27 March, 2207 — 9:37 AM
The sterile air of the laboratory hummed with the quiet rhythm of a hundred machines. White light spilled across polished steel floors as scientists moved with mechanical precision, their eyes glued to endless streams of data. At the center of it all stood the heart of the facility: a massive cylindrical pod suspended within a cage of four glowing pillars, each one pulsing faintly like the beat of an enormous heart.
Dr. Vikram Rao, lead researcher, approached the pod with practiced reverence. For four decades, this chamber — and the man inside — had been his sole responsibility. Pressing a hand against the cool surface, he watched as a dozen green lights flickered across the screen: stable. For now.
With a small sigh, Vikram slid open a concealed panel and revealed the hidden core of the machine — a compartment cradling a dull, fading red stone. Its glow had weakened to a dying ember. Carefully, he removed it, replacing it with a new one, its ruby light pulsing with fresh, almost defiant vitality.
"There goes another million," he muttered, sealing the compartment shut. He turned, his mind already on the next task. "Who knows how long this will—"
The sound cut him short.
A thunderous crack split the air.
Vikram whirled, eyes wide. The reinforced glass above the pod had shattered into a million shards, glittering as they hung suspended in the sterile light. From within the wreckage, a figure stirred.
A man—lean, sculpted, with a shock of unruly black hair—sat upright on the pod's edge. His chest rose and fell sharply, each breath ragged and desperate, as if he were gulping air for the first time in centuries. His trembling fingers grazed his arms, his chest, his face.
"I… I'm alive," he whispered, his voice hoarse with disbelief. A shudder ran through him, and then his lips pulled into a trembling smile.
The smile widened.
The tremor gave way to a laugh—first small, then rising, swelling into a manic eruption that echoed across the silent lab. "Hahahaha! I did it! I did it!" His voice rang with primal triumph. "I achieved what no one else could!"
But the moment did not last.
A cold green light bled into the sterile white, warping the edges of reality. The lab dissolved into a hazy, shifting void. From beneath him, chains erupted—spectral links that snapped around his wrists with a bite of freezing iron. They yanked his arms wide, pulling him taut.
"What—?" he grunted, his muscles cording as he immediately strained against the bonds. The chains groaned but held fast, the green links searing his skin with a chilling burn.
Then came the footsteps. Slow. Deliberate. Each one echoing like a drumbeat in the abyss.
A tall man emerged, cloaked in black, his face buried deep in the hood's shadows. He stopped before the bound figure, silent but heavy with presence.
"Who are you?" the awakened man demanded, never ceasing his struggle. He pulled hard, his shoulders screaming in protest, but the chains only glowed brighter, tightening their grip. "Why are you doing this?"
The robed figure tilted his head slightly, as though amused. His reply was a whisper, soft enough to chill bone.
"Who am I? I am the one who has come to take you away."
"What… what do you mean by that?" The man threw his weight backward, digging his heels into the formless ground, his entire body a rigid line of defiance. Anger warred with raw confusion in his eyes.
The robed figure only chuckled, the sound hollow, stripped of warmth. "Just as I said. I am here to take you away."
"Where?" he gritted out, the word a puff of effort as he strained.
"Where you should have gone a long time ago. There are people waiting for you there." His voice was low, a whisper that seemed to coil around the air itself.
"Stop speaking in riddles!" the man roared, giving a mighty, sudden heave. The chains shrieked, and for a brilliant moment, one link seemed to stretch and thin before snapping back, throwing him to his knees. "Just say it outright!"
The hooded man tilted his head. "You have violated the Celestial Edict of Mortal Span. You've lived more than twice the span of a normal human life. You should be nothing more than a fading memory in the soil, and yet, here you are."
"I was sleeping! Dead to the world for all that time!"
"It doesn't matter," the figure replied, utterly calm. "Your time is up. Just come with me."
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Meanwhile, chaos rippled through the laboratory. Dr. Vikram Rao bolted to his office, slamming the heavy door behind him. His trembling hands clawed open a drawer and pulled out an outdated relic: a bulky communication device that looked like it belonged to another century. He punched in a sequence of numbers with desperate precision.
The call connected instantly.
"Why contact me with this, Vikram?" The voice on the other end was sharp, cold, and impatient.
"He… he woke up," Vikram whispered, barely able to steady his breath.
Silence. Then, incredulous: "What?"
"The Black Dragon… he is awake." Vikram hung up before another word could be spoken, his hand shaking violently as he stared at the lifeless device.
__________________________
Back in the green domain, the man pulled against his chains until his muscles screamed, but the bindings held firm. At last, exhausted, he let his head hang low, glaring at his captor.
"Fine," he growled. "At least give me some clothes. Being bound here naked is humiliating."
The robed man gave a soft chuckle. "Clothes are material trinkets of the living. A soul needs no such things."
"Then why do you wear them?" he shot back.
"Ah. This is uniform," the figure replied simply, before turning. The chains slackened just enough for movement, but not release. "Now, let us leave."
They had barely taken a step when the air itself trembled.
A deafening roar shattered the silence of the green void.
"LET. HIM. GO!"
The command thundered across the domain, shaking its very foundations. The robed man froze, his calm mask cracking into terror as a vast shadow fell over them.
High above, a colossal figure descended. His form was cloaked in darkness so dense it seemed woven from the void itself, yet faint glimmers broke through: the suggestion of vast, jagged wings folding behind him, a crown of shifting flame that never burned out, and eyes that blazed like twin suns in the abyss. The very air bent beneath his presence, crushing, suffocating, absolute.
The robed man's voice faltered. "B-but… Your Majesty…" His body trembled with fear.
"HAVE YOU LOST YOUR RESPECT FOR ME, TO ATTACK THE ENVOY I HAVE CHOSEN?" The words rolled like earthquakes, shaking the green domain to its core.
"N-no, Your Majesty!" the robed man stammered, bowing low. "I only… I only doubted his worthiness for the role!"