The days—if they could be called that—bled into one another. The fractured sky never followed a rhythm. Sometimes it pulsed with a blue glow, sometimes it hissed black static. Time had no meaning in the Shatterfold.
Yet, Aarav remained alive.
He hadn't eaten since arriving. Nor drank anything. The thought had crossed his mind early on—but the sharp edge of thirst or the ache of hunger never came.
At first, he thought it was adrenaline. Then shock. Then numbness. But by the fourth day, he realized something else was at play. His body wasn't deteriorating.
It was adapting.
While resting in a ruin that once resembled a research dome, Aarav pressed his fingers to his neck. His pulse was steady, but… slower. Calmer. The fatigue came from movement, but not from deprivation. The faint rune that had branded his palm upon touching the Chrono Beacon still shimmered like a low ember.
Every now and then, it pulsed—just once—like a heartbeat echoing through stone.
"It's doing something to me," he whispered.
He had a theory now: the bloodline—the one he'd unwillingly absorbed—was sustaining him. Not fully awakened, but active just enough to keep him from collapsing. It wasn't nourishment. It was… suspension. Like being caught between life and dormancy.
The cathedral-like ruins had more secrets than he'd expected. On the fifth cycle of rest, Aarav noticed a broken wall panel glowing faintly behind collapsed stone. He dug it out.
It wasn't a wall.
It was a data shard.
The fragment was hexagonal, metallic, and embedded with runic channels etched in looping spirals. He brought it back to the Chrono Beacon, curious if it would respond.
It did.
The core's glyphs flickered alive again, more responsive than before. The shard aligned itself into a socket Aarav hadn't noticed earlier, locking in place with a soft hum. The beacon reacted violently—glyphs reordering, sparks of energy cracking the air, time momentarily stalling.
Then, a voice. Faint. Fragmented.
[SYSTEM ERROR – CORE INTERFACE UNSTABLE][ACCESSING VOLUME NODE: PARTIAL SUCCESS]…Identify – Spiral Resonant Detected – Adolescent Class……initiating survival protocol fragment 1…
A shape began forming within the beacon—a formless swirl of light, like a memory trying to materialize. Then came words, less mechanical now, more human.
"You… bear the Vein. You are not yet worthy. But you are alive. That is enough."
"My name was… [DATA LOST]… a guide, once. You may call me Solace."
Aarav staggered back, eyes wide.
"Who—what are you?"
"Not who. What remains. I am a broken remnant of a Guide Class Intelligence, once bound to this realm's Prime Core. My systems are decaying. My knowledge is fragmented. But your blood sings of the Spiral Lineage. I am… yours to rebuild."
He didn't understand even half of it, but the voice—Solace—was clear and stable now. The rune on his palm responded to her presence.
Solace wasn't fully active, but she could answer basic queries, interpret some ruins, and guide his focus. That was enough.
She began translating some of the environmental glyphs into concepts: "Rune Anchors", "Temporal Stabilizers", "Splice Chambers", "Vein Catalysts".
Each one held a connection to this world's structure… and possibly, his way out.
From that moment on, something shifted in Aarav.
He trained harder. Moved with more purpose. He tested every rune he found, even if they burned his skin or sapped his strength. Solace warned him when his vitals spiked but never stopped him—only guided.
And slowly, his understanding of runes evolved.
He could now recognize:
Containment glyphs that suppressed energy,
Anchor runes that locked objects in temporal space,
And Vein circuits—special patterns that resonated with his bloodline, though incomplete.
Solace told him that what he wielded was called the Chrono Vein, and it was once considered a sacred bloodline of balance—capable of accessing, altering, and syncing with time-anchored relics of ancient civilizations.
But he was still at the Infantile Sync stage. Most of the power lay dormant, gated behind biological and spiritual thresholds.
"Survive long enough," she said. "And you'll begin to wake up more of it. But each piece of knowledge you gain is a catalyst."