Wind screamed past William's ears.
That was the first thing he noticed.
Not the sky around him, not the ground rushing toward him at a speed that should have terrified him. Just the wind—violent and constant, like the air itself had turned hostile.
He blinked and tried to focus.
For a moment his mind refused to process what he was seeing. The sky wasn't empty. It was filled with faint strands of glowing blue energy that twisted and drifted through the air like threads suspended in water. Some moved lazily, curling and drifting wherever the wind carried them. Others snapped and crackled like lightning that had lost its direction.
And he was falling straight through it.
Fast.
The ground below was getting larger by the second.
Instinct took over before his mind caught up. His arms shot outward, fingers grasping at empty air as if he could somehow stop himself. Of course it didn't work. Gravity didn't care about panic.
As he fell, the blue energy around him began to react.
At first it was subtle. A few of the glowing strands bent toward him as if drawn by an unseen force. Then more followed. Within seconds the drifting threads began spiraling around his body, weaving together like a storm forming around a single point.
William had no idea what the energy was, but something about it felt deeply wrong.
The moment the first strand touched him, the entire sky erupted with light.
Every thread of blue energy snapped toward him at once.
It was like falling into the center of a collapsing star.
The strands wrapped around his body, pouring into him faster than he could comprehend. The light intensified until the world turned into nothing but blinding blue.
Then the pain started.
It wasn't sharp like a cut or a broken bone. It was deeper than that, spreading through every nerve at once as if something foreign was forcing its way into every part of him.
His vision blurred.
The ground was right there now.
Below him stretched an endless desert—miles of sand and rock with nothing to break the fall.
There wasn't time to react.
The moment he hit the ground, the world shattered.
The impact unleashed a blinding flash that tore across the desert. Sand and rock exploded outward as the ground collapsed beneath him, forming a massive crater in an instant. A shockwave ripped across the wasteland, flattening dunes and throwing debris into the air for miles.
The blue energy followed.
It burst outward from the center of the crater like a tidal wave, spreading across the desert before gradually dispersing into the atmosphere.
Then everything went quiet.
William woke with sand pressed against his cheek.
For several seconds he didn't move. His body felt heavy and stiff, like gravity itself had increased.
Above him stretched a pale, empty sky.
No glowing energy.
No storm.
Just silence.
He slowly pushed himself upright. The movement sent a dull ache through his muscles, but nothing seemed broken.
When he looked around, the scale of the destruction finally became clear.
He was sitting at the bottom of a crater so large it looked like a valley. The edges stretched far into the distance, jagged walls of sand and rock forming a massive circle around him.
William stared at it for a long moment.
Something about it felt important, like he should understand what he was looking at.
But he didn't.
A faint crease formed between his eyebrows as he tried to think.
The result was… nothing.
His mind felt empty.
Not foggy. Not confused.
Just blank.
He tried something simple.
Where am I?
No answer came.
He tried something else.
Who am I?
The thought echoed in the silence of his mind.
There was still nothing.
William froze as a strange realization settled over him.
He understood language. He understood what sand was, what the sky was, and even the basic rules of the world around him. But anything personal—anything about his own life—was missing.
It was as if someone had erased every memory he had ever had.
Slowly, he stood up.
The desert stretched endlessly in every direction beyond the crater. There were no buildings, no roads, and no signs that anyone had ever been here.
Just sand and wind.
William looked down at his hands. They looked normal, but something about them felt unfamiliar, like he was seeing them for the first time.
He flexed his fingers. The movement worked perfectly.
At least that was something.
A faint breeze swept across the crater, dragging thin lines through the sand.
William turned and looked toward the center of the massive impact site behind him. A strange feeling settled in his chest as he stared at it.
Not fear.
Not confusion.
Something deeper.
A quiet certainty that he couldn't explain.
Something terrible had happened here.
Something powerful enough to reshape the desert itself.
And somehow… he was involved.
The wind picked up slightly, carrying grains of sand across the empty wasteland.
William turned slowly and stared out at the horizon.
He had no memories. No past. No idea where he was.
But one thing was already clear.
Wherever this place was…
He was completely alone.