Chapter 1 – Gray Silence
The city was quiet.
Not the kind of quiet born from peace — but the kind that came after something had been erased. Buildings stood half-shattered, glass crunched beneath each slow step, and the sky hung gray like it had forgotten what color meant.
A boy walked alone.
He had no name. No memories. No past.
Only a feeling — something sharp and cold lodged inside his chest. Not pain. Not fear. Just… nothing.
His coat was torn at the sleeve. His hands were dirty. His eyes, though dull, scanned with an odd precision — as if he was used to watching things die.
And then it came.
From between the alley walls, something shifted. A shimmer in the air, like heat mirage twisting reality. The thing that emerged had no real shape — a beast of bones and fluid motion, crawling forward with a silence too perfect.
An anomaly.
It lunged.
He moved awkwardly at first, his stance uneven. He ducked, narrowly missing a slashing tendril. He didn't scream, didn't panic — only reacted.
His fist met the creature's side, not with power, but with calculation. A strange pulse erupted from the point of contact — and the creature screeched in distortion, its body folding and collapsing inward like crushed paper.
Ash. That's what it turned into. Like burnt-out fragments of thought.
He stood still, breathing.
Not tired. Not angry. Not afraid. He didn't even know what those emotions were supposed to feel like.
He looked at his hand — trembling, not from fear, but from something unnamed. He flexed his fingers slowly, watching the ash drift into the cracked pavement.
I am not like that thing. But I am not like this place either.
The silence returned. The wind didn't come back.
He turned toward the broken road ahead, stepping forward.
> "Hey! You alright there?"
The voice cut through the air like sunlight in fog.
A boy stood atop a flipped bus, waving. Bright-eyed, cheerful. His clothes were patched, his hair wind-tossed. He looked like he belonged in the ruins — but didn't carry their weight.
He jumped down and approached with easy steps.
> "That was a nasty one. You're not hurt?"
The boy with no name said nothing.
"Kinda quiet, huh? I get it. First time's rough."
He paused, then grinned.
"Well, you're lucky. Most don't walk away from an anomaly like that."
A hand extended toward him.
The boy looked at it. Hesitated.
Then — slowly — he took it.