Lucen woke to a suffocating wall of heat.
Not the gentle warmth of a summer afternoon.
This was the oppressive, lung-scorching blast of an open industrial oven.
The ground pressing against his cheek didn’t yield like dirt or mud.
Jagged, baking rock dug into his skin.
His fingers twitched.
Thick, gritty ash coated his knuckles.
For a long, hazy minute, his brain simply refused to boot up.
Drawing a breath felt like swallowing razors.
His chest flared with a dull, throbbing ache, pulling in air that tasted sharply of sulfur, crushed minerals, and burning copper.
He peeled his eyes open.
The world was different.
Sector 135’s ruined concrete was gone.
Jagged, towering spires of black obsidian stabbed into a dark, purple sky.
Thick rivers of glowing orange magma crawled down the sides of distant mountains.
The lava cast a harsh, crimson hue across an endless plain of cracked rock.
No trees broke the horizon.
No grass clung to the dirt.
Not a single drop of water.
Just endless, baking stone and floating embers drifting through the thick atmosphere.
A sharp spike of pain shot down his neck as he lifted his head.
The sting faded almost instantly.
Blinking against the harsh light, he pushed himself up onto his elbows.
Something caught the ambient glow on his forearm.
A faint glowing pattern, shaped like a honeycomb, pulsed quietly right under his skin.
It shined with a cool blue light, wrapping his entire body like a second skin.
He instantly understood what it was doing.
The air pressure out here was completely different.
Gravity pulled at his bones, heavy and aggressive.
Without that thin, glowing shield protecting him, this alien air would have boiled his blood and crushed his organs like empty soda cans.
The strange blue light was working overtime.
It filtered out the toxic sulfur and kept his body heat normal just to keep him from bursting open.
He looked down at his body.
Thick, pale bandages wrapped tightly around his chest, arms, and thighs.
They didn’t feel like standard medical cotton.
The material felt rough and stiff, woven from some kind of flexible, translucent mineral fiber.
Someone had treated his wounds.
But who?
He pushed the thought aside.
A different, much heavier realization suddenly slammed into his mind.
He was sitting up.
His elbows were supporting his own body weight.
He went perfectly still and stared down at his legs, stretched out across the dark volcanic ash.
For his entire life, those limbs had been dead weight.
Useless.
Fragile sticks of atrophied muscle that gave out if he stood for more than a few minutes.
His heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
He swallowed hard.
Sending a command to his right foot, he waited.
His toes wiggled.
A breathless gasp escaped his lips.
Planting his palms against the baking stone, he pushed.
His arms didn’t buckle.
He pulled his knees underneath him.
Shifting his weight, he pressed the soles of his bare feet flat against the hot rock.
He pushed upward and stood up.
For the first time in his memory, Lucen stood entirely on his own.
His legs didn’t shake.
His knees held firm.
Tracing the thick mineral bandages with trembling fingers, he felt dense, tightly coiled muscle shifting beneath his grip.
His body hadn’t just recovered from the battle.
It had been completely rebuilt.
A shaky, disbelieving laugh bubbled up from his throat.
Taking a step forward, his foot slapped against the obsidian.
The ground pushed back.
He took another step.
Then another.
“No way,” he whispered.
His voice cracked.
He walked in a small circle.
Bouncing on his toes, the movement felt impossibly light.
He bent his knees and jumped, clearing the ground by a full foot.
He landed perfectly balanced on the uneven rock.
The sheer, intoxicating thrill of movement crashed over him like a tidal wave.
He ran.
Sprinting ten yards across the jagged terrain, the hot wind whipped through his hair.
Toxic air and strange skies didn’t matter.
He laughed aloud.
A bright, entirely childlike sound of pure joy echoed across the wasteland.
“Holy grandpa, they actually work!” For the first time in his miserable existence, he wasn’t trapped inside a broken shell.
He was fast.
He was free.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way, and somehow, he had found his way out of the damn basement.
⋙ ──── ✦ ──── ⋘ KRRRMMMM—TK.
Slamming on the brakes, his bare feet skidded across the ash.
The laughter died in his throat.
A low, clicking vibration echoed across the rocks.
It didn’t sound like an animal.
It sounded like grinding quartz.
Slowly turning around, his newly discovered muscles tensed.
They were waiting for him in the shadows of a massive obsidian spire.
One.
Two.
Five.
Dozens of them.
Ice water replaced the blood in his veins.
They were small, barely reaching his waist, but their shapes were terrifyingly alien.
Four multi-jointed limbs supported bodies that looked exactly like creatures.
Layers of grey, translucent mineral plates covered their forms.
The stone armor shifted and scraped against itself as they moved.
A faintly glowing blue core rested in the center of their thoraxes.
No eyes.
No mouths.
No faces.
Just smooth, crystalline heads angled directly at him.
One of the spider-creatures took a slow step forward.
Its front limbs tapped against the rock.
KRRRMMMM—TK—KRRRMMMM.
Instinctively reaching for his waist, Lucen searched for a weapon he didn’t have.
He backed up.
His bare heel hit a sharp rock.
The creature stopped.
Several others shifted behind it.
Their front limbs raised slightly into the air.
They were scared.
Or they were getting ready to pounce.
“Wait.” Lucen held both hands up in the air, palms open.
The creatures didn’t move.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” He fought to keep his voice steady.
The nearest creature tilted its smooth, faceless head.
Another grinding vibration passed through the pack.
KRRRMMMM—TK—KRRRMMMM.
Lucen frowned.
The noise was just meaningless static.
Then, a faint hum buzzed behind his ears.
A translucent blue window flickered into existence right across his vision.
[Foreign Resonance Detected.] [Unknown linguistic pattern detected.] [Attempting synchronization…] Blinking, he watched the letters dissolve and reform.
[Translation module initializing…] [12%] He kept his hands raised.
Moving a muscle seemed like a terrible idea right now.
Better safe than sorry.
The lead creature took another hesitant step forward.
Its core flared with a brighter blue light.
KRRRMMMM—TK.
[47%] “What is it?” Lucen whispered out of the corner of his mouth.
No verbal answer came.
The progress bar just ticked higher.
The creatures watched him closely.
Their four limbs twitched with nervous energy.
[100%] [Translation complete.
Accuracy: 62% – Syntax degraded.] The blue window vanished.
The lead creature vibrated again.
This time, the sound didn’t just grind against his eardrums.
The glowing blue mesh under his skin flared.
It intercepted the frequency, violently forcing the alien’s intent directly into his brain.
It didn’t sound like a smooth, human voice.
It sounded fragmented.
Broken.
Like someone trying to speak a language they barely knew.
“You.
Move…
no.” Lucen’s eyes widened.
Staring at the faceless creature, he lowered his arms a fraction.
“Ok, I am not moving.” The creature took a quick step back.
Its front limbs clicked anxiously against the stone.
“You.
Understand…
us.” “Yeah,” Lucen nodded slowly.
“I understand you.” The reaction was instantaneous.
The lead creature scrambled backward.
The rest of the pack erupted into a chaotic symphony of rapid vibrations.
KRRRMMMM—TK—KRRRMMMM—TK!
Wincing, Lucen covered his ears.
The grinding noise bounced off the volcanic spires, amplifying the sound.
“What the hell are they doing?” The Blue screen flashed a brief text overlay: [Communicating.
High distress detected.] They are arguing.
One spider rushed toward another, their mineral plates vibrating in complex, overlapping patterns.
The sound spread through the pack like a massive, panicked conversation.
Slowly lowering his hands, Lucen watched the alien creatures.
He tried to read their completely inhuman body language.
Finally, the largest creature turned back toward him.
The pack fell dead silent.
“You.
Fall…
sky,” the creature vibrated.
“We…
see.
You.” The creature raised a sharp front limb.
It pointed straight up.
Following the gesture, he looked past the jagged peaks of the volcanoes deep into the alien atmosphere.
The sky wasn’t blue.
It was pitch black, yet entirely illuminated by enormous, swirling bands of cosmic light.
Millions of stars clustered together on the horizon.
They burned with a fierce, terrifying intensity.
A picture is worth a thousand words, and this one clearly said he was lightyears away from anything human.
“You…
come Rift,” the creature continued.
Lucen looked back down.
“A Rift?” The creature’s core pulsed brightly.
“Yes.
Rift-walker.” Swallowing the dry lump in his throat, Lucen took a shaky breath.
“Where is this?” The spider didn’t answer immediately.
It looked back at the pack.
Its plates clicked in a soft, debated rhythm.
Turning its smooth face back to Lucen, it delivered the verdict.
“Orrak.
You…
stand Orrak.” The name meant absolutely nothing to him.
“Orrak…” He repeated the harsh syllables.
“Our…
rock.
Our world.” Lucen looked around again.
The endless rivers of magma.
The suffocating heat.
The dark sky.
The four-limbed creatures are made of stone and crystal.
His chest tightened.
The childlike joy of walking completely evaporated.
A heavy, sinking dread rushed in to fill the empty space.
“Earth…” he whispered.
None of the creatures reacted.
The word held no meaning here.
Out of sight, out of mind for the universe, apparently.
For the first time since opening his eyes, the absolute reality of his situation crashed down on him.
He wasn’t in Sector 135.
He wasn’t hidden in a bunker.
He wasn’t anywhere near grandpa or the Mawlords.
Dragging his bare foot across the hot ash, he looked at the leader.
“What happened to me?” The lead spider stepped closer.
Its movements were cautious but deliberate.
“We…
not know.” Another smaller spider scuttled forward.
It pointed a jagged limb at the thick mineral bandages wrapped around Lucen’s chest.
“He…
broken.
Bleed.” The larger one clicked in agreement.
“He…
danger.” Lucen took a small step forward.
“I’m not dangerous.
I’m just lost.” The leader’s core flared defensively.
“You.
Arrive Rift.” Lucen kept his hands open, showing empty palms.
“You…
carry a weird spark.
Bad energy.” The creature tilted its body to the side.
“You…
survive fall.
You live.” Glancing down at his own hands, the blue light shimmered faintly over his knuckles.
“That doesn’t mean I’m your enemy.” The creatures began vibrating again.
This time, the system didn’t bother translating the exact words.
Instead, it fed Lucen the raw emotional intent behind the sounds.
Suspicion.
Fear.
Heavy curiosity.
They were debating what to do with the alien that fell from the sky.
Don’t judge a book by its cover didn’t really apply when the book dropped out of a cosmic tear in reality.
Finally, the largest creature stepped forward.
It cut off the chatter and pointed a rigid limb directly at Lucen’s chest.
“Until…
we know.
You…
stay.
Kept.” Lucen’s jaw tightened.
“Kept?
You mean confined.
A prisoner.” The creature bobbed its body up and down.
“You…
heal.” “You guys already treated me,” Lucen argued.
He gestured to his bandaged arms.
“Rock-weavers did.
Heal flesh.” Narrowing his eyes, Lucen stared down the faceless leader.
“Why?
If you think I’m dangerous, why didn’t you just let me die out here?” The creature paused.
Its glowing core dimmed slightly, shifting to a softer shade of blue.
“Because…
you break.
Dying thing…
needs fixing.
Later…
judge.” Lucen didn’t know how to respond to that.
It was brutally simple, perfectly alien logic.
Heal first, decide if it’s a threat later.
The leader turned away.
It clicked sharply to the rest of the pack.
“Take.
Bring deep.” Four of the larger Veyr scuttled forward.
They surrounded Lucen on all sides.
They didn’t grab him.
They didn’t bare weapons.
They simply boxed him in, waiting for him to move.
Lucen looked at his newly healed legs.
He could fight.
He could probably outrun them on the open plains.
But outrun them to where?
He had no food, no water, and he was standing on a boiling rock in the middle of deep space.
He couldn’t have it both ways.
Play along, or die in the wasteland.
Letting out a slow, defeated breath, he nodded.
“Fine.
Lead the way.” He walked under his own power.
The Veyr maintained a tight circle around him.
Their crystal plates clicked a steady rhythm against the obsidian.
As he marched across the volcanic plains, Lucen looked up at the dark sky one last time.
He thought about his grandfather.
He thought about Raina’s terrified face.
He thought about Kai, The flower shop.
The smell of fresh lilies.
He clenched his fists.
“I have to go back.” The words echoed in his own head, empty and impossible.
He wasn’t going to find a way home in either.
If he had to survive this blazing hellscape to see his family again, that was exactly what he would do.
It is what it is.
Somewhere deep beneath his ribs, and the mineral bandages, something finally answered his resolve.
A faint, heavy pulse.
Then another.
A new blue window flickered directly into his line of sight.
[Host condition: Stabilized.] [Vessel reconstruction: 100%] [Local Resonance: Acquired.] [Origin Workshop function: Restricted.
Re-calibration required.] Staring at the final line, he stumbled slightly over a loose rock.
“Workshop?” he muttered.
The window dissolved into blue static.
It faded away into the oppressive heat.
For now, there were no answers.
Only a burning landscape, an escort of rock-creatures, and an entire alien world waiting to swallow him whole.
Orrak had just found its first human.
And Lucen had absolutely no idea that this boiling rock was about to change him forever.