Alex Milroy didn't remember closing his eyes.
But when he opened them, he was in the sky.
High.
Falling.
The first thing he noticed wasn't the wind, or even the terror. It was the sky.
Vast, deep blue. Stars scattered like glitter. A moon, so white, so close, it almost felt touchable.
The stars shimmered like they were alive. Not cold pinpricks of light, but brilliant orbs hovering just beyond reach. The moon itself had a faint glow around its edges, casting a pale shimmer across the city below.
And what a city.
It stretched endlessly under him. A futuristic sprawl of glowing towers, floating platforms, and rivers of light flowing between buildings. The skyline pulsed with colors he couldn't name, each light humming faintly like a symphony.
He wasn't screaming. He had forgotten how to.
A strange calm crept in as he kept falling, eyes wide, heart silent. His mouth parted slightly, not in fear, but in awe.
This... this was beautiful. Otherworldly. Unreal.
He was still falling.
The wind came back, roaring in his ears. The calm gave way to panic. He was going to die. Right now. Splatter on whatever cyberpunk highway ran under that trashy-looking alley.
But strangely, even as the fear crept in, a part of him still grieved.
Grieved that he'd never get to see that sky again.
The ground rushed up—
BOOM!!
He crashed.
Something soft.
Wet.
And disturbingly warm.
There was a loud squelch. Then silence.
"...ugh—"
He coughed. Twice. A sharp wheeze escaped his chest. His entire body ached like it had been hammered flat.
He lay still for a moment, eyes staring into the darkness of a crushed soda can beside his face.
He moved his fingers. Then his legs. No sharp pain. No broken bones?
"What the hell…" he muttered and sat up slowly.
He was surrounded by mountains of garbage. Broken drones. Rotten food in transparent pouches. Crushed neon signs still blinking weakly. The air smelled like burnt plastic and spoiled oil.
He instinctively checked his chest, ribs, and arms for injuries. Bruised, probably. But alive.
Then something blinked at the edge of his vision.
His wrist.
His old, worn-out watch.
Still there. Still strapped tight like nothing had happened. But the screen was... different.
It wasn't showing the time.
He leaned in. A white line of text glowed on a black background.
"Welcome back home."
His breath caught.
"...Home?"
He looked around. The piles of trash. The towering walls. A dead-end alley.
This wasn't home. This wasn't even close.
The text on the screen flickered. Then changed.
"Home... 5 meters behind."
He turned his head, slowly. Behind him: the trash pile.
"...What kind of joke is this?" he muttered.
The screen shifted again.
"Use the code to open the doors."
Alex frowned. "What doors?"
The line froze. Then the screen blinked and new text began to appear, one word at a time… almost like it was thinking.
"The code is..."
Silence.
The display flickered. Then, slowly, it typed:
"ETA NOVA"
The screen pulsed faintly. Almost like it had a heartbeat.
A cold breeze moved through the alley, shifting the trash behind him. A can fell over with a quiet metallic clang.
He was still catching his breath when he noticed the sound.
A soft skittering.
From deeper in the trash pile, a rat scurried out, whiskers twitching, then disappeared into a gap in the garbage. Flies buzzed near his ear, circling over something unidentifiable and half-buried. A broken monitor fizzed nearby, crackling with weak sparks before going dark.
The stench finally hit him properly. A mix of burnt plastic, damp metal, and something else… something rotting.
He stood slowly, wiping grime off his hands, and glanced at the buildings beyond the alley. Their clean, white surfaces glowed faintly with soft blue lines, but smooth strips of embedded light. Silent drones passed overhead, and glass panels on the nearby walls pulsed gently, displaying unreadable symbols.
Still no people. No voices. No footsteps. Just him.
Alone.
He looked down at his wrist again.
Alex stared at the watch for a long moment. The glow of the moon was still visible, casting long, ghostly shadows.
He was alone.
Confused.
And somehow... very, very far from Earth.
Phew
"I'm not gonna panic."
Alex said the words out loud, trying to convince someone.. no, maybe himself.
'What is this all about?'
'And where... am I?'
He glanced again at the watch on his wrist. The words were gone. The screen was blank.
Cold and still.
He sighed through his teeth, gaze drifting toward the garbage pile again.
"For the best or the worst..."
Having made up his mind, he stepped forward. The trash crunched under his shoes.
He raised his hand, as if it mattered, and muttered softly:
"Eta Nova."
The air snapped.
A sharp, unnatural crack rang out behind him — like shattered glass, but with no debris.
He turned fast.
No one.
Nothing but the narrow alley and flickering lights.
Then another crack, louder this time.
He turned to face the trash pile again... and saw it.
Right in front of him, the space itself began to split.
Cracks opened in the void, if that's what it was. Thin glowing lines etched themselves into reality, like spiderweb fractures spreading across invisible glass.
The world... broke.
And then, with a low howl, wind surged forward from the center of the fractures, as if the alley had been pierced by a black hole. Loose trash flew into the air. A can ricocheted off the wall behind him.
He stood there.
Scared.
Motionless.
Staring into the thing before him — a void so pure and dark that no light dared touch it. It wasn't just black. It was absent. As if nothing had ever existed there at all.
He wanted to run. Every part of his mind screamed to turn back.
But his body wouldn't move.
His legs… were walking.
No.
They were being dragged.
His knees trembled, but his feet moved forward steadily. Without permission.
"Wait... my feet?"
The thought hit hard.
Something was wrong. Deeply wrong.
A darker idea crept in — one so cold, it silenced every other thought.
"No... this..."
'This isn't my body..'
There was no time to understand. No time to fight.
As if in response, the void opened wide, and something — something unseen — pulled.
His body lurched forward.
His arms flailed, useless.
There was no resistance.
No escape.
Only silence.
And so, just like before…
It seemed he had accepted death once again.
And then — the alley began to rewind.
The cracks in the air shimmered… then began to retract, folding inward like they had never been.
The can that had fallen clattered upward, reversing its descent and landing perfectly back on its ledge.
The rat that had scurried away reappeared, running backward until it disappeared into the same gap it had come from.
Flies zipped back into the air in reverse loops, trash floated up into its original mess.
Everything was moving backward.
As if time itself had been forced into rewind.
The void collapsed.
The wind vanished.
And the fractures in space sealed shut, leaving nothing behind.
No sound. No trace.
No sign that anything had ever happened.
The alley was silent once more. Until—
Click.
Three men appeared at the far end of the alley, dressed in long, intricate coats lined with strange patterns and copper-toned trims. Each wore a hat that shadowed their faces, and the middle one — the tallest — held a sleek black device glowing faintly in his gloved hand.
Beads of sweat clung to their foreheads despite the cool air.
"9.2..." the man with the device muttered.
"Captain, are you sure?" the second man asked quickly, stepping forward.
The captain didn't blink. "Yes. The energy was detected right here."
"But it disappeared instantly."
The third man remained still. His voice, when it came, was deeper. He didn't look at either of them.
"Then… if the energy detected really was 9.2..."
The captain cut in. "Affirmative. I've already reported to headquarters."
He turned his gaze toward the now-empty alley.
"They're sending the Deputy."
A heavy silence passed between the three.
"Understood, sir," the other two said in unison.
None of them looked surprised.
They knew exactly what a 9.2 meant.
There was only one classification capable of outputting that level of distortion.
The captain's voice dropped to a whisper.
"Class-Zero..."
He stared at the now peaceful, untouched alley, as if something unspeakable still lingered.
"Deus."