— One fracture in the sky. One boy caught between two worlds.
It began with a hum.
Not loud.
Less like noise—more like a memory stirring from hibernation.
Shawn Mercer looked up from his desk, pen frozen mid-thought.
Then the light came.
He rushed to the window, nearly tripping on textbooks and cold coffee cups.
Outside, the sky had ruptured—torn open above the city skyline.
From the breach, a V-shaped beam fell.
Light—pure, solid.
No thunder.
No explosion.
Just that glow.
And the hum, growing.
Shawn staggered back. "What the hell...?"
A trick of sleep-deprived nerves? Maybe.
The entrance exam had turned his nights into sludge and his brain into static.
But this—
This was too clear to be a dream.
He turned, yanked open a drawer.
His fingers found a slim envelope—one he'd nearly forgotten.
Inside: parchment, yellowed with age.
Inked on it, a circle with a sharp V at its center.
A dragon, coiled around the sigil in fading green strokes.
And beneath it:
"Change is eternal; balance leads to power."
His grandfather had given it to him on his sixth birthday.
"When the sky bleeds light, trust the dragon's eye," he'd said—calm, absolute.
Back then, it had seemed like a riddle.
Now it felt like a prophecy, realized.
The circle in the sky… it matched the one on the parchment exactly.
His fingers touched the dragon's eye.
The ink shimmered—then pulsed.
The parchment vibrated.
The hum swelled.
Light bent.
Shadows folded.
The world twisted.
And the dragon moved.
Ink unraveled into light.
It rose, alive with ancient grace.
Shawn gasped—
Then everything turned white.
When he came to, the sky was different—no longer the familiar sweep of stars and clouds, but a vast expanse of violet streaked with silver, slow and shifting.
He stood on a surface that defied definition: hard, smooth.
Shawn pushed himself upright and scanned the horizon.
No wind. No birds.
Only the faint tremor beneath his feet—a steady thrum, mechanical and deep, like the heartbeat of something buried and immense.
Ahead, the air bent inward, distorting around a dim blue glow at the center. It wasn't bright. It wasn't artificial.
It felt like a signal.
Was this a dream? The cold air bit at his skin.
No—this was real.
Only the world had changed.
Shawn stepped forward, cautiously.
Clang!
A metallic crash shattered the stillness.
He froze.
It wasn't a wall—it was armor. Tall. Imposing.
Figures emerged from the shadows: towering, faceless warriors encased in gleaming alloy. Faded lettering marked their plating—O.S.S.
Without warning, they raised their weapons—long, jagged spears crackling with charged energy.
What are these things? Soldiers? Machines?
One stepped forward. His armor was more ornate, trimmed in blackened silver. The leader.
"Halt."
His voice was clipped, each word honed with military precision.
"This sector is restricted."
Shawn didn't move. Hands half-raised, heart pounding.
"I—I don't even know how I got here."
The figure paused, as though weighing his words—or perhaps weighing Shawn.
"You truly don't know where you are?"
Shawn shook his head, thoughts spinning like leaves in a storm.
"Is this a simulation? Am I still on Earth?"
The leader gave a short, mirthless laugh.
"You stand before the Rift," he said, his voice scraping like steel over stone.
"No one crosses without permission."
The Rift?
The word hit like a block of ice to the chest.
He steadied himself.
"Please—just tell me. What happened here?"
The warriors exchanged glances. The leader spoke again, his tone distant, as if reciting a line long etched into memory.
"There will be war.
Between modern technology and ancient truth.
Between control… and freedom."
The words hit like stones.
"A war?" Shawn whispered. "Who are you?"
The leader straightened. His presence seemed to swell—though faceless, his gaze burned into Shawn's mind, leaving phantom scars
"We are the Keepers of Order.
The enforcers of fate.
The strongest force in the known universe."
Shawn reeled.
This wasn't a glitch in some simulation.
This was real.
Something far bigger.
It had to be a nightmare.
Before he could speak, movement rippled through the ranks. One warrior stared at Shawn's trembling hand.
"The sigil…" he murmured, voice thick with disbelief.
Shawn followed his gaze.
There it was—the paper. The symbol.
A perfect circle, split by a V-shaped crack.
The lead warrior shifted. His grip tightened.
"He's one of them," he said—quiet, but heavy with fear.
Chaos followed.
Spears snapped upward, crackling with energy. Shouts rang out. The warriors surged as one.
"Meta-Origin Sect! Seize him!"
Shawn didn't think—he just ran.
His feet pounded the ground, lungs burning, mind spiraling in a blur of noise and instinct.
Meta-Origin Sect?
The words rang out in his head. There was no time to question, no time to understand.
Behind him, metal clashed, and the thunder of armored boots rolled like distant drums of war.
And yet, something pulsed—as if the rules of motion had quietly shifted.
His body moved as if released from invisible chains—lighter, quicker, each step powered by a strange energy.
It felt older, more primal, like something long dormant in his blood had finally awakened.
He sped through the unseen corridors of space, drawn toward something he couldn't name.
A flash came—red light streaking through the void.
A sun.
But not golden, not warm.
This one burned in deep crimson, as if forged by gods whose names had been forgotten.
And around it turned a single blue planet, solemn and slow in its orbit.
Earth?
But no—the hue was off. The continents twisted in unfamiliar shapes, and the atmosphere shimmered with an unnatural iridescence.
Still, something in it tugged at him—not with logic, but with a flicker of recognition, like catching a scent from childhood.
He leaned into the motion, faster now, as if his body had known this path long before his mind caught up.
Gravity took hold.
It came without warning, dragging him down like an anchor to reality.
The air thickened around him, heavy with the scent of wet earth and living things. Sound returned in a rush—shouts, laughter, the low hum of engines.
The impact came next.
The ground slammed into him, jarring through every bone.
He lay still.
He felt a wave of relief.
He was home.Or so he thought.
Slowly, shakily, he raised his head.
His eyes swept across the streets, the skyline, the faces in the distance. All of it familiar—and yet subtly, unmistakably wrong. Buildings stood where they shouldn't. Colors felt too sharp, too vivid. The people moved with purpose, but their clothes, their gestures, carried a strangeness he couldn't name.
It looked like Earth.
But deep down, in the quiet space between heartbeats, something told him the truth.
This wasn't home.