The moment Atahsaia Vire opened his eyes, the world was already wrong.
He remembered dying—but not how. It wasn't violent. It wasn't peaceful either. One second he had been drinking coffee in a sunlit kitchen beside a woman who once told him she loved the way he thought, and the next, he was here: coughing, half-naked, in a crater of cracked obsidian soil that steamed like an open wound in the earth.
The sky above him boiled.
Black clouds churned across an amber sun, and the air reeked of copper and ash. Every breath burned, as if the oxygen had to be earned. Heat radiated from the soil like the dying breath of something ancient. In the distance, monolithic shapes moved—too slow to be wind, too purposeful to be natural. The land itself growled low beneath him, like it resented his arrival.
He sat up. Pain stabbed his ribs. Bruised, but not broken. He moved his fingers—intact. Legs responded. Still functional. No visible injuries. No wounds. But something was missing, and it wasn't his memory. It was subtler—like a part of him had been hollowed out and not returned.
Around him were others. Seven forms, scattered, groaning, naked like him. All human. All confused.
A tall girl with short dreadlocks was already screaming.
"Where the hell are we!?"
A boy with sharp features staggered to his feet, fists clenched, eyes darting like a caged animal. Another sat rocking, whispering numbers under his breath. They were strangers. Earthlings, clearly—but not friends. Not allies. Not now.
Atahsaia said nothing. He scanned the crater's edge.
A shimmer. Blue light. A symbol burned faintly on the jagged obsidian wall—a spiral threaded through with lines like veins.
The moment his eyes locked on it, a voice—not heard but felt—throbbed inside his skull:
"RESONANT CORE: NULL" "ECHOFORM ACCESS: REJECTED"
He flinched. Others did too. They were receiving messages.
The girl with dreadlocks clutched her head, screaming again. The boy who'd been whispering started to convulse. One by one, they dropped to their knees as the voice whispered its judgment. Names, designations, cryptic data.
Only Atahsaia remained standing.
NULL. Rejected.
He should've felt panic. But there was only silence inside him. Like someone had torn out the part of his brain that could still hope.
Footsteps.
He turned.
Figures approached from the crater's lip. Four of them. Cloaked, masked, armored in leather and bone. Weapons drawn—jagged, primitive, but well-used. The lead figure wore a helm shaped like a serpent swallowing its own tail.
The dreadlocked girl saw them first and ran forward.
"Please! We need—"
She didn't finish.
The serpent-helm's blade severed her throat before the second syllable. Her body crumpled. The blood hissed where it touched the earth.
The rest froze.
"No!" someone screamed.
Another stepped forward to fight. A foolish impulse.
His skull shattered under the weight of a bone-hammer before he even closed half the distance.
Atahsaia watched. Eyes clear. Breathing slow.
He wasn't shocked. He wasn't moved. He was calculating.
Four assailants. Two already killed. Five humans left. Him among them.
The attackers weren't wasting energy. Efficient. Measured. Not murderers—harvesters.
Slavers?
Or something worse.
One by one, the survivors dropped. Some tried to beg. Some tried to flee. None succeeded.
Atahsaia didn't resist. When they reached him, he was already on his knees, hands behind his head. The lead figure paused, as if disappointed.
"Null Core," a gravelled voice muttered. Not from a mouth, but from the helm itself.
"Broken," another said. "Leave him."
"No. Nulls are useful."
A metal rod struck the back of Atahsaia's neck. The world darkened.
He did not scream.
When he woke, he was chained.
The cell was circular. Walls made of blackstone, lined with flickering glyphs that pulsed like dying stars. The floor was dust and blood. Dozens of others were chained to rings bolted into the stone. Most unconscious. Some dead.
He felt the collar on his neck before he saw it—a wide band of stone and metal with a soft hum beneath the skin. Dampening. Restraint. Something to interfere with the Echoverse.
Not that it mattered.
He was a Null.
A door opened. Light spilled in.
A new figure entered. Smaller. Hooded. Barefoot.
"Selection begins now," the voice said. High. Musical. Not male. Not female. Almost childlike. "Step forward when your designation is called. Compliance extends your usefulness."
One by one, names were called.
One by one, they were taken.
Atahsaia watched every step. Every gesture. Every word.
He memorized the rhythm of the guards' patrols. He noted the way the collar hummed louder when they drew close. He measured the distance from the wall to the door.
Three days passed.
He ate only what was given. He asked no questions. He made no allies.
On the fourth night, the guards removed three bodies—two failed selections, one suicide.
Atahsaia checked the chains. The rings in the wall. The grooves in the floor.
He was no soldier. No killer. Not yet.
But his mind was alive.
He had studied philosophy. Strategy. Game theory.
And he understood one truth above all:
When rules are clear, systems can be broken.
By the seventh day, he was taken to a chamber lit by floating crystals.
In the center: a basin of mercury. Suspended above it: a sphere of black glass, pulsing with inner light.
"The Echoverse," the child-voice said, now draped in a mantle of woven bone.
"You are Null. No Resonance. No potential. A failed thread. But even threads can serve."
The sphere descended. Hovered before his chest.
"Will you submit?"
Atahsaia met the light. And smiled.
"I will survive."
The sphere flared.
"NULL CORE ENGAGED. EXTERNAL ECHO INJECTION INITIATED."
Pain split him.
Not fire. Not heat.
Unmaking.
He saw himself through a thousand eyes. Dead at birth. A tyrant. A priest. A martyr. A madman. Versions of him danced across the mercury, their voices shrieking in harmonies of horror.
And then—one broke through.
A boy of eight, sobbing, holding a knife to his own throat.
"I can't," the boy whispered.
And Atahsaia, the man, reached through the vision.
"Yes," he said. "You can."
Their eyes locked.
The boy vanished.
The sphere shattered.
He collapsed.
When he awoke, the collar was gone.
He was alone in the chamber.
A mark now burned on his chest: the spiral symbol, etched in pale gold.
He touched it.
A whisper echoed.
"ECHOFORM UNLOCKED: SHARD—BROKEN COURAGE" "SYNC RATE: 2%"
He smiled.
Not much.
But enough.
He was no longer Null.
He was becoming.
Outside the chamber, the facility prepared its next harvest. The world of Nehkara spun on, uncaring. The weak would die. The Hollow Expanse would claim the lost. The Frame Below hungered.
But within one cell, among the ruins of fallen Echoes and forgotten selves, a man had decided he would not be either.
He would not be forgotten.
He would reshape the Weave.
One echo at a time.
To be continued…