Ekayan.
B.Tech Engineer. Orphan. Professional Overthinker.
Most people say they were forced into engineering.
I didn't even have parents to blame.
Imagine the emotional damage.
When I was first chosen,
I thought it was another government scheme.
Turned out—it was worse.
Now I'm stuck fighting monsters that look like my semester projects—
running on three hours of sleep and zero motivation.
Even inside the Tower, time dilation works.
The more danger I'm in, the slower it feels.
Just like my exams.
That day, I wasn't expecting the universe to start debugging me.
---
It was a normal Thursday —
traffic yelling, car horns crying, stalls steaming,
and me — half-awake, half-scrolling through memes near the bus stop.
Then it happened.
The sky didn't break, no thunder or explosions.
Just a sudden blue beam shooting down from nowhere.
Bright. Silent. Divine.
For a second, I thought Prithura Electricity Board had invented God Mode.
---
And then people started… vanishing.
Not dying. Not falling.
Just gone.
The momo-wala disappeared mid-steam.
The bakery uncle — vanished.
The stationery shop guy who still owed me two pens — gone.
One blink. One heartbeat.
Half the road — empty.
Bro, it felt like someone deleted the world in front of my eyes.
---
No screams.
No blood.
No sound.
Just silence so thick it made my ears ring.
I looked around, waiting for someone to explain —
maybe a prank, maybe an explosion, maybe something.
But nothing.
The air itself felt heavy, frozen.
Even the pigeons hung mid-air… before they too, vanished.
---
"Great," I muttered,
"first day without EMI stress, and now this.
Definitely a government scheme."
---
For a second, one thought crossed my mind —
maybe this is what it feels like when Thanos snaps his fingers.
---
Every news channel played the same footage —
people vanishing in front of others,
families disappearing mid-conversation,
and a few accidental clips from CCTV cameras.
Scientists called it a spatial anomaly. Politicians called it a natural disaster. And social media? Memes. Millions of them.
But none of the explanations mattered, because no one came back.
For 1.7 years, the world stayed silent.
No one knew if the missing were alive or dead. Cities turned paranoid. Governments locked down crowded places.
Priests called it divine punishment. And the rest of us? We just waited.
Global meetings were held. Research teams were formed. But not a single clue appeared.
Then, 1.7 years later, the beams struck again.
Another wave. Another disappearance. Another set of people — chosen.
By then, I was twenty-three. Governments had already built "Safe Zones,"
but even those couldn't stop the selection.
The Divine Beam, as people now called it, didn't care about borders or laws. It only followed its rhythm — striking crowded places every 1.7 years.
Prithura once had 14 billion people. After the second wave, only 6 billion were left. Almost half the population — gone. But after the third wave, something changed.
They appeared.
The Reclaimers.
That's what we called them — the ones who came back. and reclaimed themselves from the tower
Later, the truth was revealed: The beams weren't killing people — they were transporting them. To another world.
A planet far beyond our reach. And on that planet stood a Tower.
Every chosen person had to climb it — floor by floor, trial by trial. If they reached the 100th floor, they could return home to Prithura. But they didn't come back alone.
With them came the Kalaj — creatures born from the darkness of that other world.
They followed the Reclaimers back, bringing chaos and death.
Only the Reclaimers had the power to fight them — and they did.
From that day on, our world was never the same again.