The snow came alive.
It whipped around Jax like a predatory shroud, needles of ice stinging his eyes as he tore himself away from the shattered cryo-pod's cover. His trench coat snapped violently in the gale, heavy with frost and blood. Alarms wailed somewhere behind him—distant, distorted, already losing relevance.
His heart hammered too fast, too loud.
The gash along his arm throbbed, blood crystallizing into jagged rubies along his sleeve. Every breath sent fire through his bruised ribs. Renn's betrayal burned in his skull—partners are just thieves waiting for better odds—but the thought was drowned out by something far worse.
The rift.
It was no longer a fracture.
It was a wound.
Reality split open with a soundless scream, a vertical gash ten feet tall and widening by the second. Its edges warped and flickered, space bending like overheated glass. The blizzard recoiled from it, swallowed by an unnatural fog that poured outward—thick, suffocating, colder than the storm itself.
And then they came.
Void Wraiths.
They bled out of the tear like phantoms clawing free of a nightmare—translucent, vaguely humanoid, their elongated limbs unraveling into drifting tendrils. They moved like jellyfish through invisible currents, unbothered by wind, gravity, or terrain.
Where faces should have been, there was nothing.
Hollow voids.
No eyes. No mouths.
Just absence.
"Mutations since the Stabilization…" Jax muttered, cynicism cracking under primal fear. "Sunny and his legends patched the Spell. Stopped the mass outbreaks."
His gaze flicked back to the widening gash.
"But this? These rifts… they evolved."
No warning signs.
No Sleeper symptoms.
Just disappearance.
One Wraith turned toward him.
It noticed him.
Its tendrils snapped forward.
Jax dove, crashing behind a snow-buried vehicle husk as frozen metal screamed beneath the impact. Pain flared. Nearby, rift watchers screamed—short, sharp sounds that cut off too quickly.
An old man clutched a burning barrel as a tendril wrapped around his head.
"My… my name…" the man whispered, eyes glazing. "What was—"
He collapsed.
Not dead.
Empty.
The body stood again moments later, vacant eyes staring ahead as it began to wander—slowly, obediently—toward the rift.
Jax's stomach twisted.
"Memory loss…" His breath fogged thickly. "That's worse than death."
Erased. Hollowed. Reduced to a walking corpse with no past.
His parents' faces flashed through his mind—already fraying at the edges after years of survival grinding them down.
If they take that…
No time.
A shadow slid over the car.
Jax rolled as a tendril lashed down where his head had been. He yanked an echo shard from his satchel—jagged crystal, humming faintly with Nightmare energy—and slashed upward.
The shard bit.
The Wraith recoiled.
No scream—just a violent distortion, like corrupted signal tearing apart. Part of its tendril dissolved into mist.
Jax grinned through clenched teeth. "Take that, you foggy bastard."
Five more emerged.
They circled.
Whispers crawled into his skull.
Memories… sweet… feed…
Jax bolted.
He weaved through the ruins—collapsed lampposts, frozen barricades from old outbreaks—boots sinking deep into the snow. A tendril grazed his shoulder.
Cold.
Not cold like ice.
Cold like annihilation.
Something pulled.
Flash.
Age ten.
The outbreak.
His parents screaming—"Jax, run!"
Their faces blurred. Names slipped.
No. No no no—
His knees buckled.
"Hands off!" he barked hoarsely. "Those brain cells are mine!"
Another Wraith closed in.
His scar ignited.
A jagged red line across his flesh burned in rhythm with the rift's pulse—alive, tugging at him like a hooked chain.
Linked.
The realization cut through the haze.
The scar. The shadows. It's calling them.
Desperation took over.
He fumbled for the green flask.
Uncorked it.
It vibrated hungrily.
Drink… feed me…
The tendril latched to his arm shuddered—then was ripped free, sucked into the flask like smoke drawn through a straw.
Power flooded him.
The world went thin.
Jax phased.
The next attack passed clean through his chest as if he were made of shadow.
"What—"
The flask swirled with captured essence. Shadows bent toward him instinctively, forming a fleeting barrier that slowed a pursuing Wraith.
He didn't command it.
It just obeyed.
The intangibility faded, but strength lingered.
Jax slashed again. Another Wraith dissolved, but the swarm pressed harder.
A husk stumbled into him—an old woman, eyes blank.
"Forgot… family…" she murmured, grasping at his coat.
Jax shoved her away gently, guilt twisting his gut.
Rifts didn't just kill.
They stole.
The pull intensified.
The rift had grown—fifteen feet now—debris spiraling inward as gravity itself tilted toward the void.
Greater Wraiths emerged.
Larger. Denser. Smarter.
One anticipated his dodge.
Its tendril wrapped his leg.
Flash.
First heist.
Age twelve.
Hiding in shadows.
Gone.
Renn's face blurred.
Who—?
Panic peaked.
"I won't lose myself!" Jax snarled, slashing wildly.
The rift howled.
Wind screamed inward.
He forced the flask against the tendril again.
It drank.
He phased free.
Shadows coiled around his legs, hurling him forward—but exhaustion crashed in all at once.
Blood loss.
Trauma.
Memory strain.
The scar screamed.
Vessel…
The greater Wraiths converged.
Jax pulled at the darkness one last time—a desperate wave rising to shield him.
Seconds.
That's all it bought.
The lamppost snapped.
Jax was ripped backward.
The world inverted.
He fell.
Void swallowed him.
Whispers crushed in from all sides.
Thief… memories… mine…
Then—
Impact.
He slammed into hard ground, rolling to a stop.
The void peeled away.
A city stretched before him.
Crumbling skyscrapers leaned like drunk giants beneath eternal dusk. Rusted cars littered the streets. Neon signs flickered weakly through decay.
Forgotten Shore vibes.
But meaner.
Darker.
Jax groaned, pushing himself up. The flask lay nearby, glowing softly.
Survive… steal…
A shadow moved.
A Wraith stalked from the ruins.
Jax tightened his grip on the shard-dagger.
"First Nightmare," he muttered, fear settling into grim resolve.
"No turning back."
The city waited.
And Jax stepped forward.