"They said the planet we used to live died long ago... but it still screams beneath us."
Somewhere, beneath the dirt and steel and silence of the last fortified cities, the planet we once called Earth still breathes.
But it's not the breath of life — it's something else.
A convulsion.
A memory.
A scream echoing through dimensions we were never meant to touch.
---
I don't remember the exact moment the sky cracked open for the first time.
None of us do.
What I remember is silence.
The kind that comes after everything you love gets torn away, piece by piece, and you're left standing there — wondering if you're still real... or just another echo waiting to fade.
---
They called it the First Rift War.
A fracture not just in the skies, but in logic. Time. Matter. Soul.
From it came Rift Beings. Creatures that didn't belong to any reality we knew. Some were beasts of pure hunger. Others... were worse. Intelligent. Watching. Waiting.
When we fought them, we lost.
When we ran, they followed.
When we begged the stars for mercy, they remained quiet.
---
Now, decades later, the world is held together by desperation.
Cadets like us — born inside fortified domes, raised on drills and lies — are trained not to survive, but to die slower than the ones who came before.
This is not a war.
This is containment.
A fevered attempt to patch a reality that's already infected beyond cure.
---
My name is Aarav.
Eighteen.
Cadet.
Unit Delta.
Rift Engagement Division.
I wasn't supposed to wake up today. Not like this.
---
[Present Moment – Unknown Ruins Zone | Mission: Simulation Delta-9]
Sand and ash filled my throat as I gasped, lurching forward from the broken ground. My uniform clung to me, soaked in cold sweat.
A ringing buzzed in my ears — not an alarm. Not comms.
A scream.
But not one made of sound.
More like memory trying to claw its way back to me.
I looked around.
Cracked monoliths. Floating debris. Shattered buildings from an era long forgotten.
A dream?
No.
The Rift had brought this. Or maybe I had brought the Rift here.
---
"Subject stabilizing."
The voice came through my earpiece — synthetic, cold. Part of the simulation protocol.
Except… this wasn't supposed to be this real.
Not the wind.
Not the trembling.
Not the voices beneath the stone.
---
I stumbled forward, hand instinctively brushing against the edge of a collapsed steel beam.
My reflection stared back in the chrome:
Amber eyes flickering unnaturally.
Hair matted and dark with dust.
A faint shimmer across my skin — like something ancient trying to wake up inside me.
Not again.
---
"This is Cadet Aarav," I said, voice hoarse. "Simulation is broken. Requesting override."
No response.
Static.
Silence.
Then…
"Do you hear them?"
The voice wasn't mine.
And it wasn't human.
It came from beneath me — from the cracks.
---
[Flashback Fragment – A memory that shouldn't exist]
A child's laughter.
A woman's touch.
A man's shadow standing at a burning doorway, whispering:
> "When the time comes, don't run from what you are…"
---
I screamed and clutched my head.
Pain exploded behind my eyes — then faded into something worse.
Clarity.
---
And then the Rift opened.
Not a portal. Not a wound.
A mirror.
And what stared back at me wasn't me.
It was all the versions of me that never made it.
Dead. Dying. Fading. Watching.
A thousand failed timelines, looping endlessly into this moment.
I stumbled back.
> "You were never meant to be the hero."
"You're just the last one left."