Some people choose to fight against the wind.
Year 3102.
Civilization is drying
Not with a bang, not with fire and war—but with a whimper. A slow, quiet fading, like the last breath of an old man who has simply decided it's time to let go.
The cities still stand, but their lights have gone out. The streets are empty. Not because people fled, but because there's nowhere left to flee to.
The ground has no life left in it. The sky is just endless gray.
Kyle stands in front of a magnificent machine, looking quietly at the ruined world.
He has lived for five hundred years.
In those five centuries, he traveled everywhere. He read every existing record of governments, religions, cultures, and sciences that still remained. He saw true kindness and terrible greed, often in the same person. He tried every way he could think of to save them—teaching, uniting, legislating, innovating, guiding their beliefs.
None of the gentle ways worked.
Normal thinking didn't help anymore.
The people weren't stupid. They weren't evil. They were just... human. And humans, when faced with extinction, still chose themselves. Still chose the small comfort today over the shared survival tomorrow. Still chose to fight over the last scraps instead of learning to share.
Before the real end came, they destroyed all chances for a future themselves.
But Kyle never stopped believing.
He still believed people could be saved.
Just not with soft, slow methods anymore. Not with patience and kindness and waiting for them to see reason.
He had to take a harder path. A lonelier one. A more dangerous one.
Kyle looks down at his hand.
Qi flows quietly inside him—the power of life, the fuel of time, the deepest strength any civilization can discover. He found it centuries ago. He mastered it. He used it to heal, to build, to teach.
Now he will use it for something else.
The machine he built is waiting. It's a one-time device. When it starts, it will use up everything—his qi, his life, his very existence. There will be no second chances.
It needs life as fuel.
It needs qi as fire.
One life ends, so another beginning can start.
A researcher next to him speaks in a quiet, tired voice. She has been with him for decades. She has watched him try everything, fail at most, keep going anyway.
"Are you sure?" she asks. "No one knows what will happen. No one knows the price. They warned us. Many times."
Kyle slowly looks up.
Wind blows dust across his tired face. He is old now. Not in body—qi has kept him strong—but in his eyes. In the way he holds himself. In the weight he carries.
"We'll go with you," someone else says. A younger man. One of the few who still believe in something.
Another person steps closer and whispers: "You can still stop."
Kyle doesn't answer.
The qi in his hand begins to tremble, just slightly.
Five hundred years of pain and lessons sit heavy in his eyes. He has seen too much to be afraid of death. He has done too much to stop now.
He knows what he carries is bigger than words.
They have prepared everything. There is no going back.
He gives the order.
Everyone raises their hands. They point their palms at the center of the machine. These are the last believers. The ones who trust him completely.
Suddenly, huge amounts of golden qi pour out from all of them—like a silent river rushing into the cold metal.
The machine activates.
The center collapses instantly into something like a tiny black hole. It drinks the light, the sound, the very air around it.
Strong gravity explodes outward. It tears everything apart. Metal screams. The ground cracks. Even light gets pulled and bent, warping into shapes that have no name.
Their bodies start to break down in the gravity.
Their minds slowly melt away.
Five hundred years of memories are pulled out, crushed, gathered, and squeezed smaller and smaller. Tighter and tighter. Until they are no longer memories at all, but something else. Something pure. Something dense enough to cut through time itself.
In that extreme pressure, the memories become a beam—bright, focused, aimed at a target that doesn't exist yet.
Right before everything disappears,
in the deepest darkness, Kyle feels something very small, very quick.
A spark.
Then light swallows it all.
---
When he opens his eyes again, he is small.
The world looks big again—like when he was a little child, before he knew anything, before he tried to save everyone and failed.
Inside his head: five hundred years of future trends, five hundred years of knowledge, five hundred years of never giving up.
The light pours into his young body.
It doesn't hurt. It's too much to hurt. Pain is for things that have room to feel it. His mind is full.
All the pictures, sounds, knowledge, scars, and choices from five centuries flood in like cold water. Like drowning. Like being born and dying at the same time.
The little boy shakes. His eyes open wide for a second—showing deep, ancient sadness that doesn't belong to a child.
Then it hides again.
The memories don't leave. They sink. They bury themselves deep inside him, like a seed pushed into frozen ground. Waiting. Sleeping. Almost forgotten.
He stands there, tiny body shaking under the weight of a whole lost world.
His hair moves in an invisible wind. His fingers tremble, like they're trying to hold something... and let it go.
His mind doesn't break. It just gets filled completely.
To everyone else, he's just a normal teenager now.
But for one short moment, in those new young eyes, you can see it:
the dead gray of a dying world...
and the tiny light of someone trying to start history again.
---
Dear friends,
Although this story starts with a rebirth setup, it is not a quick, overpowered wish-fulfillment tale.
I want to show something different —— a deeper story, with a complex, fully humanity. The tone will grow warmer and even humorous later on.
My hope is to bring you meaningful joy, while exploring life's true purpose.
Do not let class or social limits chain your morality, nor stop you form doing what your heart truly calls you to do.
To me, success is not fame, power, or wealth.
It is living honestly, and following what your soul truly desires.
Those who walk with purpose are the ones I truly respect. And you, my friend —— may you find wisdom and light within this story.
One day, I believe you will become the kind of person worth admiring.
—— Kyle Voss