The soul never made it. Beneath the Alps, in a sealed chamber colder than death and older than any living memory, a machine stirred to life. Steel arms moved with the grace of clockwork, conduits older nations pulsed with flickering light, and relics—part divine, part digital—lit up with code and memory. A ritual was underway.Calculated down to breath Years of silent preparation Nothing left to chance.
They were not summoning a god not quite they were calling a man.
Sliver The Ironborn
A soul torn from a war-ravaged era, forged into legend through blood and fire. They reached for him across the chasm of centuries, their voices encoded in frequencies no one could hear.
But at the final moment, something failed.
The thread frayed My breath felt uncoordinated A sliver of uncertainty slipped into the system. The soul veered—just a fraction.
Instead of rising into the waiting vessel on the altar, the soul fell. Through stone and silence, through old power and deep time, it spiraled downward, unseen, and unanchored. It bypassed the vessel, bypassed the call. It passed through layers of the world, not even the summoners knew existed. And it settled—quietly, imperfectly—into flesh never meant to carry it.
Lloyd woke with a choking gasp.
There have been no nightmares. No sound. Just the bathroom taps dripping and the faint hum of a wall heater that had not worked since winter. His shirt was soaked in cold sweat. His chest heaved, heart racing as though he had just escaped something terrible—though he remembered nothing.
The ceiling above him had not changed. Same hairline crack. Same rust-stained fan. Same flickering lightbulb swinging from its wire.
Another Tuesday.
The clock reads 16:21. Late again.
He moved like a machine. Chilly water. Coffee that tasted like burnt rubber. Boots. Jacket. Factory badge. The tram screeched as he stepped into the street, sending a spray of oily rain into the gutter.
He caught the next one, crammed against silent strangers. Everyone stared down at their phones. No one spoke. No one breathed too loudly.
The city slid by, skeletal and gray. Southern Europe, 2025. Whatever future had once been promised here was long gone. The buildings looked like they had survived a war no one had talked about. The locals called it Iskra, but he never asked what that meant.
He did not remember moving here. I did not remember much of anything before this life—the job, the apartment, the endless routine. But somehow, that emptiness never seemed strange. It just felt… expected.
The packaging plant stood like a dead giant, half-swallowed by fog. Security waved him through without a word. Inside, the air reeked of melted plastic and scorched circuitry. Forklifts groaned in the distance. Conveyor belts clattered endlessly, like bones in a steel throat.
Anton, his shift supervisor, barely looked up. "You're late."
"I know," Lloyd muttered. His voice sounded distant in his own ears.
"Zone C. Cooler's busted again. Do not pass out."
Lloyd did not respond. He just nodded, pulled on his gloves, and walked into the cold.
Zone C was always freezing. One of the overhead lights buzzed with a dying effort. Crates were stacked high, labeled in fading languages he could not read. He moved through them without thinking, scanning barcodes, logging weights, and punching numbers into a terminal that barely worked.
It was the kind of work designed to grind you down—to turn hours into dust.
But tonight, something was wrong.
At 22:37, he felt it: a low hum. Not heard—felt. Like the pressure behind his teeth. Like a vibration inside his spine.
He looked up.
Something moved between the rows of crates.
"Hey," he called out, voice low. "You're not supposed to be back here."
No answer.
He stepped around the corner. Empty. Just the dim green glow of scanners and the echo of machines.
The hum stopped.
He stood still. Listening.
Then—words. Not spoken aloud but whispered inside the back of his skull.
You were not meant to wake up like this.
He staggered, fists clenched instinctively. "Who's there?" He hissed.
But the air had already gone still.
His terminal beeped. The screen flickered. Then: static. Lines of white noise. And then, words:
He is watching. The gate is not closed. You are bleeding light.
Lloyd blinked. The screen returned to normal, like nothing had happened.
He stood frozen until someone shouted for clearance on the other side of the building.
He did not answer.
By the end of the shift, he had not spoken to anyone.
What could he say?
Anton would laugh.
The others would not care.
No one did.
It was stressful.
A hallucination.
A fluke in the system.
Maybe.
At 03:12, back in his apartment, Lloyd sat in the dark, hunched over his phone. The glow lit his face in cold blue. He was not reading anything—just scrolling. News. Ads. Comments turned off. A video of something burning over Ukraine.
Then the phone froze.
The screen went black.
Then text appeared, bright and silent:
Go to the park on Bulok Avenue. Wait. Do not speak. Do not leave until it is time.
No sender. No app. No notification sound.
The message lingered.
Then I vanished.
The phone returned to its locked screen.
03:13.
Lloyd stared at it. Motionless.
Then he heard it again—closer now. Inside him.
You are not complete. But the world remembers you.
He stood slowly, not realizing he had made the decision.
Jacket. Keys.
He did not lock the door behind him.
Outside, the streets were deserted. Streetlights buzzed faintly, reflecting rainwater pooled between broken bricks. The neon sign above the pharmacy across the square flickered red and green like a dying pulse.
He walked.
His footsteps echoed, soft and careful.
Every step felt… measured.
As if he were being tracked not by sound, but by memory.
Something followed.
Not with footsteps.
Older than footsteps.
Older than the street beneath him.
Older than the city itself.
When he reached Bulok Avenue, and the small, empty park at its edge, he stopped.
There was no one waiting.
No message.
No voice.
Only silence.
And something stirring inside him.
Something ancient.
Something woke me up.