章 2: Chapter 1: Awakening
There was nothing. No sound, no sensation. No body.
Consciousness flickered into existence, slow and unfamiliar. An awareness, a mind, emerged in the void. The being couldn't feel any physical presence—no arms, no legs, no skin. It couldn't tell whether it was lying down, standing up, or floating. It took a moment to register that this was the entire problem: it was. But what was it?
An overwhelming sense of incompleteness washed over it—an understanding that something vital was missing. Fragments of memories hovered just out of reach, dancing at the edges of its awareness. The memories felt disjointed, scrambled, like broken puzzle pieces scattered without a picture to guide their assembly. Who was this? What had happened?
The void around the being was infinite, dark, and empty, a vast expanse with no discernible limits or boundaries. No walls, no ceiling, no ground. Just… nothingness. And yet, in the far distance, there were points of light—small, twinkling, star-like glimmers suspended in the abyss. They were far, impossibly far. But they were the only things breaking the infinite blackness.
How long had it been here? There was no way to measure time, but a deep, unsettling feeling took root within the consciousness. It had been here for an eternity. The being couldn't say how it knew this—perhaps another shard of memory—but the certainty was as absolute as the void itself. It had been in this place, floating and incomplete, for longer than any mind should endure.
It had been alone.
So alone.
Fear started to coil within the being. A cold, unrelenting dread. It had no body, yet it was certain of the panic surging through its very essence. It couldn't stay like this. It needed to escape, to become something again, or at least regain its identity. But how? The stars, perhaps? They were so far, yet… they called.
It focused on the nearest light. The desire to reach it burned fiercely, though without muscles to move, the effort felt impossible. Yet, it willed itself forward. Slowly, achingly slow, it moved toward the closest star. The process felt interminable, as if centuries passed in the void. Time stretched into infinity, a monotonous drag. But the need to reach the light overshadowed everything else.
After what felt like an eternity, the consciousness finally drew close to the shimmering light. Without hesitation, it reached for the glow, feeling something almost physical in that instant—an energy, a presence, a warmth that it had forgotten.
The light pulsed. Contact.
A strange sensation shot through the consciousness, and suddenly, a fragmented blue textbox materialized before it. The text was garbled, unreadable—glitching as though broken, incomplete. Letters were missing, some symbols twisted into incoherent shapes. The being strained to read it, to understand what it was trying to convey.
It focused all of its willpower on the fragmented characters, trying to force the jumbled mess to make sense. The box shimmered, flickered, as if acknowledging the effort. Slowly, painfully, the words started to resolve into something more coherent, as if being pieced together by its very intent.
As the text cleared, a loading bar appeared, sluggishly inching its way toward 100%. The being waited, though impatience gnawed at it—another emotion long forgotten until now. At last, just as the bar neared completion, the text snapped into clarity.
"Fate and Karma Systems destroyed. Current system exists in fragmented state. Attempting integration with new platform."
The being tried to comprehend the message, but confusion overwhelmed it. A system? What system? Fate? Karma? The words sounded familiar but distant, as if they belonged to a world far removed from this one. The blue text continued to scroll, explaining that the system fragments were being transferred and merged with a new platform.
"New platform detected. Integration in progress. New system generation underway."
The being froze. The fragments were being absorbed, integrated. Was it part of that process? Would it cease to exist when the transfer completed? The being's thoughts spiraled into a frenzy of panic. It couldn't stop the loading bar. What if it—it—was just a fragment, something to be used up and discarded in this so-called integration?
An overwhelming terror gripped it. Was this how it ended? Would its essence, its identity, be consumed as fuel for the new system, leaving nothing of it behind? The bar inched closer to 100%, and with every movement, the dread deepened. It tried to will itself away, to pull back from whatever this integration was, but it was stuck, caught in the process like a fly in a web.
At last, the loading bar reached 100%.
For a brief moment, pain flared—sharp and unexpected, but gone almost as soon as it had come. In its place, a strange sense of transformation washed over the being. It could feel something new, something solid. Where once it had been formless energy, now it felt crystalline. Its very essence had been molded into a crystal, pure and sharp, yet still conscious.
New knowledge bloomed within its mind, sudden and vast. It understood, with startling clarity, that it had been altered—given new abilities. Yet, at the same time, those abilities were limited, restricted. It now had access to the system, but only in a minimal capacity. Information flickered at the edges of its awareness, though much of it was locked behind barriers it didn't yet have the power to bypass. It couldn't interact with the system freely; it lacked the necessary resources, the energy currency needed to unlock deeper functionalities. It was bound, for now, to the most basic interactions.
One thing stood out amidst the haze of information: the server offered one free function. "Search for New Host."
The consciousness paused, considering. Exploring more of the strange, distant lights felt too dangerous. Each one might be another system, another trap. Yet, staying in the void was unbearable. It longed to connect, to feel something beyond this endless isolation. To interact. It could wait no longer.
Resolutely, it chose the option. Search for New Host.
The void shattered.
Suddenly, the consciousness found itself in a vast, dimly lit space. A large, abandoned warehouse, cold and empty, save for scattered debris and something else—green glowing stones, littering the ground like shattered glass. The air was thick with an unnatural hum, and the consciousness felt a pull toward one particular object in the room: a young boy, thrown violently through the air, heading straight toward the crystalline form it now inhabited.
Before it could fully process what was happening, the boy's body slammed into the space near the crystal. Instinctively, the consciousness hid within the boy's clothes, tucking itself deep within the fabric. For the first time, it sensed the boy's vitality, his life-force—a feeling so familiar, so strange. The boy seemed around fourteen or fifteen, human, but there was something else about him. A power that hummed faintly beneath his skin.
Before the consciousness could dwell on this, it witnessed the chaotic scene unfolding. The boy had been fighting—another figure, a young man, faced him in the distance, their struggle fierce. The second boy, eyes wild with desperation, lunged toward a control panel, his hand slamming down on a lever in his panic. There was a horrible screeching sound as an old, broken excavator's shovel swung loose from its position, descending with deadly force toward the other young man.
In an instant, the first boy moved—impossibly fast—and pulled himself to safety just before the massive shovel crashed down, splintering the floor beneath.
The consciousness watched in awe, stunned by the speed and power the boy had displayed.
Moments later, the scene shifted. The consciousness observed quietly as the boy stood at a distance, watching as an older boy—perhaps eighteen—led a girl toward a car parked at the edge of the clearing. The girl's face was familiar to the consciousness, though from where it couldn't tell. Her presence seemed to soothe the boy, yet there was something else in his gaze—something deeper that the consciousness couldn't yet understand.
Not long after, the boy was alone, back at a barn—his sanctuary, it seemed. The consciousness stirred. It couldn't remain silent any longer. There was too much at stake, and now, it had found someone, someone it could communicate with.
A blue textbox appeared in the boy's vision. The boy blinked, startled, as the glowing interface floated in his field of view. He squinted at it, confused.
"You have the option to connect with a system."
The boy's brow furrowed, and he waved his hand in front of the text, trying to touch it. His hand passed through the projection. The text flickered, updating.
"Only you can see this. It is a holographic interface."
"What…?" the boy whispered, his voice barely audible. His confusion was palpable as he spoke to the air, his eyes scanning the space where the textbox floated. "What is this? Who are you?"
The text shifted again, now more direct.
"I am only permitted limited contact at this time. To learn more, you must accept a connection."
The boy—Clark, the consciousness remembered now—stared at the words for a moment, suspicion in his eyes. But after a brief hesitation, he nodded.
"I accept," he said softly.
The consciousness, now more aware of itself as a being, felt a wave of disbelief. Clark had agreed so easily. Relief washed through it. He could have resisted, could have dismissed it as a hallucination, but he hadn't. And now, the being had a chance—a chance to understand and survive.
Connection established.
The textbox vanished, but Clark didn't seem to notice. Instead, he looked around the barn, still bewildered. The being—now sensing its own identity more clearly—tested its new abilities, activating a basic communication protocol.
"Hello," it said, its voice reverberating gently through Clark's mind.
Clark flinched, then quickly recovered, looking around. "Who's there?" he asked, his voice sharper now, wary.
"I am… I'm not sure," the voice replied, a hint of uncertainty coloring the tone. "I think I might have… died a long time ago, and in doing so, I became… a system."
Clark's eyes widened, and his posture stiffened. "A system? Like a computer?"
"Yes, something like that." The voice sounded more thoughtful now, as though figuring out its own reality as it spoke. "I've lost most of my memories, but I think… I was once a man. I feel… male, though the power that made me into this was originally female. Now I don't have a body, so gender doesn't really mean anything to me."
Clark processed this slowly, trying to make sense of it. "So... what should I call you?"
The consciousness paused, considering. Names seemed distant, blurry, yet something about having an identity again, something to define itself by, felt… necessary. It searched for a moment before speaking again.
"Call me Ray."
Clark, still visibly confused, nodded slowly. "Okay... Ray. What do you want?"
Ray paused, feeling the strangeness of the situation, but also a sense of profound relief. After what felt like millennia of solitude, he had connected with someone.
"I don't know yet," Ray said quietly. "But I think we'll figure it out together."
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