He woke with a strangled gasp, his chest heaving as though he'd just clawed his way to the surface after drowning. His body shuddered against the uneven ground beneath him. A deafening silence pressed against his ears, thick and suffocating, yet his pulse hammered in his skull like a frantic war drum.
The air surrounding him—heavy and pungent—felt wrong, as if it had been tainted by something beyond his comprehension. He breathed in, choking on the strange, metallic taste that clung to the back of his throat, making every inhalation feel unnatural.
He tried to move, but his limbs felt distant, unresponsive—like they belonged to someone else. They were heavy and sluggish, each attempt to rise only sent him crashing back down, a frustrating, helpless weight. His fingers scraped against the rough terrain, seeking something but finding nothing solid to grip. It was as if the ground beneath him was made of liquid earth—shifting, unstable, refusing to be held.
With effort, he blinked, his eyelids dragging open like they were weighed down by lead, each flutter of his lashes sending a sharp pain piercing his skull. His vision swam in an incoherent blur, a mess of color and shadow, shifting and twisting. His surroundings felt as if they were constantly in motion, too fast for him to grasp. Every time he tried to focus, the world twisted and broke apart again, a smear of shapes and colors, it was as if reality itself refused to be seen.
Shapes began to form at the edges of his sight, flickering in and out of focus, too fleeting to grasp, too elusive to understand. They danced just beyond his reach, teasing his senses with promise of clarity but pulling away the moment he tried to fixate on them.
The man sucked in a sharp breath as he forced his eyes open again, a new, desperate resolve pushing him through the pain. The world continued to warp and twist around him, but slowly, gradually, shapes began to emerge from the blur. His vision sharpened in fractured glimpses, like piecing together a puzzle with missing pieces. The chaos of light and color twisted into shapes—barely discernible, yet present.
It took everything in him to hold on, to anchor himself to these fragile pieces. Bit by bit, the edges of his vision finally stopped shifting, settling into something more stable, though still distorted. And there—there, above him—he saw it.
The sky loomed overhead, an endless expanse that felt both foreign and disorienting. Its hues bled together in a surreal display of swirling purples, bruised and dark, mingling with the deep, unnatural red of dried blood. Wisps of strange clouds twisted like tendrils of smoke, shifting in ways that defied logic, curling and vanishing into the vastness. The very heavens above him seemed to be watching.
But it was the presence in the sky that took his breath away—a presence that seemed to warp the very fabric of the sky. It was a sun, but unlike any sun he had ever known. Its surface was an obsidian black, a perfect, inky void that absorbed light rather than casting it. The edge of the black sun shimmered, rippling with a strange, liquid-like aura that pulsed in waves, as if it were alive.
There was no warmth to it, no blinding brilliance to force him to look away. It hung in the sky with eerie stillness, a dark, unmoving blot against the swirling chaos of the unnatural hues. Its presence was utterly wrong, yet undeniably captivating. The world around it seemed to bend and distort, as if the very air trembled in the black sun's gaze. No rays of light pierced through its surface, no heat—just an oppressive, weightless void that dominated the sky.
His fingers dug into the damp soil beneath him, a futile attempt to anchor himself to reality. The ground felt cold and alien, the earth soft and uneven beneath his grip. With a grunt, he summoned every ounce of his strength, his body groaning in protest as he pushed against the earth. His limbs trembled with effort, each movement feeling like a battle, but he refused to remain prone, trapped beneath the weight of the sky above. Slowly, his arms buckled beneath him, but he pressed on, each push a silent command for his body to obey.
The earth shifted beneath his palms, loose soil scraping against his skin, but at last, and with a final surge of effort, he managed to rise. He staggered, unsteady, but he was upright. His head swam with a new dizziness.
He blinked, his mind swimming with new found disorientation as he forced his body to steady itself. The strange field around him stretched out in every direction, the long grass swaying like a sea of rippling green and violet. It wasn't quite grass—no, it was something else, something alien. The blades were tall and thin, their tips curving like delicate spirals that shimmered in the strange light of the black sun above. Each stalk seemed to pulse with an inner glow, as though they held a life of their own, a soft, bioluminescent hue that flickered in rhythm with the wind.
In the distance, clusters of alien flora grew in the wild. Some were twisted, their thick trunks gnarled like old tree roots, with leaves that stretched out like fingers, pale and translucent. Others rose like towering, spiral-shaped stalks, their tops adorned with thick, fleshy pods that seemed to hum with a strange energy. It was as though every plant in this field had been carved from the fabric of another reality, forged in shapes that defied the logic of what he knew.
The man's gaze wandered lower, to the ground beneath his feet. The soil was soft, almost sponge-like, dark as charcoal. It felt alive beneath him, as though the earth itself was breathing in time with the strange energy that hummed in the air.
And then, somewhere far off, there was a sound. A whisper, too faint to make out, but it was there—carrying with it the subtle vibrations of something ancient, something haunting. It pulled at the edges of his mind, pushing him to look beyond the surface of his fractured consciousness. But his thoughts—his mind—felt shattered, fragmented, as if the pieces didn't quite fit together.
His head spun, the faint whisper becoming a presence—a pull in the air, like something reaching for him from the depths of his memory. He tried to focus, tried to grasp at it, but his mind was a blank slate where the fragments of his past refused to come into focus. His thoughts drifted, scattered, like dust caught in the wind. He searched for meaning, for something that would tell him who he was, but all he found was an endless sea of confusion.
The whisper beckoned, pulling him forward, its meaning just out of reach. It felt familiar, yet distant, as if it had been waiting for him in the deepest, darkest depths of his mind. He reached inward, digging through the haze of his thoughts, desperately trying to anchor himself to something—anything. But the harder he tried, the more the void seemed to swallow him up.
His chest tightened with a pang of panic. 'Who am I?' The question echoed in his head. But the answer was lost to him, a riddle without a solution. He felt nothing—no past, no memories, no self of self. Just emptiness. The only thing that remained, the only thread connecting him to the world, was the whisper, and the name that clung to his mind like a faint echo from a forgotten dream.
Nero.
His name was Nero.
The whisper twisted, dark and insidious, sinking deeper into his consciousness, circling like a vulture around his thoughts.
"Finally awake, are we? How disappointing. I was hoping you'd died." it hissed, a low, mocking voice. It was familiar, yet utterly alien.
Nero froze, the words pressing down on him like a weight he couldn't lift. His body trembled as the voice slithered through the cracks of his fractured mind.
"Who… who are you?" Nero breathed, the question barely escaping his lips.
The voice chuckled, low and cruel, like the sound of fingers scraping against stone.
"Oh, how quaint," it crooned. "You're still struggling to piece it all together, aren't you Nero? Pathetic."
It paused, as if savoring the moment, the silence thick.
"I've always been here with you, always watching." it continued, the voice sweet with cruelty. "And I always will be. You can't outrun me, Nero."
There was a sharp, venomous chuckle, a sound like a rusted blade scraping across bone. "You're mine, and you always will be."
The words resonated, a corrosive force that ate away at his already fragile mental state. His thoughts, like scattered shards of glass, tried to cut the voice out.
But then, a flicker ignited within the fog of his fractured thoughts, a forgotten memory clawing its way to the surface. The name… its name.
A wave of recognition slammed into him suddenly, crashing through the haze of his amnesia. The name came with an unbearable clarity, clawing its way through the fog of his thoughts.
"Sinthos…" The word escaped his lips, a rasp, a whisper—a name that felt both foreign and intimate.
The moment it left his mouth, the air seemed to grow colder, and the voice laughed. A cruel, twisted sound that echoed through the vast emptiness in his mind.
"Finally," Sinthos sneered, "You remember. It's about time, Nero."
Nero's entire body went rigid, a sick, cold realization spreading through him like ice in his veins. His heart hammered painfully in his chest, the name vibrating in his skull.
Sinthos. The name felt like a poison on his tongue, a wound that had never healed, now reopened. He didn't know how, he didn't know why, but he knew Sinthos. There was no denying it now.
His breath caught in his throat, panic clawing at him, his pulse hammering faster. He felt trapped within the labyrinth of his mind. The world around him felt impossibly wrong, but the worst part was that Sinthos—that cruel voice—was the only thing that made sense.
He closed his eyes, pressing his palms against his temples, trying to push the voice away, but it was there, always there. Every part of him screamed for relief, but there was no escape.
"Where am I?" Nero whispered, his voice a broken rasp. "Why can't I remember anything?"
Sinthos chuckled, the sound seeping into his skull like poison. "Don't ask questions that can't be answered," it purred, the mockery in its voice as sharp as a blade.
Nero's chest heaved with shallow breaths, each inhale a struggle against the suffocating weight in the air. His mind felt like it was unraveling. The whispers of his own panic grew louder, but he forced himself to swallow them down, focusing on the quiet hum beneath it all.
'Calm down.'
The thought settled within him. He closed his eyes again, blocking out the landscape around him, and allowed the silence to consume him. He had no memories to guide him—no clear sense of who he was or where he was—but he could feel something deep inside, a flicker of control.
'Focus.'
He inhaled slowly, pushing the metallic taste from his mouth, the sting of Sinthos' voice still pulsing in his mind. He exhaled just as steadily, ignoring the tremors in his hands and the racing of his heart. He let the chaotic images around him fade into the background, reaching deep for the pulse of his own presence, his own will.
Slowly, his breathing steadied, and he opened his eyes. He forced his vision to lock onto the strange plants around him, the alien landscape no longer felt entirely alien. His gaze flicked over the shimmering, bioluminescent grass, the twisting trees, the eerie dark sun overhead. The world still seemed wrong, distorted, but it was something he could see. He could perceive. And for now, that was enough.
Everything was strange, yes. His memory was a broken puzzle, pieces scattered too far to piece together. Yet, in some twisted corner of his mind, there was a certainty. He knew, without a doubt, that this wasn't his world. This was no place he'd ever seen or known. It wasn't home.
What was he to do?
The question lingered in his mind, but the weight of it only deepened the emptiness he felt inside him. His hands trembled as they hovered at his sides, unsure of their purpose. His body was exhausted, every muscle aching. The exhaustion wasn't just physical—it was deeper. A heavy sense that something inside him was broken.
There was a part of him—small but persistent—that whispered to him that he should just stay still. To give in. To lie down in the cool, bioluminescent grass and let the darkness swallow him. It would be easier. The weight of the unknown was so heavy, so suffocating, that it almost felt like surrendering was the right choice. Like anything else would be futile, pointless.
But despite everything, something else rose within him. A flicker of defiance. He could feel the faintest stirring of will in his chest, a reluctant spark refusing to be snuffed out.
Slowly, his hands steadied. His legs, weak but determined, found their strength. He took a breath, and with it, the urge to give up began to fade—just enough. His eyes moved over the strange, twisted landscape once more. The world was wrong. He wasn't supposed to be here. But he was here.
And that was enough.
He took a step, unsteady but resolute. Then another. It wasn't much, but it was something. His broken mind, the voice—none of it was going to stop him. Not yet.
He looked off into the distance, his eyes squinting. In the far horizon, towering mountains loomed, jagged and ominous, their peaks lost in the haze. But it wasn't just the mountains that caught his attention—it was the massive, unnatural shapes rising from the earth, like enormous legs stretching impossibly high into the sky.
For a brief, terrifying moment, he wondered if they were alive. The legs were too far away for him to be certain, but something about their presence unsettled him. It was something about the way they loomed, stretching from the ground to the sky, felt unnatural.
He tore his eyes away from the towering shapes, forcing himself to take another step forward. And that was when he saw something just ahead.
A figure—standing still in the distance. At first he thought it might be another trick of his mind, maybe a distortion in the air. But no, as his gaze sharpened, he realized it was a person. Their silhouette was barely distinguishable against the dim light, but they were there, standing motionless, facing the distant mountains.
His breath hitched. Was it someone like him, lost in this strange world? Or was it something else?
He took a hesitant step forward, but the figure didn't move. The tension in the air thickened, as if something was holding its breath, waiting.
And then, just as he was about to call out, the figure shifted.