The air stank of sweat, blood, and death. The desolate, windswept plains of Nehkara stretched endlessly in every direction, an inhospitable expanse of red dust and jagged rocks. Atahsaia's feet sank into the soft ground as he trudged forward, the weight of his mission pressing down on him. The scavengers, once a mere distraction, now lay scattered in a heap, their blood staining the earth beneath him. Yet, the victory was hollow.
Atahsaia paused, his breath steady but his mind a tempest. His eyes flickered to his hand. His fingers twitched with the residual power of the Echoforms he'd just summoned—two, almost simultaneously. His body still trembled from the effort, the strain threatening to pull his consciousness apart. He had pushed his limits, blending two echoes with such a swift and violent pace that the aftershocks of the resonance echoed deep within his soul.
The Dream Echo. The General Echo.
He'd felt their energies clash in his mind, a frenetic surge of competing instincts. The Dream Echo had granted him sharp perception, the ability to read the smallest signs in the chaos around him, a flash of insight into the scavengers' strategies. The General Echo, however, had provided the ruthless discipline needed to defeat them—strategic thinking, cold precision, and brutal efficiency. Together, they had been unstoppable.
But at what cost?
Atahsaia's pulse quickened as he felt the weight of his Echoforms pressing on his psyche, the burn starting to creep along his nerves. A faint tingling sensation at the back of his mind—the beginning of Echoburn.
He shut his eyes for a moment, focusing on the feeling. His mind flitted between multiple versions of himself—lives he had never lived, choices he had never made. His hands clenched as the realization struck: Every time he called upon another version of himself, the person he once was faded further away.
The Echoverse was a beast of a power system. A system that forced you to fracture your identity in exchange for the power to survive. Every time he fused with an Echoform, he didn't just borrow strength—he borrowed part of someone else's soul. The more he did it, the more he risked becoming something he could never control, something monstrous. And worse yet, he could lose sight of who he was.
He had already started to feel it—the pull of the Hollow Echo, the gnawing emptiness threatening to consume his very essence. If he used the Echoforms too much, if he drew too deeply into the tapestry of his own fractured existence, he would become a Hollow—a wraith of shattered memories and fading selves. No longer Atahsaia Vire, but a whisper of what he had been.
The wind howled as it swept across the plains, bringing with it the scent of decay from the distant ruins of an ancient city. Atahsaia shook his head, banishing the thought. The journey was far from over. And he would not let the Echoforms control him—not yet.
He stepped forward again, the heavy thud of his boots against the soil breaking the silence. The scavengers' carcasses, their bodies twisted in grotesque displays of death, were now a reminder—of what had been done, and what would come if he didn't keep his grip on himself.
A distant rumble in the sky caught his attention. The weather in Nehkara was as erratic as the land itself. Storms could appear without warning, and they were rarely forgiving. He'd learned that the hard way on his first night here, when a tempest had nearly torn him apart. He couldn't afford another mistake like that—not now, not after all he had sacrificed.
The horizon seemed to blur in the distance as the winds picked up, a dark cloud massing in the sky. Atahsaia's instincts flared, his mind flashing to the battle with the scavengers. He had used the General Echo to control the flow of the fight, but now the Echoforms were clamoring for more. The Dream Echo, still thrumming inside his chest, whispered to him, urging him to delve deeper, to see the future, to anticipate every move.
He clenched his jaw, forcing the voices away. "Focus," he muttered under his breath.
But as the storm grew closer, so too did the weight of his own thoughts. He had to stay ahead of the forces in this world—the ones who would see him as either a tool to be used or an enemy to be destroyed. And yet, as he walked through the harsh landscape, another question loomed in his mind: Why had he been chosen for this? Why had he been ripped from Earth and thrust into a world where the rules of existence were bent and broken, where survival meant sacrificing everything?
The remnants of his past life—his memories of Earth—were fading. It wasn't just the Echoforms that were taking them from him. The world itself, with its endless brutality and ceaseless hunger for power, was erasing him. Every day he spent here, every choice he made, he could feel himself slipping further away from the man he once was.
It was a terrifying thought, one that gnawed at him constantly, even as he stood tall and unyielding. But there was no time for weakness. No room for hesitation. Nehkara wasn't kind to those who lacked resolve.
As the storm approached, Atahsaia turned his gaze upward. The clouds swirled in chaotic patterns, an ominous portent of the dangers that lay ahead. In the distance, something stirred—a shadow in the dark, barely visible, yet unmistakably alive. A creature, massive and impossibly ancient, its form flickering in and out of reality like an illusion. It was a being of immense power, something older than the world itself. And it seemed to be heading straight for him.
Atahsaia's heart raced, but he didn't move. His mind raced instead, considering every possible strategy, every angle of attack. He needed more than just strength. He needed to see beyond the present, to tap into the potential of what he could become.
It's time, he thought, stepping forward.
The Dream Echo pulsed within him, a surge of clarity. Atahsaia reached out, calling on the Echo of a man who had learned to navigate the shifting currents of time and space—someone who could see the patterns, who could predict the future with eerie precision.
The world around him seemed to slow as he felt the Echoform wash over him, settling into his body. His vision sharpened, and he could see the creature more clearly now—a gigantic, serpentine beast with eyes that gleamed like molten gold. It was old, ancient, and it had the unmistakable presence of something that had existed long before humanity.
But there was something wrong. As he synchronized with the Echo, the creature's presence began to distort, its shape shifting and flickering in the air. The future he was seeing, the patterns he had so carefully deciphered, were warping. The Dream Echo had been too much for him. The strain was unbearable. He could feel the mental tug as the two Echoforms—General and Dream—pulled in different directions, fighting for dominance within his mind.
The creature in front of him blurred again, flickering in and out of focus, until it was nothing more than a vague shape, indistinct and unreachable. Atahsaia's vision snapped back to normal, his connection to the Echoform faltering.
Echoburn.
His mind was bleeding. A burning sensation spread across his skull as his body struggled to hold onto his sense of self. For a moment, he feared he would lose everything—his memories, his identity, his will to fight. But then, something clicked. He pushed against the current of his fractured selves, forcing the Echoforms back into submission.
The creature was gone, vanishing into the winds that swept the plains. Atahsaia stood in the same place, but he could feel the weight of his actions—he had narrowly avoided becoming lost in the layers of himself. He had pushed too far. This wasn't a game. This was survival.
His hands trembled as he lowered them to his sides. The storm was upon him now, the winds howling in fury, but he had no time to rest. The journey ahead was long, and every step would cost him a piece of himself.
Atahsaia turned away from the dissipating storm and set his gaze forward, steeling himself for whatever the world would throw at him next. The Echoverse was a place where identity was a currency—and every day, he was spending his.
To be continued…