The void was not empty. It was waiting.
"You are the child of the prophecy." The voice was ancient, a whisper from the edge of existence.
Panic clawed at him. "Where am I?" His own voice, unfamiliar.
"On a cold night, a blue-eyed boy will be born. He will leave his world behind, a sacrifice to save his people, and perhaps, the people of other worlds."
"Who are you?" He tried to see, but there was only an endless, starless expanse. He could perceive his own hands, his feet, adrift in the nothing.
"The gods of the New World will rage against such a boy. A boy out of step with time. A boy who survived his own apocalypse, who will bring to the New World their own end."
He gave up on the voice. His surroundings offered no solace.
"Killed by his own brother," the voice continued, a sorrow woven through its ageless tone. "His death, the spark that ignited the inferno of Ragnarok."
"Am I dead?" The thought, spoken aloud, echoed in the vastness. "I must be."
"You are dead, yet you are not. A shade between worlds. Neither ugly nor beautiful, neither pure nor corrupt."
A flicker of defiance. "Wait! You can answer! Where am I? Yesterday—it was just yesterday—I was on Midgard! Loki… Loki said he wanted to show me something. Hodur was there too. Mother… where is Mother?" The words tumbled out, desperate.
The voice offered a riddle. "Where does the body of man lie when the ship that carries it burns, yet the body cannot be harmed by fire, nor drowned by water?"
"I don't understand." Frustration warred with a chilling dread.
"The full truth of Ragnarok will unravel in time. For now, awaken. You will find yourself in the Old World, a husk of what it was. The death of all the gods have left Midgard with no choice but to grasp for salvation against an evil that has taken root—a corrupt tree. You must journey to the New World. Set things right." The voice was fading, the last word a command, a plea.
A blinding light consumed him.
***
"Oh my god, he's alive!" A startled shout.
He blinked. Bright, sterile light. Faces swam above him. "Midgardians? But their speech… alien."
A cold dread seeped in.
Impossible.
"I knew every tongue, from the Saraswata's ancient twists to the Athenian flourish, even the clumsy new Latin of the Romans. Thousands of years I walked Midgard… How can this be?"
"Hvar er ek?" he managed, the Old Norse feeling heavy on his tongue. (Where Am I?)
"Whoa, what is that? Norwegian? Icelandic?" one man asked.
Another, more thoughtful, replied, "No, I think it's Old Norse. Doesn't fit modern Norwegian. Icelandic is close, but not quite."
"Hallo. Du er i et internasjonalt laboratorium," the first man said slowly, directly to him. (Hello. You are in an international laboratory.)
"Strange words… almost… Roman." He scanned the room—forty, perhaps fifty figures in unfamiliar garb, surrounded by gleaming, blinking contraptions. He lay on a cold surface; remnants of ice clung to the air.
"Try Icelandic. You're Icelandic, right Brynhildur?" the man prompted a woman.
"Hæ, þú ert í alþjóðlegri rannsóknarstofu," she offered. (Hello. You are in an international laboratory.)
Closer. More understandable.
"Hvat er þetta ár?" he asked, a thread of hope. (What year is it?)
"2015. Anno Domini," she replied.
"Anno Domini? Latin terms? Did Asgards' influence over Midgard get replaced by those fools from Olympus?" Confusion warred with a rising panic.
Suddenly, his body seized.
Electricity, raw and agonizing, arced across his skin. He convulsed, dropping to the floor, a scream torn from his throat.
"What's going on!?"
"Stay away! Dangerous!"
Then, blackness. The void returned.
"Too long, child. You have slept too long," the ancient voice echoed, tinged with a profound sadness. "The Midgardians no longer speak your tongue. They do not even know your name."
"What do you mean? Who am I? I can't be ignorant of a simple language! You think me a fool like my hammer-wielding brother? I am the son of the mighty—" He choked. The name, a titan of his memory, was gone. "Father? How… Mother! Her name is F—" Again, the memory fractured, dissolved. "My brothers… Vi… Th… Their names… gone?" A new, sharper terror. Shit.
"Memory fades when the soul is unmoored. You are dead. The heroic prince of Asgard, is no more."
"Yet, you still breathe. The underworld has returned you, for the entire world wept for you. However, you return, not as a divine. You are now… A mere mortal. Yet, the destiny of a hero, a defiant, clings to you. Your death was a blessing, for within Hel's palm, you were spared from the Great Serpent."
"To learn the truth, traverse to the New World. Seek the Corrupt World Tree, rooted at The Rock. This, you will remember. This, you will need. This is our final parting."
A warmth spread through him. "I impart to you what little power I have left, so that you may speak the common tongue of these new times. And within you, I place the echo of Mimir, wisest of all, counselor to your father. May his wisdom guide you through the trials ahead."
The voice softened, a heartbreaking tenderness. "Goodbye, my beautiful son. You will not remember us. But I pray… you shall save the children of Midgard. Find the truth. Climb."
***
The boy woke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright on a soft bed. "Where am I? What happened?"
A man in glasses rushed to his side. "Oh, thank god you're alright."
The man blinked. "Wait. You can speak English? You… you struggled earlier."
"Earlier?" The boy asked
The man looked puzzled. "You don't remember?"
"No… I don't." A hollow feeling.
"Well, you suddenly got electrocuted. We don't know why. Once it stopped, your pulse was there, so we brought you here—Stockholm National Hospital." The man offered a reassuring smile. "My name is Dr. Felix Eriksson. What's your name?"
"I can't seem to remember…" Vaylan thought to himself.
Vaylan's gaze drifted to the window. A massive truck was parked outside. Bold letters on its side: 'VAYLAN FURNITURE AB'.
"Call me Vaylan," he said, a strange certainty settling within him.
"Huh? Uh, alright. Vaylan. Do you know how we found you?"
"No."
"Inside a glacier, off Norway's coast. High radiation readings led us to you. You were alive, breathing, encased in a meter of ice. Here in Stockholm, the radiation vanished. Completely. So, we thawed the ice to wake you, to ask who you were."
"I don't remember anything," Vaylan repeated, the words feeling true and empty.
"That's okay," Dr. Eriksson said gently. "We'll be patient. Maybe your memories will return. In the meantime, we need to run tests, understand how you survived."
"No." Vaylan's voice was firm, a sudden clarity cutting through the fog. "My memories won't return. Not unless I climb."
"Pardon?"
"The Tree of Corruption, rooted at The Rock. I must travel there. Now."
Dr. Eriksson looked taken aback. "Corrupt… Tree? Oh, you mean The Anomaly? The giant tree on Newfoundland Island, Canada? I'm afraid that area is off-limits. A deadly mist surrounds it, kills anyone who approaches. It makes sense you wouldn't know, with your memory loss." His eyes lit with scientific curiosity. "You're saying your memory is linked to it? Could the Tree have existed even in your time? That would support the theory that it's at least 1500 years old!"
"What do you mean?" Vaylan pressed.
"The ice core samples from the glacier where we found you… at that depth, you were frozen at least 1500 years ago."
Vaylan absorbed this. "Tell me more about this Tree."
"Well," Dr. Eriksson began, "earliest records date to around 900 AD, but it could be older. The mist around it has a radius of 700 kilometers. Satellites see nothing inside—it's like the region 'doesn't exist,' with just a 10-kilometer tall tree at its center, taller than Everest. No human, animal, or machine has ever survived the Veil. No one has studied it."
"I need to go regardless."
Dr. Eriksson sighed. "You young people and that Tree… Some South Korean kid, son of Sangsung's CFO, made a scandal a week ago. Stole a boat in Canada, sailed towards it. Last contact was an Instantgran selfie near the mist: 'off to cut the damn tree,' or something." He shook his head. "Don't throw your life away, Vaylan. Anyway, I'll be back for some tests."
The doctor left.
The room felt like a cage. The only words that resonated, that felt real, were the voice's last command: Climb. He opened the window. Ground floor. He jumped, landed, and ran.
And ran. And ran.
Towards the only purpose he knew. The Tree.