Atlas Mercer
At first, it felt like a dream, one of those slow, weightless kinds where time bends and nothing quite makes sense. I drifted through silence, wrapped in a thick darkness that pulsed and breathed, as if alive. There was no ground beneath me, no sky above, just this endless, formless space. I couldn't tell if I was floating or falling. I felt… detached, like my body wasn't entirely mine.
Somewhere in the distance—if distance even meant anything here—I heard a whisper, soft as breath on skin. It wasn't a voice, not exactly, but a hum, like the world was trying to speak in a language I couldn't understand. I thought I might still be asleep. I hoped I was.
Then my chest tightened. That familiar tug, the lurch in my stomach like
I was falling.
My eyes snapped open.
Darkness. Total, suffocating blackness. There were no stars, no light, just the void pressing in on all sides. My limbs flailed instinctively, but there was nothing to catch, nothing to slow me down. The air around me felt thick, like I was moving through ink. Panic tightened my throat, constricting the air.
And then I saw it.
A glow. Just to my right, descending with me. A small orb, no larger than a fist, drifting downward as if caught in the same invisible current. It pulsed softly, hues of blue and gray swirling within it, veins of lightning dancing across its surface like the echoes of a distant storm. It felt too alive to belong here in this expanse of nothingness.
For a moment, the panic dulled. I reached out with trembling fingers, drawn to the light like a drowning man to air. When my hand closed around it, a shock ripped through me, not painful but powerful, like the heat of a forge surging through my veins. I gasped and pulled it close, hugging it to my chest.
Then something changed.
The fall didn't stop, but the darkness shifted. It thinned, peeled away at the edges. And then I felt it… that presence. Ancient and Vast, like the space around me had peeled open, and something beyond comprehension was looking in.
It wasn't gravity that pulled me anymore; it was something deeper, something that reached past flesh and bone and clawed at my soul. I didn't know if it wanted to destroy me or understand me. Maybe both.
I braced for impact, expecting the crash.
But it never came.
Suddenly, I found myself standing, but it seemed impossible, as there was no floor beneath me. No walls. Just… suspended in stillness. The only sensation was the warm orb in my hands. The silence here roared louder than any storm.
And in every direction, there was nothing.
No horizon, no light, just that endless void. I couldn't even hear the sound of my own breath. But then, like a thought suddenly manifesting into form, it appeared.
A monolith.
Colossal and ancient, but wrong in some way that my mind refused to acknowledge. It rose before me without a sound, like it always stood there. Its surface shimmered like glass made of galaxies and stars spiraling within its impossible structure, as if carved from the bones of the cosmos itself. I felt the weight of it, like the air had thickened into tar, electricity buzzing through every molecule around me.
Then came the symbols.
Fiery runes seared themselves into the surface, burning lines and shifting geometry that bent in on themselves, defying all logic. I couldn't look away. They weren't just symbols; they were living concepts, ideas too vast for a single mind to contain. Each one branded itself into me, carving deeper and deeper until my skull felt like it might split open.
My vision fractured. Images slammed into me in a torrent–worlds colliding, languages I didn't know flooding my tongue, voices screaming in thousands of dialects that all meant the same thing: ending. Death upon death. My mind reeled as it was force-fed histories of entire civilizations, their rise and fall crammed into the space of a heartbeat. I tried to breathe, but each inhale caught in my throat, my chest locking tight as if the knowledge itself was choking me.
I clutched my head, nails biting into my scalp, but it did nothing to hold back the flood. Cracks. That single thought anchored itself as everything else whirled away. Cracks are spreading through the fabric of existence, realities bleeding into one another, horrors and wonders fusing together into a writhing, endless mass of chaos.
And then the pulse hit.
A concussive wave of raw energy tore through me, ripping away the storm of visions in one merciless sweep. It was like being punched by the universe itself. My lungs collapsed as the air was wrenched out of me. I hit the ground hard, except there was no ground. My hands met nothing, my knees slammed into nothing, yet the pain was real. It spread through every joint, every muscle, as if my body was being unmade and remade in the same instant.
But even through the agony, my eyes never left the monolith.
The symbols writhed like living things now, wriggling in and out of dimensions I couldn't see. Each one pressed heavier on my chest than the last, like I was being slowly crushed under a mountain of knowledge I was never meant to understand.
Another pulse. Stronger this time.
I screamed, but no sound came. My vision blurred as my skin began to crumble, flaking away like ash caught in a dying wind. I stared in horror as my fingertips dissolved into glowing dust. Was this it? Was I being erased?
Every instinct told me to run, to flee, to do something, but I was locked in place, frozen in awe and terror. My mind buckled, trying to hold itself together as the monolith pressed deeper, stripping me down, layer by layer, memory by memory.
And then warmth.
A sudden glow bloomed at my neck. The mark.
The one I'd carried since Mars.
It pulsed once. Then again, stronger. I felt it rise inside me like a tide, like something ancient waking up after a long slumber. The warmth spread through my chest, wrapping around me like a barrier, a cocoon made of something I didn't understand but trusted all the same.
The crushing pressure lightened. I could breathe again, but barely. The cosmic weight that had been smothering me relented, pushed back by that radiant force.
Something was protecting me.
I didn't know what it was, or why, but its presence was undeniable. It stood between me and the monolith like a wall of willpower.
I gritted my teeth, forcing myself to my feet, my legs shaking beneath me. Pain surged through every nerve, but I welcomed it. I needed it. I bit down hard on my lip until the taste of blood filled my mouth. The sting grounded me, reminded me I was still here. Still me.
The monolith pulsed again, but this time I didn't fall.
I stood my ground, legs trembling beneath the pressure of something too massive to name. Each beat of that impossible structure hit like a tidal wave, trying to bury me beneath its godlike presence. But I didn't break.
The warmth at my neck burned brighter with each pulse, pushing back against the force, acting as a shield between me and oblivion. I could feel it, like a second heartbeat inside me, beating in rhythm with the chaos. Every time the monolith tried to crush me, the mark answered, absorbing the blow, giving me just enough breath, just enough strength to keep standing.
And then something changed.
The symbols.
The searing runes that had once felt like knives in my mind began to shift. The fire dimmed, and the lines started to flow, becoming fluid and alive. Shapes twisted and danced, forming spirals and stars, fractals I somehow recognized even though I had no memory of them.
In my hand, the core began to tremble.
The gentle swirl of gray and blue within it became a storm. Colors darkened, and at the center, a void started to grow with each passing second. Small dots of light began to form, each blinking in one after the other, forming a brilliant tapestry of colors and motion. And then at the center, a black hole took shape, its edges warping the light around it, consuming all things. Black lightning tore across its surface, arcing like celestial veins through collapsing stars. I stared, unable to look away as my breath stopped altogether.
And then the black hole imploded.
Everything collapsed inward, not with destruction, but with purpose. What was left behind was… beautiful. A miniature galaxy, spinning in perfect silence. Stars shimmered within its glassy shell, nebulae blooming like frozen fire.
It was infinite. And I was holding it.
And then it hit me.
The energy erupted through me, boundless and merciless, as if the galaxy I cradled had chosen me as its cage. It filled every vein, every nerve, every fragile corner of flesh until my spine arched and my scream broke against the flood. Light pressed in at the edges of my vision, static gnawing at reality itself as I was drowned in eternity.
The monolith and the core had merged, and I was the bridge between them.
I felt everything.
And then nothing.
A force seized me, yanking me upward with such violence that the void itself seemed to spin around me.
I was being pulled away from everything I knew, thrust into something I didn't understand.
And just before the blackness swallowed me whole…
I let go.
Amelia Grayson
I stood there, motionless, staring out over the field where the rifts danced, swallowing everything in their path. The storm that had ravaged us was gone, and in its place, the sky had become an eerily peaceful expanse of stars and moonlight. It was as if the universe had decided to mock us, offering tranquility after the chaos and death we had just endured. My thoughts weighed heavily on me. Ethan, Owen, and now Atlas. Each name hit me like a stone, their losses sitting on my shoulders, pressing down on me with a suffocating weight.
Why couldent I seem to save anyone? What was the use of these powers if all I could do was run and hide?
I tried to shove the thoughts away, to push the grief down where it couldn't cloud my mind. But even as I turned to face the others, my eyes fell on their stunned and broken expressions. What's next? I couldn't stop the thought from creeping in. Who's next? Ella? Henry? The idea chilled me to my core.
Taking a deep, shaky breath, I forced myself to shift my attention. Looking down at my leg, I grasped the jagged piece of wood embedded deep in my flesh and pulled. Wincing, I watched with a distant sort of detachment as my deep crimson blood flowed freely from the wound and out onto the forest floor. I doubted we had any more bandages, so I willed the stone to rise from the ground and form tightly against the wound. Trapping the blood from escaping.
This wasn't the time to unravel. We were still in danger, and some things needed to be done. I swallowed the lump in my throat and tried to speak.
"We… we need to get out of here," I said, my voice quieter than I intended. "Let's find Owen's remains... and give him a proper farewell."
For a moment, no one said anything. The silence was thick with shared sorrow, the unspoken understanding that we had no choice but to keep moving forward, no matter how much we wanted to stop. Benjamin nodded first, his voice barely a whisper. "Let's go." Extending his hand, I reached out and took it with a nod as he pulled me to my feet.
We walked in silence, every step weighted with the ache of exhaustion and the sting of loss. The field stretched out before us, once torn apart by chaotic energy, now eerily quiet. I kept my eyes low, each footfall a silent echo in the stillness, trying not to let my mind wander back to what we had just endured.
As we circled the edge of the field, I noticed something strange with the Rifts. They started to vibrate.
Then some of them started to flicker as if resisting their own disappearance. One by one, they unraveled in the air, spiraling violently, arcs of residual energy crackling across the sky like lightning trying to find purchase. The distortions began circling each other, swirling faster, growing more unstable by the second.
The winds picked up around us, tugging at our clothes, hissing through the grass. The spiraling rifts tightened their rotation until they converged—drawn inward like water down a drain—collapsing into a single, massive tear suspended high above the center of the field.
And for a long, terrible moment, everything was still.
No wind, no erratic rifts. Just that final rift, suspended in the air, pulsing faintly like a dying heartbeat.
I looked at Henry.
He looked back, his eyes full of something wild. Fear, hope, disbelief, they all clashed behind his gaze, barely held in check.
Then Something Moved
A figure dropped from the rift.
Atlas?!
His body spilled from the tear like a comet, the edges of his cloak fluttering uselessly behind him as he fell to the ground with an awful thud.
And just like that, the rift flickered once and vanished.
My breath caught in my throat as my body locked up.
How is he alive!?
A choked sound escaped Henry. "Atlas!"
He ran across the field without a second thought of the potential dangers.
How could he be so reckless? What happens if the rifts come back, but somewhere in my gut, I know they wouldn't. Still, my feet stayed rooted to the earth, as if stepping forward would somehow make it worse, like the moment I crossed that invisible line, the rift would come alive again and take him back.
I stared at the spot where he'd fallen, struggling to believe what I'd just seen. He was gone. We had watched him vanish. We felt the finality of it.
So why now? Why this? Why did he crash out of the sky like the end of some cruel trick?
And why… why did I hesitate?
Henry had thrown himself forward without pause. But I'd stood here frozen.
What's wrong with you? He's back, and you're just standing here?
Guilt surged beneath the fear, hot and sharp.
I swallowed hard and forced myself forward, following Henry into the field, each step a battle against the tightness in my chest and the terrible whisper that the rift might still return.
Henry had already dropped to his knees beside Atlas, his hands hovering over him, trembling.
Looking down at Atlas felt like looking at a corpse.
His face was too pale. His eyes closed. I saw the moment Henry thought he was dead, the way his breath stuttered, the way his shoulders sagged.
Then A breath.
Faint, and Shallow. But it was there.
He's breathing. Somehow…he was alive.
In his hand, he held a glowing orb filled with a cosmic enigma, swirling galaxies, and crackling black lightning.
Benjamin knelt beside me, his hands already checking Atlas's pulse and his breathing. "How is he?" Henry asked, his voice tight with worry.
"He's breathing," Benjamin replied, his voice calm but cautious. "But we won't know anything until he wakes up."
I nodded, forcing myself to focus. "We need to get him back to camp. Be careful with that… core."
Together, Benjamin and I lifted Atlas, carefully carrying him back to where Owen had fallen. Every step was a reminder of how close we had come to losing everything. The weight of the core in his lap felt ominous, as if it were waiting for something.
We laid him down beneath a tree, his body still unmoving, and as we did, Emily approached Owen's ashes. She collapsed to the ground beside them, her sobs breaking the silence. The rawness of her grief was a knife to the heart. I couldn't bear to look at her, not when my own chest felt like it was caving in under the weight of it all.
I stepped back, giving her space, and with a quiet sigh, I used my earth manipulation to form a seat from the ground. I sat down heavily, the exhaustion and grief hitting me like a tidal wave now that the immediate danger had passed. I glanced at the others. Ella was holding Emily, her own face pale and drawn, while Henry sat off to the side, staring into the small fire he had just started with a blank expression.
It was too quiet. My mind kept replaying the moment Owen died, the lightning engulfing him, the scream that had torn through the air before he was reduced to nothing but ash. He was just... gone. One moment, he was with us, fighting to survive, and the next, he was gone.
We were so close, I thought. If that lightning had hit any one of us, we'd be dead. Owen's death felt like a cruel reminder that no matter how strong we were, how clever, how prepared, death was always waiting. And then, Atlas. Even though he was back, it all felt like too much.
Forcing myself to take action. I dug a hole in the ground, and with Emily's and Ella's help, we gathered as much of Owen's ashes as possible to place in a stone box. My hands shook as I lowered the small container into the earth, my mind numb as I worked. There was no ceremony, no words to offer comfort. What could I possibly say? We had no answers, no promises of safety or survival. Only the weight of loss.
Benjamin finished building a makeshift shelter, the fire's flicker casting shadows on our weary faces. The flames offered warmth, but it wasn't enough to chase away the cold dread that hung in the air.
Suddenly, a movement caught my eye. Atlas stirred, his body shifting slightly as he began to wake. His eyelids fluttered, and slowly, he opened his eyes, confusion and exhaustion written on his face.
He was back.
We all exchanged glances, a mixture of relief and disbelief. I wanted to ask him what had happened, but the words caught in my throat. Instead, I just watched, waiting, as Atlas tried to sit up; his hand reached out almost instinctively to keep the core from rolling off his lap.
Atlas Mercer
Ahg… my head hurts. It feels like I was hit by a bus….
I blinked, trying to push through the haze that clung to me. Each breath felt thick, heavy, and when I cracked my eyes open, the light stabbed straight through my skull. Even the faintest flicker made the pounding in my head worsen, like a drill carving into bone. I groaned, raising a hand to shield my eyes until they adjusted.
Shapes slowly sharpened, the world bleeding back into focus. My gaze wandered, trying to make sense of the scene around me. The makeshift shelter, the flickering fire casting long shadows across the ground, and the faces of my companions, each etched with a mix of emotions.
For a moment, everything felt foreign. Disorientation lingered in my chest, a gnawing feeling that something important had happened. But no matter what, I couldn't piece together the events that had led me here. The last thing I remembered clearly was the lightning bird as it chased us through the storm. I remembered the rifts, the frantic run, and then… nothing. A void in my mind, like a black hole swallowing up the details.
My gaze drifted to the orb still resting in my hand, glowing with a quiet, pulsating light. The galaxies within swirled lazily, streaked with black lightning. There was something hypnotic about it that pulled me in, but before I could fully grasp its nature, a familiar sensation pulsed through my neck. Then the orb in my hand shifted, liquefying and melting into my skin as if it belonged to me.
Startled, I jerked back expecting some sort of pain, but there was none, only a strange warmth unfurling through my chest, spreading into every limb. My skin prickled, alive with something I couldn't name.
And then, as if answering the thought I didn't even have, a screen blinked into existence before me. It hovered in the air, translucent but sharp, its letters glowing softly against the night.
I stared, blinking once, then twice.
"Huh… so they weren't going crazy after all," I muttered under my breath.
Because somehow, I had a stat screen.
Atlas Mercer
Race: Human
Level: 1
Stats:
Strength: 6Vitality: 5Agility: 7Endurance: 4Intelligence: 4Dexterity: 4
Skills:
Lightning Enhancement: Rank 1
Lightning Control: Rank 1
Lightning Resistance: Rank 1
Unique Skills:
Multilingual: Rank 1
Void Creation: Rank 1
Astraheim's Inheritance:
Effects:
??????????????????
Titles:
Primordial Inheritance:
+10% to all stats
???
???
???
It was all so surreal…
A stat screen. Just like the ones in the games I used to play, yet it wasn't the same. This one felt sharper, as if every part of it was tailored to me. My strengths, my weaknesses, all reflected back like it had known me longer than I had known myself.
But even as it fit, it felt wrong. The longer I stared, the more a weight settled in my chest, the sense that it wasn't just displaying information but watching, adjusting, and Learning from me.
I didn't know what to make of it. Part of me wanted to be impressed, to laugh at the absurdity of finally having something like this. But there was an intrusion buried in the glow of those letters, the feeling that the screen wasn't mine at all. Not truly.
If it had been part of me, I might have welcomed it. But this… this felt separate. A presence standing just outside myself, peering in. The thought kept gnawing at me, no matter how much I tried to shake it:
The core was alive.
Amelia's voice cut through my daze, snapping me back to the present. "Atlas, are you alright?"
I blinked, focusing on her. She was watching me carefully, concern clear in her eyes. I tried to gather my thoughts, but everything felt jumbled. "I... I don't remember much," I admitted, my voice rough. "I was running from the bird, and then… I... I don't know."
Her brow furrowed as she absorbed my words, but she didn't push. Instead, she glanced at the orb, now gone from my hand but somehow still with me. "So, that orb... it gave you skills and stats?"
"ya," I said, glancing at the screen again. It flickered slightly, responding to my thoughts as if it were waiting for my input. I couldn't help but feel a shiver run down my spine. The power it promised was incredible, but at what cost? I still didn't fully understand what this 'Astraheim's Inheritance' was, or why so much of it remained locked away.
Amelia exchanged a look with the others before exhaling slowly, the weariness in her breath mirrored in everyone's faces. The day had worn us raw. Benjamin, always the voice of reason, finally spoke.
"I think we've had enough surprises for one day," he said gently. "We all need rest. Especially you, Atlas."
Amelia nodded, brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear. "He's right. We'll figure it all out tomorrow. Just… get some sleep."
I opened my mouth to offer to take the first watch, but Benjamin gave me a look that silenced the words in my throat.
"No," he said firmly. "You need rest. I've got the first watch."
I hesitated, wanting to argue, but my body betrayed me. The adrenaline had long since drained, and the ache in my bones was impossible to ignore. Whatever strange power the core had given me, it hadn't come without a price. Every part of me felt… Hollowed out.
"Alright," I murmured, swallowing back the urge to protest. "Just… wake me if anything happens."
Benjamin nodded, already moving toward the edge of camp. The others began settling down as well. Ella was whispering softly to Emily, who sat curled into herself, eyes distant and empty. Henry sat by the fire, shoulders hunched, his face caught somewhere between thought and grief.
I lay down, head resting against a folded cloth, but the moment I closed my eyes, the silence hit differently.
It wasn't peaceful.
It was loud and Oppressive. The kind of quiet that presses in from all sides.
Things had changed.
No things were still changing, beneath the surface, just out of sight. Whatever the core had done, it hadn't stopped with unlocking abilities. I could feel it. Something had shifted inside me, and the ground beneath my reality no longer felt solid.
On impulse, I called the stat screen again.
The black panel shimmered into existence, its surface faintly translucent, like glass stretched over shadow. But this time… it wasn't quite the same. The golden letters that etched themselves across the screen pulsed faintly as if they were breathing with me.
And there, tucked in the corner, still waiting for me, was that phrase.
Astraheim's Inheritance
What was it?
The screen flickered, just once, like static in my vision. I blinked hard as the Fatigue pulled at the edges of my awareness like hands dragging me underwater.
"I'll deal with it tomorrow," I whispered, though I wasn't sure who I was saying it to.
I dismissed the screen.
And without warning, the world tilted.
My limbs went numb, my vision swam, and the firelight twisted into strange, unfamiliar shapes before Darkness overtook me