Elijah Voss woke up to the scent of disinfectant, the dull hum of drones, and the distinct sensation that his head had been used as a basketball in a professional underground mutant league.
"Ugh. Please tell me I didn't dream any of that," he groaned, peeling his eyes open.
White ceiling. White walls. White sheets. The room screamed hospital, or worse—government hospital. He tried to sit up but immediately flopped back down.
Right. Muscles. Those things I used to have before a skeleton exploded in my soul.
"Elijah Voss," a voice said from the doorway.
He turned his head slowly. There stood a man in a dark gray AWC uniform—impeccably pressed, boots gleaming, not a single hair out of place. His rank insignia glinted with the silver-marked B-Tier classification. And worst of all? The guy wasn't blinking.
"Who's asking?" Elijah croaked.
"Agent Juno Grath. Arcane Warfare Commission, Manhattan Division. You were found near a Rift anomaly yesterday. You're being held for debriefing under Directive Seven-Four-Five, clause eighteen."
"Which means…?"
"Classified Awakening. Category: Necromancer."
Elijah sighed. "Great. Do I get a cookie with that diagnosis?"
Grath didn't smile. He didn't frown either. He existed somewhere in that middle dimension where emotions go to die.
"Tell me everything that happened. From the beginning."
Elijah considered giving him the runaround. But Selene's warning rang in his head: Necromancy is classified as Forbidden. You don't get second chances with the AWC.
So he told the truth. Or… about 85% of it.
He told Grath about the rooftop, the bones, the explosion of light. He mentioned Selene—briefly—and the skeleton. He described the Rift, the monsters, the robed figure who called him Child of Ash, and how his skeletal buddy got Thanos-snapped.
He left out the glowing sigil in his chest. And the voice that whispered in his dreams all night, repeating one phrase like a lullaby laced with razorwire:
"We remember. We return. We rise."
When Elijah finished, Grath tapped something into his wrist console and stared at him in silence for a full minute.
"...So, are you going to take me out back and put me down?" Elijah asked finally. "Or is there, like, a Necromancer 101 orientation I should look out for?"
Grath's voice was ice. "You've been reclassified. Special Entity Code 92: Potential Asset. You'll be monitored, evaluated, and if deemed too unstable… removed."
Elijah gave him a mock thumbs-up. "Comforting."
Two hours later, he was walking out of the facility with a temporary clearance bracelet and a pamphlet titled "So You Accidentally Awakened a Forbidden Class." It was written in Comic Sans.
Selene waited by the checkpoint gates, arms crossed, a latte in one hand and a faint smirk on her face.
"I see they didn't vivisect you," she said.
"Yet. Give it time."
"Do you always make jokes when you're nearly arrested for being a myth?"
"It's how I cope. That and caffeine." He took the latte out of her hand and drank half. "Ahh. That's the good stuff. Tastes like crushed bureaucracy and regret."
"Funny," she said, smacking his shoulder. "You were kind of a mess yesterday. But now you're cracking jokes."
Elijah sobered slightly. "Yesterday I didn't know anything. Now I know just enough to be terrified."
Selene's expression softened. "You should've seen yourself when that Rift Boss looked at you. You didn't flinch. Most people would've fainted or fled."
"I was paralyzed from the waist down. Pretty sure that counts."
She grinned.
They walked together through the edge of the city, passing areas still roped off with barrier drones. News drones hovered, broadcasting reports on the Rift breach, speculating whether the AWC could cover up another "containment error." Protesters stood at a nearby plaza, holding signs:
NO MORE ZONES. NO MORE LIES.TRANSPARENCY IS POWER.WE REMEMBER THE SURGE.
Elijah paused in front of the last sign.
"Do you think anyone really remembers?" he asked.
Selene looked at it, then at him. "No one who was alive during it talks about it. But some say there are people still around from back then. People who haven't aged in a hundred years."
"Immortal-class?"
"No one's ever officially reached it. But... unofficially?" She shrugged. "There are rumors. About one man. But I don't know if I believe them."
Elijah stared at the sign again.WE REMEMBER THE SURGE.
He didn't remember it, but he felt it. Like his bones were humming with ancient echoes. Like something had been asleep inside him for generations—and was only now waking up.
Later that evening, they sat on the fire escape of a dilapidated apartment building. The city glowed around them—half tech-fantasy, half post-war duct tape. Drones buzzed past. Holographic billboards flickered with recruitment ads for local guilds.
"You ever think about joining a guild?" Selene asked.
"I dunno," Elijah said. "Seems like a lot of work for a guy who just barely survived a tutorial quest."
She elbowed him. "They're not all bad. My adoptive parents run the Lumina Order. C-Tier, mostly healers and support."
"Let me guess, their top skill is passive aggression."
She rolled her eyes. "They're good people."
"I'm sure. I just… don't know if I'd fit in anywhere. Especially now."
Selene looked at him for a long moment. "You will. You just don't see it yet."
Her hand brushed his again. Warm. Reassuring.
And just for a moment, he believed her.
That night, Elijah sat in his room, staring at the glowing sigil in his palm. Faint blue, like a dying star.
He concentrated.
The room grew cold.
A small pile of bones on the floor rattled—leftover scraps from an anatomy kit Mason had been using for a project.
The bones snapped together with soft cracks. A tiny skeletal bird assembled itself, eyes flickering blue.
It chirped.
Elijah blinked.
"Okay. That's new."
The bird tilted its skull.
Then it flew.
Right into the wall.
Fell.
Shattered.
Elijah winced. "And that's why you don't skip flying lessons."
He gathered the bones again.
And smiled.
Because he could feel it now. The bond. The thread between life and death. Every time he summoned, it grew stronger.
Not just magic.
Memory.
These bones remembered.
That scared him more than anything.
Because if bones remembered… what else did?
Far from the city, in a black tower that wasn't there the day before, the robed entity from the Rift floated silently.
It stared into a mirror made of liquid obsidian.
And whispered:
"He returns. The Child of Ash walks. The covenant awakens."
A dozen figures stood behind it, cloaked in silence, watching.
One turned, and beneath the hood, lips curled in a smile.
"Let him grow. Let him hope. Let him love."
"Then we'll burn it all."