Chapter One: I Wake Without a Name
I woke to the sound of wind moving through something tall and dry.
For a moment, I thought I was still dreaming. The sound reminded me of summer evenings—of standing near open fields while cicadas screamed themselves hoarse. That should have felt familiar. Comforting.
It didn't.
My eyes opened to a sky too wide and too colorful to be real. Pale blue a hint of purple, empty of clouds, stretching endlessly in all directions. I lay on my back, half-submerged in tall stalks of golden grass that brushed my cheeks and tangled around my arms. Wheat, I thought distantly. Or something like it. Each stalk rose higher than my chest when I sat up, the heads heavy and whispering as they bent in the wind.
I sat up slowly.
The first thing I noticed was the cold.
It wasn't sharp or biting, not the kind that made your teeth chatter. It wasn't that deep but it did cause goose flesh to break out all across my skin. My skin without clothes...
No wonder I was freezing. My mouth turned down in a frown.
I brought my hands in front of my face.
They were pale. Not sickly, exactly, but drained, as if the color had been leeched out. I dont think I should be this pale but when I wondered why I had that thought it faded like it had just been a dream. My fingers trembled faintly. When I pressed my thumb against my palm, I felt the pressure—but it was distant, muffled, like touching something through gloves.
My heart was beating. Slow. Too slow.
I felt fear yet my chest wasn't pounding like it should be and this thought should have scared me more than it did. Maybe this was just how adrenaline worked? I tried not to think about the unimportant things first.
I pushed myself to my feet, the grass parting reluctantly around my legs. As I stood, dizziness washed over me, and with it came a sharp, disorienting thought:
'Where am I? Who am I?'
The questions landed in my mind and echoed, unanswered.
I knew things. That was the strange part. I knew what grass was. I knew what the sky was. I knew that I was sixteen years old without having to think about it, the knowledge sitting solid and unquestioned in my head.
But when I reached for my name, there was nothing.
No blur. No almost-memory.
Just an empty space where something important was supposed to be.
I swallowed, my throat dry. "Okay," I muttered, my voice rough and quieter than I expected. It sounded wrong in my ears, like it didn't quite belong to me. "Okay. That's… fine. That's fine."
It wasn't fine.
A shout echoed through the field.
I froze, every muscle locking in place. The sound was human—panicked, hoarse, real. Relief and fear tangled painfully in my chest as another voice joined it, then another.
I wasn't alone.
I pushed through the grass, moving toward the noise. The stalks resisted, catching on my bare skin, whispering loudly enough that I kept glancing down, half-expecting them to move on their own. After a few seconds of struggling, the field opened into a wide clearing.
There were people.
Twenty of them at first glance. Then more, stumbling out of the tall grass at the edges of the clearing, coughing and swearing and shouting questions no one could answer.
They were all different ages. None, not one of them had clothes. Some looked my age, others much older. One woman knelt on the ground, crying quietly into her hands. A man with a beard spun in a slow circle, breathing hard, like he was expecting the field itself to attack him.
No one looked calm. Sweat. Panic. Wide eyes filled with disbelief and tears. Lots of tears.
That made sense. I didn't feel calm either—I just felt… muted.
"Where the hell are we?" someone shouted.
"This is a dream, right?" another voice said desperately. "This has to be a dream."
"I was just—" A young girl stopped abruptly, her face draining of color. "I was just in my car."
A murmur rippled through the group. People started talking over one another, fragments of sentences colliding uselessly.
"I was asleep—" "No, I was awake—" "There was someone—" "I remember screaming—"
That last one made my stomach twist.
I stood at the edge of the clearing, watching. Listening.
Something felt wrong with the way they spoke. Not the panic—that was expected—but the weight behind their words. Like each sentence was dragging something heavy behind it.
A tall man near the center raised his hands. "Everyone—everyone, stop for a second! Just—just listen."
Surprisingly, they did.
"My name is Daniel," he said. "I'm thirty-two. I don't know where we are, but I know how I got here."
The clearing went shockingly quiet, as all eyes locked on the man who had drawn everyone's attention.
"I was stabbed," Daniel continued. His voice shook, but he didn't look away. "In an alley. I remember hitting the ground. I remember thinking I was going to die."
A woman laughed hysterically. "That's not funny."
"I'm not joking," he snapped. "I died."
Silence crashed down, heavy and suffocating.
One by one, others spoke.
"I was poisoned." "House fire." "Shot." "He pushed me."
Each confession was worse than the last. Murder. Betrayal. Violence. Every story ended the same way: pain, fear, and then nothing.
My hands curled into fists at my sides.
They all remembered dying.
I didn't.
A strange pressure built behind my eyes, not pain, but something close to it. I searched my mind desperately, chasing shadows of memory. Homework. A desk. A dim room lit by a screen. Falling asleep.
Then nothing.
"I don't remember," I said before I could stop myself.
Several heads nearest me turned to look at me. I felt uncomfortable. I probably shouldn't have said anything.
"Don't remember what?" Daniel asked with the calm voice of an adult.
"Dying," I said. The word felt wrong in my mouth. Too final. "I don't remember… that part."
A few people exchanged looks.
"That doesn't mean it didn't happen," someone said quickly. "Shock does that."
"Yeah," another agreed. "Trauma."
I had to agree. Maybe its why I don't remember anything.
But then something flickered in the air in front of my face.
A translucent blue screen unfolded, hovering inches from my eyes.
I gasped and stumbled back, nearly tripping over the grass.
"What—what is that?" someone shouted.
More screens appeared. All around the clearing, people cried out in alarm as glowing panels snapped into place before them.
Words resolved on mine.
Name: UNKNOWN
Age: 16
Status: Active
Deaths: 1
Stats:
Strength: 2
Durability: 3
Endurance: 2
Agility: 2
Perception: 2
Cognition: 3
Charm: 2
Mana: 2
Ability:
Adaptive Resurrection
- Upon death, user resurrects approximately 24 hours later.
- Gains adaptations based on cause of death.
- All primary stats increase by +1 per death.
I stared at the word Deaths until my vision blurred.
"One?" I whispered.
Someone leaned closer to read over my shoulder—and went very still.
"Hey," he said slowly. "Why does yours say UNKNOWN?"
A ripple of unease passed through the group when they heard the man. Everyone was already anxious and I was now an outlier it seemed.
Backing up a few steps away from the man, I opened my mouth to answer, but no words came.
Because the truth was sitting cold and heavy in my chest.
I didn't know my name.