When Elias woke, the world had no sound.
No wind , no birds , no heartbeat . Only light — gold bleeding through white — as if the sun had cracked open and spilled across the horizon. He lay still, unsure whether the world was breathing or if it only pretended to.
His body ached in strange ways. Not pain — just... absence.He felt lighter, as though pieces of him hadn't come through the same way the rest did.
He sat up. The grass beneath him shimmered blue, glowing faintly with each movement. When he touched it, the blades whispered with heat, then cooled again. The horizon bent upward, not downward, and distant islands floated like fractured thoughts.
He wasn't sure if he was alive.
He tested his breath — it fogged the air like frost. He pressed his hand against his chest — heartbeat, weak but steady.Still human, then. For now.
The mark on his wrist pulsed faintly — black veins, curling like smoke. The words he'd heard when he first opened his eyes echoed faintly in his mind:
Echo of Death — absorb the final moment of what kills you.
He didn't understand it. Didn't want to. The words felt like a curse carved in static.
Elias stood, the alien wind tugging at his coat. The air smelled of ozone and salt — an ocean nearby, but invisible.In the far distance, enormous structures hung between clouds — towers of metal fused with stone, their surfaces covered in light patterns like circuitry that pulsed in rhythm with the planet itself.
Aetherion.He didn't know the name yet, but something in the way the light moved told him this world had a pulse — a memory.
And somewhere, it was watching him.
He began walking.
The landscape shifted as he moved — gravity felt uncertain, the ground subtly curving, like walking across the back of a sleeping giant. Every few steps, his reflection flickered beside him, faint and unstable — as if another version of him walked half a second behind.
The silence pressed on him until it started to sound like whispers. He almost welcomed them.
After what felt like an hour, he reached the edge of a hill where the glowing grass turned to obsidian stone. The rock was engraved with symbols — thin, precise, mechanical. He traced one with his fingers; the mark on his wrist flared in response.
A soft hum filled the air.
"Human signature detected."
Elias froze. The voice came from nowhere — everywhere. It sounded like a machine trying to remember how to speak.
A pillar rose from the ground in front of him, smooth and black, veins of orange light running through it. The top opened like a lens, and a faint holographic figure flickered into existence — humanoid, faceless.
"You are not registered to this cycle. State your designation."
Elias took a step back. "…I don't have one."
"Unacceptable. All sentient entities require identification."
"Try 'Elias,'" he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck. "That work for you?"
"Identity: Elias.Origin: Undefined.Status: Anomaly."
The light flickered faster. The ground beneath his feet vibrated.Elias's instinct told him to run — but another part of him, colder and sharper, told him to stay still.
"Warning: Anomaly energy pattern matches echo signature. Immediate containment recommended."
The hologram began to shift, forming limbs, features, something almost human — until the shape distorted, body breaking into angular shards of metal. Its head twisted toward him, and the sound that came next wasn't words.
It screamed.
Elias reacted on instinct.
He dove sideways as the pillar exploded in light, shards of metal ripping through the air. The creature lunged — fluid, mechanical, a machine built from fragments of its own collapse. Its limbs moved too fast, its voice a digital howl.
He grabbed the closest thing he could — a length of sharp rock — and swung. It connected, sparks flaring, but the impact only staggered it.
It lunged again.
He rolled, grabbed the creature's arm, and slammed it against the ground. The hum in his wrist flared again — a resonance, deep and alien. The air crackled.For a split second, he saw something inside the machine — a heart made of molten light.
The machine screeched and twisted, claws digging into his chest. Elias shouted and struck again, the mark on his wrist burning black.
Then, in one bright flash — it was over.
The machine shattered into dust. The light faded. The world went quiet again.
Elias stumbled back, chest heaving, blood dripping onto the blue grass. His vision blurred, and for a second, the horizon pulsed like it was breathing.
The mark on his wrist dimmed — but a faint new pattern had appeared beside it. A shape like a circuit fragment.
And in his head, another voice:
Fragment acquired — Energy Resonance.You have absorbed the dying pulse of an artificial guardian.
Elias's hand trembled. "So that's what it means… Echo of Death."
Not power — memory. The last heartbeat of what kills him.A curse that grows with every death he witnesses.
He sat down, exhausted, and watched the distant towers glow faintly through the fog.
"This isn't home," he whispered to the horizon. "But then again… where was that, really?"
The silence didn't answer.
He looked up at the golden sky that wasn't his — and for the first time, realized that maybe, across infinite deaths, he'd never find one that was.
End of Chapter 2.