Prologue

It all began.

Fifty years ago, the world blinked—and woke up differently.

The sun rose like it always did—quiet, steady, warm—spilling golden light across a world still rubbing the sleep from its eyes.

It was a normal morning.

Calm. Predictable.

Birds chirped. People rushed to work.

Children laughed on their way to school in crisp uniforms and flashing sneakers.

Markets opened with the clatter of crates, the ping of barcode scanners, and the hiss of auto-doors.

Smart windows adjusted to daylight.

Billboards lit up above the streets, shimmering with ads—whispering sales, eyes blinking in endless loops.

Screens flickered alive—news anchors with too-white teeth, morning talk shows, streaming dramas, algorithmic playlists, static.

Just life. Ordinary. Familiar.

But everything was about to change.

The world paused.

I don’t know how to describe it exactly.

Time didn’t stop, but it felt like it did.

Drones froze mid-air.

Trains glided to a silent halt.

Birds hung motionless, like someone had hit pause.

Even our hearts seemed to skip a beat.

Then came the light.

At first, it was just a speck in the sky—

a shimmer, small and distant.

Easy to miss—unless you were looking.

It grew.

And then… erupted, like a cosmic curtain tearing across the sky.

It wasn’t a star.

Not lightning. Not divine. Not scientific.

It was something else entirely—

a presence, a force, a whisper from a world not ours.

Something that had never happened before.

It fell from the heavens in perfect silence.

No thunder. No heat. No impact.

Just a wave of pure, blinding brilliance

sweeping across the earth.

It touched everything and everyone.

And for one moment—just one—

people in villages, cities, desert outposts, atop icy peaks, beneath ocean waves, in deep forests, crowded markets, and quiet temples all looked up,

eyes wide, faces glowing in that strange, silent radiance.

Then… it vanished.

No smoke. No crater. No sound. No shockwave.

Nothing left behind—except the memory of something none of us could explain.

People paused—mid-step, mid-sentence, mid-breath.

Time didn’t stop—but something deeper did.

The moment the light brushed their skin, they felt it—not on the surface,

but deep beneath everything they’d ever known.

It was warm without heat.

Weight without pressure.

Sound without noise.

A presence that threaded itself through the very air and wrapped around the soul like a forgotten memory.

Some gasped.

Some wept.

Some dropped to their knees without knowing why.

It wasn’t painful.

It wasn’t joy.

It was everything—raw, real, reverent.

They felt seen.

As if the universe had turned its eye to them—

not to judge, but to remember.

For a few heartbeats, there were no doubts, no questions, no fear.

Only stillness.

And the impossible truth that something greater had touched them—

and left something behind.

Of course, the world reacted the way it always does.

Every lens caught it.

Dashcams. Security feeds. Smartglasses. Wristchips.

Social media collapsed under the weight.

#Lightfall

#Skyburst

#AMiracle

#SimulationBreak

#TheShimmerEvent

Everyone saw it.

But no one—not the scientists at Virex Core, not the spiritual orders of the Temple of Flow, nor the archivists in the Iron Libraries—could explain it.

So they gave it a name:

The Lightfall.

Theories bloomed like weeds.

Was it a gift? A curse? A warning?

A message from something beyond?

A glitch in the simulation?

A cosmic reset?

A doorway?

No one knew.

But weeks after the Lightfall, something strange began to happen.

Not to everyone—but to enough.

Ordinary men, women, children, teens…

Suddenly, they weren’t ordinary anymore.

They became something else—like characters torn from the pages of a comic book, doing the unimaginable.

They began to discover things.

Abilities.

Supernatural powers that defied every law we thought we understood—

strange, terrifying, breathtaking things.

No one knew why it happened to them.

No one knew how.

But knowing our world?

Some saw a gift.

Others, a curse.

And the worst of them—the ones who saw only opportunity—

they built thrones, not sanctuaries.

The old world—the one we thought we knew—began to crack.

Chaos.

Fear.

Greed.

Power.

Desperation.

Madness.

Corruption.

They spread across the grid like wildfire.

Markets crashed. Cloud currencies dissolved.

The skyways above Citadel-9 burned.

Cities fell—some in hours.

Some were swallowed by silence. Others by screams.

Millions died.

Millions lost their loved ones.

Some forgot who they were.

Some became the very destruction they once feared.

But not all of them.

Some… stood.

Some became symbols of hope.

They rose when the world almost fell.

They fought when everything seemed lost.

They tried—really tried—to build something better.

This is the world we inherited.

A world born in light.

Reforged in fear.

Carved by power.

New religions rose like phoenixes from ashes:

The Church of Resonance. The Children of Lightfall. The Cult of Echoes.

Ruined cities became fortresses.

New ones rose—vertical, floating, buried deep underground.

Power shifted.

Ideals mutated.

Secret factions warred over what the Lightfall meant.

A hundred ideologies.

A hundred definitions of truth.

All born from one moment.

And still, no one knows what the Lightfall was.

Where it came from.

Or if it’s ever coming back.

Some believe it had a will.

A consciousness.

A purpose.

And if that’s true…

Then maybe it’s still out there.

Somewhere.

Watching.

Waiting.

And that’s the truth the history books will never tell you.

The Lightfall didn’t just change the world.

It changed us.

All of us.

But history is wide, and people are small.

You don’t remember a century through numbers and charts—you remember it through the lives that lived it.

And this? This is one of those lives.

My grandfather used to say a story is only as alive as the voice that tells it.

He had that kind of old man’s magic—where every word held weight, and every pause felt sacred.

I can’t tell it like he could, but I’ll try.

So let me take you back to the moment I think is the best place to start.

And remember one thing:

It isn’t just a normal story.

It’s a truth buried in fiction.

One I hope you carry with you long after it ends.

---

It starts with me stepping off the train, its silver body gleaming like a blade beneath the rising sun.

The floor shifted beneath my feet as it settled—

a soft tremor rising through the platform and into my legs.

A chime echoed through the station,

followed by the smooth hiss and slide of the doors behind me.

Cool, recycled air spilled out, brushing my skin like the breath of a world faster, louder than the one I’d left behind.

I adjusted the crossbody strap digging into my shoulder, fingers brushing the frayed edge of the fabric.

The weight dug in—familiar, grounding.

My sneakers tapped against the polished station floor, muffled by the low hum of the crowd and the sound of voices weaving together.

Life here moved fast. Too fast for someone like me, maybe.

Still—I stood there.

Just for a moment.

Still. Quiet. Letting it all wash over me.

I wasn’t in some ordinary city.

I was in one of the biggest cities in the world.

Elexers City.

Where ashes became light.

Where the first heroes stood, and the rest of the world learned what it meant to follow.

This place is more than sacred—

It’s a memory carved into steel and sky,

a heartbeat echoing through every rooftop, every alley, every whisper of wind.

It’s where courage took its first breath,

and where the weight of sacrifice still hangs in the air like fog at dawn.

Every street remembers.

Every shadow holds a story.

To walk through Elexers is to walk through the remnants of greatness—

not just a city,

but a promise made by those who rose when the world fell.

This is where my new life began.

I stepped through the station doors and started walking without knowing where I was heading.

I looked up, and light hit my face.

The skyline shimmered.

Towers of glass and steel pierced the clouds, their mirrored surfaces catching the sun and scattering golden light like fragments of a dream.

For a second, it didn’t feel real.

The buildings didn’t just stand—they reached.

They looked as if they knew they were meant to be more than steel and glass.

As if they were chasing something.

And in the middle of it all, I felt… small.

Not crushed.

Just aware.

My reflection caught in a glass storefront—orange-red hair, wild from the ride.

My face was lit with the quiet thrill of finally standing in this city.

I’d run from home without looking back—not because I had somewhere better to go, but because I couldn’t stand that place another second.

I hated it. Every wall, every street, every memory.

And now, here I was—in the city I’d dreamed of for as long as I could remember.

The one that felt like freedom, like possibility.

But it was my eyes that always drew stares—vivid orange, burning bright, with two yellow stars at their center like caged sparks.

I didn’t look seventeen.

My face carried more weight than years, more silence than answers.

I didn’t know if that made me brave…

or just broken.

Either way—I was here.

And this city…

It wasn’t home.

But maybe it could be something better.

The ground pulsed beneath my feet, lit by advertisements flashing neon blues, molten reds, and streaks of gold.

Billboards danced on the sides of buildings, promising power, success, transformation.

Back home, everything was grey. Hope was a risk.

Here, it was currency—packaged, marketed.

Broadcast in every step strangers took past me, like they were racing toward a version of themselves they actually believed in.

Shoulders bumped mine. Voices blurred around me.

I blended into the flow—one ghost among thousands.

Then I saw it.

Something massive. Electric. Impossible to ignore.

THE HERO BOARD.

I didn’t know what it was at first. But the moment I saw the title—I couldn’t look away.

The screen covered half a building. Huge. Glowing. Alive.

Heroes moved in slow motion across its surface—highlight reels, interviews, battle stats.

The city’s protectors, carved into light. Living legends.

The crowd below stood like worshippers at a digital altar—pointing, cheering, dreaming.

I stood still.

Staring.

Their faces glowed like gods in the morning sun.

And somewhere up there—maybe now, maybe once—were the Apex Pair.

The greatest heroes of all time.

They weren’t myths.

They were the reason I came.

I locked on the screen, throat tight, heart slamming once—hard.

And then, the thought came.

Me too.

One day…

I’ll be up there.

The idea didn’t feel like a dream anymore.

It felt like a step.

The first one.

Even if it hurts.

Even if it breaks me.

Even if no one ever believed in me the way I believed in them—

I’d still take it.

Because I believe this world needs me more than anything.

I will be there for it.

This might sound like my story, but if anyone deserves the title of protagonist… it’s him.

Cain.

We’ll meet soon—and when we do, he’ll change my life in ways I couldn’t see coming.

He’ll become my best friend.

My brother in all but blood.

Cain helped me.

Not by fixing me, not by being the answer to something I was missing—

but by standing beside me when I needed it most.

Meeting him was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

He’s the kind of person stories can’t quite capture, because words don’t do him justice.

So I won’t try.

He’ll tell you his story himself.

For now, I’ll step aside.

Let him take the lead.

And if you thought I was the protagonist—

that’s on me. I just needed to slip in for a quick introduction.

But I wonder…

what path you would choose, if you were in our world.

End of chapter