Chapter 1: The Summoning That Shouldn't Have Been
The air smelled of rust and rain that night.
The kind of smell that seeps into your bones and makes the world feel older than it should.
My name is **Lucky**.
At least, that's what they used to call me back in the world I came from — a world that felt ordinary until it wasn't.
We were just five friends chasing something we didn't understand.
It started as a joke — a thread online about a ritual said to *"summon your true destiny."* It was supposed to be a thrill, a bit of fun, a way to make the night less empty.
But curiosity is a quiet poison.
And that night, we drank it willingly.
The warehouse smelled of candle wax and cold metal.
Zuri had drawn the symbols from her phone — circles inside circles, words in a language none of us knew. Ken laughed and called it a scam. Malik dared him to go through with it anyway. Faith lit the last candle. I… just watched.
At first, nothing happened.
Then the flame dimmed, as if something had drawn the air from the room.
The ground trembled.
The chalk lines began to twist, like something alive was shifting beneath them.
> "Guys…?"
That was all I managed to say before the light turned black.
A sound followed — not a roar, not a scream. More like *whispers overlapping in every direction*, hundreds of voices reciting words the human mind wasn't built to know.
My skin burned. My vision fractured. The candlelight stretched into symbols that crawled into my skull.
Ken's voice was the first to vanish — cut off mid-yell.
Zuri's eyes rolled back, tears of blood tracing her cheeks.
Faith tried to run, but her shadow dragged her back into the circle.
And through it all, one thought pressed against my skull like a nail:
> *"You called, and I came."*
The world collapsed.
I remember falling — through light, through sound, through everything that was real.
Then silence.
When I opened my eyes again, I wasn't in the warehouse.
The sky above me was the color of bruised gold.
The sun — or what looked like one — hung shattered in the distance, its fragments suspended like glass. The wind carried whispers, soft and rhythmic, as if the world itself was breathing.
I stood slowly. The earth beneath me pulsed faintly, a heartbeat I could feel in my feet.
Everything around me was unfamiliar: broken temples half-swallowed by ash, trees growing in reverse with roots reaching into the air. The horizon twisted, bending light in impossible ways.
I wasn't sure if I was dreaming or dead.
But when I looked at my reflection in a pool of black water, I knew neither could explain it.
My eyes were faintly gold — not glowing, just wrong. My veins shimmered like threads of ember. The face staring back at me was mine… and not mine.
> "Where… am I?"
My voice came out quieter than I intended, but it echoed — as though the world had been waiting to hear me speak.
And then the whisper returned.
The same one from the ritual.
Calm, steady, unhurried.
> *"You crossed the veil, Lucky."*
> *"The mortal shell burned away, but the spark remained."*
> *"You sought what lay beyond death, and it answered."*
The ground shivered beneath me. Symbols lit up faintly on my arms — the same markings from the ritual, now burned into my flesh.
Pain followed — sharp and deep, but not entirely human. It was as if something was rewriting my existence, line by line, bone by bone. I gasped, but no sound came.
> *"You will not remember what you lost."*
> *"Only what you are meant to become."*
Light poured from my chest — soft at first, then blinding. My thoughts shattered, rebuilt, and then quieted.
When it ended, I was kneeling.
The markings had dimmed, leaving faint scars that pulsed with a dull warmth. The whisper was gone.
But a name lingered in my mind, clear and final:
> **Lucenara.**
I didn't know what it meant, but the name *fit* — like it had always been there, waiting beneath the noise of who I used to be.
A rumble rolled across the horizon.
I turned.
In the distance stood a massive spire, dark and unending, surrounded by drifting fragments of what looked like broken halos. The sky above it flickered — not lightning, but symbols of light appearing and fading like living constellations.
And beyond that… figures.
Shadows with wings that stretched wider than reason. Watching. Waiting.
Something deep inside me whispered that they were not angels.
Not anymore.
I took a breath and looked down at my hands. They trembled — not from fear, but from understanding.
Whatever I had become, I was no longer in my world, none am I still a normal human.
A world had ended.
Another had begun.
> *"Welcome to Naijara,"* a faint voice murmured in the wind.
> *"The first world to fall, and the last to rise."*
The clouds above split open for a moment, revealing a crimson sun surrounded by wings of flame.
And in that burning sky, a single truth settled in my chest:
The world I once knew was gone.
Only Lucenara remained — the one who had looked into the abyss and found it looking back.
And though I didn't understand it yet, this place — this fractured, breathing world —nothing is normal here.
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