## Chapter 1 — The Beginning
In the year **3010**, on the **2nd day of the 4th month** by the **Effex Calendar**, the nation of **Attica** stood united, free, and brighter than it had ever been in memory.
Its capital, **Antaria**, rose like a jewel of silver and light across the horizon—towering glass spires, skybridges wrapped in neon vines, mag-rail lines threading through the city like veins of fire. From the highest districts to the crowded streets below, everything in Antaria seemed alive with motion, music, and possibility.
And at the heart of it all stood **Fist Highschool**.
It was the kind of place where futures were forged beneath flickering holographic boards, where students rushed through corridors lined with interactive murals and digital bulletin streams, where ambition hummed in every hallway. Some came to become engineers, some pilots, some leaders.
And some came to become legends.
Among them was **Aurora Nightwood**.
Seventeen years old, with a name that already sounded like a stage light catching on midnight. Aurora was known across Attica not only as a student, but as a singer whose voice had taken the nation by storm. Her songs played in transit hubs, rooftop lounges, school courtyards, and private skycars drifting above Antaria's glittering streets. People called her a rising star, but that no longer felt accurate.
Aurora was already famous.
Not just popular—**beloved**.
Her face appeared on glowing billboards. Her latest tracks climbed the national charts in hours. Fans copied her style, imitated her hairstyle, waited outside venues just to catch a glimpse of her passing by. Even strangers who had never spoken her name felt they knew her through her music: the ache in her lyrics, the warmth in her melodies, the strange, luminous honesty she carried in every note.
Yet inside Fist Highschool, Aurora was still just Aurora to the people who mattered most.
She moved through the academy with a quiet confidence, her dark coat trailing behind her, her silver accessories catching the morning light. Students turned when she passed, some whispering, some smiling, some pretending not to stare. She handled it all with practiced ease—an almost regal calm that came from living with attention for so long that it had become part of the air around her.
At her side were her friends.
There was **Mira Solace**, sharp-eyed and quick-witted, the kind of person who could read a room in seconds and a person in less than that. She was forever balancing sarcasm with loyalty, and she had been one of Aurora's closest friends since the early days, before the fame, before the crowds, before the world had decided Aurora Nightwood was someone to watch.
There was **Jace Venn**, tall and restless, always carrying the energy of someone who had too many ideas and not enough time. He liked to joke that if he weren't friends with a famous singer, he'd probably be in trouble every other day. Aurora suspected that was true.
And there was **Elia Rook**, soft-spoken and observant, who rarely said more than necessary but somehow always knew exactly what to say when it mattered. Elia had a way of grounding the group, like an anchor hidden beneath calm waters.
Together, they moved through the school as if they belonged to a world slightly different from everyone else's—not better, not separate, just touched by the strange glow that follows people whose lives are about to change.
Aurora's fame was everywhere, but so was something else.
Expectation.
People did not only admire her now. They waited for her. For the next song. The next performance. The next rumor. The next spark. She could feel it in the way teachers looked at her a little too carefully, in the way classmates opened space for her in a crowded hallway, in the way messages flooded her public feed faster than she could read them.
But that morning, as sunlight spilled across the polished floors of Fist Highschool and the city of Antaria shimmered beyond the windows, Aurora felt something unusual beneath the noise.
A quiet sense that the world was holding its breath.
She glanced at her friends, and Mira caught the look immediately, arching a brow.
"What?" Mira asked.
Aurora smiled, but it was thoughtful, almost distant. "Nothing."
Jace snorted. "That means everything."
Aurora laughed softly, and for a brief moment, she was just a seventeen-year-old girl standing in a school corridor with her friends—before the fame, before the future, before whatever unseen path had already begun unfolding beneath her feet.
Above them, the screens in the hallway flashed with the morning announcements. Outside, Antaria gleamed under the pale light of day. And somewhere in the vast, united nation of Attica, a new chapter was beginning.
Whether Aurora was ready or not.