Twenty years ago, the world broke. The government called it a "natural disaster," a convenient label for the unexplained cataclysm that erased half the global population in a single heartbeat. They called it the "Zero Hour."
Aoi Takamura was born one year later in the sprawling, rebuilt metropolis of New Eidon City. He grew up on stories of the Before. Ghost stories, told by parents who looked at the sky with a lingering fear. This obsession with what happened, and how to prevent it from happening again, steered Aoi's life. It was the fuel that turned him into an engineering prodigy by the age of nineteen.
But for all his genius, he couldn't fix everything.
Present Day
The hospital smelled of antiseptic and stale coffee. It was a scent Aoi had grown to hate over the last few months. His father, Hiro, lay in the bed, looking smaller than the man Aoi remembered. The cancer was aggressive, but Aoi was stubborn.
"When I die," Hiro rasped, his voice weak but serious, "visit our workshop. Look in the left cabinet."
It was the same instruction he gave every visit. Every time he said it, Aoi felt a spike of frustration mix with his grief. Today, he couldn't just nod and accept it.
"You keep saying that," Aoi snapped, his voice trembling. "But what if you don't die? There is still a possibility you'll live through this. There are still so many projects I want to build. I need you to guide me."
Hiro looked at him with sad, knowing eyes. "And even if I do live," Aoi continued, desperate to change the subject, "that cabinet has a lock on it. You never told me the code."
Hiro sighed, the sound rattling in his chest. "You will know when the time is right."
The cryptic answer was the final straw. Aoi stood up, his chair scraping loudly against the floor, and stormed out of the room. He couldn't stand the resignation in his father's voice.
Aoi walked the streets of New Eidon blindly, his mind racing. He barely noticed the man dressed in all black, hood pulled low, who rushed past him, colliding with his shoulder. Aoi stumbled and spun around. There was something wrong about the man's energy, something frantic. But when Aoi looked for him in the crowd, the figure had vanished.
Aoi returned home to an empty house. His mother was absent, working late as always. He dropped his bag and headed straight for the basement.
The workshop.
This was their sanctuary. It was filled with half-finished circuits, blueprints, and the smell of solder. Aoi stared at the left cabinet.
"I am sick of this," he muttered to the empty room. "I am sick of secrets."
He grabbed a crowbar from the workbench. He knew he should wait. He knew his father begged him not to open it yet. But the anger and helplessness needed a release. With a grunt of exertion, Aoi drove the metal bar into the wood and pried it open. The lock shattered.
Inside, sitting alone on the dusty shelf, was a watch.
It wasn't a normal timepiece. It was sleek, colored in futuristic yellow and blue, with a face that was completely blank. No numbers. No hands.
"This is what Dad hyped up for all that time?" Aoi picked it up. It felt heavy, dense with unknown machinery. He tapped the screen, trying to wake it up.
Suddenly, the front door upstairs opened.
Panic seized him. He shoved the watch back into the splintered remains of the cabinet and tried to push the broken wood together, but there was no hiding the damage. Steps clicked down the stairs, and his mother, Akira Takamura, appeared. She looked exhausted, her eyes rimmed with red.
"What is going on down here?" she asked, looking at the mess. "Usually you wouldn't work on inventions unless your father was around."
Akira frowned. She was carrying the weight of Hiro's illness just as heavily as Aoi, but she also carried a deep concern for her son. Aoi had no friends; his father was his whole world.
"I'm fine," Aoi lied, turning his back to the cabinet. "Just reviewing some old projects. You don't have to worry about me. I am an adult. I can take care of myself."
"Look," Akira sighed, pulling up a stool to sit. "I have been working a lot of late nights. We haven't had a chance to really talk."
Aoi could hear the pity in her voice. He hated it. It meant she had given up too.
"So you believe it too, huh?" Aoi snapped, his hands balling into fists. "That Dad will die?"
"Aoi, please..."
"No!"
Aoi pushed past her and ran up the stairs. He needed air. He needed to be anywhere but here. He burst out the front door and into the cool night air.
He looked North.
A massive bloom of orange fire erupted in the distance. The ground shook a second later, a dull boom rolling over the city.
That was the hospital.
Aoi's heart stopped. "No," he whispered.
He ran. He ignored the traffic lights, ignored the honking cars, and ignored the burning in his lungs. He reached the hospital in fifteen minutes, but he was too late. The building was a torch. Flames licked the night sky, and the heat was intense even from the street.
"NO! PEOPLE ARE STILL IN THERE!" Aoi screamed.
He lunged toward the entrance, but strong arms grabbed him.
"Let me go!" Aoi thrashed against the policeman holding him back. He could see the doors. They weren't just blocked by debris; they looked locked. Sabotaged. This wasn't an accident.
"Look, kid," the officer grunted, struggling to hold him. "No matter how angry you get, you aren't getting in there. It's too late."
Aoi collapsed against the officer's grip, forced to watch the building burn. Forced to watch his father's last hope turn to ash.
Days blurred into nights. It was a downward spiral. The funeral was a haze. Aoi's mother became unresponsive, a ghost in her own home, barely speaking, barely eating. The silence in the house was louder than the explosion had been.
Late one night, unable to sleep, Aoi sat in the basement workshop. He was trying to build something, anything, to distract himself from the grief.
Flash.
A blue light pulsed from the broken cabinet.
Aoi froze. He turned slowly. The watch. It was glowing, a rhythmic blue pulse like a heartbeat calling out to him.
"Was there really a reason Dad said to check this now?" Aoi whispered. "Now, out of all times?"
He walked toward the cabinet as if in a trance. He reached in and wrapped his fingers around the cold metal of the watch. He clasped it onto his wrist.
The moment the latch clicked, the world dissolved.
Colors violently swirled around him, not just blue, but colors he couldn't name. Aoi looked down at his hands. They were deteriorating, turning into digital dust right before his eyes. He tried to scream, but the sound was swallowed by the vortex.
Darkness took him.
When Aoi opened his eyes, he was lying on the pavement. He gasped, checking his hands. They were whole. He scrambled to his feet, looking around.
He was in New Eidon City. But he wasn't.
The buildings were taller, darker. Drones buzzed overhead with menacing red lights. Armored security officers roamed the streets in formation, their faces covered. The city felt cold, sterile, and terrifying. It was his home, but it had been remade.
And everyone was being watched.