Recording Log - April 4, 2062
"My name is Orion Lee. Age, 19. Student. Night shift worker. Unremarkable."
A pause.
"Well... mostly."
Orion studied his face in the dim reflection of his cracked window. Dark circles smudged under his eyes from nights spent in front of a screen, hours lost to scrolling through forums and encrypted pages, chasing pieces of a life he barely remembered. This routine had become as familiar as brushing his teeth, the same steps taken in the same order, every day.
"Today's different, though," he muttered, more to himself than the recorder. "Or maybe it's just me."
As always, he began his ritual, examining his face first. No mist today; his reflection was clear, ordinary. With relief, he shut his eyes for a moment, feeling the steadiness of his own breath.
It had been a year since he'd noticed the first traces of his strange gift. At first, it was faint, almost ignorable. A thin, translucent haze around certain people in the street, a dark shadow pooling around a stranger on the bus. Within a few months, the mist became sharper, thicker. And he'd learned what it meant.
The darker the mist, the closer a person was to death.
It was an ability that felt less like a gift and more like a curse. But after his parents' deaths, he couldn't deny its usefulness. The Federation might call it something else if they found out. Weapon, maybe.
Orion opened his eyes, blinked at the mirror, and sighed. He'd gotten used to seeing death; it was just another shadow in a city full of them.
But the strange email from last night—it felt different.
He clicked off the recorder and went through the rest of his routine, splashing cold water on his face, getting dressed, and settling in front of his laptop. His fingers hovered over the keyboard, glancing at the pale glow of early morning. Outside, the day was beginning with a rare brightness. A few clouds drifted lazily across the sky, scattering golden light into his small, dim room.
But he barely noticed.
Today, the sunlight felt like a distraction, an almost unwelcome brightness against the email still waiting in his inbox.
From The Faceless One.
Orion had heard of this name in whispers on the dark web, an alias known to many and seen by few. The Faceless One had been a myth even before Orion was old enough to care about the network of secrets and encrypted exchanges. A digital phantom who'd once hacked into the Federation's highest security systems with one simple promise:
"In ten years, the world will be mine to reshape."
It was strange. He'd never felt the mist around anyone he'd met online before, but reading that email made him think of it. There was a chill to the words, something that made his skin prickle as if he could sense a shadow far beyond the screen.
The message was short and simple:
"I've been watching your work. I think we might have a common goal. Join my game, and you'll find the answers you seek."
The words had made his heart pound, something between fascination and wariness prickling up his spine. Orion's parents had been researchers, brilliant but cautious. He knew enough to recognize the dangers of following an anonymous lead.
But how could he ignore this?
In twelve years of searching, he'd barely scratched the surface of their "accident." Federation records were sealed, public reports scrubbed clean. This was his first real lead.
"Who are you?" he muttered at the empty screen, barely aware he was speaking out loud.
The silence pressed back at him. He read and reread the email, the words burning into his mind, challenging him.
The game. What game? And what kind of answers could it offer?
He clicked his tongue, annoyance bubbling up. It was almost laughable how vague it was. But the very name, The Faceless One, was enough to keep him from dismissing it. Orion had encountered enough conspiracy theorists, enough self-proclaimed hackers on the dark web, but he'd never believed in any of it.
Until now.
His fingers hovered over the keyboard, poised to reply. But he stopped.
"What do you want from me?"
The question escaped him, half-whispered, lost in the stillness of his room. He shook his head, leaning back, letting the light wash over him, and tried to think it through. What would his father have done? His father, always careful, always one step ahead.
He glanced over to his right, where a stack of old photos sat beside a box of files he'd taken from his parents' study when he was younger. The papers were heavily redacted, meaningless to him back then, but now he knew they held pieces of the puzzle. The image of his father's face flickered in his mind, reminding him of their last conversation, the day he'd told him to be careful—no matter what.
"Answers," he said softly. "I can't ignore this, can I?"
His only response was the empty hum of his room.
The room's silence stretched, heavy with the weight of that single email. He tapped his fingers against the desk, listening to the soft patter. The Faceless One. It was a name that made him think of something formless, something vast and unreachable.
For a moment, he imagined it. A world where people could see death, where shadows marked everyone's end. Would that be the future The Faceless One wanted to shape? He didn't know, but he couldn't ignore it.
Orion's finger hovered over the keyboard one last time, then, in a moment of decision, he clicked reply.
"Tell me more about your game."
The message sent.
He exhaled, surprised by the tightness in his chest, the way his heart hammered as if he'd done something far more dangerous than sending an email. But he could feel it now, a tremor at the edge of his mind, the faintest sense of unease that reminded him of the mist—lingering, yet unseen.
Closing his laptop, he stood up, stretching, glancing outside. The sun was rising higher, casting sharp shadows across the city below. It was almost too bright, too clean against the weight that settled back over him.
As he stood there, Orion thought about the countless unanswered questions he had, each one like a small weight pulling him forward, deeper into the shadows.
And somewhere in that list of questions, he found a new one, quiet but insistent:
What if he couldn't get back out?