Five years ago
His eyes fluttered open to the glare of a sun that was too bright. He was lying on rough, dry earth. He tried to move, but his limbs were heavy, his muscles screaming in protest.
He remembered the water, the terrifying, instantaneous surge of water that had flooded the desert, an anomaly, a sudden lake in a place where only sand should be.
He remembered the feeling of drowning, the panic he hadn't felt since he was eleven.
Then, the Flying Man.
He was in a small, windowless structure made of metal sheeting. felt like a box oven. He pushed himself up, ignoring the nausea that swam in his vision.
He was wearing different clothes. Not his rags. This was soft, light canvas, surprisingly clean.
"They changed me. Don't touch me". The immediate, desperate urge to flee was a physical knot in his chest. I need to find a way out.
He stood up, swaying, and moved toward the only opening, a doorway covered by a flap of heavy cloth.
As he reached it, the flap was pushed aside, and she stepped in.
A Lady.
She was in her early twenties, a mass of ginger curls pulled back loosely enough to frame a face lightly dusted with fine freckles. Her eyes were startlingly light green, sharp and observant, contrasting with full lips pressed into a thin, cautious line.
She held a battered lantern that cast stark shadows on the corrugated metal walls. Her clothes were made of a dark, heavy canvas and smelled faintly, comfortingly, of woodsmoke.
Cyrus felt the usual surge of self-consciousness. "She's looking at my clothes. Did I bleed on them? Why is she here? I need to look away. Don't meet her eyes. She'll ask questions".
He forced his gaze down, but he wasn't flustered. His mind instantly went clinical. He was not embarrassed. She was merely an element in his current quest of survival.
In her other hand, she held a tiny, makeshift cup, steam rising from the liquid inside.
"So… Hi there." Her voice was measured, level, almost entirely devoid of inflection.
Cyrus reached out his left hand…his dominant hand, the one with the Pattern that he instinctively hid from view…and took the cup. He didn't know what it was, but he drank it.
"Yeah… Hello. Where is he?" His voice was rough, unused, the words brittle.
The ginger-haired woman tilted her head, her light eyes assessing him. "Who?"
"Flying man."
"Oh, Mr. Elias!" A flash of understanding crossed her features, quickly shuttered. "He's at the lake. How old are you if you don't mind me asking?"
Cyrus stared into the cup. He hated that question. It was a language he'd failed to learn, a concept his mother had poisoned. He could not form the word 'seventeen,' because the numbers had been replaced by a system of survival metrics.
"One seven… I don't know what that means… but my mother said I was one one, long ago, and it has been one-nine-eight since…"
He felt the familiar surge of bile rise up, the physical manifestation of his trauma. He held his breath, forcing the nausea down, clamping his jaw.
The woman didn't react to his obvious distress. Her assessment remained purely intellectual. "You know basic English, but you can't pronounce numbers… weird."
The silence that followed stretched. A minute, maybe longer. He felt her examining him, the rags, the rough skin.
"Say something. Ask her name. Ask her why they saved you. No, don't. Questions lead to answers, and answers lead to obligations. Just stand here. Don't break eye contact, but don't challenge her either. Be boring. She will leave".
The silence, however, was broken by the man who had saved him.
Elias was tall, wide-shouldered, and perhaps fifty years old. He had a strong, kind face framed by windswept black hair and the confident, grounded demeanor of a person who knew the rules of the world and chose to ignore them.
He carried a faint, unplaceable accent. Elias gestured toward the door flap with a slight nod. The woman, without a word, obeyed and slipped out.
Cyrus was left alone with the Man. He looked at Elias, cataloging his size, his potential danger. Elias didn't look like a threat, but Cyrus had learned that survival required absolute distrust.
Elias spoke first, his voice deep but gentle. "You're awake. Good." He sat down on a box, crossing his arms. "I have to ask, why aren't you afraid? Why aren't you untrusting?"
Cyrus just stared. He didn't speak. He wasn't sure if his voice would work, and he didn't want to waste the limited emotional energy on an answer he knew Elias wouldn't understand.
Elias waited out the silence, then nodded slowly. "I suppose you don't have to answer. I know you're a Nomad, walking these lands. How long have you been walking?"
Cyrus replied with the only true answer he had. "One-nine-eight."
Elias's eyes widened slightly. "One hundred and ninety-eight Shifts. Six years. On your own. I'm amazed, kid. Truly." He paused, the look in his eyes shifting from curiosity to a heavy, empathetic sadness.
"You were abandoned, weren't you? That kind of solitude doesn't happen by choice."
Cyrus remained still. The answer was a truth he didn't want to voice.
Elias continued, his tone turning serious. "What is your goal, Cyne? Why are you still alive? What do you want to find?"
"I want to find her. I want to find the first Shift. I want to know why I was left behind."
He couldn't say any of that. It felt like handing Elias a weapon.
"I don't know you," Cyrus finally managed, his voice a low gravel.
Elias smiled, a small, sad upturn of his lips. "A fair point. But how did you survive six years out there with that attitude? I think it's just a front. Six years alone, it becomes the mask, doesn't it?"
Cyrus met his gaze, the words that always worked on others tumbling out, flat and final. "They're all dead."
Elias sighed, the sound loud in the small hut. "Yes, well. Everyone dies on Tessera eventually. But you're still hiding something. I know it."
He leaned forward, dropping the gentle tone. "I'm trying to stop the Shifts. Or at least, find a way to mitigate their destructiveness. I need help. You are a survivor. Help me."
Cyrus felt the internal pressure build. "No. I only need her. I can't stop the world. Survival is all that matters"
"I can't."
Elias leaned back, conceding the point. "Alright. But you can stay. With me and the Lady. It's safer than wandering."
Cyrus wanted to refuse. His instinct was to run. But his body felt weak, his power…his only shield…was fatigued. The logic of the proposition overrode the paranoia. "Accept the temporary alliance. Gather strength. Then leave".
He nodded, a barely perceptible movement. "Okay."
Elias smiled genuinely this time. As he turned, his eyes caught something on Cyrus's wrist. He reached out, gently pulling back the light canvas sleeve.
The faint, curved line of the pattern was exposed.
"Ah," Elias murmured. "So you do have one. You know nothing about it, do you?"
Cyrus shook his head. "Well you're about to".
Cyrus settled in not well, but physically. He was given a corner of the small hut, a thin mattress, and regular meals of what Elias called "Chimera Chicken", a surprisingly edible meat from a bird-like creature.
He avoided the hut as much as possible, drawn instead to the environment that Elias lived in. Beyond the metallic shack was a small, protected area: a circular grass field, vibrantly green, bordered by a dense ring of healthy flowers and trees that looked untouched by the Shifts.
At the corner was a clean, clear lake, the source of the flash flood that had almost killed him. It was a pocket of the 'old world,' and the contrast to the desolate, shifting landscape just beyond the perimeter was jarring.
This shouldn't exist, he thought, sitting near the lake on the second day. It's too stable. He spent his days observing. The grass was real. The lake was real.
The Lady, whose name he now knew was Ren, was the hut's main presence. She was the antithesis of the quiet field: sharp, detached, and stuck up about her own intense, cold logic.
His first interaction with her after the rescue was his first lesson. Elias had insisted.
"You're seventeen, Cyrus," The Lady, who was referred to as Rem, had said gently. "You need to know how many years you've survived."
Cyrus hated the name 'Cyrus.' It was the name his mother had used.
The lesson took place on the evening of the third day. Ren sat opposite him at a small, collapsible table, a scraped piece of metal serving as a slate.
"This is one," she stated, pointing to the digit '1' written in chalk. "This is one and seven, or seventeen."
Cyrus stared at the scribbled symbols. He knew what they meant, conceptually, but applying the words and symbols to his own existence felt impossible.
"One and one," he mumbled, pointing to the '17'. "One-seven."
Ren sighed, a sound of acute intellectual frustration that was worse than a yell. "No. Seventeen. The T sound. Say it, Cyrus."
"Don't correct me. I don't care about your vowel sounds. I just need to leave."
He stared at her. "One-seven."
"You are making this intentionally difficult," she snapped, pushing the chalk across the table. Her eyes weren't angry, just impatient. "You understand the basic structure of the English language. Your vocabulary is complex. Why do you struggle with numbers?"
"Because the numbers would keep reminding me that she left me"
He couldn't say that. The words were a lead weight in his throat.
Instead, he retreated, his inner voice taking over, mocking her.
"She thinks I'm stupid. She thinks I'm a waste of her time. I bet she thinks I'm a child."
He fixed his face into the flat, indifferent expression he'd perfected. "I do not need them".
"You need them for Iteration," Ren countered immediately. "The mathematics of Pattern amplification are based on numerical sequences. You can't just feel it. Try again."
They spent another hour in this sterile conflict.
Ren was baffled by his psychological block, Cyrus was baffled by her complete lack of emotional intelligence.
Later, sitting outside in the grass field, he felt the cool air of the evening on his skin. He realized that this place…this fragile, beautiful bubble of stability…was the most dangerous thing he had encountered in six years. It was eroding his defenses.
He was seventeen, yet felt like a quiet, edgy ten-year-old forced into a room with two adults.
Elias found him there on the fourth day, the sun high and bright. He didn't speak immediately, just lowered himself onto the grass next to Cyrus.
"The world is terrifying," Elias said softly, looking up at the bright blue sky, a stark contrast to the shifting wastelands. "And yet, so beautiful."
Cyrus nodded.
"I want to leave," Cyrus said, the words surprising even himself with their sudden clarity.
Elias didn't flinch. "To go where? Back to counting shifts and eating scraps? To the end of getting caught in a shift, or being mauled by Chimera?"
"I'm fine with it."
Elias sighed, the heavy sound that was fast becoming a habit. He turned to face Cyrus. "Whatever you want, kid. Go. You can even go and die out there. I won't stop you."
The challenge didn't work. Cyrus didn't move. He was smart enough to recognize the truth: he needed Elias. He needed to understand the Pattern on his wrist, which was currently nothing more than a glorified tattoo. He needed strength, and Elias was offering.
Elias saw the hesitation, the reluctant calculation in the boy's eyes. "I know it, don't I? You need me for any chance of survival that isn't running and hiding."
Cyrus finally, faintly, released his own sigh. The internal battle was lost.
"I want to find my lost friend," Cyrus admitted, the admission feeling like a sudden jab to his chest.
"She got lost one-nine-eight Shifts ago. I'm too weak to find her."
Elias leaned forward, his face serious but encouraging. "Then we fix the weak part. The Shifts are getting more dangerous. You won't survive another six years on instinct alone. You need to grow that power, Cyrus."
Cyrus stood up. His face was set. The terms were accepted.
"Tell me… how did you fly?" he asked, the question the most genuine curiosity Elias had yet heard from him.
Elias stood up, stretching.
He smiled, tapping his own wrist, which bore a faint, half-circle symbol, the same as his..
"It's all in the wrist, kid. Get up. If ya wanna get out there, ya need to grow that power of yours."
They walked out into the grass field, standing opposite each other.
The lesson…and the story…was finally ready to begin