[Sigh]
With each weary sigh I take, I can hear the sound of my voice fading into the steady rhythm of the rain. The exhaustion in my voice is palpable, a testament to the weight of the fatigue I carry.
[Rain against glass. Distant thunder murmurs.]
It's been falling since morning — a relentless, grey percussion against the city's tired bones. Every droplet hitting the window is like a clock ticking, a constant reminder that time is still moving even when it feels like I'm not. The rain, like my life, seems to follow a monotonous pattern, a never-ending cycle of the same day after day.
I can hear it, the voice of the rain. Not a gentle whisper, but a weary murmur – like the world itself is exhaling with me, seeping through the cracked edges of my old rundown apartment window, mixing with the stale air and the faint buzz of my radiator.
Alone in my apartment, I watch the city through my streaked glass. My reflection hovers over the skyline like an incomplete sketch. The neon lights blur, the reds and blues bleed, as if to mock me, painting a room in colours too alive for someone who feels dead. The stark contrast between the vibrant city and my desolate existence amplifies my sense of isolation.
[Rain against glass. Distant thunder murmurs.]
Again, the rain drums, it's soft but relentless, much like the cycle of my life. It's a pulse, a reminder, a sigh that escapes without giving me a chance to stop it. I'm trapped in this relentless cycle, unable to break free.
A pulse.
A reminder.
[Sigh]
Rubbing my eyes, I exhale again, and the sigh escapes without giving me a chance to stop it – is it fatigue? Or have I just surrendered?
It's a quiet collapse, a slow decay to one's meaning. Life can change so subtly that even the effort of breathing feels like work.
My name is Matt, a 34-year-old biochemical engineer. A fancy way of saying I spend my life looking at large datasets with millions of data points every day, searching for patterns that don't matter in a world that's already decided what it wants to believe.
Once, I believed I was building a brighter future for humanity. Now, I know I'm just maintaining it. I'm just another technician keeping the status quo, tightening bolts on the world machine so that it doesn't fall apart before the next shift I have to clock in for. The disillusionment with my profession weighs heavily on me, a burden I can't seem to shake off.
Grant rejections and policy memos. These are my daily worries. When was the last time I smiled? When was the last time I dreamed? Was this what I was destined for?
[Rain intensifies]
I can hear the thunder, the vibrations shaking the stack of notebooks left on the desk by my window. Each page filled with the same thing: calculations, after calculations, after calculations, with my attempts to define something I can't even stomach anymore.
I once believed the world had a system; in fact, I thought it needed one. Something to explain everything. That everything followed a rule – from atoms to emotions. A complex system that, if you mapped precisely, could predict even the unknown.
But now I'm not so sure.
I brushed through my hair using my fingers and looked around the apartment. It was perfectly organised, books ordered, dishes stacked, papers filed. It's ironic, isn't it, the sterile order of a man that's embedded in chaos.
There were no pictures, no clutter, no warmth. No identity. A room so gloomy that even the coffee maker looked like it had given up hope.
Still, there were signs of life. A singular plant pot next to my cursed blinking monitor, which was waiting for me to finish a report I have been working on for the last two years.
Stimulated by the sirens and horns echoing throughout the wet streets. I wondered if there was anyone out there like me, someone still awake. Someone looking at the same grey sky and feeling the same hollowness that I think.
Realistically not.
Most people don't stay up till two in the morning thinking about entropy.
Most people can stop thinking.
Most people can relax.
You know, my therapist once told me I needed to "find my meaning beyond the equations I look at."
Whatever the hell that means.
I haven't been back since.
It's not that I don't believe in meaning, it's just that I can rationalise it; I can't prove that it exists, and if I can't prove it, then how can I know it exists?
Everything can be measured: light, heat, sound —heck, you can even quantify emotion if you have sufficient data. But purpose? How in the world are you supposed to measure purpose? Purpose is just chaos pretending to be order.
And I can't pretend anymore.
[Thunder murmurs closer now]
The next day passes in a blur. The same lab. The same screens. The same hollow greetings.
When will this end? The question lingers in my mind, a silent plea for change — something different, something that can break this monotonous cycle. Despite the despair, there's a glimmer of hope, a yearning for a new beginning.
It's evening and I am not even pretending to work. I stare at the window instead. I can see the rain worsen, turning the streets into rivers reflecting the dullness of the grey skies above.
I pack my things and leave in a hurry, not because I have something to hurry for, but because I can't stand to be still.
The cold air attacks my skin.
I walk with my hood up, head down, and hands shoved deep into my pocket, so that you would think I'm some sort of celebrity hiding from the cameras, hiding from the world. I can feel the shoes splashing against the puddles, the pool of water slowly drenching the ends of my pleated trousers.
I rush to a coffee shop that's open around the corner, the same one I used to go to during my intern days, back when the word potential still meant something.
The aroma of espresso and damp wool hits me the moment I step in.
I order the same drink I always do: a hot mocha with two spoons of sugar. You may say my affection for coffee is the only thing that gives me 'purpose'.
The barista gives me that polite smile people give when they don't know what to say. I didn't mind it; it felt natural. It felt like two ghosts acknowledging each other.
I sit in silence, drinking my coffee. The shop is quiet, except for one corner, where students are laughing and conversing near the window.
Enthusiastically discussing their projects, ideas and plans. The very things I used to consult with enthusiasm.
How long ago was that?
Their emphatic laughter irked something deep within me. It wasn't because they were loud, it wasn't because they were young. It was their honesty. Their innocence. I remember being that young, being that innocent. Believing that the world would listen if I just shouted loud enough, worked hard enough, and thought hard enough.
I was never a religious man, but I believed in the laws of the world.
Now I don't.
As I leave the coffee shop, the rain gets heavier. Instinctively, I walked towards the bridge, as if drawn to the sound of water. Heavy rainfall is smashing against the rails.
I pause and rest my arms on the cold, wet railings of the bridge as I stare into the river beneath me. I can see the river's waves churning endlessly, reflecting the streetlights like veins of gold.
Something was calming about it.
The faint hum of the city fades behind me.
The biggest fear for a scientist isn't a failed experiment or an experiment gone wrong; most of us don't even fear death itself if it means dying for a 'purpose'
What we fear is irrelevancy.
Or at least I do.
Think about it, everything we learn, everything we build, fades without consequence. If there's one thing these last two years have taught me.
It's that entropy wins, always.
It's moments like these, watching the flow of water twist below me, that I wonder if energy ever truly dies, or if it just changes form. I mean, we all know about the conservation of energy – energy can neither be destroyed nor created, just transferred.
But if consciousness really is just energy, then maybe we can transfer it. Perhaps we just need to find the equation to solve it.
I know, I know. The thought is absurd, but at least it's comforting.
Maybe if I spent as much time on my report as I do staring at rivers all day, I would feel a little more content with life.
Maybe.
[Thunder rolls, distant but final]
I leave my confined space by the bridge and head towards the end of the junction.
A car horn cuts through the rain – sharp, shrill, and far too close.
My body reacts before my mind can reflex, I turn, my heart sinking into my stomach. The headlights of the car were blooming through the mist like two white suns blazing mercilessly.
For a moment, everything stops.
I can see everything in pieces – the suspended rain, each spherical droplet, light reflecting across the slick asphalt, and my own shadow stretching long and thin across the bridge rails.
My mind does what it was trained to do – analyse, predict, survive. Thousands of calculations firing through my brain. Distance. Velocity. Impact probability.
Yet my feet don't move.
My mind is empty. No revelation. No final moment of brilliance. Just a dull, absurd thought.
So this is how it ends?
The car hits.
Silence
I can feel the world folding inwards, my vision collapsing to a single white point, as if a needle of light pierces through the endless dark.
I fall.
Into the silence.
Into nothing.
[SYSTEM ERROR: NEURAL CONTINUITY DETECTED]
[INITIALISING DATA TRANSFER…]
What the hell?!
I hear a mechanical, calm voice. It echoes inside the nothingness.
[USER IDENTITY CONFIRMED: DR MATTHEW *******]
[BIOLOGICAL HOST: TERMINATED]
[SOUL STRUCTURE: STABLE]
At first, I thought I was dreaming, but then I quickly realised I was thinking.
That should not be possible.
I should be dead. Right?
The voice doesn't sound external. They were my thoughts, with a given shape.
But how? I can't feel my body, I can't feel my breath, nor my heartbeat.
Yet, I exist.
[SEARCHING FOR COMPATIBLE ENVIRONMENT…]
[TRANSFER PROTOCOL: ENGAGE]
And just like that. Light fills the void.
It's like falling through a storm made of sound.
Memories flicker — the bridge, the rain, the smell of coffee.
Then they dissolve, scattered through infinity.
[CARRIER MEDIUM FOUND]
[INITIALIZING RECONSTRUCTION...]
The light tightens, compresses.
For a moment, I see shapes — threads of energy weaving together in patterns that make sense only for a heartbeat.
Equations written in light. The laws of a universe I don't know yet.
Then gravity returns.
[Heavy breathing]
Air slams into my lungs. I vigorously cough out dirt, grass and dew. Anything that you could say that tasted like life.
This feels wrong. My body feels wrong; it feels smaller and lighter. I firmly place my hands on the ground; they're smooth, unscarred and trembling.
They're young.
I can feel the warmth of the sun reign over me, covering green leaves overhead. I'm in a forest, I can hear its hums – not by machines but with energy.
I can see the air itself glow faintly, light drifting like dust in sunbeams.
Where am I?
What is the place?
[ENVIRONMENT: AETHER-RICH]
[HOST STATUS: FUNCTIONAL]
[NEW IDENTITY: KAEL ARIN]
What the fu-, that scared the hell out of me!
Or should I say heaven? This doesn't really look like hell to me, not that I would know. Like I said, I wasn't very religious.
Before my eyes, I can see a text screen flickering, drawn in thin silver lines across the air, not projected but manifested.
I stare at it, my heart pounding, my breath heavy, and my head screaming. Everything I know suggests this shouldn't be possible. However, my emotions say they are.
I look up at the vibrant sky – vast, blue and alien.
Rain begins to fall again, soft and warm this time, as if the world itself is whispering welcome.
For the first time in years, I don't feel tired.
[Aether Codex initialising…]
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Hey Guys,
Thank you for reading the first chapter of Kael's Codex!! As you can probably tell, I am very new to webnovel writing and storytelling in general. I will make mistakes along the way and will probably make plot decisions that you won't agree with. I am learning on the job, this is something I have always wanted to do, so hopefully you guys will give it a chance and join me for this journey :)
Your Noobie Writer
BlazeKey