It started with a sound.
Far off. Dim. Hollow.
Dripping.
One tap,
then another,
like water landing on rusted steel.
Then the second thing came.
Weight.
It pressed down on my chest, thick and suffocating. My ribs pushed back instinctively, drawing a stuttering breath through clenched teeth — but there was no air. Only the taste of dirt.
And pain.
God, the pain. Not sharp, not focused—just present. Like my entire body had been under something too long — crushed, starved of light. I couldn't feel my fingers until they twitched. Couldn't move my legs. Could barely think.
Where the hell was I?
I opened my eyes.
Dark.
No — worse than that. It was close. The kind of dark that came with walls inches from your skin, like your lungs weren't broken, but the air had been sealed away.
I tried to speak, but all that came out was a wet cough. Dust entered my mouth. Something brittle, tasteless. Older than rot.
I reached up.
Wood.
Thin, splintered planks overhead. Cracked. Rotting.
They creaked when I pressed against them, loose, as if the earth hadn't been sure whether to seal me in or let me go.
My breath shook. Not from fear.
Not really.
From the fact that I didn't remember how I got here.
…Not where "here" was.
…Not my name.
And somehow, not even whether or not I was supposed to be alive.
I pushed.
Slow. Desperate.
The lid scraped upward, flooding the space with loose soil as it gave way. My entire body screamed, shoving upward through the dirt until—
Air.
Cold, real, brutal air burned into my lungs, reminding me I existed. I dropped to one elbow, half-collapsed, coughing until I tasted blood.
But I was out.
No, that wasn't the right word.
I was free.
The world that greeted me was ash-gray and broken.
Flat terrain stretched in every direction, carved from cracked stone layered with shallow trenches. No trees. No towns. Nothing moving.
Just an endless graveyard of low graves and empty sky.
Only one thing stood out.
A single structure maybe a mile off — like a tower chewed out of the horizon, crooked and broken at the top. Pale light bled from its side, faint as breath on glass.
Wind whispered across the field. Not whistling — just watching.
I sat up.
Moved my hand.
Something fell from my shoulder — a shredded cloak, black and half-burnt. Beneath it: a mark carved into my skin. Fresh. Raw.
[ GRAVEBOUND INITIATED. ]
The words weren't written there. They pulsed under my skin like they remembered something I didn't.
Then something else buzzed in my head — almost like a voice. But it wasn't someone speaking from outside. It was something deeper.
Like a memory that belonged to my body, not my mind:
"Every time you die, you fall."
"Every time you fall, the world remembers a different version of you."
"Climb, if you can. Or stay buried forever."
The voice vanished.
I looked back—and froze.
My grave hadn't been dug by a shovel.
It had been carved. Cleanly. Precisely. As if someone had built it before I died.
There were others nearby. Graves just like mine.
Most were closed.
Some weren't.
A few... were broken, as if something had clawed its way in.
Sand shifted behind me.
I turned fast, raising my fists—but there was no threat.
Just a figure.
Standing silent on the edge of the grave field.
Wrapped in gray robes that trailed behind like smoke. No face. No hands. Just the outline of a person — still as death.
It raised a hand.
Pointed at me.
Then spoke in a voice that wasn't sound — only pressure.
"You came back wrong."
I didn't speak.
Didn't trust my voice. Didn't know if I cared what that thing was, or what it meant. Whatever I was before this moment — whoever I'd been — had been buried.
Only thing that mattered now was knowing what the hell this place was.
And how deep it went.
That's when my hand brushed something on the ground.
A weapon.
Wrapped in torn cloth. Long. Heavy.
I didn't recognize it.
But my fingers closed around the hilt like they'd never let go.
Something clicked in my wrist. Bone memory. A flicker of familiarity behind the numbness in my chest. I pulled it free—metal groaned like it hated the light.
The cloth fell.
A blade.
Long. Notched near the hilt. Red lines ran down the edge, etched not with runes—but with names.
None of them were mine.
That scared me more than anything.
I stood, slowly.
Wind twisted around me again—and I realized the sky hadn't just been gray.
It had cracks in it.
Deep, webbed fractures running above like broken glass held in place by forgotten intentions. Through one of them, I saw a second moon. Blood-red.
Another world, deeper down?
Another layer?
My grip tightened.
Something deep in me — the only real thing left — whispered:
"This isn't the first time you've climbed out."
And maybe...
It wouldn't be the last.
That's when I heard screaming.
Human.
Far-off. Coming from the direction of the broken tower.
Another voice. Messy. Wet with pain.
One word.
"Ashon!"
I froze.
That name.
That voice.
I didn't know who I was before waking up.
But I knew that voice once meant something.
I turned toward the tower, the wind at my back suddenly laced with heat.
A shadow loomed in the distance — massive, hunched, dragging something behind it as it moved toward the ruins.
Too far to see.
Close enough to feel.
I didn't have a choice.
I ran.