In the beginning, there was nothing. No sound, no light, no time. But from this void, the universe was born. Some say it was a spark, a cataclysmic burst of energy—the Big Bang.
A single moment of creation from which everything would emerge. Stars, planets, life—all formed from the same primordial chaos. We learned of this, didn't we?
In books, in lectures, in whispers under the starry skies. We were taught that existence itself was born from nothing.
Yet what do we truly know of the origins of existence? What if the Big Bang was not the true beginning?
What if it was merely the Shattering, the breaking of something that came before, something far older?
Some believed the world was the product of a god, a creator whose purpose was to shape and guide. A perfect, harmonized creation, with laws binding every piece of the world together, a cosmos of perfect design, governed by a singular will—a force of unimaginable purpose.
Others believed it had always been, a perfect, eternal design. But none of them knew the truth—the truth of what lay beyond the boundaries of their world.
Then came the Shattering.
It was not a natural event, this Shattering. It was not like the thunderous birth of stars or the quiet dance of planets around the sun. No. This was the rupture of reality itself.
The sky shattered—the very fabric of the world torn asunder. A rift opened above the earth, a crack so deep and wide that it split the heavens like a scar too deep to heal.
As it split, the world shook, time fractured, and space folded in on itself. Lightning poured from the rift, raining down in unnatural colors, scattering chaos across the land.
The oceans boiled, the mountains trembled, and the earth itself screamed. The Echelons began to form—planes upon planes, stacked one atop another. Where there had been stability, now only chaos reigned.
The world was thrown into chaos.
Martial law was declared across every nation, as governments scrambled to maintain control, unable to comprehend the magnitude of what had just occurred.
The sky had cracked open, the heavens themselves seemingly torn apart. But the chaos did not abate. Days passed, but no order was restored. The once steady flow of time felt warped, uncertain, as if the very concept of reality was slipping through our fingers.
And then came the smaller cracks—fractures in the air itself, thin and almost imperceptible at first, but growing in size with each passing hour.
They were fissures, splinters in the fabric of the world, and they were visible to the human eye. Soldiers patrolled the streets, monitoring all those smaller cracks that suddenly appeared. Their faces grim with uncertainty.
The cracks shattered. Monsters poured from the rifts—creatures of unimaginable horror. Their forms twisted, grotesque, and beyond recognition.The world trembled as these creatures ravaged cities, leaving destruction in their wake.
But in the midst of this cataclysm, something unexpected began to unfold. It started with whispers—rumors of people gaining strange powers, abilities they had never known before.
The Shattering, the tearing of reality itself, had unlocked something dormant in humanity. And now, in the wake of the monsters’ arrival, humanity had been thrust into a new war—one against the creatures of the cracks, yes, but also against an unknown force that seemed to be awakening within them.
As the cracks continued to shatter, the monsters grew fiercer, but humanity adapted. What began as a helpless struggle for survival turned into a fight for control of the world that had once been theirs.
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As the turmoil raged on, something remarkable happened: the monsters, though terrifying, were driven back. The powers humans had gained became weapons, and they used them to fight back the darkness that had come from beyond.
The first Shattering, though it seemed like the end of everything, was also the beginning of something new. A new world was born from the ashes of the old one. And though the rifts in reality remained, with cracks still forming, humanity had learned to fight, to survive, and perhaps, to thrive in a world shattered and remade.
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The campus library stood as a relic of a world before the Shattering, its worn walls and sagging shelves a faint whisper of the stability humanity once knew.
Outside, rain lashed against tall windows, painting the glass with rippling patterns of light and shadow. The dim, flickering fluorescent lights above buzzed faintly, adding to the oppressive stillness of the room.
Kieran slumped in his chair, his phone glowing faintly in his hand. The textbooks piled on the desk sat untouched, their titles glaring at him like silent accusations. He swiped lazily through the endless news feeds, his thumb pausing over a video titled: “Gate #874 Cleared! Shardwielders Break Record!”
The clip autoplayed silently, showing a team of Awakened emerging triumphantly from a glowing rift. Their weapons gleamed, their powers flared, and the monstrous corpse behind them shimmered as it dissolved into the ether. Kieran scoffed, muttering under his breath, “Another gate. Another batch of heroes.”
He tossed the phone onto the desk, letting it land with a dull thud. The glow dimmed but didn’t turn off, much like his restless thoughts.
The Shattering had left the world in chaos—fractured skies, rifts pouring out horrors, and cracks that seemed to splinter the fabric of reality itself. But what lingered more than the physical scars was the divide it left in humanity.
Awakened powers had changed everything. Some called it evolution, others a curse, but to Kieran, it was just another reminder of how the world had moved on without him.
It wasn’t wrong. The Awakened had reshaped everything—war, industry, even hope itself. And people like him? They were the leftovers, trying to make sense of a world they no longer belonged to.
For years, he’d watched friends awaken, watched them gain shards and abilities that rewrote the rules of life. And here he was, still ordinary, clinging to a future that felt as fractured as the sky above.
“Must be nice,” Kieran muttered under his breath.
He glanced at the stack of books on his desk. They felt irrelevant now, relics of a time when studying could promise stability, success, or purpose. “Why am I even here?” he thought bitterly.
His mind wandered back to a conversation he’d overheard weeks ago.
“Shardwielders don’t need degrees,” someone had said, their voice thick with envy. “Just power. The rest of us? We’re the scraps.”
He picked up his phone again and scrolled aimlessly. Articles about Gates, about Awakened teams, about new frontiers opened by the Shattering filled every corner of the feed. It was all anyone ever talked about.
“Gate-clearing squads break into Depths, save lives, rebuild the world,” he muttered sarcastically. “And here I am. Trying to pass Advanced Theories of Metaphysics like it’ll matter.”
Rain hammered harder against the windows, the sound filling the silence with an urgent rhythm. Kieran leaned back, closing his eyes, trying to drown out the thoughts gnawing at his mind.
But something was off.
The library felt... wrong. The once-familiar space seemed to close in around him, the hum in the room deepened, and a strange chill swept over him.
Kieran shivered, rubbing his hands together for warmth. His chest tightened as the world around him began to blur, the edges of his vision distorting like ripples in water.
A sudden, searing pain shot through his head, sharp and relentless. He clutched his temples, gasping as fragmented memories crashed over him.
He saw flashes of his childhood: standing on a rooftop, staring at the fractured sky, a mix of fear and wonder in his heart. He felt the sting of disappointment as friends awakened, leaving him behind, and the hollow ache of years spent searching for meaning in a world that felt alien.
The air had grown colder, sharper, as if the room itself was holding its breath. Kieran opened his eyes, his chest tightening as the hum of the lights deepened into a low, resonant vibration.
Shadows seemed to lengthen unnaturally, pooling in the corners of the library, a faint hum growing louder and louder as the pain he felt grew.
Then, amidst the chaos of his thoughts, a light appeared.
Small, jagged, and pulsing with a strange, otherworldly energy, the shard hovered in the air before him. Its surface was fractured, like a piece of the shattered sky, and it seemed alive—shifting, shimmering, almost breathing.
Kieran stared, his heart pounding. He reached out, his fingers trembling as they brushed against the shard’s cracked surface. The moment they touched, a surge of raw energy erupted through him. It wasn’t gentle; it was sharp, violent, relentless.
A voice echoed in his mind, low and resonant, like a whisper from the depths of his soul:
“You are not forgotten... fractured yet whole... chosen amidst the broken.”
The shard pulsed again, its energy seeping into him, weaving itself into every fiber of his being. Kieran gasped, his knees buckling as the air around him warped, shadows twisting into impossible shapes.
Though the pain in his head was relentless, it carried something else—something he hadn’t felt in years.
Purpose.
The books on his desk toppled to the floor as a gust of unseen energy swirled through the room. Kieran’s breathing was ragged, his mind racing with questions he couldn’t begin to articulate.
"What the hell just happened to me?"
“Why now? After all this time... Why would it choose someone who’s already been left behind?” he muttered, staring at the shard in his hand. Its glow dimmed slightly, but the energy coursing through him remained, fierce and undeniable.
He stumbled to his feet, his legs shaking as the oppressive silence of the library returned. The rain outside had slowed, its frantic rhythm replaced by a heavy, muted stillness.
Kieran clenched the shard tightly, "heat coursed through his veins followed by a metallic taste akin to blood flooded mouth. His thoughts a chaotic storm of fear, wonder, and defiance. For years, he had been forgotten—by the world, by himself. But the shard had chosen him, fractured and imperfect as he was.
He stared at the jagged fragment in his hand, its light casting faint shadows across his face. He didn’t know what this meant, what this would demand of him. But for the first time in a long while, he felt alive.
The whisper echoed again, softer this time, but no less potent:
[You have awakened.]
The words sent a shiver down his spine. The world had changed long ago, leaving him behind. But now, it seemed, the Shattering had given him a second chance.
The world had moved on without him, but now it seemed it couldn't ignore him any longer. And perhaps… neither could he.