Chapter 1 :The empty City

Rakshit opened his eyes to the sound of silence.

No alarms. No buzzing from his neural implant. No gentle morning reminder from The Core. Just a strange coldness in the air and a sky stuck in eternal twilight.

He sat up on the hard pavement, blinking rapidly. This wasn’t his room. This wasn’t his city. Around him stood tall buildings made of glass and steel, reflecting a dull grey light from the sky. The streets were too clean. Too perfect. Not a single crack or piece of trash.

He wasn’t alone.

Just a few meters away, a girl with sharp eyes and confident posture sat cross-legged, scanning her surroundings like a wild animal. Vijaya. A few feet away stood a man in a faded military coat, his eyes scanning the area like he was still on a battlefield. That was Ishar Singh. Two more figures—one wearing a high-tech engineer’s jacket, Sooryanvanshi, and another in simple clothes that suggested a quiet life, Vijay—were just waking up.

None of them spoke at first. No one knew where they were, or how they got there.

And then the screens flickered.

Huge digital panels attached to the buildings lit up all at once with a blinding white glow. A synthetic voice echoed across the street.

“You’ve been Disconnected.”
“This is your trial. Survive, or vanish.”
“Your time begins now.”

A timer appeared on each screen: 72:00:00 — 72 hours.

And then the screens went black.

Silence again.

Vijaya was the first to speak. “What the hell does that mean? Disconnected from what?”

“Maybe… the system?” Sooryanvanshi said, still shaky. “From The Core?”

Ishar Singh narrowed his eyes. “This isn’t an accident. This is a test. We’re not here by chance.”

Rakshit stood up, brushing off dust from his pants. His voice was calm, too calm. “Disconnected... Maybe this is what freedom looks like.”

Nobody laughed.

From somewhere deep inside one of the buildings, a soft electronic hum began to rise. One of the doors slid open, revealing a glowing hallway and a sign above it that read:

“Trial Room Active — Challenge 01: The Mirror of Truth.”

The timer on the screen ticked down.

71:59:52... 71:59:51...