Kael didn't sleep that night.
He sat on the rusted rooftop of a collapsed skyport, his legs dangling over the edge like they were trying to reach a future that didn't exist. The air smelled of metal, smoke, and something older—like scorched memories. Below him, Core City stretched out in a half-dead sprawl. Once a marvel of engineering and light, now it flickered like a corrupted hologram caught between moments.
Buildings glitched in and out of place—some paused mid-collapse, others standing tall for seconds before shivering into translucent shadows. It was as if time no longer respected the laws of gravity or structure. The skyline had become a ghost, haunted by its own past.
And the ash… it never stopped.
Thick, gray flakes fell steadily from a sky that never turned blue. They floated down in slow spirals, coating everything with a quiet finality. The particles clung to Kael's coat, his hair, his skin. They melted on his tongue like burnt paper. Each flake felt like a reminder—of endings, of something lost.
His chrono-band blinked relentlessly. A name carved into its glowing interface, pulsing like a heartbeat:
Dray.
It wasn't just a name. It was a warning. A question. A blade pressed softly against memory.
Kael stared at it. He had already tried to erase it. Reboot. Wipe. Rewrite. But it always returned.
"Echo," he murmured. "Run a full recall scan. Every locked file. I don't care how deep. Go into the root memory archive."
There was a pause before Echo replied, its voice smooth and precise, almost like a lullaby.
"Warning: Recall scan may induce memory dissonance. Severe risk of synaptic destabilization. Proceed?"
Kael looked out at the city. The horizon rippled. Time, breaking again.
"Proceed."
A low pulse thrummed from the band. He felt it crawl into his wrist like a living wire. Then—
Pain.
Not ordinary pain. Not of the body. Of the mind, the soul. It was like a thousand timelines screaming at once, each trying to be heard, each fighting to overwrite the present.
Visions burst behind his eyes—
A girl laughing beneath a sun that flickered like a dying lightbulb.
Golden eyes. Spinning. A name spoken like a secret—Aeris.
A tower of glass crumbling in reverse.
Screams without mouths.
Then darkness. Followed by a face.
A boy.
Pale skin. Eyes glowing red—not with fire, but with purpose. Cold. Calculated. A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips. And behind that smirk—
Chaos.
Dray.
The vision collapsed. Static. Kael cried out, falling onto his side. He ripped the chrono-band from his wrist and flung it away. It clattered against a metal beam and spun to a stop, sparking with fractured light.
He curled into himself, fists tight against his head. The rooftop swam. The world felt like it was folding inward.
He wanted to forget again.
But it was too late.
Somewhere Beyond Time…
She stood at the edge of a memory, watching it flicker like flame.
Aeris.
Her cloak fluttered around her ankles, dark and weightless. Her hair was the color of forgotten dawns, and her golden eyes gleamed with knowledge that shouldn't exist. She walked between moments, between seconds. A child of paradoxes. A guardian of broken timelines.
Around her swirled fragments of history—some hers, some borrowed. Shattered cities. Smiling faces. Burning skies. Every piece whispered truths too loud for the present.
She raised a hand. One fragment paused.
Kael. Smiling. Innocent. Before everything.
Her fingers trembled.
"I told you I'd find you again," she whispered.
Behind her, three shadows loomed. They moved like liquid—shapeless yet sharp, their forms bending light and logic alike. They were more wound than person, held together by hate and time.
"You still believe in him?" one asked, its voice like shattered glass.
Aeris didn't turn. "It's not belief. It's certainty."
Another shadow hissed. "You once believed in Dray too."
A pause.
"I remember," she said. "That's why I won't fail this time."
She stepped through a rift made not of metal or tech—but of memory. It opened like a scar across reality, glowing with forgotten pain.
The shadows followed her into the void.
Core City - Pre-Dawn
The sky remained a steel-colored sheet, blank and heavy.
Kael retrieved the chrono-band just before the sun was due to rise—not that sunrise meant anything anymore. The sun rarely broke through the ash.
He held the band in his palm, cracked but glowing faintly. Echo hadn't spoken since the scan. Either it was damaged or… waiting.
He looked around. The city was too quiet. Too still.
Then—
A pulse.
A single wave of pressure rippled across the skyline. Buildings flickered faster. The air shimmered like heat distortion. Far below, a low rumble echoed up from the roots of the city.
Something was waking.
Kael's heart thundered. He stood slowly, watching the horizon. In the distance, a silhouette appeared—too far to make out, but wrong in shape. It didn't walk. It glided. The ash avoided it.
He couldn't see the face. But he didn't have to.
Dray.
Somewhere, the past had split open.
And the future was bleeding through.
Kael gripped the chrono-band tighter.
The war had already begun.
He just hadn't realized he was a soldier.