The sky over Ashfall City didn't look like a sky anymore. It looked like a bruised, purple vein about to burst.
Rain hammered the asphalt of the University district with a violence that felt personal. Each drop was heavy, cold, and carried a faint metallic scent that Aiden Kael couldn't quite place. He stood by the floor-to-ceiling window of his dormitory, his reflection ghostly against the backdrop of flickering neon advertisements for brands that, by tomorrow, wouldn't exist.
Aiden pressed his palm against the glass. The vibration of the thunder felt like it was rattling his very bones. For the last 365 days, the world had been dying in slow motion. The "Great Erratic," the scientists called it. One day, the Sahara was under three feet of snow; the next, London was sweltering in 50°C heat. Governments had stopped giving answers; they had started giving evacuation routes.
But Aiden's world was smaller than global catastrophes. His world was a cramped dorm room, a pile of unfinished engineering assignments, and the constant, gnawing worry for his family.
His mind drifted—as it often did—to Elara.
His mother had brought her home ten years ago. A silent girl with eyes too big for her face, who had lost everything in a coastal flood. Over a decade, she hadn't just become a sister; she was the heartbeat of the Kael household. While Aiden's father dealt with the bureaucracy of a crumbling government and his mother sought refuge in 19th-century literature, it was Elara who kept them grounded.
"Aiden, don't forget your scarf," she had teased him when he left for the semester. "The world is ending, but you'll still catch a cold."
The memory was a sharp ache in his chest. He reached for his phone, but the screen was a dead slab of glass. The network had collapsed an hour ago.
Then, the silence hit.
It wasn't a natural silence. It was as if someone had pressed 'Mute' on the entire universe. The rain was still falling, but the sound was gone. The distant sirens—gone.
Even the hum of the dormitory's ventilation—gone.
Aiden's ears rang. He stepped back from the window, his heart beginning a frantic, uneven rhythm.
"Hello?" he called out. His own voice sounded flat, muffled, as if he were underwater.
CRACK.
The sound wasn't in the room. It was in his head.
The floor tilted violently. Aiden was thrown against his desk, his hip bruising instantly. The walls of the dorm groaned, the concrete screaming under a pressure that shouldn't exist. He watched in horror as thin, hairline fractures raced across the ceiling like lightning.
And then came the light.
It didn't come from a lamp or the sun. It bled out of the very air—a sickly, ethereal green glow that coalesced into shimmering geometric patterns. They looked like equations from a nightmare, rotating in complex, multi-dimensional layers around his body.
[ SOUL NEXUS — INITIALIZATION ]
The voice was cold. It wasn't human. It was the sound of grinding gears and absolute logic. It echoed not in his ears, but directly in the folds of his brain.
[ Detection: All sentient lifeforms synchronized. ]
[ Global Status: Chaotic Shift phase initiated. ]
[ Objective: Survival through Adaptation. ]
"What... what are you?" Aiden gasped, sliding down the side of his bed, his knuckles white as he gripped the frame.
[ STATUS WINDOW]
Name: Aiden Kael
Race: Human
Level: 0
Job: None
---------------------
Strength: 12 (Base: 10)
Agility: 11 (Base: 10)
Vitality: 10 (Base: 10)
Mana: 109 (Normal Range: 0)
[WARNING: EXTREME ANOMALY]
Magic Control: 10 (Base: 0)
Aiden stared at the number 109. It was highlighted in a pulsing crimson light, unlike the calm blue of the other stats.
Anomaly. The word tasted like copper in his mouth.
The silence broke.
A scream erupted from the hallway—a sound so raw, so stripped of humanity, that it made Aiden's blood turn to ice. It was followed by a wet, tearing noise, like someone ripping through heavy canvas.
SMASH!
The dormitory window, reinforced against the storm, exploded inward. Shards of glass sliced through the air like shrapnel.
Aiden shielded his face, feeling a sharp sting as a piece nicked his cheek.
Through the jagged hole, a creature crawled.
It had once been a man. It wore a tattered university hoodie, but the skin beneath was the color of a drowned corpse. Its limbs were elongated, the joints clicking with every unnatural movement. Its eyes were milky white, devoid of a pupil, yet they locked onto him with a terrifying, singular focus.
The creature hissed, a sound that bypassed his ears and vibrated in his teeth. It lunged, its fingers—now tipped with jagged, blackened nails—clawing at the air.
"Get back!" Aiden screamed, his survival instinct finally overriding his shock.
He grabbed his heavy wooden desk chair. As the creature leaped, Aiden swung with every ounce of terror-fueled strength he possessed. The chair leg caught the creature mid-air, slamming into its ribcage.
Aiden felt the resistance of bone snapping. The zombie was thrown back against the wall, but it didn't stop. It didn't feel pain. It scrambled back up, its neck twisting at a 90-degree angle, and hissed again.
I'm going to die here, Aiden thought. I'll never see Elara again.
That thought sparked something. The 109 Mana inside him reacted to his despair. A jolt of electricity—or something like it—shot through his veins. His vision sharpened. The creature's next move seemed... slower.
As the zombie lunged again, Aiden didn't just swing. He stepped into the strike. He felt a surge of warmth flow from his chest down to his arms. The wooden chair didn't just hit the zombie; it seemed to carry the weight of a falling truck.
The impact was cataclysmic. The creature's head was driven into the concrete wall, shattering like a dry gourd.
Aiden stood there, chest heaving, holding the splintered remains of the chair. A thread of pale, misty energy rose from the corpse. Before he could move, it dived into his chest.
[ First Order Skill: Assimilation (Level 1) Acquired ]
[ Residual Essence of 'Fallen Student' absorbed. ]
[ Strength +1 ]
[ Warning: The Nexus hungers. Do not let the hunger consume you. ]
He looked at the door. More screams were echoing now. The world had broken, and Aiden Kael had just taken his first bite of the pieces.