The sky didn't exist here.
What loomed above wasn't sky—it was concrete, wires, rusted beams. A ceiling so high it disappeared into darkness, riddled with flickering lights and mechanical veins like a dying god's nervous system. A maze of suspended walkways hung in midair like the web of a blind spider that had long since died. This place wasn't built to be lived in. It was built to be survived.
Rain fell anyway, though there were no clouds. Thin, dirty droplets seeped from the cracks in the upper levels, staining the broken streets below. It wasn't water. It never was. The rain here tasted like copper and electricity.
Nox stood still, letting it soak his face.
He hadn't blinked in three minutes. His eyes were wide open, bloodshot, unflinching. Not because he was strong. But because he couldn't understand what he was seeing.
He was in an alley. Narrow, long, barely lit. The walls wept steam. A sign buzzed above him, flashing in three languages he didn't recognize. The symbols felt familiar. Not because he knew them. But because they knew him.
"...Hello?"
The voice echoed behind him. He turned.
There was a girl standing at the end of the alley. She looked about his age. Short. Black hair cut into jagged bangs. Her jacket was too big for her. Her hands were in her pockets.
They stared at each other.
"Do you remember anything?" she asked.
Nox didn't speak.
She sighed. "Cool. Same."
She walked up to him, stopped a few steps away, and squinted. Her eyes were violet, but in the flickering neon they shimmered silver.
"Your name?"
He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.
"Okay. Guess not. Mine's Kira. Or at least it is now."
Silence.
"You're not bleeding," she added. "That's rare. Most new ones wake up coughing blood. You're lucky."
Nox blinked.
And then, finally, he spoke. "Where are we?"
Kira's mouth twitched. It wasn't a smile. More like the memory of one.
"We're in the Heart."
He frowned. "Heart of what?"
"No. Just… the Heart. Capital H. The center. The still point. The city between cities. Don't try to understand it. It hates that."
He looked around. Shadows twitched at the edge of his vision. They weren't shaped like anything he recognized.
"There's something wrong with this place."
Kira laughed. A dry, quick noise. "There's everything wrong with this place. But it's home. For now."
A low hum vibrated through the ground.
Kira grabbed his arm. "We have to move. Now."
They ran.
The alley opened into a wide street. Or what used to be a street. It was a battlefield now. Not a recent one. Everything was frozen in place—cars split in half with perfect geometric precision, buildings folded into themselves like origami. The air shimmered, and space bent subtly, like the city was breathing through broken lungs.
They darted between the wreckage.
"Where are we going?" Nox asked.
"Someplace we can talk. Before the Sweepers notice you."
"Sweepers?"
"Later."
He didn't press.
They passed a massive mural painted across the side of a building. A cracked, eerie thing showing a human figure splitting apart into thousands of butterflies. Nox couldn't look away.
"They say the first ones tried to leave," Kira said without turning. "They say the city turned their dreams into wings. And then burned them."
He didn't reply.
They arrived at a door. Steel. Covered in rust. Kira knocked five times, slow-fast-slow-slow-fast.
It opened with a hiss.
Inside was a dim room lined with screens. Old ones. Some were cracked. Most showed static. A few flickered with images—other parts of the city, distorted faces, corridors that stretched into infinity.
A boy sat cross-legged in the center. He wore a patched-up coat, and his fingers were covered in ink.
"Yo," he said, without looking up. "New recruit?"
"New anomaly," Kira corrected.
"Same thing. Welcome, kid. I'm Ryo."
Nox nodded slowly.
Ryo pointed to a chair. "Sit. Headache coming soon."
Nox sat.
The room was filled with the hum of machines. Kira closed the door.
Ryo finally looked up. His eyes were glassy. Not metaphorically. Literally. Lenses had replaced his irises, clicking softly as they adjusted.
"How much do you remember?" he asked.
"Nothing. Just... a name. Maybe. Nox."
"Fits."
"What is this place?"
"You're in a city that isn't real. But also more real than anything else. A between-space. A mindscape. A prison for the self. Depends who you ask."
Kira sat on the floor, cross-legged. "You glitched into existence last night. We picked you up before the Sweepers did."
"Glitched?"
Ryo leaned forward. "Time and space here don't follow rules. Sometimes people just appear. The city pulls them in. Sometimes it eats them."
"Why me?"
"Don't know yet."
The machines buzzed louder.
A screen flickered. It showed a spiral staircase that went both up and down forever. Another showed a window. Through it, a man stared at the camera. His face was blank. His mouth moved.
No sound.
Ryo turned it off.
"You'll start seeing things. Visions. Versions of yourself. Maybe even your real memories. Don't trust any of them."
"Why not?"
Kira answered. "Because this city lies. Especially when it tells the truth."
There was silence for a long time.
Then Nox asked the question that had been clawing at his mind since he woke up:
"What am I supposed to do?"
Ryo smiled. "That's the fun part. You're supposed to decide."
---
Time passed in that room—minutes, hours, maybe more. Nox didn't know. The city didn't run on clocks.
Eventually, Ryo handed him something.
A device. Rectangular. Heavy. It pulsed faintly.
"It's a Sync Core," he explained. "It tunes your presence to the spatial harmonics of the Heart. Lets you survive the shifts."
"Spatial harmonics?"
"Like tuning a radio to a collapsing dimension. Don't overthink it."
Kira stood. "Come on. You need to meet the others."
They left through another door. One that hadn't existed when they came in.
The corridor outside was curved. Covered in old vines. The walls whispered. Literally. The voices were too low to understand, but Nox knew they were saying something. Something meant for him.
They descended stairs carved from old bones. Not metaphorical ones.
At the bottom, a plaza stretched out like a fractured heart. Twenty walkways led from it like veins.
A group stood at its center. Each person was different—age, style, expression—but all wore the same look: wary defiance.
"These are the Drifters," Kira said. "Everyone here got pulled in like you. Everyone here survived. So far."
A tall girl with a cybernetic jaw nodded at him. A boy with hands that flickered between matter and static waved lazily.
"This place will try to break you," said an older man, his eyes blind and glowing. "But that's not the worst part."
Nox looked at him. "What is?"
"It might succeed."
A silence fell.
And in that silence, something vast shifted far above them.
Not thunder.
A door. Opening.
Far too high. Far too old.
Everyone looked up.
The sky didn't exist here.
But something was watching.