Bradenton, Florida — 2025
Jaxon Hale was doing what any self-respecting nineteen-year-old would be doing at three-thirty in the morning on a school night—absolutely nothing that could be described as responsible, productive, or remotely adult. If maturity were a stat, he'd dumped all his points into reflexes and sarcasm.
He was hunched forward in his gaming chair, the seat reclined dangerously far back, one leg tucked under him for balance, the other bouncing against the laminate floor in rhythm with the bass pounding through his headset. The triple-monitor setup in front of him painted his room in an epileptic storm of light—electric blues when his shields held, a radiant gold when he scored a critical hit, and an angry red whenever his HP bar screamed for mercy. The rest of the room could only be described as a post-apocalyptic war zone of student living: half-empty energy drink cans forming defensive walls around the desk, fossilized ramen bowls serving as archaeological evidence of meals once enjoyed, and a tangle of hoodies and jeans that had fused into something beyond human taxonomy.
"Get rekt!"
Jaxon's fingers blurred over the keyboard, hammering the space bar and clicking madly as his avatar unleashed one final, glorious combo. The raid boss—a nightmare of chrome and dragon scales—let out a digital shriek before collapsing into a kaleidoscope of pixels. His screen exploded in a shower of gold loot notifications.
"Finally," he exhaled, leaning back and letting his chair creak under his weight. "Only took twelve tries and the last functioning neuron I had left. Totally worth it."
The team chat on his left monitor erupted into chaos, a flurry of text, memes, and inside jokes flooding the feed:
GG EZCarried by Hale againThat's our mad lad!PogChamp × 9999
Jaxon smirked, basking in his tiny kingdom of digital glory. The glow from the monitors reflected off his grin, making him look half-proud, half-deranged. "Ha! And Mom said video games wouldn't make me any money. Showed her."
The chair gave a faint squeal as he spun toward his mini-fridge, tugging it open with one foot like a pro. "Who's laughing now? …Oh yeah, me."
He cracked open a can of Citrus-Blast—because sleep was for people without ambition—and took a long sip that fizzed like victory and poor life choices. "Man," he muttered between gulps, "capitalism really do be wild sometimes. Nothing can stop the God of Conquest and the King of Games."
A voice replied, smooth and masculine, with a tone that could have belonged to a Spanish soap opera villain.
"Are you sure about that?"
Jaxon froze mid-swig. The can hissed quietly in his hand. "Well… yeah. I can do anything. Anything at all. For I am—" He cut himself off, blinking. "Wait. Who the hell said that?"
"Me…"
The word echoed faintly through his headset at first, then again from somewhere in the room. It wasn't distorted or robotic—it had tone, emotion, and attitude. Following the sound, Jaxon turned toward his closed bedroom door, heart thumping in his chest.
"What the hell…" he muttered. "Why does my door sound like it's about to confess its tragic backstory?"
The voice came again, almost playful this time. "Hello."
Jaxon squinted. And then, for the first time in his life, he wished his caffeine withdrawal would kick in faster—because his door had a face.
No, seriously.
The cheap wooden door, the one covered in peeling band stickers and old gaming posters, now had two faintly glowing indentations that looked suspiciously like eyes. A subtle, amused smile seemed to ripple across the grain of the wood, like reality itself had glitched.
Jaxon stared, motionless, his mind racing between I'm hallucinating and this is how horror movies start.
"Okay," he said slowly, setting the drink down and rising from his chair. "Either I'm finally losing it… or I downloaded something way beyond adware."
The door blinked.
And Jaxon punched it.
What he expected was the sharp sting of regret and maybe a bruised knuckle for his trouble.Instead, all the teenager got was the sound low, drawn-out sound that was way too human.
"...Mmm~."
Jaxon froze. His brain short-circuited. His hand stayed pressed against the wood as the sound vibrated faintly through his knuckles.
"…Did… did my door just moan?"
A second, softer sigh escaped the grain—husky, satisfied, and undeniably pleased.
Jaxon yanked his fist back like he'd just touched a live wire. His face twisted in sheer disgust. "Oh, hell no. Nope. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not in any goddamn timeline."
The door's "eyes" glowed faintly brighter, a mischievous shimmer passing through them."Was that supposed to hurt?" it asked, voice lilting with a playful, almost flirty tone.
Jaxon took a slow step back, his expression caught somewhere between horror and violated homeowner. "Listen to me! Explain to me what the hell you are before I burn ya! This is what I get for skipping therapy."
He rubbed his hand on his hoodie like he could scrub away the memory. "Jesus, I need bleach. For my soul."
The door chuckled—a deep, rumbling sound that made the air hum. "Don't be so shy, Jaxon Hale. You touched me first."
"Oh no. No, no, no. We are not doing this dialogue tree. I'm not that guy!"
The smile carved into the wood widened. "You woke me. That means you're chosen."
Before he could fire back with another panicked one-liner, the wood rippled like a puddle struck by a stone. The glow from its eyes spread outward, crawling up the frame, over the walls, and across the ceiling until his whole room pulsed with white-blue light.
Jaxon stumbled backward, shielding his eyes. "Okay! Cool! Haunted hentai door, got it! I'm uninstalling reality now!"
The air itself buzzed—then snapped.
The monitors flickered. The posters peeled from the walls. Every digital sound—the hum of his PC, the bass from his playlist, even the faint whirr of his ceiling fan—collapsed into a deafening silence.
Then came the light. Blinding, pure, swallowing everything.
When he woke, it wasn't to the alarm.
A cold breeze slid across his cheek, carrying the damp scent of metal, rust, and something faintly chemical—like rain falling on an engine. The ground beneath him felt uneven, hard, and wet.
His eyes fluttered open.
Above him stretched a sky the color of old bruises—ashen clouds smeared with faint streaks of violet, a fractured moon hanging low on the horizon.
Jaxon blinked, sitting up slowly. Dirt and fine gray dust fell off his hoodie. Around him stretched a vast plain of wreckage—mangled machinery, torn limbs of colossal robots, and shards of shattered armor jutting from the earth like gravestones.
A mecha graveyard.
He turned slowly, taking it all in—the twisted silhouettes of long-dead giants, their hollow eye sockets staring toward the horizon. In the distance, lightning flickered silently over the skeleton of what might have been a battleship the size of a skyscraper.
"…What the hell…"
His voice felt small, swallowed by the metallic wind.
He stumbled to his feet, still dizzy. "Okay, either I'm dreaming… or I died punching that freaky door."
Something gleamed beneath a collapsed hull nearby—half-buried under layers of rusted plating. Curiosity won out over fear. He crouched and reached for it, brushing aside the dirt until his fingers closed around a smooth, metallic edge.
The moment he lifted it, the ground trembled.
A deep groan thundered through the valley of wrecks as the pile beside him shifted. Metal screeched. Shards of armor cascaded down in a deafening avalanche.
Jaxon dove backward just as the mountain of debris collapsed, revealing the shape hidden beneath: a colossal, broken mecha.
Its design was alien yet familiar—sleek curves meeting brutal geometry. The chest was cracked open, glowing faintly with blue light. The head resembled a falcon's—sharp, regal, with a single damaged eye flickering like a dying star.
Jaxon stared, heart hammering, awe and adrenaline mixing in his veins.
"…Cool."
He stepped closer, watching the faint runes flicker across the mech's chestplate—pulsing like a heartbeat under centuries of grime.
Location:Mecha Graveyard, Outskirts of Terra Nove
Once the beating heart of Terra Nove's industrial sector, the Mecha Graveyard spans nearly thirty square kilometers of rusting metal, shattered exosuits, and dismantled warframes. It's a dumping ground for decommissioned or destroyed mechanized units from the Great Machine Wars—an era when cities were defended by walking fortresses and piloted giants. The ground itself is fused with scrap metal and reactor slag; the soil hums faintly with residual magnetic energy. Some say the graveyard isn't entirely dead—certain buried cores still flicker to life on cold nights, whispering fragments of old combat data through radio static. Unauthorized entry is prohibited, but scavengers, mercenaries, and thrill-seekers often slip past the old perimeter fence, chasing myths of lost tech and forgotten AIs.
Date:August 17th, 2099
Two centuries after the fall of the Terran Federation, the world remains fractured. Mega-cities like Terra Nove stand as neon citadels amid wastelands and machine carcasses. It's the dawn of the "Reclamation Era," where corporations and independent salvagers scour the ruins for pre-war technology to rebuild civilization—or weaponize it. The 2099 date marks 150 years since the last recorded broadcast from the Machine Network, a milestone most historians hoped would symbolize closure. Instead, unexplained power surges and ghost signals have reignited old fears.
Toxic Levels:High — Breathable for 4 Hours Without Filtration
The atmosphere around the Mecha Graveyard is thick with nanite dust, oxidized coolant, and vaporized graphene—remnants of centuries-old combustion and reactor failure. While short exposure causes mild nausea and coughing, extended stays without a filtration mask can lead to metallic poisoning or hallucinations. The haze is dense enough to distort radar and optical readings, giving the area an eerie shimmer as if reality itself flickers. Biologists claim the local fungi have adapted to metabolize rare metals, creating glowing mycelium veins that pulse under the soil. It's toxic, yes—but also alive, in a way that shouldn't be.
He read it twice, then a third time—mostly because his brain refused to accept that any of those words were real.
"...Right," he muttered, voice dripping with disbelief. "So, toxic wasteland, no signal, and I woke up in a pile of robot corpses. Love that for me."
He exhaled through his nose, hands on his hips, surveying the mechanical junkyard like a man judging his life choices in real time. "Okay, Jaxon," he said to himself, "you're a Black man, alone, in a creepy-ass graveyard. That's—what? Level ten bad decision territory all the horror movies you have seen.?"
A beat of silence. Then, with dry resignation, he added,
"Thank God I'm not the funny one. Those guys die first."