It was dark. Darker than anything I'd ever known, darker even than the world behind my blindfold. I couldn't feel stone. Couldn't feel air. For a moment, I wondered if I existed at all.
Then something flared.
A point of light bloomed in the void, expanding too fast to track. It swallowed everything, and the sensation hit all at once—pressure, heat, awareness.
I woke with a gasp. "What the hell?!" my hands fly to my face, searching for my blindfold. Once feeling the familiar worn out cloth on my face, that alone kept panic from taking hold.
My senses immediately flare. The area around me feels familiar, but different in so many ways. The familiar feeling of stone beneath me meant I was still in the mines, but there was nothing. No sounds of the working slum residence, no machines working deep underground, and most alarming, no feeling of Wave anywhere.
No red Wave, no light, no people, no machinery, this is not the same place I had fled to.
"What is going on? First, I was getting torn about by every element and color known to man, and next... next I'm here."
Groggily getting up, slowly regaining feeling in my body from being stuck in that void with no sense of self.
Taking my first step, the sound echoes out, mapping the layout of the cave.
The difference was instantly recognizable; the cave was shaped differently than what I remember. It was more closed in, more suffocating, and the previous spot where people have mined was no longer there, being replaced by more hardened stone. Moving myself forward, determined to understand my new, unfamiliar surroundings, I squeeze myself through tighter areas that were not there before. Upon getting near the entrance, I almost threw up. Wave everywhere, overwhelming and all-consuming.
I lean against the wall at the entrance of the cave to steady my swaying body, and my senses overloaded. Clenching my head, I try to dull the pain, collecting myself and lessening my sense to Wave. Once closing, one sense, that being to Wave. My other senses finally recuperate.
"This... This doesn't make sense. This isn't the slums!" I shout to myself. When my senses had cleared, I found myself mapping not the rustic, worn down, and broken slums that I was used to. But a city, a city bustling with people walking along the streets. They seemed happy, full, and content with their lives.
Pushing my sensed further, I noticed that some people were... floating in the air?
"No, that doesn't make sense—maybe..."I slowly but surely activate my sense to Wave once again. Slowly allowing it to spread out, the image of the people flying started to make much more sense.
It was Wave, making the vehicles hover above the ground smoothly.
"But I thought only The Length District had access to this technology?"
With further mapping, I found out this place could not be The Length District. The buildings were too small, less imposing, and seemed almost outdated. Its structure was almost like the slums, but it seemed to be in perfect condition. No broken or leaning buildings, no children starving in the soaked mud in a corner somewhere. It's as if this were the slums—before the slums.
I step out from the mouth of the cave and onto open ground, my boots sinking slightly into soil that is soft instead of packed stone. Grass brushes against my ankles, alive and resilient in a way I am not used to. The air is warmer here, cleaner. It carries too many sounds at once: footsteps, voices, movement layered over movement, none of it rushed.
The city is close. I can tell by the density of vibrations alone. People moving together, not hiding from one another. No sharp edges in their steps. No hunger dragging at their heels.
As I walk, the ground smooths beneath me. Stone again, but not cracked or uneven. Maintained. Cared for.
A sign hung in the air humming with the brilliance of Wave as it read.
Eden City
This confused me a bit. I have never heard of this city before. But everything around me seemed so…familiar.
Each step echoes gently, not swallowed by filth and neglect. I keep my head down, shoulders tense, waiting for the familiar shift. The recoil. The disgust.
It never comes.
Instead, the air changes.
Voices lower as I pass. Not sharply. Not in warning. Just enough that I notice.
"Is he alright?"
"Where did he come from?"
"Poor thing…"
The words reach me in fragments, drifting instead of striking. No one spits at my feet. No one tells me to move. No one backs away as if I might be contagious. Their footsteps slow. Some stop altogether.
I feel eyes on me, not like a blade, but like hands hovering close, unsure whether to touch.
My clothes hang loose and stiff with old grime. I can feel the way they pull when I move, fabric worn thin in places, heavy in others. My blindfold is frayed, tied more out of habit and personal comfort. I know what I look like. I have always known.
But the reaction is wrong.
A child moves closer, her steps light and uneven. She stops a few paces away. I feel her hesitation like a tremor in the air.
"Are you hurt?" she asks.
I flinch before I can stop myself.
Hurt. Not dangerous. Not useless. Not vermin.
I swallow. My throat is dry. "I am fine," I say, the words stiff from disuse. Talking to strangers never ended well where I came from.
There is a pause. Then another voice, older, steadier.
"Do you have family, boy?"
I turn my head slightly, orienting toward the sound. The man stands close enough that I can feel the warmth of his presence, but not close enough to crowd me. He smells of clean cloth and metal that has not rusted.
"I… do not know," I answer. It is the only honest thing I have.
Murmurs ripple outward, not sharp, not cruel. Curious. Soft.
"Maybe he is from the outer cities."
"No, look at him. Those clothes are old. Really old."
"Has anyone seen a blindfold like that before?"
I keep walking. Slowly. Carefully. Every instinct tells me to keep moving before this turns, before kindness rots into suspicion. But no one blocks my path. The crowd parts without being told to, opening space instead of closing it.
Wave hums everywhere. It flows around the city like breath, lifting vehicles gently from the ground, warming the stone beneath my feet, threading through people without branding them as lesser or greater. It is overwhelming, but not hostile.
A woman steps closer. I feel the brush of her sleeve as she reaches out, then stops herself. Her voice trembles just slightly.
"You look like you have not eaten in days."
I almost laugh. The sound sticks in my chest instead.
"I am used to it," I say.
That seems to be the wrong answer.
The silence that follows is heavy, but not condemning. It is the kind of silence that comes when something does not fit, not because it is wrong, but because it should not exist.
Someone presses something warm into my hands. Bread, I think. The vibrations are soft, yielding. Real.
"For now," the woman says. "Take this. At least for now."
My fingers tighten around it before I can stop myself.
As I move deeper into the city, the murmurs follow me, never loud enough to overwhelm, never sharp enough to wound.
"Where did he come from?"
"Is he lost?"
"Someone should help him."
I have never walked through a place where concern followed me like a shadow.
I clench the bread tightly. Slowly taking a bite of the uncannily soft bread.
"It's good..." It was my first time tasting something like this.
Fresh. Soft. Amazing. This bread was nothing like the bread my uncle gives me.
I couldn't stop the buildup of tears from flowing out; staining my blindfold slightly and sliding my down face.
Images of my uncle flash in my mind.
How is he doing?
Is he safe?
Did The Lemmings come investigate him?
Eda. Eda must be worried and searching for me.
I knew I was close with my uncle, and we always argued about the petty stuff in life, and Eda was more of a cockroach than a friend but...
I couldn't help but feel worry, and the urge to get back to them.
I walk until the noise thins.
The city does not grow quieter so much as it grows… softer. Fewer overlapping steps. More space between vibrations. I can feel when the streets widen, when buildings pull back instead of pressing in. Stone gives way to smoother paths, carefully laid. Orderly.
Wave hums everywhere.
Not in bursts. Not forced.
It flows.
A laugh ripples through the air nearby. Light footsteps scatter around me. Children. I stop without meaning to, my head tilting as I listen.
Something brushes past my leg. Then again. A small, uneven vibration circles me, quick and playful.
I reach out instinctively and feel nothing.
Then a voice.
"Hey, you almost popped it."
Another child laughs. "It's fine. I caught it."
Caught what.
I focus, carefully opening my sense to Wave just enough. The air around them shimmers, not violently, not with strain. A thin strand of Wave stretches upward, elastic and bright.
A balloon.
Floating.
Not tethered by string, but by Wave. Controlled clumsily, unconsciously, like a child flexing their fingers.
My chest tightens.
Children do not have Wave training. Not in the slums at least. Only in The Length District. Wave is rationed, measured, beaten into submission through years of labor or discipline. Even that damned mine manager could only manage a few lights.
Yet here it is. Light. Careless.
Free.
A woman's footsteps approach, steady and unhurried. "Don't let it drift too high," she says, warmth in her voice. "You know how the current gets near the towers."
"Yes, mama," one of them answers.
Mama.
Not overseer. Not handler.
Just mother. Like their familiar of the sight of their family.
They run off, their laughter fading, the balloon bobbing gently above them. The Wave thread never wavers.
I stand frozen.
My breath comes shallow.
That should not be possible.
I move again, slower now, my senses wide despite the strain. Wave pours through the street. It lines the lamps, the buildings, the ground beneath my feet. No locks. No giant barriers to separate wealthy from poor.
No ownership.
Someone passes close by. I feel the shift in air, the faint pull of Wave around their body. I turn my head toward them.
"Excuse me," I say, my voice rough. "How… how do you use Wave?"
They stop.
There is no alarm in their posture. Just confusion.
"What do you mean?" the man asks.
"To move things," I clarify. "To power… that." I gesture vaguely upward, toward the hum of hovering vehicles.
"Oh." He lets out a small laugh. "Everyone uses Wave."
Everyone.
"You don't need clearance?" I ask.
"Clearance?" Now he sounds amused. "No. Why would you?"
My fingers curl at my side.
Another voice joins in, a woman this time. "Are you from the outer regions? Some places still restrict education."
Education.
Not access. Not permission.
Learning.
"I… suppose," I say.
"Well," she continues kindly, "if you need help adjusting, the city offers free Wave attunement classes. Especially for children."
Children.
My vision swims behind the blindfold. I thank them without knowing why and move on before my legs give out.
The farther I go, the worse it gets.
Colors spoken aloud like weather. Blue fabric. Red banners. Yellow glass catching sunlight. No hushed tones. No reverence or fear of The Seven.
Color is not stolen here.
It is not hoarded.
It is worn.
A memory claws its way to the surface. Old stories whispered in the dark. My uncle's voice low, bitter, telling me the world was not always like this. That once, light belonged to everyone.
I had thought it was just that. A story.
I stop walking.
Wave presses against me from all sides, full and complete. No gaps. No missing frequencies. No scars in the spectrum. The world feels whole.
The wind howled in my ears as I sensed it. Someone who lost a hold of something that rustled and got taken by the wind.
It hummed with Wave.
It read. "Northern mountain explorer reaches the peak only to never return." Date published: March XX, 20XX
My knees nearly buckle.
Those dates. That was one of the date used—before light was stolen…
This is not a present or future where light was restored.
This is the past where it has not yet been taken.
The realization settles like a weight in my chest, heavy and cold.
I am not lost.
I am early.
Somewhere, beyond this city, the mines do not exist yet. The slums are not starving. The Length District has not risen. Wave has not been chained.
My uncle. Eda. Probably not even a thought yet. My hands tremble as I clutch the bread tighter.
I do not know how I came here. I do not know how long I have. But I know this.
I am standing in the world before it fell into darkness...
And somehow, impossibly...
I have been thrown into the past.