Heat pressed down like a hammer.
The sky was red and mournful. Pale in places. Angry in others. Light didn't shine—it pulsed. Waves of heat shimmered in every direction, turning the desert into a boiling lie. Scorched metal remains lay half-swallowed by dunes, relics of a forgotten battle. The air reeked of ash and rot, thick enough to chew. Not even the flies bothered.
And beneath it all, half-buried in sand, a boy lay motionless.
His armor was blackened, fused to his skin in places. Smoke rose behind him, staining the air with the stink of something that should've died slower. His helmet was gone. Raw blisters covered every inch of exposed skin. Blood and sweat matted his hair, sticky and dark. He looked like a corpse that hadn't realized it yet.
Then—he stirred.
A dry cough, broken and weak. Lips cracked. One eye blinked open. The other was swollen shut. Burned from forehead to cheek. Sand clung to his face like broken glass. Every breath cut deeper. Every twitch set fire to his nerves. He wasn't dead.
Not yet.
Fingers twitched. Then curled. He rolled onto his side with a groan, the sound low and guttural. Vision blurred. Heat shimmered. His thoughts didn't line up.
Then he saw them.
Bodies. Dozens.
Some wore armor like his—scarred, melted, broken. Others… didn't look human anymore. Limbs bent the wrong way. Skin burst open with black veins running wild like roots through flesh. Rifles melted into the sand. A helmet beside him still cradled half a face.
No flies. Not in this heat. Not around these bodies.
He tried to swallow. His throat was too dry. It felt like gravel.
And then—he felt it.
A hum.
Low. Deep. Not sound. Not pain. Something in between. It buzzed through his spine, rattled his ribs. Ancient. Alive. Like it had always been there.
He lifted his head, barely.
Light slammed into him. Everything turned white.
Then—movement.
A shadow in the haze.
At first just a blur. Then it stepped forward.
Wrong.
Too tall. Too smooth. Limbs too long. Joints that didn't move like they should. Fingers too many. Its body shimmered like obsidian wrapped in oil. Its face was a blank surface of black glass—no mouth, no nose. Just two pale voids where eyes might have been.
He didn't move.
Didn't breathe.
Didn't know what it was.
But he knew.
Divine.
Not the good kind. Not holy. Divine like a wound carved into the world. Like the universe had tried to forget it—and failed.
And it looked at him.
Everything bent.
The sky folded in on itself. Sound died. The heat vanished. Thought came undone.
Then—its voice.
Not spoken. Not heard. It pressed itself into his skull like a memory that wasn't his.
"You were not meant to live in this timeline."
The voice wasn't angry. It wasn't even curious.
Just certain.
Blood trickled from his nose.
"Your life will be one of chaos."
Then—it blinked.
And the world cracked.
Heat dropped away. The sand went cold. Time froze.
And the thing vanished.
Gone.
No noise. No trace.
He lay there, shaking.
What the hell was that?
And then the pain hit.
But not normal pain.
It started at the base of his neck.
More like pressure. Like something had been jammed in where it didn't belong.
He reached back, breath ragged.
His fingers touched metal.
Not armor. Not a shard. Something else. Something that spiraled deep—fused into the spine. Cold. Alive.
It pulsed.
It was part of him now.
Then came the flashes.
Screams. Darkness. A hallway echoing with gunfire. Shadows running. A voice—sharp, urgent.
"Asher!"
He gasped.
That was his name.
Asher Dren.
That one truth wrapped around him like armor.
Everything else—gone.
He forced himself upright. Both knees in the sand. One boot was half-melted. A deep gash ran down his thigh. Blood soaked through the fabric. He stood. Wobbled. Didn't fall.
Behind him—something waited.
A cave.
Carved into the canyon wall. Its mouth rimmed with scorched glyphs. Symbols that looked half-burned, half-alive. Something watched from inside.
The heat was coming from it.
Or maybe the cave just remembered fire.
He didn't enter.
He turned away.
Took one step.
Then another.
But behind him—the cave pulsed. Like it had seen him. Like it knew.
And from the shadows, something whispered:
"You will return."
His breath caught in his throat.
But he didn't look back.
He kept walking.
Toward the horizon.
Toward the sun.
Toward nothing.
But the hum stayed with him.
And something else followed.
A flicker at the edge of his vision. Gone before he could blink.
Movement on the ridge.
Then nothing.
He squinted. Frowned.
A glint off steel. A shadow too still to be wind.
He wasn't alone.
And somewhere beyond the heat shimmer—footsteps.
Slow.
Crunching sand.
Getting closer.