged.
Faster than I expected. Slower than he wanted to be. His body moved like a marionette with frayed strings. I ducked, stumbled back—instinct kicking in just ahead of panic. A low tone rang in my head as the Core responded.
[Reflex Protocol: Engaged.]
My body moved on its own.
One step back. Turn. Drop low.
Energy surged down my arm—no warning, no buildup. My open palm pulsed, and a concussive blast erupted outward, sending the corrupted figure flying into the far wall.
He hit hard. Metal bent. Sparks flared.
For a second, he didn't move.
Then the voice in my mind came again—quieter this time.
[Genesis Core: Synchronization increased. 41%.]
I stared at my hand, still crackling faintly with residual force.
"What the hell am I?"
No answer.
Just the hiss of steam and the slow, shuddering breath of something still alive inside that chamber.
The figure didn't rise.
For a long moment, the only sound was the pop of fried wiring and the slow, mechanical wheeze of air being pulled into lungs that didn't quite remember how.
I moved carefully—cautiously—toward the crumpled shape on the floor.
He was still breathing. His body was broken, but not dead. His Core—whatever twisted version of it existed inside him—was flickering in and out beneath his chest, an exposed lattice of pale blue light corrupted with cracks.
I crouched nearby, just outside arm's reach.
"I didn't mean to hurt you," I said.
He coughed. A sound like metal grinding on stone.
"You didn't," he rasped. "It did."
His eyes twitched toward me again, weaker this time. The fury was gone. What remained was something more dangerous: recognition.
"You're what it was waiting for," he murmured. "A real bond. A clean one."
I didn't respond. Mostly because I didn't have anything clever to say. Or comforting. Or useful.
He laughed—a thin, bitter sound.
"I was the test," he whispered. "We all were."
I froze.
"…We?"
His eyes flickered. "Seven candidates. Seven failures. I held on the longest. Thought that meant something."
He looked at his hand—shaking, claw like.
"It just meant I had farther to fall."
A silence stretched between us. Heavy. Fragile.
I stood up slowly. My chest pulsed again—warm and steady.
His didn't.
"Is there anything else?" I asked.
He exhaled, and something in that breath sounded final.
"You don't get to fix this," he said.
Then, quietly:
"But maybe you can end it."
And with that, the flickering light beneath his chest blinked out.
The room dimmed. The air went still.
And I was alone again.
[Genesis Core synchronization: 44%. Status: Stable.]
I didn't feel stable.
I felt like I'd just looked into a mirror tilted ten degrees into hell.
Whatever the Genesis Core was... it wasn't a gift. Not exactly. It was a weapon. A key. A test. And if this was the world's idea of second chances, then the first chance must've gone very, very wrong.
I looked back at the broken pod, the other sealed ones still sleeping.
Then I turned and walked out.