This is how the tale was told to me.
When I close my eyes, I can still hear his voice speaking of the Lightfall. His voice was steady. Mine, trembling. I wasn't there, but I see it as if I was.
It began.
Fifty years ago, the world woke, and nothing was as it had been.
The sun rose as it always did—quiet, steady, pouring gold upon a people unknowing.
Birds filled the skies. Children ran with laughter. Markets opened their gates. Screens flickered. Voices hummed. Life moved in its familiar rhythm.
He said the world bent that day, like a bowstring pulled too far.
Wings froze mid-beat. Trains held their breath. Even the heart within the chest trembled, as if struck by silence.
And in the sky, a speck. Small, unseen—yet it grew.
It split the heavens. Not thunder. Not star. Not god nor science.
Something else. A whisper from beyond.
And all eyes turned upward. In desert and sea. In temple and market. In solitude and in crowds. All faces lifted, bathed in a light that gave no sound.
It fell down slowly and touched the skin but deeper than skin. It spoke, yet without tongue.
It wrapped the soul like a dream long forgotten.
Some wept. Some prayed. Some fell to their knees.
It was not joy. It was not pain. It was reverence.
And in that moment, humanity was seen. The universe gazed upon them, not to condemn, but to remind.
Then it vanished.
No scar. No smoke. No ruin. Only silence. Only memory.
And life returned, as if nothing had ever been.
But nothing would ever be the same.
Weeks folded into one another. Then, as if the world had cleared its throat, people began to crack open. They Awakened gifted with something they never chose, something later called supernatural power. Abilities that bent the laws of earth and mind, as if pages had been torn straight from a fantasy world and scattered into reality.
And from that moment, the world itself shifted. Borders, nations, and even ordinary lives could no longer remain the same.
Nations fell. Cities sank in dust and fire.
Houses no longer guarded the heart; they hid plots and ambushes, and the place of shelter became the place of betrayal. Streets became battlefields. Towers once built for trade became altars for ambition. What was given as wonder was turned into ruin.
Families were broken. Lovers torn apart. Children left crying in the shadows of ruins.
The earth echoed with grief millions mourning, millions breaking, millions screaming into the night.
Hope itself withered.
And yet it endured.
Small. Quiet. Defiant.
From the ashes, the few rose.
They fought when all seemed lost. Sparks of courage flared when darkness pressed down the world.
This was the world left to us: born in light, reshaped in fear, carved by power.
New creeds rose from the rubble:
The Church of Resonance preaching harmony through suffering.
The Children of Lightfall claimed collapse was rebirth.
The Cult of Echoes whispering that each death was not an end, but a voice added to eternity.
Faith became sword and shield.
It bound some together. It tore others apart.
A handful of cities and towns endured.
The ruins became foundations, and homes rose where ashes had fallen.
Streets wound through old battlefields, carrying laughter where blood once ran.
Markets bloomed in places where fire had burned.Children played in courtyards that still whispered of grief.
Each place lived again, yet each place carried its own memory of what was broken, and what was rebuilt.
Truth shattered into fragments. A hundred meanings were forged no one understood. Every leader, every creed, every tyrant claimed to know its purpose. Yet the world staggered on scarred, but unbroken.
Still, no one knows the truth of the Lightfall
He said some believed it was judgment, others a gift. He never claimed to know
No scripture, no scholar, no survivor unraveled its secret.
But whispers remained soft, unyielding:
The Lightfall was not blind chaos. It bore a will. A design. A patience that lingers in silence, watching between worlds.
The world did not end.It only changed.
And in its change, it carved space for another story.
Fifty years passed. My grandfather's story lived long before I was born, yet its shadow stretched into me. By the time I stood in the City of Heroes, the Lightfall was already legend.
Generations had risen and fallen beneath its glow. Heroes were worshipped as saints. Monsters were cursed as omens. History blurred into myth. Myth hardened into culture. And culture became the chain no one could escape.
But the story you are about todid not begin with cosmic light or ancient legends.
It began with something smaller.
A silver train.
A crowded platform.
And a boy clutching a bag heavier than he was ready for.
My reflection flashed in the glass: red-orange hair catching morning light, eyes the color of fire. In the center of each iris, a faint yellow star pulsed.
Don't stare. Blend in. No one has to know.
The platform trembled as the cars settled. I adjusted the crossbody strap biting into my shoulder and let the crowd carry me along the blue line toward Street Exit. Turnstiles chirped. My pass buzzed against the reader. I kept my gaze low tile, shoes, a dropped coffee lid then rode the escalator up through a tunnel of adverts and a humming holo-map that kept trying to sell me hero merch.
Cool, recycled air thinned as we climbed. At the top, glass doors breathed open and the city hit me real air, hot and loud. Smell of street oil and sweet buns. A courier drone zipped past my ear. Someone laughed too hard. Somebody cursed. I stepped aside to let a group in uniform shove by, then slipped with the current across a crosswalk, past a vendor grilling skewers, past a busker levitating a coin just off his palm.
The place hit like a chorus: engines, voices, the metallic clank of commerce. People flowed around food carts and buskers,. I stepped aside for a uniformed courier, sidestepped a toddler chasing a drifting balloon, and felt the city's pulse sync with my own.
Ahead, pinned like a heartbeat to the skyline, a screen the size of a building pulsed and changed light and motion folding into one enormous face.
THE HERO BOARD.
Below it, the plaza had become a small sea of ritual and noise. They were not just onlookers; they were congregation.
Some held their phones high, fingers trembling to capture the stream frames of heroes rotating in crisp, triumphant loops. Others watched with hands clasped to their chests, eyes wet or holy, mouths mouthing names like prayer. A cluster of teenagers wore Apex tattoos and cheered so loud the sound bounced off glass. Vendors hawked enamel pins, fake medals, and paper stars folded with hurried reverence. A woman lit a small candle at a makeshift shrine taped to a pillar; an old man in a battered coat traced the image of a hero on his palm like a blessing. A street preacher yelled into a cracked amplifier, half sermon, half rant some turned to listen, some to laugh, some to shout back.
There were quieter things too: a child perched on his father's shoulders, staring wide-eyed; two lovers pressed close, faces washed in the Board's light; a group of veterans with medals dulled by time, fingers trembling as they pointed at a particular face on the screen. Pickpockets worked the crowd with practiced hands. A security drone hovered, its camera sweeping, indifferent and watchful.
That place air felt charged with more than electricity hope, worship, commerce, grief, anger, nostalgia. People below the Board weren't all the same faith or feeling. They came with petitions, with offerings, with selfies, with bouquets, with fists. The Board gave them something to respond to. It gave them meaning.
I watched them. Their faces mirrored every possible truth about this city: hunger and faith and fevered pride all braided together. For a moment I felt obscene—like I'd been allowed into a private prayer. And then, like a stone dropped into a pond, a thought widened across the surface.
One day… I'll be up there too.
Judt dream i will make it true. A vow. Even if it breaks me. Even if no one believes. This world needs still needs heroes and I will be one.
But as the thought flickered, so did the truth. The crowd moved like a tide, rushing forward with purpose work, school, homes, lives. I stayed still, the weight of my bag digging into my shoulder, heavy with everything I owned.
I didn't have anywhere to rush to.
No home. No bed. No one waiting.
And now, standing in the heart of the City of Heroes, I realized I had no idea what to do next.
The lights, the noise, the crowd they pressed in on me, louder, closer, until my chest tightened.
I wanted to believe this was the start of something great. But right now?
I was just a kid in a city too big for me.
This is where I thought my story began.
But if you believe I am the protagonist, you're mistaken.
This story was never mine.
It belongs to him.
To Neriah Vale. A true hero—that's what I called him.
I don't know what you will call him.
My grandfather once told me that the best stories don't simply reveal truth
they make you feel it.
He left me a fragment of his magic for moments like this.
I was only a child when he told me these things.
A boy chasing shadows in a world I barely understood.
But his voice made me believe.
And belief, sometimes, is the beginning of a legacy.