—"I guess this is as good as it gets."
The icy wind lashed his face and body. The documents in his grip disintegrated between his fingers, ripped away by the gale.
Neon Reach, the cybernetic metropolis, flickered like a faulty circuit. Holographic ads cast blue and violet shadows onto the asphalt, painting the faces of passersby in a cadaverous glow.
—"Thousands of people wasting their lives on megacorps… all for below-average pay. How tragic."
The young ex-salaried worker's gaze dropped to his feet, perched on the edge of the corporate pinnacle of one of the world's largest megalopolises.
There was only one reason he was here. In the end, he had nothing left to lose. He'd been born with nothing… dying with nothing felt almost fair.
—"Guess I couldn't keep my promise… Not that it matters. She's been gone for years."
Shade. That was his name. Born in Neon Reach's Seventh Sector. From his first breath, he'd been raised in the guts of a city probably deadlier than any natural environment.
His mother died bringing him into the world. His father was a complete stranger. And he had no family—or at least none here… reaching them was financially impossible from either end.
Unfortunately, the Seventh Sector didn't breed survivors. It bred meat for the corporate grinder.
His fate had been written before he was born, and he'd finally surrendered to it.
Now he stood on the 200th floor of his former workplace. At just 18, he'd worked harder than anyone with a decent job. The deep shadows under his eyes and pallid skin betrayed him.
—"If this place were half as good as it looks from up here… I'd probably be studying some stupid degree right now."
Shade loosened his black tie and flung it into the void. He watched as the wind carried it away, spinning into the distance.
—"Hell, I don't even know what I'd study. Never had time to figure out what I like… or what I'm good at."
The truth was, paperwork was never his thing. He might've been good at anything else. That's why he lost the job. Weird, considering corps hired almost anyone.
But at his level, it didn't matter. The working class was replaceable.
For the first time, Shade saw white light that didn't come from a lamp. Down there, even if he walked the streets, the buildings and light pollution would've blocked it.
He lifted his head and exhaled sharply. For the first time in years, a smile tugged at his lips.
—"Finally, I can rest. No more paperwork. No more double shifts… No more formalities."
Without fear, he stepped toward the violet abyss. Pushed back his black hair and glanced at it one last time.
—"See you never, Neon Reach. I won't forget what you put me through."
He stepped into nothingness, and everything faded in seconds.
The wind didn't push him. It caressed him. As if the city, at last, offered its only possible gesture of affection.
Towers of glass bathed in violet neon rushed upward. Distant lights streaked into warped lines, and for a moment, Shade felt like he was falling upward, as if the city were spitting him into the sky.
But he refused to leave quietly.
His body fell, but his pride didn't. With slow deliberation, he raised both hands and extended the finger that summed up his entire life. A perfect insult for an imperfect city.
—"Go to hell, you fucking shithole!"
The city didn't react. It remained indifferent. But for a moment, Shade felt like he'd won.
He closed his eyes. His lips curved. He braced for the inevitable impact.
It never came.
Only sudden cold… the scent of metal and wet earth… then nothing.
The air ripped.
Not a sound, but a sensation—like the universe itself had coughed.
Suddenly, Shade wasn't falling: he floated in a gelatinous in-between, where his world's laws didn't apply.
His eyes flew open.
A tear in reality's fabric, glowing like diseased glass. Through it leaked visions: cities crumbling in loops, black suns, rivers of blood.
And the hum… a whisper of a thousand dying things.
Then he saw it.
The thing that had opened this unreal rift.
A spider-like figure of impossible geometry, its legs crystalline shards that birthed and died with every blink. Its body—if it could be called a body—was a collage of overlapping realities, some blurred, others distorted.
The creature didn't look at him. It didn't need to.
Shade felt its attention like a weight on his soul, as if every fragment of his being had been scanned, judged, and discarded in nanoseconds.
The spider twisted, and the world exploded into prisms.
Then—a new yet familiar sensation surged through him.
His eyes opened again, staring in disbelief at the sight before him: a dark sky studded with thousands of "stars", twinkling points that, unlike Neon Reach's artificial sky, burned with their own language.
But something else caught his attention. Something he'd seen mere minutes ago, now transformed.
Since when did Neon Reach's sky have two moons?