The hiss of gas was faint, a distant exhale in the bustling city that glittered like broken glass stitched into the veins of night. Crick stood under a rusted archway marked with faded digital graffiti, waving his hand to clear the vapor trail that had floated from the nearby Trigger factory. The factory loomed like a forgotten colossus, its pipes pulsing with synthetic life, its outer walls decorated with crude murals of Walkers who had supposedly ascended their channels.
Lucien stood beside him, his posture tight, his eyes flicking toward the darkened alleys as if expecting the ghostly silhouettes of Adrek House guards to come sprinting from the shadows.
"I work here," Crick said, voice low, almost apologetic, like he was confessing a sin. "In this factory. Trigger production."
Lucien raised an eyebrow. "The Nano injector?"
Crick nodded, then glanced around to make sure no one was listening. His voice dropped to a whisper. "But there's more to it. More than the public knows."
Lucien said nothing, only watched him with that strange, wary intensity. Crick continued.
"Walkers… the ones who journey the channels… they all start here. With Trigger. Everyone thinks it's some manufactured miracle. But I overheard something." He leaned closer. "Trigger isn't made from energy. It's made from oxygen."
Lucien blinked. "Oxygen? But this world…"
"There's no oxygen here," Crick said, his face pale. "That's the secret. Not anymore. That's why it's the rarest element in Grey. Real oxygen is almost myth. But I heard my boss say, in every 300 million bottles of Trigger, there's only a quarter centimeter of real oxygen. They dilute it, stretch it so thin just to keep people walking the channels. That's how rare it is."
Lucien felt the weight of his breath like it was suddenly borrowed. Something primal stirred inside him. Oxygen. The word danced with meaning. Back home, it was taken for granted. Here, it was divinity.
Crick turned away, his hands trembling slightly. "I shouldn't have told you. If they find out…"
"I won't tell anyone," Lucien said, quietly.
Crick gave him a look—half trust, half fear—and then disappeared into the glowing maze of the city, swallowed by neon and shadows.
Lucien stayed behind, alone under the steel arch, watching the gaseous mist swirl around his feet like ghost fingers. He touched his coat pocket. The pocket watch was still there. Cold metal. Comforting. It was the only relic of a world he barely remembered, a life that felt like it belonged to someone else.
He needed a place to hide. The Adrek soldiers were relentless, shadows behind every window. His memories were still fragmented, and the identity of "Lucien Adrek" hung on him like a coat sewn from lies.
He drifted into the alleys, letting the city lights dim behind him.
Eventually, he wandered to the edge of the urban sprawl—where towers gave way to silence and the fog thickened like ancient breath. Before him stood the foot of the mountain, draped in grey mist so dense it looked like spilled paint over the world.
"No," he whispered.
He had been here before. The sensation was unmistakable. That taste of dread in his throat. That creeping memory that hadn't quite surfaced.
He stepped forward, boots sinking slightly into dew-soaked moss. The silence here was unnatural, thick, not even broken by wind.
He moved on instinct, steps cautious, heart climbing in his chest like a prisoner escaping a cell.
The mist swirled, danced around him like it remembered his name.
Then his foot struck something—wet rock, slick and loose—and the ground yawned beneath him.
His arms flailed.
The fog swallowed him whole.
And he fell.
The mist clung to Lucien's skin like breath made solid. It was thick—too thick, once again—smothering the air, blanketing the trees, and swallowing the sound of his own footsteps. He sat up with a groan, damp moss pressing into the palm of his hand. His shirt clung to his back. Cold. Sticky.
Not again.
Lucien blinked furiously. The fog stretched endlessly, grey and luminous, like diluted moonlight caught in an eternal moment.
"This fucking place again?" he muttered.
He stood up with effort, brushing dust and dew from his jeans, eyes darting through the mist. Everything was so familiar. The curvature of the trees. The wet, soundless air. The suffocating silence. The weight in his pocket—
He checked. The watch.
Still there.
Hanging on the chain, ticking without ticking, a photograph faded in its frame. The only real link he had to what was left of Earth—or whatever his memory said was Earth.
His fingers clenched around it tightly.
A familiar dread stirred in his stomach, and then he spoke, his voice like a wounded animal in the void.
"I don't get it. I walked away. I escaped this nightmare."
The fog rippled, unnaturally, like breath drawn by something not alive.
Then, it moved.
A silhouette, drifting from the white veil like a wound bleeding through a bandage. Tall. Human-shaped. But too still.
Lucien's breath caught in his throat. His instincts screamed to run. But something in his bones told him it wouldn't matter.
It was here for him.
"You again," Lucien said, voice lower now. He narrowed his eyes. "What are you?"
The figure halted ten feet away, still obscured by haze but close enough for Lucien to feel its presence like a second heartbeat.
"I am you," it said.
The voice was not one voice. It was three layered atop each other. Deep, hollow, laced with pain. It was sorrow speaking.
"I am what remained when Lucien Adrek was murdered. I am the breath he never got to exhale. I am the scream he never finished. I am his resentment."
Lucien frowned, taking a step back. "Lucien Adrek... you mean the real Lucien? Then who am I?"
"You are not from here, are you, Tochi Izu?"
Lucien's shoulders tensed.
"I… don't know who I am anymore."
"You are his echo. A man cast into a corpse with a name too heavy to carry. You wear his skin. His face. And now, his fate."
The fog curled tighter around them, like arms folding over a secret.
"You want answers. I shall give you some."
Lucien didn't speak. He waited.
"House Adrek is not a house. It is a tree of rot. Divided into three: the Wing of Gold, the Wing of Silver, and the Wing of Bronze. Each wing is bound to a wife of the House Lord. Each wing is a faction—its own bloodline."
Lucien nodded slowly, his mind catching up.
"I was the son of the Wing of Gold. The firstborn. The heir."
"And they killed you," Lucien said softly.
"They tried. The Wing of Bronze—they bared their fangs first. I retaliated. I slaughtered them. Half, if not more."
Lucien's heart slowed.
"That explains… the screams I heard," he murmured, suddenly remembering. When he visited Epsilon. The night air trembling with feminine cries. The smell of blood.
"Yes," the spirit said. "That was your inheritance. That was my vengeance. Interrupted before it was complete. And now, my soul remains. Waiting. Anchored by hatred. And hope."
Lucien stared at the fog as if it could unravel into clarity. But it never did.
"Why tell me this?" he asked.
"Because you must choose."
"Choose?"
"To walk the path I began."
The fog swirled violently as if stirred by unseen hands.
"Tochi Izu will you take on the identity Of The First born son of The Wing of Gold of The House Adrek Lucien Adrek?"
Lucien felt his knees weaken. His grip on the pocket watch tightened. The face inside blurred.
"You ask me to become something I never was," Lucien whispered. "To carry a name that doesn't belong to me."
"It does now," the spirit said. "You carry my face, my voice, my breath. You walk with my bones. Even if you deny it, the world has already chosen you."
"I'm not sure if I can do it," Lucien said. "I'm not sure if I want to."
Silence followed.
Then the spirit's voice came softer—almost human.
"Then I shall wait."
The fog receded slightly. The figure began to dissolve like smoke.
"When your answer comes, I will be listening. Until then, walk carefully, Lucien Adrek. Your enemies remember your name even if you don't."
And then—just like that—the fog consumed the shadow, and the spirit was gone.
Lucien stood alone.
More confused than ever.
More haunted than ever.
The weight of two identities—one real, one unknown—pressed on his chest like armor made of ash.
He looked at the watch again.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
He whispered to the fog, though it gave no answer.
"Who am I really?".