Prologue

“Look, there it is,” I said, my voice muffled by the metallic rebreather mask clamped over my mouth and nose. The filter hissed with every breath, recycling traces of Kyslicium from my tank.

The wasteland stretched endlessly below, a cracked tapestry of ash and rust-colored earth. Above it, the sky was a pale, synthetic blue—a weak imitation of the long-lost natural horizon. My airboard hummed softly beneath me as I hovered over the ancient relic.

Beside me, Serena floated lazily on her airboard, her oversized gray hoodie billowing slightly in the artificial breeze. Her hands were buried deep in the kangaroo pocket, and her voice crackled through the comms.

“I hate this mask. I can’t even wear my septum piercing like this.”

She tilted her head slightly, eyes squinting at the horizon. The hoodie was her constant armor—a way to hide her enormous bust beneath layers of fabric. Serena always acted nonchalant, but I knew she felt exposed out here, with nothing but sky and silence surrounding us.

Above us, Kael hovered like an over-enthusiastic kestrel, his airboard jerking slightly as he shifted his weight. At twenty, he was the youngest of our crew, with restless energy and a glint of hope in his wide, curious eyes.

“They said these Biocores were the last three,” he said, his voice crackling faintly in our earpieces.

Before any of us could reply, Toren shot forward, his airboard slicing through the still air.

“I’ll get there first!” he yelled, the wind stealing the words even as they escaped his lips.

“This isn’t a race, you know!” Liora’s voice reverberated through the valley, sharp and commanding. She floated a little behind us, her sleek black bodysuit catching the sterile sunlight. “He’s so immature…”

But despite her sharp tone, there was an edge of fondness in her voice.

I adjusted the stabilizers on my airboard, watching the massive hunk of wood—a relic, a legend, a cursed treasure—loom closer. Its bark was cracked and stained with time, yet beneath the decay, faint emerald veins pulsed softly, as if the Biocore still remembered how to breathe.

“We should just gather what we can and head back,” I said, my eyes flicking toward the status gauge on my wrist. My Kyslicium tank was already dipping below fifty percent.

As we descended, Kael leapt lightly from his airboard and landed near the wooden surface. His gloved hand reached out, pausing for a second, before it came to rest on the bark.

“So beautiful,” he whispered, the awe in his voice almost reverent.

“Careful!” Liora snapped. “It might release oxygen!”

“How could they not realize?” Toren asked, crouched near a splintered root, his gloved fingers brushing over the bark. His voice held a mixture of fascination and disbelief. “For thousands, maybe millions of years, they lived surrounded by these things! Breathing them in, worshipping them!”

Serena snorted lightly. “Well, they also believed in gods and floating sky palaces and… what was it? An afterlife filled with clouds and harps? So yeah, not exactly a species big on common sense.”

Her dry remark cracked the tension, and a faint ripple of laughter passed through us. But even as I chuckled, my gaze stayed fixed on the Biocore.

For a moment, I tried to imagine a world where these giants weren’t artifacts but sentinels of life, towering over cities and fields, their leaves whispering secrets into the wind.

“What were they so obsessed with?” I murmured under my breath. “They even made regulations for their protection…”

The question hung in the stale, filtered air between us, unanswered. The world we came from had buried its past under layers of synthetic skies and humming biodomes. But here, standing in front of something raw and real—something ancient and untamed—it felt like we were staring into the eyes of a forgotten era.

Somewhere in the distance, the faint echo of our comms buzzed, a reminder that time was slipping away. Our Kyslicium tanks wouldn't last forever.

“Let’s get to work,” I said, breaking the silence.

One by one, we dismounted our airboards, our boots crunching softly against the parched earth as we prepared to harvest what little remained of the past.

“This is probably our last trip,” Liora said softly, her voice carrying an edge of nostalgia.

The valley stretched wide and silent, filled with the faint hum of our Kyslicium-powered ship and the rhythmic crackle of laseraxes slicing through ancient bark.

I paused mid-swing, my laseraxe humming idly in my gloved hands. “Yeah, the Wood Hunters will be disbanded after this job. It’s up to the scientists to push humanity one step further again.”

We worked in silence after that, chopping the ancient wood into manageable segments and loading them into specially-designed containment crates on the ship. The containers hissed softly as they sealed, locking away the precious wood from contact with the outside air. The ship, a bulky metallic construct fueled by Kyslicium infused with traces of charcoal, stood motionless beside us, its vents releasing slow plumes of sterilized mist.

“Are you going to help us or what?” Toren barked, his frustration crackling through the comm line. His glare was directed at Kael, who stood motionless, staring at the Biocore as if it were holy.

Kael’s gloved hand still rested on the bark, trembling slightly. “This is the last trip… Wood Hunters will have no more jobs. We’ll go back to our ordinary lives… They’ll send me to cut people’s hair again.”

“Hey, what are you staring at?” I said, stepping closer, my boots crunching against brittle roots scattered across the parched earth. “Are you really that sad about Wood Hunters being disbanded?”

Kael’s eyes flicked to mine, “Oh shut up, Zehn. I don’t give a damn about Wood Hunters. I only care about Biocores.” Kael’s response was a little stingy, but it was nothing I wouldn’t expect of him. “Sorry… I don’t want to sound like that but… The thought that I would never be able to see this magnificent beauty anymore just fills my heart with despair.”

“I get you, buddy.”

Kael’s next words were quiet, almost a whisper. “I have to do it… It’s now or never.”

“What do you mean—“

Before I could stop him, Kael tore off his glove and pressed his bare hand against the bark of the Biocore.

“Don’t!”

But it was too late. His bare fingers connected with the ancient wood, and for a fleeting moment, his eyes widened, tears glistening along the edges of his lashes.

“This… this is unbelievable,” Kael muttered, his voice filled with thrill. “It’s so dry, and yet… so soft. So gentle. It feels…”

“Enough, Kael!” I shouted, stepping closer. “Stop playing with fire!”

“Just a little more…” he murmured, leaning closer, his tattooed face inches from the bark.

And then it happened.

Kael gasped—a sharp, ragged intake of breath—as he stumbled backward, clutching his hand.

“Oh shit… shit, shit, shit!”

I lunged forward, grabbing his arm. His bare hand was shaking violently, and soon enough, I spotted it: a splinter—a tiny, jagged shard of wood embedded in his palm.

“What happened?!” Toren, Serena, and Liora rushed toward us, their airboards humming as they descended.

“It’s a splinter,” I said, my voice breaking. “A splinter got under his skin!”

“Where’s his glove? How did this happen?!” Liora’s voice was sharp, commanding, but threaded with fear.

Kael’s breath came in shallow gasps. His eyes darted from his palm to the sky.

“We have to cut off his hand!” Serena said, her laseraxe already primed and glowing faintly red.

“Are you insane?!” Liora shoved Serena back. “We can get it out. Kael, just breathe. Stay calm!”

“I’m gonna die, there’s no saving me!”

“Yeah, let’s chop off the hand or he infects us before he dies!” Serena insisted and I couldn’t even tell whether she was joking or not.

“I’m not taking any chances!” Kael’s wide, panicked eyes locked on the ship, and before any of us could stop him, he sprinted up the boarding ramp, leaving his airboard behind.

"No! Don’t go aboard!" Toren roared, bolting after him.

But Kael was already inside the ship, his injured hand still clutching his wrist. In his panic, he stumbled over a Kyslicium tank, his boot catching on one of the valves.

There was a sickening hiss, followed by an ominous gurgle.

“Kael, no—!”

After all of us reached the ship, the Kyslicium tank ruptured, releasing a violent stream of vaporized air. Kael reached out instinctively with his injured hand, and the splinter reacted with the gas.

A spark. A flash.

And then—the explosion.

The blast threw us all backward, our face masks cracking from the shockwave. The ship groaned and screeched as metal bent and tore, its smoldering remains collapsing into the ground.

The realization hit us all at once: our Kyslicium source was gone.

Instinctively, we clamped our gloved hands over our mouths holding our breaths, as if sheer willpower could filter out the air, scrambling for our airboards, their engines sputtering to life as we launched ourselves into the thinning sky. Above the scorched earth and the remaining Biocore, we flew—higher, faster—each second a desperate gamble to reach the safety of the barrier of our country.

But deep down, we all knew it was impossible.

The gasps started almost simultaneously.

Liora faltered first. Her airboard dipped slightly as she tore her trembling hands away from her mouth, her chest rising in sharp, panicked spasms as she sucked in a lungful of tainted air.

Toren followed. His body stiffened, his head snapping back as his mouth opened, pulling in air as if he’d been drowning.

Then came Serena. Her mask slipped from her fingers, spinning slowly before falling into the abyss below. Her breath came in ragged, uneven gulps, her shoulders heaving with each inhalation.

And then… it was me.

I could feel it — the sharp, forbidden air flooded my lungs.

Finally, Kael gasped, his head snapping upward, his chest heaving as he took in the breath. His wide eyes froze in a mixture of terror and disbelief.

We hung there in the sky, suspended on fragile airboards above a dead earth, frozen in shock.

The truth hit us like a hammer.

Oxygen had gotten into our bodies.

Chapter 0: END