Noel stood at the edge of the Emotional Rift, watching the swirling waves of dark energy that crashed like thunderous waves. His mind, as always, was a blank slate—emotionless. The world around him was alive with color, but it meant nothing to him. Feelings had no place in his existence. Or so he thought.
The Rift was a place where emotions ran wild, uncontrolled. A dangerous zone for those who couldn't withstand its chaotic energy. But for Noel, it was home. No one knew how or why he had survived here as long as he had. He was just a boy—a boy who couldn't feel. A boy who didn't care.
At least, that's what he kept telling himself.
But something had changed recently. A subtle shift in the air, something that itched at the edges of his awareness. He had been sensing something. Something wrong.
"It's not just the Rift that's changing, Noel. It's you."
Kael stood behind him, leaning casually against a weathered pillar. Kael's face was the opposite of Noel's—full of emotion. The gleam of excitement in his eyes was hard to miss, like he thrived off of it. He was an Emotion Manipulator, someone who could channel his feelings to manipulate the world around him.
"Kael, shut up." Noel's voice was hollow, flat, devoid of any inflection.
Kael grinned, unfazed. "You can't just keep pretending, Noel. You feel it, don't you? Something's off."
Noel didn't respond. He didn't want to admit it. Kael's words felt like they were clawing at the walls of his mind. Noel didn't need to feel. Not anymore.
But the tension in the air… the discordant energy… He couldn't ignore it. Something was changing. Something inside him.
"You need to learn how to feel, Noel. Or you'll die here."
A shiver ran down Noel's spine as he turned to face her. Alira, the Tethered Oracle, was the last person he wanted to see. She had the uncanny ability to see into the core of people's emotions—and often, she was the first to notice when someone was about to break.
Her eyes locked onto him with a sharp, knowing gaze. "The Rift isn't the real threat anymore. It's your emotions. They're stirring. You're going to explode."
"No. I'm not," Noel responded coldly.
Alira didn't flinch. "You might not want to, but the emotions inside you are reaching a breaking point. The Rift is reacting to you, Noel. Your power is amplifying."
Kael laughed, stepping closer. "He's right, you know. You can't ignore this forever. If you don't deal with your emotions, they'll destroy you. You'll tear this whole place apart."
Noel clenched his fists, his body trembling slightly. He was not weak. He didn't need emotions. But the Rift was alive. And now, it was whispering something to him.
An echo. A cry for help.
The ground beneath them shuddered, and suddenly, the Rift flickered. For a moment, the world twisted as a massive pulse of emotional energy erupted from the core of the Rift. It sent a shockwave through the air, tearing at the fabric of reality itself.
Alira's voice was barely audible over the roar of the Rift. "It's beginning. The last stage has started."
Noel's eyes widened. His chest tightened. For the first time, he felt something stir within him—something uncontrollable.
He could hear the Rift's cry, but he wasn't sure what it meant. Destruction? Creation? Or was it simply pain?
The world around him blurred, the edges of his vision darkening. His hands trembled. His emotions were rising, unbidden. He had no control over them.
"Noel!" Kael shouted, his voice filled with concern. "You have to control it—now!"
But it was too late. The Rift was responding to him, and he was responding to it. A storm of chaotic feelings swirled within him, and before he could stop it, the world around him bent.
Time seemed to slow. The emotions—rage, fear, longing, and pain—flowed through him, turning the very air into a battlefield. The ground cracked, and reality itself began to unravel.
Noel closed his eyes.
This… this was it. He could feel it. The weight of all the emotions that had been bottled up inside him for so long were now free.
And now… he would have to decide how to shape them.
The world was once ordinary.
No one knew that the quiet hum of the universe hid a secret, buried deep beneath the layers of reality. It was a time before the Rift, before the world understood the power of emotions.
Humanity had existed for a long time, striving to dominate nature, conquer the elements, and explore the stars. But their greatest limitation wasn't their technology or their strength. It was their emotions—volatile, unpredictable, and fragile.
Then, something changed.
It started with a whisper—a faint tremor in the air. At first, it was dismissed. Minor disturbances, strange magnetic fields, and reports of unusual energy surges. No one could quite explain it. But as the years passed, the incidents grew more frequent. The atmosphere itself seemed to breathe, like the world was alive, shifting and changing.
One fateful day, an expansion of energy—a pulse that could not be ignored—ripped through the fabric of the world. It tore through the heavens, leaving behind a vast chasm in the earth: the Rift.
At first, no one dared approach it. The Rift was a living, breathing wound in reality, pulsing with raw energy. To those who dared to venture close, the very air felt heavy, like a storm waiting to break. But then something happened. The Rift spoke.
It wasn't words—at least, not in the traditional sense. It was a sudden, blinding feeling—a surge of emotions so intense that it overwhelmed the senses.
Fear. Anger. Hope. Pain. Love. The emotions of humanity, all at once, distilled into pure energy.
The first to tap into this newfound power were the scientists, desperate to understand what lay beyond the Rift. They thought they could harness it, contain it, use it for their own means. But they were wrong.
One such scientist, Dr. Marcellus Voss, found himself the first victim of the Rift's power. Driven by an insatiable curiosity, he ventured too close, and in an instant, the Rift's energy merged with his own mind.
In that moment, Dr. Voss understood what no one else did. The Rift wasn't just a source of power—it was a reflection of the unseen, the raw undercurrent of human existence. Emotions weren't just feelings. They were forces—forceful enough to reshape reality itself.
The scientist's body contorted in agony as the emotional energy flooded him, but when the light faded, something new emerged. Dr. Voss had become the first Emotion Manipulator—a human being whose emotions could physically manifest and bend reality.
At first, the power was chaos. Those who gained the ability to manipulate emotions were often overwhelmed. Anger caused storms. Grief split the sky. Joy turned cities to gold. The world was on the brink of collapse, as emotional energy grew uncontrollable.
But humanity, always adaptable, began to learn. Slowly, people discovered how to focus their emotions, how to direct them. The most powerful individuals—known as the Tethered—could harness their feelings and concentrate them, using their inner turmoil to shape the world.
At the same time, a group of emotionless humans appeared—people like Noel—individuals who felt nothing, could not be influenced by the power of the Rift. They were seen as anomalies, blank slates in a world charged with feelings. But what humanity didn't know was that these emotionless people held the key to controlling the Rift itself.
And so began the Age of Emotion, a world where emotions were no longer personal. They were tools, weapons, and the foundation of reality.
The first real conflict occurred when two powerful Tethered leaders, Liora and Talon, fought over the control of the Rift. Liora believed that the Rift should be preserved, its power kept pure, untainted by manipulation. Talon, on the other hand, believed that the Rift could be used to remake the world, to reshape it in his image.
Their war was unlike anything the world had seen—cities crumbled, continents shifted, and time itself bent to their emotional forces. It was only after the Great Collapse that the Rift was sealed. The damage done was immense, and humanity had to rebuild itself, learning from the ruins.
But the Rift was not gone. It continued to pulse, sending ripples of energy through the world. New Rift Zones began to form, places where the fabric of reality was thin, where emotions could run wild and uncontrollable.
And within those Zones, the power of emotions could be used to warp the very fabric of the world. Emotions became the most valuable—and dangerous—resource in the world.
Humanity would never be the same again.
Now, centuries later, the world has learned to live with the Rift's influence. But something has changed. The Rift is stirring again, and its influence is growing stronger. Noel, born with the rare gift of being emotionless, holds the key to unlocking—or destroying—the very power that shapes reality.
And with it, the future of the world will depend on his ability to control the emotions of others... and his own.