Christopher Turner grew up in the shadowy alleys and grey skies of Stoke-on-Trent. It was a city of brick and smoke, where industry once thrived but now lingered like a ghost.
Even as a child, Christopher knew he was different. He would hear whispers in the silence, voices that seemed to come from nowhere. Faces would flicker in the corners of his vision, melting into shadows when he turned to look. At first, he thought everyone experienced this—after all, didn't all children have imaginary friends?
But by the time he was eight, it was clear that his visions weren't imaginary.
The whispers grew louder, more insistent. At school, he would flinch at the sound of a bell only to realise it hadn't rung. At home, he'd have conversations with people who weren't there, his parents' worried glances following him wherever he went.
His father, Dave Turner, was the only one who tried to understand. "Chris, mate," he'd say, ruffling his son's messy hair, "maybe your mind's just too big for the world. You've got to find a way to let it out, or it'll eat you alive."
But Christopher didn't know how to let it out.
By the time Christopher was a teenager, the whispers had become unbearable. The visions were no longer fleeting—they lingered, vivid and grotesque, as though reality itself was mocking him. He started skipping school, spending hours wandering the city, trying to drown out the noise in his head.
One night, he found himself in an abandoned warehouse where a group of older boys were passing around bottles of cheap spirits and hastily rolled joints. Desperate for relief, Christopher joined them.
The first hit was like a revelation. The voices faded, the edges of the world softened, and for the first time in years, he felt like he could breathe.
What began as occasional use spiralled quickly into something more. By the time he turned sixteen, Christopher had become his own pharmacist, mixing and matching substances in an attempt to quiet his mind. But the more he used it, the stranger things became.
Christopher's first real brush with his powers came on a cold autumn night. He had taken something new, a cocktail of pills and powder that sent his mind spiralling into a kaleidoscope of colour and sound.
He stumbled into the street, laughing at the way the lampposts seemed to bend and twist. But as he walked, he noticed something strange: the world wasn't just bending in his mind—it was bending around him.
The cobblestones under his feet rippled like water. A cat leapt from a windowsill and froze mid-air, hovering as though caught in amber. When Christopher reached out to touch the wall of a nearby building, it melted under his fingers, revealing a swirling void beneath.
He stared at his hand, the realisation hitting him like a freight train. He wasn't just hallucinating. He was changing the world.
By the time the bombs fell, Christopher was twenty-two, living alone in a dingy flat littered with the remnants of his experiments. He had long since alienated his friends and family, including his father, who had passed away a year earlier.
He was in the middle of a high when the sirens began to wail. At first, he thought it was another trick of his mind, but when the first explosion rocked the city, he knew it was real.
Christopher stumbled outside, the air thick with smoke and panic. He watched as mushroom clouds rose on the horizon, their fiery blooms consuming everything in their path.
For days after the blast, he wandered the ruins of Stoke-on-Trent, his mind a haze of grief and confusion. It wasn't until he returned to his flat that he saw his father sitting at the kitchen table.
"Chris, mate," Dave said, his voice as warm as ever. "You look like hell."
Christopher froze, his heart pounding in his chest. "Dad?"
"Who else?" Dave said, gesturing to the chair across from him. "Come on, sit down. You look like you need a chat."
For a week, Christopher talked to his father as though nothing had changed. They reminisced about old times, joked about his mother's terrible cooking, and even played a game of cards.
It wasn't until the smell hit him—the sickly, unmistakable stench of decay—that Christopher realized the truth. His father wasn't alive. He never had been.
Christopher stared at the rotting corpse slumped in the chair, his mind racing. The voices, the visions, the bending of reality—it all came crashing down on him. He wasn't haunted. He was broken.
Or maybe, he thought, he was something else entirely.
Reeling from the revelation, Christopher retreated to his bedroom, the one place that still felt safe. He lit a cigarette, took a deep drag, and reached for the concoction of pills and powders that had become his solace.
He was mid-inhale when the air around him shimmered and tore like fabric. A burst of shadow and light filled the room, and before he could react, a figure crashed onto his bed.
The woman—tall, cloaked, and crackling with dark energy—scrambled to her feet, an arrow of pure shadow nocked in her bow and aimed directly at him.
"Where am I?" she demanded, her emerald eyes blazing.
Christopher blinked, his cigarette dangling from his lips. "You're in my room," he said, his tone bemused. "And you're either a very vivid hallucination or the most interesting thing to happen to me since the world ended."
She didn't lower her bow. "This isn't Celantheris."
"Don't know what that is, love," Christopher said, gesturing vaguely. "But welcome to Earth. Or what's left of it."
That night marked the start of something Christopher could only describe as surreal. The woman, who eventually introduced herself as Alora was as out of place in his crumbling flat as he was in the world itself.
But for the first time in his life, Christopher felt like he wasn't alone.