—One fracture in the sky. One boy caught between two worlds.
It started with a hum.
Subtle. Rhythmic. Endless.
Like something ancient bleeding through the seams of a modern night.
A chill crawled down Shawn Mercer's spine as he looked up from his desk.The sound wasn't loud—but it vibrated somewhere deep inside his skull, less like noise and more like a memory stirring from hibernation. Or a warning.
Then the light came.
He rushed to the window—nearly tripping over the textbooks and empty coffee cups scattered on the floor. Outside, above the city skyline, the sky had ruptured.
A perfect circle—blinding and unnatural—floated high above the clouds, rippling with violet and white rings. From its core, a V-shaped beam of pure light pierced downward, clean and silent.
There was no thunder. No explosion. Only that glow— and the unrelenting hum.
Shawn stumbled back. "What the hell is that?"
A hallucination? Possibly. He hadn't slept in days. The pressure of the college entrance exam weighed on him like wet concrete, grinding his thoughts to mush.
But still—he couldn't look away. His vision blurred at the edges, but the sigil remained sharp—impossibly real.
Then, something stirred in his memory.
He turned, yanked open a drawer, and rifled until his fingers found a slim envelope. He hadn't touched it in ages—had almost forgotten it existed.
Inside was a scrap of parchment, thin and yellowed with age.
On it, a meticulously inked image: a circle with a sharp V carved into its center. Coiled around the symbol was a dragon, drawn in faded green strokes—elegant, old.
Beneath the image, a single line of delicate script:
"Change is eternal; balance leads to power."
His grandfather had given him the parchment on his sixth birthday, his expression grave as he passed it over.
"When the sky bleeds light, trust the dragon's eye," he had said—calm, firm, as if naming a law of nature.
Back then, it had seemed like a riddle. Now it felt like a prophecy, realized.
The circle in the sky… it matched the one on the parchment exactly.
Shawn's fingers trembled as he reached out and touched the dragon's eye.
The ink shimmered—then pulsed, its rhythm echoing deep in his chest.
A low vibration ran through the parchment and into his bones.
The hum swelled.
The room darkened—or was the light folding inward?
He reached for balance, but the floor, the walls, the very shape of the world twisted around him.
And the dragon moved.
It lifted from the page, ink unraveling into light, curling upward with ancient grace.
A panicked 'Ahh' escaped Shawn's lips.
The world dissolved into white.
The white swallowed sound, time, even gravity—until his knees hit the ground with a jolt.
When he came to, the sky was different—no longer the familiar sweep of stars and clouds, but a vast expanse of violet streaked with silver, slow and shifting.
He stood on a surface that defied definition: hard, smooth.
Shawn pushed himself upright and scanned the horizon.
No wind. No birds.
Only the faint tremor beneath his feet—a steady thrum, mechanical and deep, like the heartbeat of something buried and immense.
Ahead, the air bent inward, distorting around a dim blue glow at the center. It wasn't bright. It wasn't artificial.
It felt like a signal.
Was this a dream? The cold air bit at his skin.
No—this was real.
Only the world had changed.
Shawn stepped forward, cautiously.
Clang!
A metallic crash shattered the stillness. He froze.
It wasn't a wall—it was armor. Tall. Imposing.
Figures emerged from the shadows: towering, faceless warriors encased in gleaming alloy. Faded lettering marked their plating—O.S.S.
Without warning, they raised their weapons—long, jagged spears crackling with charged energy.
What are these things? Soldiers? Machines?
One stepped forward. His armor was more ornate, trimmed in blackened silver. The leader.
"Halt."
His voice was clipped, each word honed with military precision.
"This sector is restricted."
Shawn didn't move. Hands half-raised, heart pounding.
"I—I don't even know how I got here."
The figure paused, as though weighing his words—or perhaps weighing Shawn.
"You truly don't know where you are?"
Shawn shook his head, thoughts spinning like leaves in a storm.
"Is this a simulation? Am I still on Earth?"
The leader gave a short, mirthless laugh.
"You stand before the Rift," he said, his voice scraping like steel over stone.
"No one crosses without permission."
The Rift?
The word hit like a block of ice to the chest.
He steadied himself.
"Please—just tell me. What happened here?"
The warriors exchanged glances. The leader spoke again, his tone distant, as if reciting a line long etched into memory.
"There will be war.
Between modern technology and ancient truth.
Between control… and freedom."
The words hit like stones. Shawn staggered but held his ground.
"A war?" he whispered. "Who are you?"
The leader straightened. His presence seemed to grow—though faceless, his unseen stare seared into Shawn's mind, leaving phantom burns.
"We are the Keepers of Order.
The enforcers of fate.
The strongest force in the known universe."
Shawn reeled.
This wasn't a glitch in some simulation.
This was real.
Something far bigger.
It had to be a nightmare.
Before he could speak, movement rippled through the ranks. One warrior stared at Shawn's trembling hand.
"The sigil…" he murmured, voice thick with disbelief.
Shawn followed his gaze.
There it was—the paper. The symbol.
A perfect circle, split by a V-shaped crack.
The lead warrior shifted. His grip tightened.
"He's one of them," he said—quiet, but heavy with fear.
Chaos followed.
Spears snapped upward, crackling with energy. Shouts rang out. The warriors surged as one.
"Meta-Origin Sect! Seize him!"
Shawn didn't think—he just ran.
His feet pounded the ground, lungs burning, mind spiraling in a blur of noise and instinct.
Meta-Origin Sect?
The words rang out in his head. There was no time to question, no time to understand.
Behind him, metal clashed, and the thunder of armored boots rolled like distant drums of war.
But something was different.
His body moved as if released from invisible chains—lighter, quicker, each step powered by a strange energy rising from somewhere deep within. It felt older, more primal, like something long dormant in his blood had finally awakened.
He sped through the unseen corridors of space, drawn toward something he couldn't name.
A flash came—red light streaking through the void.
A sun.
But not golden, not warm.
This one burned in deep crimson, as if forged by gods whose names had been forgotten.
And around it turned a single blue planet, solemn and slow in its orbit.
Earth?
But no—the hue was off. The continents twisted in unfamiliar shapes, and the atmosphere shimmered with an unnatural iridescence.
Still, something in it called to him, not through reason, but memory—like the ghost of a song once sung in dreams.
Something sparked inside him.
He pushed forward, faster with each stride, the very air seeming to yield before him.
Gravity took hold.
It came without warning, sudden and final, dragging him down like an anchor to reality.
The air thickened around him, heavy with the scent of wet earth and living things. Sound returned in a rush—shouts, laughter, the low hum of engines.
The impact came next.
The ground slammed into him, jarring through every bone. For a moment, the world spun.
He lay still.
Slowly, shakily, he raised his head.
He felt a wave of relief.
He was home.Or so he thought.
His eyes swept across the streets, the skyline, the faces in the distance. All of it familiar—and yet subtly, unmistakably wrong. Buildings stood where they shouldn't. Colors felt too sharp, too vivid. The people moved with purpose, but their clothes, their gestures, carried a strangeness he couldn't name.
It looked like Earth.
But deep down, in the quiet space between heartbeats, something told him the truth.
This wasn't home.