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✅ Dimension Olive
Chapter 1: The Laugh Beyond the Stars
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> When Thomas opened his eyes, the sky was still broken.
Pieces of clouds drifted like shards of glass across a horizon that wasn't there. The world had collapsed into floating fragments, jagged slabs of Earth suspended in a sea of molten red and shimmering black. Gravity existed only when it felt like it.
His body ached, but something was… off. The air was heavy, but it wasn't choking him. His wounds were gone—completely erased, not healed, as if they never existed.
He sat up slowly, breathing out words that tasted like iron and dust. "What… the hell happened…?"
Then he saw them.
People—what was left of them—crawling across shattered streets. Their skin shimmered with unnatural patterns, glowing veins pulsing like molten rivers. Some screamed. Some laughed. Some… split open into writhing silhouettes before vanishing like mist.
Thomas touched his own skin—and froze.
His arm. Black markings carved along his veins, glowing faintly blue, moving like living ink. When he flexed his fingers, sparks of light burst between them, bending space like ripples on water.
"No… no, no, no. This ain't real…" He clutched his head, his breath ragged.
That's when the voice returned.
"Do you like the gift?"
Thomas spun, fists clenched. "WHO THE FUCK IS THAT?!"
"Names don't matter yet. Only purpose. And your purpose…" The voice chuckled, soft and venomous. "…is to live when all others die."
"Fuck purpose!" Thomas roared, kicking a cracked signpost off the floating ground. It vanished into the abyss below. "You think I wanted this shit? You think I—"
His rant was cut short by a sudden click overhead. He looked up.
A black, skeletal drone hovered above him, its surface etched with glowing blue lines. A metallic voice crackled from its speaker:
"Survivor confirmed. Identification: irrelevant. Designation pending. Extraction imminent."
"What the—" Before Thomas could move, the ground beneath him split apart. A vortex of shimmering blue swallowed him whole.
The last thing he heard before darkness claimed him was the voice again, whispering a name that burned into his mind like fire:
"Black Rose."
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🔥 End of Chapter 2 Hook: "Thomas didn't know it yet, but the world he woke into was no longer Earth. It was the Nexus. And the war had only begun."
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