Jimmy woke to the taste of iron.
Not blood—at least he didn't think so—but something metallic in the air that coated the back of his tongue and made him swallow hard before he even opened his eyes.
For a long moment, he didn't move.
He lay flat on his back, breath shallow, heart hammering as if he had just sprinted. There was no mattress beneath him. No familiar hum of the air conditioner. No distant television murmuring from the living room.
Instead, there was wind.
Soft at first. Then sharper. It moved across his face with a cool edge that did not belong to his bedroom.
His eyes opened.
Above him stretched a sky he did not recognize.
It was too wide. Too clear. Too painfully blue.
No telephone wires were cutting across it. No distant airplane trails. No city haze. Just an open expanse framed by crumbling stone walls tangled in thick green ivy.
Jimmy sat up abruptly.
Stone scraped against his palms.
He was in a courtyard.
Not the decorative kind behind a suburban townhouse. This one was old—ancient, if the fractured masonry and creeping vines were any indication. The walls rose high around him, weathered blocks stacked in uneven layers, their surfaces chipped and darkened with age. Moss clung to the lower edges where dampness had claimed territory.
Grass pushed stubbornly through cracks in the stone floor.
He turned slowly, pulse quickening.
An archway stood on the far end of the courtyard, half collapsed, its keystone split down the middle. Beyond it lay a narrow stretch of shadow that might have been a corridor or a passage leading elsewhere.
There were no streetlights.
No parked cars.
No spilled milk.
Jimmy's stomach dropped.
The memory came back all at once—the alley, the folding ground, the fall that hadn't ended.
He lurched to his feet.
"I hit my head," he muttered. "That's all. Concussion. Hallucination. Probably in a hospital right now."
He looked down at himself.
Same jeans. Same hoodie. Same scuffed sneakers.
No hospital gown.
No IV.
His phone.
He fumbled for his pocket.
Still there.
He pulled it out, thumb already pressing the power button.
The screen remained black.
"No, no, no—come on," he whispered.
He held it to the light. No cracks. No damage.
Dead.
Not even a flicker.
He swallowed.
The air felt different.
Thicker.
Not suffocating—but charged. Like the space just before a thunderstorm when the atmosphere hummed in ways you couldn't hear but could somehow feel in your bones.
A faint prickle ran along his forearms.
He rubbed them absently.
"Okay," he said aloud, because hearing his own voice helped. "This is… not normal."
His words echoed slightly off the stone.
Too clean.
Too hollow.
Somewhere beyond the courtyard walls, metal clanged.
Jimmy froze.
Voices followed.
Low. Male. Speaking quickly.
He didn't recognize the language.
It wasn't Spanish. Not French. Not anything he had heard in passing or in class. The syllables were sharp and rounded at the same time, layered with rhythm that felt structured rather than chaotic.
He edged toward the broken archway, staying low.
The stone was cool beneath his palms as he leaned carefully toward the opening.
Beyond the courtyard lay a narrow street paved in uneven stone. Buildings pressed close together, their facades built from the same gray masonry as the courtyard walls. Wooden shutters hung from tall windows. Iron lanterns jutted from the walls, unlit in the daylight.
Two men in dark uniforms strode past the mouth of the alley-like passage.
They carried spears.
Real spears.
Not decorative.
Not costume.
Their armor gleamed faintly beneath deep green cloaks; metal plates fitted across their chests and shoulders. Symbols were etched into the surface—intricate lines that almost seemed to glow when the light hit them.
Jimmy's breath caught.
"Patrol the southern sector," one of them said in that same unfamiliar tongue. "The anomaly was reported near the outer quarter."
The other responded with something clipped and dismissive.
Anomaly.
He didn't know the word they used, but something in the tone felt like that.
Jimmy leaned back into the shadow before they could glance his way.
His heart slammed so hard he thought it might echo.
"This is a dream," he whispered.
He closed his eyes and opened them again.
The courtyard remained.
The ivy did not flicker into drywall.
The sky did not blur into ceiling paint.
A distant bell rang somewhere in the city beyond.
It was deep and resonant, vibrating through the stone like a warning.
He stepped away from the archway and pressed his back against the wall.
"Okay," he breathed. "Okay. Think."
The last clear memory he had was falling.
Darkness swallowing him.
And now—
This.
His hands trembled.
He clenched them into fists.
"Not a hospital," he murmured. "Not a dream."
The wind shifted.
For a heartbeat, the charged feeling in the air intensified.
The prickle along his skin sharpened into something more focused—like invisible threads brushing against him, testing him.
Jimmy's breath hitched.
Something was happening.
He didn't know how he knew, but he did.
The air in front of him shimmered.
Not visibly at first. More like a distortion, as if heat rose from invisible fire.
Then—
Light.
Thin lines of pale blue light traced themselves in the air before him, forming geometric patterns too precise to be random. Circles intersected. Symbols layered over one another in intricate symmetry.
Jimmy stumbled backward.
"What—"
The symbols rotated slowly, locking into place with silent finality.
Then a voice spoke.
Not aloud.
Not through the air.
It spoke inside his head.
Clear. Feminine. Calm.
Host Stabilized.
Jimmy's breath left him in a rush.
"Excuse me?"
The light expanded into a rectangular plane, hovering in front of him like glass.
Text appeared across it in crisp, luminous script.
Adaptive Lattice Linkage Initialized.
All-Magic System Online.
He stared.
"…I'm dead," he concluded faintly.
Incorrect.
The voice sounded almost bored.
Vital signs within acceptable parameters. Neurological coherence: unstable but functional.
Jimmy blinked.
The glowing panel shifted, reorganizing itself.
Lines of information began populating the space.
His name.
His age.
His height.
Data he did not remember giving anyone.
He reached out hesitantly.
His fingers passed through the surface like mist—but the panel reacted, responding to his movement.
"This is not real," he whispered.
Reality is contextual.
"Who are you?"
There was the faintest pause.
Then:
Adaptive Lattice Integrated Entity. Designation: A.L.L.I.E.
The name echoed in his mind as if it had always belonged there.
A.L.L.I.E.
Jimmy swallowed.
"This is a psychotic break," he muttered. "Stress-induced. Final semester snapped my brain."
Your brain remains intact. Your circumstances have changed.
The panel flickered once.
New lines of text scrolled into view.
Location: City of Slymare.
Empire: Altharion.
Threat Index: Elevated.
"Threat?" he repeated.
As if summoned by the word, another bell rang in the distance.
Closer this time.
Voices rose.
Shouts.
Jimmy's head snapped toward the archway.
Bootsteps struck stone outside the courtyard.
More than two.
A squad.
A command barked sharply.
The air beyond the broken arch shimmered—this time not from a hovering panel, but from symbols forming in the hands of one of the guards.
Circles of golden light began assembling in the air before him, lines carving themselves with deliberate precision.
They were building something.
A spell.
Jimmy didn't know how he knew that either.
He just did.
And they were taking their time.
Observation: A.L.L.I.E. said calmly in his mind.
Local casters require a structured circle formation before spell execution.
Jimmy stared at the glowing pattern forming in the guard's hands.
It was beautiful.
And terrifying.
Recommendation:Immediate relocation.
"I don't know how!" Jimmy hissed.
The golden circle outside locked into place with a sharp flare.
Heat gathered at its center.
Jimmy's heart stuttered.
He raised his hands instinctively.
"I don't— I don't even know what to do!"
The air around his fingers tingled.
Something responded.
Not from outside.
From inside.
Like a door opening in his chest.
The charged atmosphere condensed toward his palms.
Wind coiled around his wrists without visible cause.
A.L.L.I.E.'s voice cut through his panic.
Intent recognized.
Vector Shift is available.
"I didn't say that," he whispered.
You did not need to.
The golden spell outside was discharged.
Flame erupted from the circle's center, surging toward the courtyard entrance.
Jimmy didn't think.
He just moved.
The wind snapped tight around him.
The world blurred—
And he was no longer where he had been.
The fire blasted through empty space where he had stood, scorching ivy and blackening stone.
Jimmy reappeared several paces to the left, slamming against the wall hard enough to knock breath from his lungs.
He slid down onto one knee, gasping.
The guards shouted in alarm.
"How—?" one of them barked.
Jimmy stared at his hands.
No circle.
No symbol.
No glowing pattern.
Just skin.
The air still hummed faintly around him.
He had moved.
Instantly.
Without building anything.
A.L.L.I.E. spoke again, tone faintly edged with something like curiosity.
Conclusion: Local magical conventions are inefficient.
Boot steps pounded toward the courtyard.
Jimmy forced himself upright, heart racing.
"I don't know what's happening," he breathed.
Correction: A.L.L.I.E. replied coolly.
You are adapting.
Another circle began forming at the archway.
This one is brighter.
Faster.
Jimmy swallowed hard.
"Then let's adapt somewhere else."
He turned and sprinted toward the far wall of the courtyard, wind already gathering at his heels without him consciously asking for it.
Behind him, the second spell ignited.
And the hunt truly began.