The void wasn't dark. Darkness was a concept—this place didn't allow for that. It was beyond shape, beyond time, beyond anything that belonged to the living. There was no breath, no gravity, no sound. Just silence so absolute it crushed thought before it could form. Damon Vale floated, naked in soul, stripped of flesh, stripped of memory, stripped of meaning. His consciousness hovered like a ghost of itself, weightless in an ocean without surface or depth. The only thing he could feel was the faint ache of being. Not pain. Not fear. Just that raw echo of existence—proof that something of him still lingered.
He didn't know if it had been seconds or centuries. No past. No future. No now. Only the drifting. A single speck of pale light hung in the distance—untouchable, uncaring. He stared at it. Or maybe it stared back. Somewhere inside the emptiness, a question bloomed, quiet and useless:
"Did I die?" The thought echoed, folding in on itself. It went nowhere. There was no air to carry it. No time to catch it. And still—something moved.
A pulse.
Wrong.
Massive.
The pressure was instant, like a tidal wave made of gravity. Something ancient was closing in, and it wasn't stopping. Damon's soul recoiled, instinct without form. He tried to move, to shift, to run—but how do you run with no body, no ground, no breath? The thing approaching wasn't just big. It was dense. Old. Cracked by age and fury. It was a soul like his own, but bloated with memories that had turned to fire. And it was coming for him.
The weight grew unbearable. His thoughts splintered. This wasn't possession. It was invasion. He tried to scream. Couldn't. He tried to dodge. Couldn't. He wasn't even sure he was real anymore. And then it hit.
CRAAACK—
The collision was total.
__
"AAARRGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!"
The forest shattered.
A scream ripped through the trees like thunder laced with glass. Birds exploded from the canopy. And on the moss-covered ground, a boy writhed in pure, unfiltered agony. Damon. Sixteen. Bloodshot eyes wide and hollow as pain howled through every cell. His back bowed like it would snap in half. His arms clawed at the air, nails ripping the earth. Blood spilled from his ears, his nose, his eyes—his body rejecting the impossible weight of another soul being fused into his.
His veins blackened. Skin pulled tight like it was drying from the inside. His lips tore open again.
"AAAGHHHH—GGGHHHAAAHHHH!!"
Every scream sounded less human, more feral. His body jerked like lightning was dancing under his skin. His voice cracked, snapped, then gave out entirely. Nothing but open-mouthed silence followed—mouth wide, eyes bulging, throat scorched. The screams were still there, buried inside. But they were dry now. Hollow. The kind of screams that only the soul can make.
He rolled again. Violent. Blind. His body looked like it was being crushed from within, the skin a too-small shell for what now burned underneath. And still, the pain didn't stop. It deepened. Like something was tunneling through him—claiming space, burrowing into his core, rewriting the shape of what made him him. Damon wasn't just suffering. He was being redrawn. Rewritten. Reforged.
And somewhere in that collapsing madness, a second heartbeat pulsed through his chest.
Not his.
Not anymore.
His screams carried like war horns through the forest. They echoed off bark and stone, tearing through branches, pulling the wind into a spiral. The sound wasn't just loud—it was wrong. Pain had a shape now, and it wore Damon Vale's throat like a blade.
Through the trees, shadows moved. Leaves rustled. Feet stomped dirt.
Five figures burst into the clearing—teenagers, all around sixteen. Uniformed. Clean white shirts, black slacks and skirts, each bearing a peculiar device strapped tight to their wrist. Not watches, not really—something deeper. Something that ticked to the pulse of the world. The blue numbers glowed faintly on every one: a mix of hours, days, and something older. Numbers that didn't just tell time, but measured it.
They skidded to a stop at the edge of the scene. Damon didn't notice them right away. He was still rolling, still twitching, still locked in that crucible of fire and fusion. But they saw him. Bleeding. Thrashing. Screaming with no voice left to scream.
One of them—a lean boy with sharp hazel eyes and a silver stripe running down the side of his hair—stepped forward. He studied the writhing form. The way the veins pulsed black. The broken rhythm of breath. The smell of soulburn rising from his skin. Then his jaw clenched, and he stepped back just as quickly.
"Back up," he said flatly. "He's being rejected by the Echo Current."
They stared at him. Even the two girls blinked, one of them swallowing audibly. One of the boys—a shorter guy with wild hair and a bit of nervous weight to him—tilted his head.
"How the hell would you know that?" he asked, suspicious. "You're the same age as us, Adam. Only the seniors can read rejections. Don't lie."
Adam smirked. That kind of smirk that only came from bloodlines and old money. His uniform was cleaner than the rest. Pressed. Stiff. Regal. "That's the difference between a high noble and a noble, Mark. Some of us don't need senior status to see what's right in front of us." He gestured to Damon with a lazy flick. "That? That's death."
Mark frowned. "So you're sure?"
"Stay close if you want to find out personally," Adam said, already turning. "Your Chrono might pop early. If you're lucky." His laugh was soft. Sharp. Arrogant.
And then he was running.
The others hesitated, traded glances, then scattered after him. Mark lingered a second longer, torn between instinct and pride. His fists clenched.
But the way Damon kept screaming—like his lungs were turning inside out—made the choice for him.
Damon's body twisted, then stilled for half a breath. His fingers trembled. Bloodied nails curled against the earth. And then—slowly, shakily—he lifted one hand. Just barely. A twitch more than a motion. His arm stretched out, reaching blindly toward the group.
His eyes—cracked with veins, black flooding the whites—locked onto Mark.
Begging.
Silent. Wordless. Terrified.
Not a scream this time.
Just a look.
Help me.
Mark froze. His foot shifted forward an inch—then stopped. The raw panic in Damon's gaze sank into his chest like icewater. But so did the fear.
Mark's jaw clenched. He backed away.
And then he turned.
And ran.
He ran.
But not everyone left.
In the curve of the trees, hidden beneath the tangled canopy of gold and green, another figure watched. A girl. Silent. Unmoving. Her hair dark, her uniform neat, her posture poised like she'd seen this before. Her eyes—cold blue—showed no fear, no pity, no shock.
Only thought.
And then she turned too. Without a sound. Without a word.
But as she moved, something slid from her pocket.
The watch hit the moss with a muted click. Forgotten.
Its face blinked:
00:00:00:00:00:00:02
Exactly like the others—yet different. Its numbers pulsed slower, heavier. And Damon didn't see it. But the moment it hit the earth, the pain stopped.
His scream ended.
His body collapsed into silence.
And then—his eyes opened. Black. Not the color. The void.
And the air rippled.
_
[Ding! You have awakened and inherited a Chrono Code!]