Aiden Crowe woke to the sound of his own scream.
Not the ragged, human kind. The other one.
The one threaded with static, memory fragments, and the whisper of something hungry.
Shadows lifted from his back before he could breathe. They uncoiled like living smoke, rising in slow, deliberate curls, as if stretching after a long sleep. Purple nodes pulsed beneath his skin, dim and unsteady, flickering with the same rhythm as his heartbeat.
He wasn't supposed to be alive.
Not after Moonfall.
Not after the sky tore itself open, not after Lyra's blood on his hands, not after the parasite finished devouring the last of his courage.
But here he was.
Day Zero.
Twenty-five years earlier.
His lungs dragged air as if rediscovering how to exist. The parasite shifted along his spine, tendrils flexing beneath the surface.
[Shadow-Parasite Core: REBOOT COMPLETE.]
[Core Slot: LOCKED.]
[Stability Rating: 4%.]
[Warning: Identity Fragmentation Detected.]
Yeah. That tracked.
The dorm room around him was painfully familiar—thin mattress, flickering ceiling light, peeling blue paint, and the skyline of Twin-Moon Metropolis visible through the cracked window. The twin moons hung in perfect alignment, not yet stained by the purple rot of extinction.
He was back.
His pulse stumbled, and shadows rippled off him again. They twisted into a half-wing shape behind him, unstable, flickering between substance and smoke. It matched the form he remembered—no, _would_ remember—in the late timeline, when the parasite was strong enough to warp his silhouette.
Now it was weak.
But awake.
Aiden pressed a shaking palm over his chest. The warmth felt wrong, too full, too alive.
"Lyra," he whispered.
The name hurt.
Not with longing—
with **absence**.
The parasite stirred, sensing the familiar ache. Its whisper brushed the inside of his skull, distorted and cold.
**Feed. Evolve. Replace.**
"No," Aiden hissed. "Not again."
He staggered to his feet. His legs trembled under their own weight—not from weakness, but from the surreal shock of standing in a world that had already died around him once.
Outside, sirens wailed—an everyday background hum in Twin-Moon Metropolis. Not the Moonfall sirens. Not yet.
His throat tightened.
He had twenty-five years.
Twenty-five years to stop everything from collapsing again.
Twenty-five years to save the people he lost.
Twenty-five years to keep Lyra alive.
If he could hold on to himself long enough to do it.
The parasite pulsed beneath his skin, annoyed by his hesitation. A thin fracture of violet energy split the air behind him—short, sharp, like a tiny wound in reality.
Its presence was stronger than it should have been at baseline.
That wasn't good.
Not good at all.
The city greeted him like an old enemy pretending to be a friend.
Neon veins pulsed down the skyscrapers. Advertisements flickered with half-coded glitches. Drones drifted above like indifferent metal ghosts. And far beyond the skyline, Rift Zones carved jagged scars into the horizon.
He walked quickly, hood pulled low to hide the shadows creeping off his shoulders. They wriggled downward in rebellious flickers, eager to latch onto anything moving.
He clenched his fists.
"Not now."
The parasite didn't care. It never had. But in this timeline, before he fed it, before it tasted despair and apocalypse, it was still weak enough to bully.
Mostly.
As Aiden crossed a pedestrian tunnel, a low tremor ran through the pavement. Dust drifted from the ceiling.
A minor Rift Pulse.
Normal for this era.
Harmless—unless you were idiotic enough to stand directly under one.
Aiden wasn't.
But the shadow on his back reacted instinctively. Tendrils flared outward, creating a mantle of writhing smoke that shielded him from falling debris before he even registered the danger.
Aiden froze.
He hadn't triggered a command.
He hadn't spent energy.
He hadn't evolved anything yet.
The parasite had acted… on its own.
"Since when do you protect me?" he whispered.
A distorted reply vibrated just behind his ear.
**Host integrity required. Future objectives incomplete.**
Aiden swallowed.
Objective?
It meant the parasite remembered too.
He didn't want to think about what that implied.
As he walked, civilians cast glances at him—uneasy, curious, then dismissive when they didn't see anything overtly supernatural. The shadows folded back into his coat.
He kept moving.
If he remembered this day correctly, Rowan Vance would be scanning the city's signal map soon. Aiden needed to stabilize his parasite readings before Rowan flagged him on the Guild Watchlist. Too early visibility would kill any chance of preparing for the real crisis.
He ducked into a narrow alley.
Metal crates, rain puddles, cold brick walls. The kind of place where dreams came to die and parasites learned to thrive.
Perfect.
Aiden exhaled.
The shadows pulsed with him.
"Let's see how broken you are," he muttered.
The Core answered with a low resonance.
[Shadow-Parasite Core Status: FRAGMENTED.]
[Available Functions: Basic Consumption, Defensive Reflex.]
[Mutation Pathways: LOCKED.]
[Memory Slot: SEALED.]
Aiden pressed his thumb to his forehead. A sharp pain slammed behind his eyes, and a flood of half-formed memories spiraled outward—distorted images of Moonfall, of Kael's last look, of Lyra's final breath—
He cut the connection instantly.
Too much.
Too early.
Not without stabilizers.
The parasite rattled against his spine, frustrated by the denial.
"Get used to disappointment," Aiden said through clenched teeth.
He pushed off the wall and left the alley. The city lights washed over him—bright, uncaring, alive.
He hated how alive everything still was.
He hated how much he wanted to keep it that way.
He saw her before he heard her laugh.
Lyra Everen stood at the intersection beside the tram rail, tapping her foot in that nervous rhythm she thought nobody noticed. Moonlight—pure, clean, pre-apocalypse moonlight—caught the silver in her eyes.
Aiden stopped breathing.
His shadows didn't.
They surged upward in a violent flare, tendrils lifting behind him like wings poised to strike.
Lyra turned.
For a moment, the world blurred.
Aiden took a step back, but memory hit him first—her dying in his arms, her hand slipping from his, the parasite numbing his emotions so he wouldn't break completely.
And now she was here.
Alive.
Smiling at something on her datapad.
Unaware of the future or the blood or the way he had failed her.
The parasite stirred.
**Resonance target detected.**
Aiden staggered.
"No—stop—"
But their eyes met.
Lyra blinked. Confused. Then curious.
Her gaze softened.
"Do I… know you?" she whispered.
Aiden's heart violently misfired. The shadows recoiled, folding in like wounded limbs.
A flicker of destiny, or paradox, or memory bleed—whatever it was, it shouldn't be happening yet.
Not this soon.
The lights around them flickered, dimming for a heartbeat.
A violet fracture cracked the air behind Aiden.
Lyra's eyes widened.
"Aiden—?"
He didn't stay to hear the rest.
He ran.
Behind him, the parasite whispered:
**Timeline deviation confirmed.**
And for the first time since waking, Aiden felt fear not of the future—
but of the past catching up too fast.
Aiden didn't remember running, only the cold bite of wind and the hollow pounding of footsteps echoing through the underpass. His breath tore in and out of his chest, sharp enough to cut. The parasite's tendrils lashed behind his ribs, agitated by his retreat.
He leaned against a rusted pillar, gasping.
[Warning: Emotional Spike Detected.]
[Host Flight Response: INEFFICIENT.]
[Recommendation: Confront Stimulus.]
"No," Aiden growled. "We're not doing this. Not now."
A ripple of shadow slipped from his back like spilled ink, pooling at his feet before recoiling upward again. The parasite was confused. Angry. Hungry. It hadn't reached this level of agitation until much later in the previous timeline. Lyra being alive again… that changed everything.
He squeezed his eyes shut.
Her voice still echoed—soft, unsure, unbearably familiar.
_Do I know you?_
He couldn't let her memory bleed this early. The Resonance Slot hadn't unlocked, and without that stabilizer, even a glimpse of her past-life recognition could trigger cascading paradox ripples. He needed to stay away.
At least for now.
A tremor shook the tunnel ceiling, snapping Aiden back to the present. Dust cascaded down. Lights flickered.
Something else was coming.
Not a Rift Pulse.
Not a tremor.
Footsteps.
Aiden stiffened.
A silhouette appeared at the far end of the tunnel — long coat, broad shoulders, slow stride. A figure he'd buried in his memory and expected never to see again this early.
Rowan Vance.
Guild Technician. System Tracker.
The man who would later become one of Aiden's few allies—
and one of the first casualties of Kael's uprising.
Rowan stopped five meters away, eyes narrowing.
He held a handheld scanner, humming with blue energy.
"Strange," Rowan muttered. "Your signal spiked hard enough to register across four blocks. Who are you?"
Aiden swallowed. He forced the shadows to settle, pulling them tight against his spine before they could unfurl. Even so, faint violet motes drifted off his shoulders like betrayed secrets.
Rowan lifted the scanner.
"That's not a Rift signature. Not a guild mutation type either." His brow furrowed. "You're reading like a Tier-0 parasite host, but the output is… wrong."
Aiden kept his voice low. "Equipment glitch."
Rowan almost laughed. "Equipment glitch? Buddy, if this thing glitches, the city's power grid goes with it."
Aiden cursed internally.
He needed to defuse this.
Rowan wasn't an enemy — yet — but suspicions now could shatter the timeline.
Aiden turned away. "Forget you saw me."
Rowan stepped forward. "Hey! Kid—!"
The parasite reacted.
Shadows shot upward like wings, slamming into the air with a shockwave that cracked the tunnel wall. Rowan stumbled back, eyes wide.
[Defensive Reflex Triggered.]
[Host Safety: PRIORITY.]
Aiden clenched his jaw. "I said forget."
He sprinted past Rowan before the man could regain his footing. His heart hammered, shadows trailing behind him like a fraying cloak.
Damn it.
This timeline was already unraveling.
He didn't stop running until he reached the industrial outskirts of Twin-Moon Metropolis, where the air tasted like rust and the lights flickered from neglect instead of cosmic decay. Factories loomed overhead like skeletal beasts, their chimneys coughing thin grey smoke.
He ducked behind an abandoned freight crate, bending with hands braced on his knees.
For a moment, nothing existed except the jagged rhythm of his breath.
Then the parasite stirred again—slow, deliberate.
**Explain.**
It wasn't words, not really.
More like pressure inside his head traveling the shape of a question.
"You saw Lyra," Aiden muttered. "That's what set you off."
Silence.
Then another pulse of cold thought:
**Target. Resonance. Required.**
"No," Aiden snapped. "Not yet. Not this timeline. We do this my way."
The parasite disagreed.
[Shadow-Parasite Core Instability: RISING.]
[Emotional Catalyst Identified: LYRA EVEREN.]
[Recommendation: Immediate Resonance Slot Calibration.]
Aiden slammed his fist into the crate. "I'm not ready."
Memory tried to surface—Lyra's final breath, her fingers slipping away, her heartbeat fading under Moonfall ash—but he shoved it down.
Not here.
Not now.
He needed control.
He needed distance.
But the timeline was already veering off script.
Lyra recognized him too soon. Rowan detected him too early.
Even the parasite's output was stronger than baseline.
If events were drifting already, then Kael…
Kael could appear at any moment.
Aiden exhaled shakily.
"Focus. Stabilizers first."
He reached into his coat—old habit—and pulled out nothing.
Right.
He hadn't bought the illegal stabilizers yet.
That happened in two days at the Shadow Market.
His shoulders sagged.
He was underprepared. Underpowered.
And the parasite was accelerating faster than expected.
He needed a dungeon run.
Even a low-rank Rift would grant him system clarity and maybe a restoration node.
He checked the skyline.
District 3 Rift should open in an hour.
Good.
That was his chance to anchor himself before the world completely derailed.
He straightened up, pulling the shadows back under his control. They hissed in irritation but obeyed.
Mostly.
A loudspeaker boomed across the district:
**"RIFT-ALERT: DISTRICT 3 — MINOR OPENING. BEGIN EVACUATION PROTOCOLS."**
Aiden's pulse quickened.
Perfect timing.
Or fate playing games.
Either way—
He sprinted toward the flashing lights.
District 3 was already chaos when Aiden arrived.
Barriers rose from the pavement, forming shimmering blue walls. Enforcers directed civilians toward the evacuation trams. Drones hovered overhead, projecting crimson warning sigils onto the streets.
And there—at the center of the swirling energy—
a baby Rift cracked open like an eye made of violet lightning.
Aiden's parasite reacted instantly.
Shadows flared.
**Consume. Evolve. Enter.**
He felt the hunger wash through him, hot and cold at once.
"Yeah," Aiden muttered. "I figured you'd say that."
He stepped through the perimeter.
An enforcer barked at him, "Hey! Area's restricted—!"
The parasite lashed out.
A wave of darkness swept the air, barely visible but strong enough to knock the enforcer's balance off for a half second.
Aiden slipped past.
The Rift pulsed, widening in anticipation.
His heart pounded.
Rift energy licked at his skin, pulling, calling.
This was it.
His first dungeon run of this timeline.
His first chance to stabilize.
His first step toward rewriting fate.
Aiden reached out a hand—
—and reality exploded into violet.