Volume 1 · Chapter 1
Cycle One: The Ruined Aurora
Ren's first breath of this cycle tasted of ash and iron. He awoke on cracked asphalt, dust motes dancing in fractured shafts of pale dawn. Around him, the city lay in ruin—skyscrapers fractured like splintered bones, their neon veins long since extinguished. A heavy quiet pressed in, broken only by the distant groan of failing infrastructure and the whisper of wind through jagged concrete.
He sat up slowly, limbs heavy as though weighted by unimaginable sleep. The last thing he remembered… Nothing. Blankness. His mind felt stripped clean, a parchment wiped bare. No name, no family, no past. Only the aching sense that he should know something—something vital—yet it slipped like water through his fingers.
A light at the horizon—an eerie, greenish glow—spilled over tattered billboards and overturned cars. Like an aurora bleeding across a dying sky. He rose unsteadily, senses sharpening: the air was thick and acrid, carrying the metallic tang of blood from some unseen wound. He pressed a hand to his side. His shirt was damp—warm to the touch—but the source of the wound eluded him. His fingers brushed against a jagged tear; beneath it, a thin crust of dried crimson.
Panic fluttered at the edge of his chest. He drew a ragged breath. Stay calm, he told himself, though he did not know why. There must be a reason you're here. He scanned for cover—an alcove, a broken wall—anything to hide in while he gathered his thoughts. His gaze landed on a shattered storefront: glass lay in glittering shards like fallen stars. He limped toward it, every step a protest from his bruised muscles.
Inside the empty shop, half its ceiling collapsed, revealing the sky's slow betrayal. Ren pressed his back to the cool wall and closed his eyes. He tried to recall how he'd come to lie here, but no flicker of memory stirred. A name? A face? Nothing. Only that haunting sense of déjà‑vu, as if he had woken here before—and countless times again.
An irregular ticking drew him open‑eyed to the far corner. Under rubble, a broken clock lay face‑up. Its hands were frozen at 8:07—but the second hand beat on, stubbornly clicking through debris as if marking some impossible time. Ren approached, curiosity and dread coiling together. He knelt and reached out. The ticking was uneven, the mechanism warped. Yet the sound felt… deliberate, as though guiding him.
Suddenly, the clock wound down: tick… tick… tick… then silence. The second hand stilled. Ren's heart thundered. He expected the world to shatter—or to reset. But the ruined city remained exactly as he'd found it, as though time itself had gasped and then sighed.
He rose, propelled by a fierce, wordless question: Why am I here? He forced himself to breathe steadily, scanning the shop's empty aisles for anything—water, food, a clue. Broken shelves littered with dust, a toppled mannequin with its face cracked away. Nothing. Abandoned lives frozen in ruin.
A low vibration thrummed through the floorboards: distant, but growing stronger. Ren stiffened. A vehicle? Or something far older, something living? The rumble coalesced into a hollow groan that shook the steel support beams. He stumbled outside just as a massive shadow swept over him—a leviathan shape, impossibly vast, slipping behind shattered buildings on the city's edge.
He stumbled back. His breath caught. He could not know if it was the same creature he had glimpsed in fragments of dream‑memories—dreams that now were lost in the fog. Yet his skin prickled with recognition. The horizon's ruined skyline was alive with tremors. Somewhere deep underground, ancient engines whirred to life. The creature's roar never came, yet the city shuddered as if anticipating its fury.
Ren forced his legs to move. He descended from the shop's sill into the street, following a cracked avenue lit by that sickly aurora glow. His shoes crunched on debris—glass, metal, the bones of this world. Every sense told him: move forward. Perhaps someone—something—waited ahead.
After what felt like hours, he reached a shattered archway that once served as a gateway into the city's heart. Above it, faded neon letters flickered: CADENCE STATION. A name. Cadence. He echoed it in his mind. Had it meant something? His hand came up, rubbing his temple as fatigue washed over him. Yet a stubborn spark of purpose remained.
He slipped beneath the arch. Beyond lay a broad plaza, skeletons of statues half‐drowned in rubble. In the center, a grand clocktower rose—its face cracked but still luminous in that unearthly light. The clock's hands were frozen at Day 42, its Roman numerals scorched and warped.
Ren's breath caught. Day 42. The moment before… he did not know what, but he felt in his bones that this number was prophecy. His pulse hammered. He drew closer, straining to see any motion within the tower's shattered windows.
A soft voice drifted through the alien breeze—female, distant, mournful. "Don't love me," it whispered, almost carried by the wind itself. Ren froze, goose‑flesh rising. The words repeated in his mind: "Don't love me." But why? And who was speaking? He turned in a slow circle, bewildered, but the plaza was empty—only rubble and ruin answered him.
He staggered a step toward the voice, mind ablaze with questions. Then—
A sudden crash behind him. He spun to find a silver‑haired figure emerging from the shadows of a collapsed fountain. She was slight, but her gaze was fierce. Her hair shimmered like moonlight caught in spilled mercury. In her hands, she clutched a worn sketchbook, its cover torn.
Ren opened his mouth to speak, but the words stuck in his throat. His pulse thundered so loudly he feared the girl would hear it. She stared at him, eyes wide with something between fear and relief.
"Who… are you?" Ren croaked. But no answer came—only the echo of her warning: Don't love me.
She lifted a trembling hand and pressed a finger to her lips: shh. Then she flicked her wrist, and the sketchbook's pages fluttered open, revealing a spiral countdown scrawled in red: 42 → 41 → 40 → …
Ren's heart seized. A spiral of numbers, bleeding toward oblivion. His mind screamed with a single thought: he was not the first to awaken here. Not the first to face this cycle. Something in him shifted—an ember of purpose igniting. If every ending began at 42, maybe every beginning did too.
The girl closed the book with a snap. Her silver hair fell over one pale eye. She whispered, barely audible: "You don't remember, do you?"
Ren swallowed, voice raw. "Why… why don't I remember anything?"
She shook her head, eyes luminous with bittersweet regret. "Because you're meant to forget. Every forty‑two days, everything resets." She paused, searching his face. "I've told them all: Don't love me. Everyone who does… vanishes."
Silence roared between them. Ren's breath caught in his chest. He searched her eyes, desperate for truth. She hesitated, then released the sketchbook and took a step back into shadow.
"Come," she said softly. "If you want answers, you'll have to follow me."
As she slipped into the rubble‑strewn alley, Ren's hand tightened into a fist. The ash‑choked wind smelled of endings—and, perhaps, of hope.
He took a single, steady step forward.
And the ruined city exhaled.