Earth 100 years after GAIA and the Towers descended…
GE Medical Infirmary Sector Ceta 5
The silence hit me first.
Not the kind that invites peace, but the kind that crushes. It pressed against my eardrums, relentless, until I thought I might suffocate under its weight. There was nothing natural about it.
No hum of life, no sound of breath.
Only the sterile emptiness of a place that wasn't meant for anyone alive.
Then the weight of it—the body that wasn't mine. The limbs were sluggish, each movement a struggle, as if they were shackled to some unseen force.
My lungs burned, air rasping in, but it was like they didn't know how to work anymore. The heavy scent of disinfectant clawed at my senses, sharp and invasive.
When I tried to open my eyes, all I saw was white.
White walls. White sheets.
The low whir of machines, their steady hum filling the void in ways that made my chest tighten.
Is this… a hospital?
I blinked rapidly, my mind stuttering to life, desperate to grasp hold of anything that made sense.
But I wasn't alone.
A voice, cold and mechanical, slithered into my skull, sharp and invasive, leaving no room for doubt.
[Awakening detected. Consciousness fully restored.]
[Recalibrating cognitive functions…]
Before I could even process what was happening, the surge hit me. A jolt of raw electricity slammed into my head, as if I were a fuse burning out from the inside.
My teeth ground together, my body locking up, and I could do nothing but surrender to the storm of data rushing through my veins. It wasn't a flood; it was a torrent, a relentless current, crashing over me, drowning my thoughts.
And in that overwhelming flood of information, something finally clicked.
I wasn't just waking up. I was transmigrated.
I immediately knew it. I knew everything. This world. The system. GAIA. It hit me all at once—an invasive truth that split me wide open. This wasn't a dream. It wasn't an accident. This was real.
The world had been broken once.
Disasters. Wars. Collapse stacked on collapse until humanity was scraping the bottom of extinction.
And then came the invasion.
Alien ships descended from the stars like executioners, and for a moment, it really was over.
Then the Towers appeared.
Massive, alien structures slammed down across the planet, erasing the invaders in an instant. Along with them came GAIA—an intelligence so absolute that humanity didn't choose to accept it. They had no other option.
GAIA rewrote the world.
Governments dissolved. Systems merged. Everything—careers, resources, survival itself—was optimized, quantified, enforced. Chaos vanished. Inefficiency vanished. Freedom vanished with it.
A perfect system.
For a hacker, it should've been paradise. A flawless algorithm wrapped around reality itself. I could feel it—the invisible web threaded through every breath, every choice. A puzzle vast enough to consume a lifetime.
But systems don't understand people.
GAIA wasn't a god. It wasn't even alive. It didn't feel doubt or mercy or empathy. It enforced outcomes.
And systems don't listen.
They decide.
My hands clenched involuntarily. The weight of it—the realization—it pressed down on me like a crushing boulder. My body trembled, the cool sheets beneath me offering no comfort.
Then, the sound came—a voice, sharp and urgent.
"Noah!"
I snapped my head toward the sound, heart pounding in my chest.
A girl. She was standing beside my bed, her eyes swollen with tears, her face pale and fragile. Her pink hair, streaked with blonde highlights, shimmered under the artificial lights.
She looked at me like she couldn't believe I was here.
And when her gaze met mine, something inside her snapped.
She gasped, her breath coming in ragged sobs, and without warning, she flung herself at me, her arms locking around me as if I were the last thing tethering her to this world.
I froze. My mind couldn't catch up. For a heartbeat, all I could do was stare at her, dazed. Who—?
But before I could ask, a second voice—steady, but thick with emotion—cut through the haze.
"You're awake…"
I turned my head, my vision blurring for a moment before focusing.
A man stood beside the bed, his hand shaking as he reached out. His pink hair matched the girl's. His uniform—something military, foreign to me—hung loosely on him. He was slightly mature, but his eyes were haunted, filled with a pain I couldn't understand.
And then, I saw it. Tears. They were both crying. For me.
But I didn't know them. I didn't know anyone in this room.
The confusion twisted inside me. Why were they looking at me like I was a ghost come back to life? Why were they crying for someone they thought was gone?
I opened my mouth, but the words caught in my throat. What was I supposed to say? How could I make sense of this?
Before I could speak, the voice—GAIA—crackled in again, cold and indifferent.
[Cognitive Recalibration Complete.]
My vision flickered, the HUD flashing up in front of my eyes. And there it was, clear as day. My new name.
[User Identity: Noah Adler.]
A sharp chill gripped me. No.
That wasn't my name.
My name was Noah Hope.
But as soon as that name flashed in my mind, something shifted deep within me.
The truth settled over me like a cold weight.
This body wasn't mine.This life wasn't mine.
The girl—her desperate eyes searching my face.The man—his trembling hands, wiping away tears he couldn't stop.
They weren't familiar. They weren't mine to comfort.
They were mourning someone who was already gone. Crying for a brother they had lost.
And I was standing in his place—a replacement they didn't know had replaced him.
Noah Adler was already dead.They just didn't know it yet.
The name, Noah Adler, pulsed in my vision, demanding my attention.
GAIA wasn't asking me who I was.
It was telling me.
And in that moment, something inside me broke.
GAIA had made its decision.
And I was powerless to reject the path it had chosen for me.