It all began.
Fifty years ago, the world blinked—and woke up differently.
The sun rose like it always did—quiet, steady, warm—spilling golden light across a world still rubbing the sleep from its eyes.
It was a normal morning.
Calm. Predictable.
Birds chirped. People rushed to work.
Children laughed on their way to school in crisp uniforms and flashing sneakers.
Markets opened with the clatter of crates, the ping of barcode scanners, and the hiss of auto-doors.
Smart windows adjusted to daylight.
Billboards lit up above the streets with shimmering ads—whispering sales, eyes blinking in endless loops.
Screens flickered alive—news anchors with too-white teeth, morning talk shows, streaming dramas, algorithmic playlists, static.
Just life. Ordinary. Familiar.
But everything was about to change.
And... the world paused.
I don't know how to describe it exactly.
Time didn't stop, but it felt like it did.
Drones froze mid-air.
Trains glided to a silent halt.
Birds hung motionless, like someone had hit pause.
Even our hearts seemed to skip a beat.
Then came the light.
At first, it was just a speck in the sky.
A shimmer. Small. Distant.
Easy to miss—unless you were looking.
It grew.
And then… erupted, like a cosmic curtain tearing across the sky.
It wasn't a star.
Not lightning. Not divine. Not scientific.
It was something else entirely.
A presence. A force.
A whisper from a world not ours.
Something that had never happened before.
It fell from the heavens in perfect silence.
No thunder. No heat. No impact.
Just a wave of pure, blinding brilliance.
It swept across the earth.
It touched everything.
Everyone.
And for a moment, just one—
people in villages, cities, desert outposts, atop icy peaks, beneath ocean waves, in deep forests, crowded markets, and quiet temples all looked up,
eyes wide, faces glowing in that strange, silent radiance.
And then…
It vanished.
No smoke. No crater. No sound. No shockwave.
Nothing left behind—
except the memory of something none of us could explain.
People paused—mid-step, mid-sentence, mid-breath.
Time didn't stop—but something deeper did.
The moment the light brushed their skin,
they felt it—not on the surface,
but deep beneath everything they'd ever known.
It was warm without heat.
Weight without pressure.
Sound without noise.
A presence that threaded itself through the very air and wrapped around the soul like a forgotten memory.
Some gasped.
Some wept.
Some dropped to their knees without knowing why.
It wasn't painful.
It wasn't joy.
It was everything.
Raw. Real. Reverent.
They felt seen.
As if the universe had turned its eye to them—
not to judge, but to remember.
For a few heartbeats, there were no doubts, no questions, no fear.
Only stillness.
And the impossible truth that something greater had touched them,
and left something behind.
Of course, the world reacted the way it always does.
Every lens caught it.
Dashcams. Security feeds. Smartglasses. Wristchips.
Social media collapsed under the weight.
#Lightfall
#Skyburst
#AMiracle
#SimulationBreak
#TheShimmerEvent
Everyone saw it.
But no one—not the scientists at Virex Core, not the spiritual orders of the Temple of Flow,
nor the archivists in the Iron Libraries—could explain it.
So they gave it a name:
The Lightfall.
Theories bloomed like weeds.
Was it a gift? A curse? A warning?
A message from something beyond?
A glitch in the simulation?
A cosmic reset?
A doorway?
They didn't know.
They still don't.
But weeks after the Lightfall, something strange started happening.
Not to all.
But enough.
Ordinary men, women, children, teens…
Suddenly, they weren't ordinary anymore.
They became something else—
like characters torn from the pages of a comic book.
Doing the unimaginable.
They began to discover things.
Abilities.
Supernatural powers that defied every law we thought we understood—
strange, terrifying, breathtaking things.
No one knew why it happened to them.
No one knew how.
But knowing our world?
Some saw a gift.
Others, a curse.
And the worst of them—the ones who saw only opportunity.
"When power lands in the wrong hands, they build thrones, not sanctuaries."
The old world—the one we thought we knew—
began to crack.
Chaos.
Fear.
Greed.
Power.
Desperation.
Madness.
Corruption.
They spread across the grid like wildfire.
Markets crashed. Cloud currencies dissolved.
The skyways above Citadel-9 burned.
Cities fell—some in hours.
Some were swallowed by silence. Others by screams.
Millions died.
Millions lost their loved ones.
Some forgot who they were.
Some became the very destruction they once feared.
But not all of them.
Some… stood.
Some became symbols of hope.
They rose when the world almost fell.
They fought when everything seemed lost.
They tried—really tried—to build something better.
I wonder what you would do?
This is the world we inherited.
A world born in light.
Reforged in fear.
Carved by power.
New religions rose like phoenixes from ashes:
The Church of Resonance. The Children of Lightfall. The Cult of Echoes.
Ruined cities became fortresses.
New ones rose—vertical, floating, buried deep underground.
Power shifted.
Ideals mutated.
Secret factions warred over what the Lightfall meant.
A hundred ideologies.
A hundred definitions of truth.
All were born from one moment.
And still, no one knows what the Lightfall was.
Where it came from.
Or if it's ever coming back.
Some believe it had a will.
A consciousness.
A purpose.
And if that's true…
Then maybe it's still out there.
Somewhere.
Watching.
Waiting.
---
So, was my narrative good?
It's a skill I learned from my grandfather.
He had that kind of old man's magic—
where every word held weight,
and every pause felt sacred.
For real...
Grandparents are the best storytellers in the world.
They didn't live all those years for nothing.
So now, if you'll let me be that voice for you, I'd like to explore this world together.
The story you're about to hear...
It isn't just a story.
It's a truth buried in fiction.
One, I hope you carry with you long after it ends.
---
It starts with me stepping off the train, its silver body gleaming like a blade beneath the rising sun.
The floor shifted beneath my feet as it settled—
a soft tremor rising through the platform and into my legs.
A chime echoed through the station,
followed by the smooth hiss and slide of the doors behind me.
Cool, recycled air spilled out, brushing my skin like the breath of a world faster, louder than the one I'd left behind.
I adjusted the crossbody strap digging into my shoulder, fingers brushing over the frayed edge of the fabric. The weight dug in—familiar, grounding.
My sneakers tapped against the polished station floor, muffled by the low hum of the crowd, the sound of voices weaving into one another.
Life here moved fast. Too fast for someone like me, maybe.
And still—I stood there.
Just for a moment.
Still. Quiet. Letting it all wash over me.
I am in one of the biggest cities in the world.
Elexers City.
Where ashes became light.
Where the first heroes stood, and the rest of the world learned what it meant to follow.
This place is more than sacred—
It's a memory carved into steel and sky,
a heartbeat echoing through every rooftop, every alley, every whisper of wind.
It's where courage took its first breath,
and where the weight of sacrifice still hangs in the air like fog at dawn.
Every street remembers.
Every shadow holds a story.
To walk through Elexers is to walk through the remnants of greatness—
not just a city,
but a promise made by those who rose when the world fell.
This is where my new life began.
I stepped through the station doors and started walking.
I looked up, and light hit my face. The skyline shimmered. Towers of glass and steel pierced the clouds, their mirrored surfaces catching the sun and scattering golden light like fragments of a dream.
For a second, it didn't feel real.
The buildings didn't just stand—they reached.
Like they knew they were supposed to be more than buildings.
Like they were chasing something.
And in the middle of it all, I felt... small.
Not crushed.
Just aware.
My reflection caught in a glass storefront—orange-red hair, wild from the ride. Pale skin,
my eyes themselves... vivid orange, always burning.
At their centre, glowing like sparks, were two yellow stars.
They weren't contacts. They weren't tricks of light.
They were real. Alive.
I didn't look seventeen.
My face held more weight than years.
More silence than answers.
I didn't know if that made me brave.
Or just broken.
Either way—I was here.
And this city...
It didn't feel like home.
But it felt like something.
Like the possibility.
Like a beginning wrapped in light and noise and a thousand lives rushing forward.
I walked.
The ground pulsed beneath my feet, lit up by advertisements flashing neon blues, molten reds, streaks of gold.
Billboards danced on the sides of buildings, promises of power, success, transformation.
Back home, everything was grey. Hope was a risk.
Here, it was currency.
Packaged. Marketed. Broadcast in every step strangers took past me—like they were racing toward a version of themselves they actually believed in.
I closed my eyes for a heartbeat and breathed it in.
There was a charge in the air.
Like the city was watching.
Waiting.
Shoulders bumped mine. Voices blurred around me. I blended into the flow—one ghost among thousands.
I knew this city was different.
They say the Awakened are free here. No chains, no fear, no shame.
But I haven't seen a single one.
Not in the alleys. Not in the skies. Not even in the shadows.
Maybe they're hiding.
Or maybe freedom isn't as loud as I thought it'd be.
But I could feel them.
Like something deep in my bones humming louder the longer I walked.
Then I saw it.
Something massive. Electric. Impossible to ignore.
THE HERO BOARD.
I didn't know what it was at first. But the moment I saw the title—I couldn't look away.
The screen covered half a building. Huge. Glowing. Alive.
Heroes moved in slow motion across its surface—highlight reels, interviews, battle stats.
The city's protectors, carved into light. Living legends.
The crowd below stood like worshippers at a digital altar—pointing, cheering, dreaming.
I stood still.
Staring.
Their faces glowed like gods in the morning sun.
And somewhere up there—maybe now, maybe once—were the Apex Pair.
The greatest heroes of all time.
They weren't myths to me.
They were the reason I came here.
My eyes locked on the screen.
My throat tightened.
My heart thudded once—hard.
And then, the thought came.
Me too.
One day...
I'll be up there.
The idea didn't feel like a dream anymore.
It felt like a step.
The first one.
Even if it hurts.
Even if it breaks me.
Even if no one ever believed in me the way I believed in them—
I'd still take it.
This may sound like my story, but if anyone deserves the title of protagonist… It's him.
Cain. My best friend.
Meeting him was one of the best things that ever happened to me.
So I'll step aside now and let him take the lead.
I just needed to slip in for a quick introduction
---
End of chapter.