The sky over the Grey Wastes hung like a bruised lung, mottled and sickly. Its diseased light filtered down, casting everything in a jaundiced glow that made even metal look diseased.
Reed Blackwell yanked his tattered scarf tighter, shielding himself from the caustic dust that danced between skeletal skyscrapers. In the Wastes, each breath came at a cost, and survival consumed every waking moment...
"Nothing today," he rasped, throat raw from the endless grit. "Never anything worth a damn." He kicked a piece of scrap metal, sending it tumbling into a nearby crater with a hollow, distant clang. Hunger twisted in his gut, a familiar companion he couldn't shake.
"Just once," he muttered to himself, scanning the horizon with weary eyes. "Just once I'd like to find something that could fill my stomach for more than a day." His voice carried no further than a few feet before being swallowed by the vast emptiness surrounding him. The silence that followed was his only response, as it had been for weeks now.
At eighteen, Reed carried the burden of being a Null—born without even a flicker of elemental core energy. While the elite conjured flames with casual snaps or shifted mountains through sheer thought, Reed remained a zero, invisible trash discarded along the post-apocalyptic frontier.
"Damned elementals," he spat, the words bitter on his tongue. "Living in their towers while the rest of us scavenge like rats. What did I do to deserve this life? Nothing. Absolutely nothing."
The air suddenly compressed around him. The wind died, leaving a silence so profound his ears popped painfully. Thick violet mist began to bleed from the shadows of a nearby ruin, coalescing into something unnatural. From its center emerged not a monster but a man clothed in interlocking black plates that devoured the surrounding light.
"Reed Blackwell," the stranger said. His voice didn't come from his mouth, it echoed directly inside Reed's skull.
Reed stumbled backward, fingers instinctively closing around the rusted shiv at his belt. "Who the hell are you? How do you know my name?"
"I am a messenger of a forgotten truth," the man murmured, advancing with deliberate steps. He extended his palm, revealing a black metallic coin that caught no light and a sphere of dark liquid that writhed like a living thing. "The world labels you a Null, declares you empty—but they've always been wrong. You aren't empty, Reed. You're a vessel. The last one with capacity to contain the Void."
"Keep your cult magic away from me," Reed spat, though terror drummed against his ribs and dried his throat. His voice cracked slightly as he added, "I've seen your kind before—zealots promising salvation while delivering damnation.".
The stranger's lips curved into something too cold to be a smile. "Zealotry implies faith. What I offer requires none. Only acceptance of what already exists."
The stranger's eyes gleamed with ancient purpose. "No. There are thousands who cannot channel energy. But you—you are a true Null, a perfect absence. The others are merely deficient. You are... exquisitely empty." He tilted his head, studying Reed like a curious specimen. "It isn't magic. It is the end of all things."
The man tossed the black coin, it arced through the air. Reed's hand shot up—a reflex he instantly regretted. As his fingers closed around the metal, the liquid orb leapt from the stranger's hand, hurtling toward him with impossible speed. It struck his chest with the force of revelation.
Reed's scream tore through the silence as he collapsed to his knees. Absolute cold exploded through his veins, branching outward like black lightning.
This wasn't pain—it was worse. It was the sensation of his very soul being hollowed out from within, scraping him into nothingness.
The stranger dissolved into the swirling mist, voice lingering after their form had gone.
"The High Council will come for you, Reed. The Zenith Institute will see an Error where they expect a Zero." His words hung heavy in the air. "Run to the silver city, hide in plain sight. Whatever you do, don't let the hunger win!"
Then nothing—the mist evaporated, taking the stranger with it.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZING]
[CORE DETECTED: UNSTABLE VOID]
[LINKING TO HOST: REED BLACKWELL]
Reed collapsed in the grey dust, lungs burning as he gulped down air. "What the hell just happened?" he gasped, fingers trembling as they clawed at the ground. "Who was that? What am I supposed to—" His words cut off as cold radiated through his body, his skin frost-bitten to the touch. When he glanced down, he saw it—a soft violet light pulsing beneath his tattered rags, beating in rhythm with his heart.
Before his eyes, a screen materialized—translucent and rippling with dark energy that seemed to drink the light around it.
[THE VOID SYSTEM, VERSION 0 0 1]
[HOST STATUS: REJECT]
[CURRENT MISSION: SURVIVE THE EXTRACTION]
"No," Reed whispered, frantically trying to swipe the display away. "No, no, no. This isn't happening."
The silence shattered as high-tech engines roared in the distance. The Council's recovery teams had already locked onto the energy spike.
Reed's fingers tightened around the black coin until his knuckles turned white. He didn't understand the system or the Void, but clarity burned through his confusion. For the first time in his life, he didn't feel like a Zero..
He felt like a weapon.