When reality shuts down on an ordinary Tuesday, nineteen-year-old Rayan becomes the only soul to slip out of the collapsing universe alive. But instead of dying with Earth, he awakens in the Midlayer — a surreal world made from broken timelines, frozen oceans, drifting city fragments, and creatures that were never meant to exist.
Here, the Heart Engine reboots failed universes.
Here, erased civilizations gather to survive.
And here, Rayan is labeled one thing:
A Stray.
A soul that should not exist.
His presence attracts the Nullbeing, a predator that devours realities themselves. With a faceless guide offering cryptic warnings and a world glitching under his feet, Rayan must learn the Midlayer's rules — or be erased like the universe he came from.
In a world stitched from shattered worlds, even a single choice can rewrite existence.
----------------
Rayan's last moment on Earth was painfully normal.
A bus stop.
A drizzling sky.
His half-charged phone glowing in his hand.
Then the world stopped.
The raindrops froze in mid-air, hanging like tiny glass beads.
The traffic noise cut off mid-honk.
Even the air around him felt still, thick, unmoving.
Rayan blinked once.
Twice.
The sky cracked.
A thin white line tore across the heavens like a glitch on a broken screen. Light spilled out in jagged patterns, forming glowing text across the clouds.
> REBOOTING UNIVERSE… ERROR DETECTED.
ONE ACTIVE SOUL OUT OF INDEX.
REASSIGNING TO FALLBACK REALITY.
Rayan whispered, "What…?"
But he didn't finish.
The ground folded in on itself like collapsing paper.
Buildings flattened into outlines.
Trees shrank into sketches.
Everything he knew dissolved into a single point of blinding white light.
The light flickered.
Then swallowed him.
---
He woke on nothing.
Or something close to it.
Rayan lay on a smooth glass-like platform floating in mid-air. Above him: a pitch-black sky with no stars. Below him: fragments of different worlds drifting like cosmic debris.
A chunk of a city sidewalk.
A warped purple forest.
Half an ocean frozen in the shape of a wave.
It looked like reality had shattered — and every piece was collected here.
Rayan sat up, his heartbeat loud in the silence.
"What… where am I?"
A low hum vibrated beneath him.
He turned his head — and froze.
Suspended in the center of the void was a massive white sphere, glowing like a beating heart. Pulses ran across its surface in patterns too complex to understand. Every few seconds, one of the floating fragments shifted position, drawn closer to it.
It was beautiful, terrifying, and completely alien.
---
"So you're the Stray."
Rayan spun around.
A figure stood behind him — tall, faceless, its body shifting like smoke trapped in a human shape. Its outline flickered, glitching around the edges.
Rayan stumbled back. "Stay away!"
The figure didn't move closer.
Its voice echoed without a mouth.
"Relax, Stray. If I wanted you erased, we wouldn't be talking."
"Stray?" Rayan echoed. "What does that mean?"
The being pointed toward the glowing sphere.
"That is the Heart Engine. It reboots failed universes.
Yours collapsed unexpectedly. Everyone in it was erased."
Rayan's breath caught in his throat.
"Everyone? My mom? My friends—?"
"Gone.
Except you.
You slipped out of your timeline before deletion."
The pain hit him like a blade.
His entire world — gone?
"…Why me?"
The figure didn't shrug; its body barely held shape.
"A glitch. An error in the reboot.
You exist when you shouldn't.
And in the Midlayer…"
The air thickened.
The void around them seemed to shiver.
"…things that shouldn't exist attract the Nullbeing."
A chill seized Rayan's spine.
"What is that?"
For the first time, the creature's voice dimmed.
"A devourer of realities.
It consumes whatever the Heart Engine fails to erase."
Rayan's voice cracked. "And it's coming… for me?"
"Of course."
The figure extended a shadowy hand.
"Unless you want to meet it, you have one choice."
Rayan hesitated, trembling.
"If I go with you… what happens?"
The figure's form rippled.
"Then you learn the laws of a world held together by broken universes."
"And maybe…"
Its voice lowered.
"…if you survive, you may change those laws."
Rayan stared at the hand.
His world was gone.
This new one wanted him dead.
He took a breath.
Then grabbed the shadowed hand.
Reality rippled like water.
"Welcome to the Midlayer , Stray."