April 9, 1865
Appomattox Court House, Virginia
Corporal Elijah Mercer sat against the scorched trunk of a sycamore tree, his gray coat tattered and stained with the filth of four years of war. The Virginia soil beneath him felt heavier than it should, as if it were trying to pull him down. His musket lay across his lap, untouched for hours. There was no more fighting—only waiting.
Word had spread through the ranks: General Robert E. Lee was preparing to surrender to General Ulysses S. Grant.
Elijah stared into the distance at the red-brick McLean House, which stood quiet and solemn. The wind stirred through the trees, but there was no comfort in it. He wasn't ready for this kind of ending. He had faced death a dozen times, but surrender? That felt worse. It felt like dissolving.
Then he noticed something strange: the sky above the horizon shimmered—not with heat waves or smoke—but like a rippling curtain. The earth beneath him began to hum. His musket rattled in his hands.
Before Elijah could rise, a circle of pale blue light erupted around him, symbols igniting in the soil. The world twisted. There was no time to scream. No time to pray.
And with that, Corporal Elijah Mercer disappeared from the world that day, never to be heard from again.