I've never known where I came from; my memory is clouded. I'm trying to uncover the reason for my existence, the source of all the pain I endure. It's elusive, always out of reach, but soon I'll grasp it, holding it firmly in my palm.
The day I remember clearly is the day I was confined to a room, stripped of color, stripped of life. My only companion was a voice, a voice that cared. But now, I don't even know where that voice has gone.
I am lost once more, my desires unclear. What is a man without desire, I wonder? A husk, a creature of the abyss. Yet, that is not what I choose to be. I will become someone who embodies both truth and lies, a lie, like him.
He is the only one who seems to understand me, sharing the same pain I endure, yet he isn't my friend but my mortal enemy. Am I destined to be alone?
.......
Academy of Wienberg, Croskowit.
Today, the lesson for the new recruits is to be initiated with a speech by Major Trish.
"The Fracture appeared on XXXX; it is a fragmentation that misshaped reality, as we know. A thin, almost invisible portal often mistaken for a shimmer in the air or a glint of light on still water. Over time, chaotic energy seeps through, and this portal expanded. What lies from the we know, on the other side is not a dimension or unknown planet but a truthless void. alien, emotionless, governed by the laws of entropy and distortion."
She paused, her stern gaze sweeping over the crowd of newly admitted young minds. A smile crossed her face.
She continued, "From the chaos, some humans twisted, infected by the Fracture's logic rather than chosen by it. They awakened with powers that defy physics, bending reality at will. An unseen force surrounds them, warping the world's touch, turning aside harm like water off glass. Their abilities differ wildly, no pattern, no rule, but all share a single trait: they elude understanding."
Everyone in the crowd knew exactly what she was talking about. They had all faced it, each with a different experience, yet they shared one common thread, the agony and the madness it brought.
Not that they were shown sympathy or given empathy, but instead labeled by their own kind. Yet, they can't even blame them; it's natural to fear the unknown.
The Major's voice grew firm as she faced the crowd. Memories resurfaced in the people's mind as her speech rubbed on their old scars; their faces twisted with the pain they had endured and the madness that continued to knock at their doors.
A recruit murmured softly, his voice barely audible.
"Later, a term was coined for these pitiful souls. They were then called "Sundered".
Major's voice thundered as she tried once more to gain the attention of the crowd. Yet it would soon be lost again, as the next moment unfolded will be....
A troubled past shadowed and grim.
With a hoarse voice, she repeated the words written on her cue cards.
.......
Some Unknown Mountain ranges.
"Where the hell's the goddamn pass, kid?"
The man slammed the heel of his palm on the dashboard, his belly pressing against the steering wheel as their convoy crawled forward.
"Just a few hundred meters, sir," the boy said, wrapped in a coat two sizes too big, his voice barely audible over the wind.
"If we miss it, I swear I'll piss in your next juice box."
Their trucks rolled through a passage etched into the mountains decades ago by the townsfolk of Greywell—a settlement clinging to survival behind walls of snow and rock.
Soon, the pass was in sight of the convoy, the man was finally at rest after seeing his destination is in sight.
The convoy's engines growled to a halt at the rusted gates of the military perimeter, high beams cutting through the fog like swords dulled by time. Six trucks, armored but civilian in appearance, bore crates of generators, medical supplies, and peculiar sealed units marked with a black rectangle and the stenciled word: "Sundered"
Lieutenant Carter, gaunt-faced and ever silent, stood with clipboard in gloved hand. A soldier from the base nodded and opened the gate without a word. The town behind was swallowed in smoke and fog, the sodium lights flickering dimly under layers of grime.
The drivers exchanged uneasy glances. None of them liked coming this far. None of them liked Greywell.
Inside the trucks, crates were offloaded under heavy supervision. No questions asked, no conversations held. The air tasted stale, like battery acid and mold. Somewhere in the distance, a loudspeaker crackled with looping static, occasionally pierced by a single tone—like a heartbeat recorded wrong.
The last to exit his truck was Briggs, a small, wiry man with bad teeth and a worse sense of timing. He always lagged behind. He was a clerk by paygrade, not a driver or soldier, but the government had decided he was "low-risk."
He followed the others through the facility's winding corridors, where walls were stained with moisture and warnings. He squinted at every sign, pausing before one that read:
"ZONE ZERO: ENERGY-DEPRIVATION IN EFFECT. DO NOT CARRY ELECTRONIC DEVICES BEYOND THIS POINT."
A soldier waved him away before he could stare longer.
Deliveries complete, the team was ushered into the Departure Bay — a dim, windowless room lined with lifeless vending machines. Their surfaces were coated in dust, cords trailing uselessly across the floor like severed veins. A security glass panel stood at the far end, its surface clouded from the inside with a film of condensation or something far less explainable. The air was still, heavy with unspoken thoughts. Most of the others sat in silence, whispering low or staring vacantly at the floor.
Briggs, restless and increasingly irritated, approached the glass. He wiped a small circle clean with the back of his sleeve.
"Dammit," he muttered. "Vending machines aren't even allowed to work."
His voice carried, sharp in the stillness. Fury surged as he took in the machines again, each one sealed off with an alert banner strung across its face, warning Do Not Plug In, Under Strict Order. He'd seen military bureaucracy before, but this was something else. Even if someone disobeyed the sign, it wouldn't matter, the power had been cut before the team had even entered the bay.
Whatever this place was meant to be, it wasn't a waiting room. It was a cage dressed in silence.
Briggs leaned in, squinting through the circle he'd cleared, but saw… nothing.
Not the emptiness of an unlit room. Not the shadowy outline of forgotten crates or hallway walls. No, this was something else.
On the other side of the glass was a darkness so complete it seemed to cancel the very concept of darkness itself. It wasn't black. It wasn't void. It was negation — a place where light had never been, where even the memory of form, of space, of being, was stripped bare. It was like staring into a wound in reality, and the longer Briggs looked, the more it felt like the glass was all that held it back.
A flicker, or perhaps a trick of his mind, brushed across the edges of the circle he'd wiped.
His breath caught.
It hadn't moved like a shadow. Shadows belong to things. This was more like absence wearing motion like a borrowed coat.
Then he realized: the fog on the glass wasn't from this side.
It was pressing in.....
From the other side.