{The original}
Pain.
It was the first thing I felt. Sharp, searing, and all-encompassing. It wasn't the kind of pain you could push through or ignore; it was the kind that consumed you, made you question your existence.
And then it was gone, replaced by a hollow numbness and a ringing in my ears that seemed to stretch on forever.
I opened my eyes slowly, blinking against the light—or what I thought was light. The sky above was wrong. Colors I didn't recognize swirled and danced, greens and purples bleeding into each other like watercolors spilled on canvas. The air around me felt heavy, charged with a static hum that prickled my skin.
I tried to move, but my body protested with sharp aches and a leaden weight that felt unnatural. I was lying on cold, cracked stone, surrounded by fragments of metal and glass. The ground beneath me seemed to pulse faintly, as though alive, but when I pressed my hand against it, it was solid and unyielding.
I sat up with a groan, my hand instinctively reaching for my head. My fingers came away sticky with blood—not a lot, but enough to quicken my heartbeat. My clothes were a mess: dark, utilitarian, and torn in places, revealing bruised skin beneath. A harness of some kind was strapped across my chest, lined with what looked like wires or conduits.
What was this?
More importantly... who was I?
The thought hit me like a punch to the gut. My mind was a foggy void, with only fragments of memory flickering like distant stars in a cloudy sky. Faces. Voices. Places. They came and went too quickly to grasp, leaving me with a profound sense of loss.
A single word surfaced, unbidden, like a whisper in the dark: Kael.
It felt right, but it brought no comfort. If I was Kael, then why couldn't I remember anything else?
I forced myself to my feet, ignoring the protests of my battered body. The city—or what was left of it—stretched out before me. Towering structures jutted into the swirling sky like skeletal fingers, their surfaces scarred and weathered. Streets littered with debris snaked between them, the remnants of vehicles and machinery scattered like toys abandoned by a careless child.
The silence was deafening. No voices, no footsteps, no signs of life. Only the faint hum in the air and the occasional groan of metal shifting somewhere in the distance.
I began to walk, though I had no idea where I was going. Every step felt like an act of willpower, as though the ground itself resisted me. My legs were stiff, my balance unsteady, but I pressed on, driven by an urgency I couldn't explain.
The first sign of life—or what passed for it—came when I turned a corner and nearly stumbled over a body.
No, not a body.
It was humanoid in shape but clearly mechanical, a grotesque fusion of flesh and metal. Its limbs were jointed like a puppet's, the metal scorched and pitted. The torso was encased in armor, but it bore deep gashes, exposing wiring and components that sparked faintly. The head was the worst: a cracked helmet with a shattered visor, through which a single, dimly glowing eye stared lifelessly.
I felt a strange pull toward it, as though it held some answer to the questions swirling in my mind. My hand hovered over its shattered chest, and for a moment, I thought I could hear something—a faint whisper, a flicker of static.
And then it was gone.
Pain flared in my head again, sharp and sudden, driving me to my knees. Images flooded my mind: machines, wires, a blinding light. Voices overlapping, too fast and too loud to make sense of. A name, deep and commanding, reverberated through the chaos: The Nexus.
I gasped, clutching my head as the fragments of memory slipped away, leaving me more confused than before.
A sound jolted me back to the present—a faint clanking, like metal striking stone. My head snapped up, my eyes scanning the ruins for the source. For a moment, there was nothing. Then, in the distance, I saw movement: a glimmer of light reflecting off something metallic.
I wasn't alone.
My instincts screamed at me to run, but I hesitated. Where would I go? This city was an endless maze, and I had no sense of direction or purpose. Still, staying here wasn't an option. I turned and ran, my boots crunching against the debris-strewn ground.
The clanking grew louder, more rhythmic, echoing off the buildings around me. My pulse raced, my breaths coming in shallow gasps as I darted down an alleyway. It was narrow and choked with rubble, but I pushed through, the sound of pursuit growing ever closer.
Ahead, the alley opened into a courtyard of sorts, surrounded by the skeletal remains of buildings. In the center stood an obelisk, tall and angular, made of a black metal that seemed to absorb the chaotic light of the sky.
I skidded to a halt, torn between fear and curiosity. The obelisk pulsed faintly, its surface etched with symbols I couldn't read, but felt I should recognize. There was something about it—something familiar.
The clanking was deafening now. I turned, and my blood ran cold.
Emerging from the alley was a figure—a towering machine, humanoid in shape but unmistakably inhuman. Its limbs were thick and angular, its chest glowing faintly with an internal light. Its head was featureless, save for a single, piercing red eye that locked onto me with an intensity that sent a chill down my spine.
Run.
The thought was immediate and instinctive. I bolted toward the obelisk, my heart pounding in my ears. The ground trembled beneath me as the machine gave chase, its footsteps heavy and deliberate.
I reached the obelisk and hesitated, unsure of what to do. The symbols on its surface seemed to shift and writhe, as though alive. My hand trembled as I reached out, driven by a force I couldn't explain.
The moment my fingers touched the cold metal, a surge of energy shot through me. The world around me blurred and twisted, the colors of the sky bleeding together into a blinding white.
For a moment, I felt weightless, unbound by gravity or form. And then, with a deafening crack, everything went dark.