The crackling of fire pulled him out of the abyss like a whisper dragging a soul from drowning.Each spark hissed against the darkness, its fleeting glow revealing fragments of ruin.Smoke filled his lungs—dry, bitter, almost metallic. But there was something else in the air—something that moved, that pressed on his chest like the weight of an unseen ocean.
Andrew opened his eyes.
The world around him shimmered faintly in the dim orange glow. Ash drifted like snowflakes, settling over broken stone and warped metal. The air was thick enough to feel, every breath scraping his throat raw.He tried to move—his muscles resisted like rusted gears, his ribs ached, his bones heavy as lead.The pressure here wasn't natural. For an ordinary man, it would have been fatal.For someone like him—it was merely torture.
But pain wasn't the strangest part.
His body felt wrong—as if it had been dismantled and reassembled by hands that didn't understand the shape of a human.There were gaps, absences he couldn't name.He could feel the missing pieces—echoes of what once belonged to him, now hollow and unreachable.And the air…The air pulsed.It was alive.Something unseen whispered through it, the way ghosts might breathe through walls.
Near the dying fire sat a woman. Her back was turned to him, long brown hair catching the light of the embers like silk dipped in gold.She sat still, her posture calm—too calm for a place that reeked of death.
Who is she?And where the hell am I?
Before he could speak, her voice sliced through the silence.
"You should stay still," she said, without turning her head.Her tone was quiet, measured—neither gentle nor cruel. Simply… true."You'd be dead by now if I hadn't dragged you here."
Andrew swallowed. His throat burned like it had been filled with sand."...Where am I?"
"The place where everything ends," she said simply. "That's all you need to know."
He blinked, his vision still adjusting."And how did I get here?"
"You fell," she replied. "From one of the stars."
He stared at her. "From... what?"
"I saw you burning through the sky," she continued, eyes never leaving the fire. "A falling spark in a dead world. You're lucky I noticed."
There was no warmth in her voice. No pride. Just the statement of an inevitable truth.
Andrew tried to stand.He pushed himself upward, but his legs betrayed him, and he collapsed back onto the cold metal slab beneath him. Pain erupted across his ribs like shattered glass.
"I told you," she said calmly. "You can't even stand. Whoever hit you—your chest was already mush. You're lucky your bones remember what they're supposed to be."
Andrew exhaled, trembling. "And you're so calm about this... Doesn't this air crush you?"
"You're not adapted yet."She tossed a piece of broken wood into the fire, watching it burn blue."This place changes you—or kills you. You'll learn to breathe it soon enough. If you don't, you'll dissolve."
Then she stood.Her shadow stretched long and sharp against the ground.
"And you're lucky again," she said softly. "I was about to explore the Hole of the End. You'll make a decent servant."
Andrew's cracked lips curved into a faint, humorless smile."Servant? You think I'd kneel for anyone?"
"Then die," she replied, voice colder than the air itself.
She turned away, murmuring something he couldn't catch. The flames pulsed once, shifting from orange to a deep, unnatural blue.Andrew's vision blurred, his heartbeat slowed, and the world dissolved into black once again.
When he awoke, the light had changed.The world beyond the walls glowed gray and silver, torn open by cracks of light that bled like wounds across the sky. Despite its brilliance, the air was freezing.
He sat up—this time, his body obeyed. The pressure was still there, but weaker.Maybe he was adapting.Or maybe the world had decided he wasn't worth crushing anymore.
He stepped outside.
The landscape was a graveyard of time. Rusted vehicles with alien frames littered the plains, fused together into towers that leaned like broken teeth. The horizon shimmered, painted in colors that didn't belong to life.The silence hummed—a low, vibrating sound that made the bones in his body tremble.
In the distance, shadows moved.They were thin—almost human—but hollow, like silhouettes cut out of glass.When he blinked, they vanished.His mind told him it was a trick of light, but something deeper whispered: memory.
Flashes stabbed through his skull.A child's laughter beneath a blue sky.A woman's hand reaching through fire and smoke.Then—glass shattering. Screams.A red horizon swallowing the world whole.He gasped, clutching his chest as if to hold the fragments inside him together.
And then he saw her.
The woman knelt among the ruins of what looked like a temple, eyes closed, her body perfectly still.Her shoulders were bare beneath a torn cloak, and along her skin crawled black markings—tattoos that moved, alive like shadows trapped beneath flesh. They pulsed faintly, as if breathing.
He froze.
He had seen those patterns before.Not exactly these—but something like them.The memory surfaced: a man with living tattoos, whispering to him about a place where one could find everything.The one who started it all.
Anger stirred in him. Curiosity too. A dangerous mix.
Before he could speak, her voice broke through the cold air.
"So," she said, eyes still closed. "You're awake."
She rose with smooth precision, stretching her arms."Good. Eat something. We leave soon."
Andrew's voice was rough. "What were you doing? And those tattoos... what are they?"
She looked down at them briefly. Her expression didn't change."They're a disease," she said. "If I stop meditating, they'll consume me."
He hesitated. "Then... what's your name?"
She turned toward him fully this time, eyes gleaming faintly in the gray light. "You really don't know how to talk to women, do you?"Her lips curled into something that wasn't quite a smile."My name is Elizabet. You'll call me Master."
They sat by a crumbling wall.Elizabet reached into a weathered bag and drew out two chunks of dark bread and a jar of thick, black sauce.She handed him one piece without looking.
"You actually eat this?" Andrew muttered.
"If you want to live," she said, "you eat what the world gives. This place is a graveyard of forgotten things. But even graves can hide something precious."
He bit into it—hard, tasteless, but strangely warm once it hit his stomach."Guess this is an upgrade. I used to work in an office," he said with a crooked smile. "Miserable job. Miserable life."
"Office worker?" She raised an eyebrow. "You don't look like one."
"I don't remember much," Andrew murmured. "Most of my memories are gone. I remember working... pain... experiments. My body was contaminated—chemicals, maybe. It made me violent. Addicted to blood. But when I woke up here... it was gone. Like something tore it out of me."
He looked down at his arms. Beneath his skin, faint red lines glowed, pulsing gently like molten veins.It wasn't normal. It wasn't human.
Elizabet studied him quietly."I've seen men remade before," she said finally. "They rarely last long. Eat."
They ate in silence, the fire crackling softly beside them.
After a while, Elizabet spoke again, her tone quieter, more distant."Maybe you'll find your memories here. Everything erased ends up in this world. Broken things, lost things, unwanted souls."
Her gaze drifted toward the horizon."I had someone once. Someone I loved."
Andrew looked up.
"We were both deleted by the Antiviruses," she said. "But we survived. For a time. He started to change... spoke about purity, control, perfection. Until he wasn't the same person anymore. So I left."
"What was his name?" Andrew asked softly.
"Alex," she whispered. "Alex Vaelheart."
The name echoed through him like thunder.Something deep within him stirred—an instinct, a recognition he couldn't explain.
"That's... ancient," Andrew said slowly. "Never heard a name like that."
"It's from a forgotten age," she replied. "One that doesn't exist anymore."
The wind howled through the metallic ruins, singing like ghosts.
Then Elizabet stood, brushing dust from her coat."Finish eating," she ordered. "We move at dawn."
Andrew followed her gaze toward the far horizon—and froze.
There, stretching into the torn sky, a colossal spiral of black light consumed the clouds.It pulsed with silent gravity, a wound in the world itself.
"The Hole of the End," Elizabet said."If you want answers, that's where you'll find them. Or you'll die trying."
Andrew stared at it, heart pounding with something between terror and awe.He didn't understand this place—but he knew one thing: there was no going back.
He rose beside her, the cold wind cutting through him like shards of glass.Each step toward that impossible horizon echoed in the silence, heavy as fate itself.
Behind them, the fire crackled weakly one last time—then died.The world swallowed its final light.And the shadows of two travelers stretched long across the wasteland, walking toward the end of all things.