Ashen woke up on cold metal.
Rain fell from a sky that flickered like a broken screen, neon lights bleeding into the puddles around him. Towers scraped the heavens, stitched together with wires and glowing veins. Machines hummed. Sirens cried somewhere far away.
He didn't know where he was.
He didn't know who he was.
He pushed himself up slowly. His head throbbed—not with pain, but with absence. Like something vital had been torn out and never replaced.
No memories.
No past.
Only a strange weight in his chest.
People passed him without looking. Their eyes were hollow, faces lit by screens embedded in their skin. None of them noticed the sword resting beside him.
A sword.
Long. Ancient. Out of place.
His hand wrapped around the hilt instinctively. It felt familiar in a way nothing else did. As if his body remembered what his mind could not.
A giant screen above the street flickered.
YEAR: 3054
SYSTEM STATUS: STABLE
Ashen stared at it, his reflection warping across the glass.
"3054…" he whispered.
The word meant nothing.
Yet somehow, it terrified him.