Act I: The Forest With No Memory
•
The sky burned red like a dying wound, smeared across a horizon choked by towering trees.
They weren't ordinary trees.
They stretched beyond logic—tall, impossible, ancient things—thick with bark like petrified muscle and leaves as black as scorched paper. Wind didn't rustle them. They stood silent and watching, as if they were the first things to ever grow, and the last that would remain.
In the center of this forest, a man stood still. Eyes closed. Breath shallow. He looked like someone who had been asleep far too long—and in all the wrong ways.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open.
A sharp gasp tore from his lips as his body buckled. One knee slammed to the ground, bones crunching against dead earth and roots. His breathing staggered like a dying machine booting to life. His vision swam in and out of focus—blurs of dark trees, red clouds, warped shadows. There was no recognition in his gaze.
"...Where am I?"
His voice was raw, like it hadn't been used in months. Maybe years.
He tried to push himself upright, but his arms gave way. His body felt... wrong. Heavy. Numb. Like something inside him had been torn out and barely stitched back together. Instead of fighting, he let himself collapse onto the ground—onto cold soil that smelled of iron and decay.
He stared upward at the crimson sky through the webbed canopy of inhuman trees.
"...Who am I?"
The silence that followed was vast. Deafening.
His breath calmed, but his pulse never did. He sat up slowly, bones aching as if they'd been borrowed from another body. Around him, the world was wrong. The air felt dense—not just heavy, but thick, like it held weight beyond oxygen. It pressed against his chest with every breath.
"The air... feels heavy," he muttered, voice barely above a whisper. "And the smell... I've never smelled anything like this before."
Then—a sting.
A sharp, piercing sensation bit into his hand. He flinched, eyes darting to it. It wasn't an insect. It was a ring.
Wrapped tightly around the ring finger of his right hand was a strange, black-silver band—cold, yet pulsing faintly with a heat that felt internal, like it was synced with his heartbeat. Metal, but alive in some way he couldn't explain. The surface shimmered with impossible tones—colors that didn't quite exist in the real world, slipping between silver, obsidian, and deep violet.
There were markings etched into it—runes, or symbols, maybe language. Ancient. Not just old, but pre-human in feeling. Something forgotten by time and not meant to be remembered.
The skin beneath the band had a faint burn mark—a thin ring of scorched flesh, like the metal had fused with him at some point, and simply never let go.
"What the hell…" he breathed.
And then—he spoke again.
But the words didn't belong to him. They rose uninvited from his throat in a language he didn't know, each syllable vibrating against his teeth like the echo of something long buried.
As if in answer, the ring began to shift.
The band cracked open along a seam he hadn't noticed before, expanding into a double ring—two interlocking pieces rotating faintly with a mechanical hum and a flicker of light.
He didn't panic.
Instead, he blinked once. Then muttered:
"…Weird."
He forced himself upright again, this time managing to crawl toward the base of a nearby tree—one of the massive ones, its roots curled like bone around buried ruins. He slumped against it, chest rising and falling slowly.
Only now did he notice the coat.
It hung from his shoulders like it belonged there: black, long, slightly torn at the hem. Heavy enough to be warm, but not designed for warmth. He patted it. "Wait," he muttered. "This coat has pockets…"
The thought felt stupid, but it gave him direction.
He searched the inner lining and pulled out a rusted metal can. Inside: cigarettes, dried and slightly bent. He looked at them with more curiosity than relief. Then, tucked next to them, a lighter—dark brass, edges scorched and engraved with a single word:
BACKWARDS
He flicked the lighter open. The flame sparked, steady and gold, and for a moment the cold world around him felt a little less dead. He slipped a cigarette into his mouth—before it even touched the flame, it lit itself, burning silently, like it had waited for him.
Smoke curled from his lips.
"…Well. This is something."
He pocketed the can and lighter again, then continued rummaging—his hand brushing against something flat, smooth, and rigid.
A card.
He pulled it out slowly.
It was blank at first—no name, no symbol, just a dark metallic surface with a slight iridescent sheen. But as he looked at it, the surface flickered. Thin blue lines traced the edge like veins waking up. Then it scanned him—an invisible pulse swept over his face, and the card began compiling.
Text flickered in:
DATA PREPARING…
VERIFYING IMAGE…
RECONSTRUCTING PROFILE…
LOADING...
LOADING...
100%
Then—clarity.
His name. His image. His details.
IDENTIFICATION CARD – [CIVIL CLASS: NULLIFIED]
Name: Lucien Wraithe
Age: 29
ID Code: 9H-7V/AX-2239-VOID
Blood Type: Unknown
Affiliation: [Data Erased]
Status: Reinstated – Subject Previously Deceased
Issued By: [AUTHORITY DENIED]
Classification: [REDACTED]
Life History: ——————
• • • •
The image on the card was of the man holding it—black, slightly disheveled hair
; eyes like cold steel, haunted with something unspoken. His face looked worn, scarred beneath the surface.
He stared at the image for a long time.
Then said, to no one at all:
"…So this is me?"
A pause.
"…Lucien Wraithe."
The trees gave no answer. The sky pulsed red above him.
And the world around him, quiet and waiting, continued to breathe.
• •
Act II: Ash Breathing
The ID card returned to the inside pocket of his coat with a quiet rustle. The cold touch of the plastic left something behind on his fingertips—faint static, a kind of tension that felt alive.
Lucien sat still for a long time, the card no longer in his hand but the name still echoing in his head: Lucien Wraithe. It felt like reading a stranger's grave marker. Neither comforting nor familiar. Just a name. A placeholder.
He looked around again, eyes flicking between thick, towering trees and the unnaturally red sky above. The forest breathed in slow rhythms. Not figuratively—actually. The branches seemed to inhale when he did. The air exhaled with him.
No wind.
No insects.
No signs of life.
Just... breathing wood, and a sky that looked like it had bled out.
"I need to figure out where the hell I am first," he muttered.
Pushing himself up with a grunt, he leaned heavily against the enormous tree behind him—bark cold and strangely soft, like bone wrapped in old skin. The pressure against his palm anchored him, but his limbs felt distant, as if his body were waking in pieces.
"Shit," he hissed under his breath, "this is such a pain... I can't even move right."
Each step was slow. Uneven. He walked like a newborn animal trying to convince its legs they still worked. The forest floor crunched beneath his boots—blackened leaves, ash, bits of stone. His breath fogged lightly in the air despite the heat pressing against his skin.
It was like walking through a dream that knew you were awake.
As he gained strength, he let go of the tree and began walking deeper into the forest. The world changed with every step.
Some trees leaned at impossible angles. Others flickered—literally flickered—like bad film frames. A massive stone floated lazily past him, rotating end over end in total silence before dropping back into the earth with a heavy, muffled thud. The ground beneath it didn't even quake.
Gravity itself seemed to forget the rules here.
Lucien paused at one point. Looked up. The sky hadn't moved. The color hadn't shifted. But the shadows around him had lengthened. A clearing that had once been ten meters wide was now narrow as a hallway. Forest geometry rearranged itself.
It wasn't just a forest.
It was a maze.
A breathing, shifting maze with no center—and no exit.
Then he heard it.
Low at first. A vibration. Not a sound, exactly—something underneath sound. A roar, but not the kind from a single animal. It was wide. Spread out. Multidirectional. A thrum of hunger crawling beneath his feet and behind his back.
He froze. Closed his eyes. Listened.
Branches cracked. Leaves trembled.
One sound behind him.
Another to the left.
No—above?
They were circling.
Four directions.
All closing in.
Lucien turned just as something lunged from behind. Instinct—not thought—threw his body forward, and he rolled hard, breath tearing from his lungs. Pain exploded through his legs. His body hadn't fully recovered. But survival didn't care about condition.
He twisted to see the thing that attacked him.
It stood there—massive, primal, and wrong.
It had the body of a lion, the snout of a wolf, and eyes that burned red like coals at the center of its skull. Its fur writhed with misty black fog, coiling off it like smoke underwater. It breathed heavily, each exhale releasing a deep rattle that made the trees tremble.
Lucien met its gaze.
The creature roared.
The forest responded. Trees collapsed as if struck by an invisible blast. The sheer force launched Lucien backward, flinging him like a ragdoll through the air. Dirt exploded around him as he crashed to the ground and skidded across the ash-laced soil.
He groaned. Fingers dug into the earth. His nails cracked as he held on, desperate not to be pulled into whatever storm that roar had summoned.
The wind settled. The trees groaned and bent back into place like injured limbs.
The creature was walking toward him now—slow, deliberate steps. Each paw melted the ground beneath it like heat from a furnace. Its eyes locked on his, not curious, not predatory—judging.
Then something stranger happened.
From between the trees, more figures emerged.
Copies.
The same creature, again and again. Moving in sync. Melting into each other. Their bodies merged in shadow, fusing into something larger, more horrific, its form stretching in real time—skin stretching, bones folding.
Lucien blinked. This had to be hallucination. Delirium. His vision blurred. Blood pounded in his ears. His body began to shut down. Fading—
Then—
The ring.
A searing pulse ran through his right hand. The black-silver ring on his finger glowed faintly—symbols on its surface lighting up like veins igniting. It burned, but it was a familiar pain. Like a scar waking up.
The creature froze mid-step.
Its eyes widened—just for a second. Like it had recognized something.
The fog around it recoiled. The clone-merged body trembled, then collapsed in on itself in a burst of ash and vapor. The roar didn't come again.
Just silence.
The creature turned—slowly, almost... respectfully. Then vanished back into the trees. Gone without a trace.
Lucien laid on the forest floor, chest heaving, heartbeat wild. He looked up at the sky.
"...What the fuck is happening here?" he muttered, coughing through half a laugh.
He chuckled again, but it sounded like pain this time. Dry. Bitter. Alone.
Then the weight of exhaustion hit. His vision dimmed. The ring stopped glowing.
And Lucien passed out under the ashen sky, the forest once again breathing around him like it had never noticed he was there...