Chapter 1: Nameless in the Snow
Stardawn 10, 199 A.C.
I woke to the low hum of machinery and the sting of cold air scraping my lungs.
The ceiling above me flickered with faded fluorescent lights, barely strong enough to cast shadows.
Metal walls surrounded me—smooth, aged, sterile. My body ached like I'd fallen from orbit. My ears rang faintly, but there was no sound aside from the buzz of lights and my own heartbeat.
I didn't know where I was.
I didn't know who I was.
Instinct moved before memory. I sat up, boots already on my feet. My eyes fell to the cot beside me: a standard-issue rifle leaned against the bed frame. Scratched but clean. Next to it, a Beretta M9 sidearm lay in a hard case with spare magazines, and a combat knife strapped beside it.
I didn't choose the rifle. My hands did. Like they'd held it a thousand times before.
I stood, feeling the weight of my vest and gear shift with me. Whoever put this loadout together knew exactly what they were doing. The rifle's strap was already adjusted to my size.
That meant someone had prepped this kit for me. Someone who knew me better than I did.
I swept the room slowly. Cot. Locker. Reinforced door. A slab of steel and function. There were no windows, just a thick panel of glass beside the door. I stepped toward it and wiped away the frost.
Outside was white.
Snow choked everything. Crumbling buildings half-buried under ice. Distant towers like jagged teeth, silhouetted against a gray, unmoving sky. I searched the landscape for signs of life—nothing.
The world was still.
I reached up, touching the back of my neck. Something pulsed faintly beneath the skin—warm, wrong. I moved to the locker, pried it open, and found a shard of broken mirror lodged in a corner. I angled it and froze.
Pale skin. Cold eyes. Buzzed haircut. Soldier's frame.
No recognition. Not a flicker of familiarity.
Then I saw it.
A faint, glowing number just beneath the skin on my collarbone:
07
"…What the hell?"
Before the thought settled, I heard it—a hiss of pressure and a click. The door.
Instinct took over. My rifle was raised in a breath. Safety off. Eyes focused down the iron sights.
A shadow moved through the misted doorway.
A woman.
She stepped in with effortless control, her movements fluid but cautious. Her clothes were black and red—traditional in cut, like some kind of battle-ready samurai outfit—but layered and reinforced for motion. A single-edged katana hung at her hip, and her hand hovered near its hilt.
She said nothing at first. Just took one look at the muzzle of my rifle.
"Lower your weapon," she said calmly. "If I wanted you dead, you'd already be on the floor."
I didn't blink. Neither did she.
Then, with no warning, she moved.
She crossed the gap in a blink—a burst of speed I didn't think possible.
I stepped back, leveling my rifle to fire, but she was already inside my range. Her sword slid halfway free with a flash of white steel.
I pivoted, turning the rifle sideways to block her swing. Steel met polymer and reflex. The katana didn't bite—she was pulling her strike. Testing me.
I dropped low, knife flashing out from my thigh, but she twisted her wrist, redirecting my lunge. She didn't try to kill me—she was measuring me.
Her blade slid past my rifle again, stopping just shy of my neck. I had already drawn my pistol and pressed the muzzle gently against her stomach under the folds of her hakama.
We froze.
Her breathing calm. Mine wasn't.
We stared at each other, weapons locked in a stalemate.
"…Trained," she muttered. "Military. You're not bad."
"Not bad?" I rasped, keeping the pistol still. "You almost took my head off."
She gave a small smirk. "You held your own."
We both stepped back in sync. Weapons lowered.
She didn't sheath her sword completely—just enough to show peace. I clicked the safety on my pistol, keeping it holstered.
"Misunderstanding," she said flatly.
"Yeah," I muttered. "One hell of a welcome."
She pulled down the collar of her outfit slightly, revealing a glowing number beneath the skin:
08.
My own number flared in response.
"We're the same, then," she said, watching my reaction.
I nodded. "Seems that way."
"You got a name?"
I hesitated. "No. Nothing. Just… flashes."
Hmm." Her expression didn't change, but her eyes studied me deeper—less as an opponent, more as a puzzle.
"I'm Yuri," she said. Her voice was calm but edged with control, like someone trained to hide emotion. "Seventeen. Japan, originally… I think."
She tilted her head, gaze narrowing on my face.
"You? You've got that look—square jaw, military build… definitely American. Nineteen, maybe twenty?"
I blinked. "You're guessing all that by looking?"
She smirked faintly. "Instinct. And you carry yourself like someone who's seen a war, not just trained for one."
"…Yeah. Maybe."
"You remember anything yet?" she asked, adjusting the sword at her hip. "Family? Name?"
"Nothing solid." I looked down at the glowing number on my collarbone. "Just this."
She stepped forward, unbothered by the tension now gone between us. With two fingers, she gently pulled the collar of her outfit down again—revealing her own number glowing faintly beneath the skin: 08.
"Same glow. Same brand," she said. "Looks like we're both in the same situation in whatever game this is."
"…I guess I'm just Seven for now."
Yuri nodded, accepting it without hesitation. "Then Seven it is."
A pause lingered between us. Not tense—but weighty.
"We're not the only ones," she said, turning toward the door. "There are others waking up too. Same mark. Same blank slate."
She looked back over her shoulder, her tone shifting slightly—cool but not cold. "Come on. Might want to see who else made it out."
Shelter 17 – Group Awakening
We stepped into a wide corridor lined with identical doors, each one shut tight like a sealed vault. The walls were metal, slightly curved, with condensation beading down in trails. The floor was cold under my boots—gridded steel, worn smooth with time. Fluorescent lights overhead flickered with a tired hum, casting everyone in a ghost-white haze.
Yuri walked ahead with measured steps, her katana sheathed but never far from hand. Even relaxed, she moved like a coiled spring. I followed behind, my rifle hanging low in a loose grip. I expected silence.
Then a door hissed open.
A tall figure stumbled out, bracing himself against the frame. Shirtless except for a loose tank top, breath fogging in the cold. Short, dark hair. Faint silver streaks near the sides. His gray eyes scanned the hallway, unfocused.
A number glowed softly beneath his collarbone:
12.
He muttered something under his breath. I caught only the last word:
"…cold…"
Then came the second. A lean kid—couldn't be older than seventeen—stepped out from another room. Hoodie torn at the sleeve, sweatpants loose on narrow hips. His eyes were sharp, almost too sharp. Like he was seeing more than just us. His hand twitched once, fingers tracing the air.
The number on his neck shimmered faintly:
800.
Two more doors opened across from one another.
From one emerged a giant of a man—bald head, dark skin, a chest that looked carved from granite. Despite the sheer size of him, his expression was calm. Gentle, even. He blinked slowly, like waking from a dream he didn't trust.
32.
From the other came a woman. Slim. Mid-height. Long red curls spilling over her shoulders like fire. She wore a tartan-patterned skirt layered over light armor. Her eyes—bright green, unblinking—swept over all of us like a field commander counting enemy positions. A mist clung to her shoulders before fading into nothing.
Her number burned faintly:
100.
For a moment, no one moved. We were all just… there. Strangers. Branded. The air hung thick with the silence of disbelief.
Then the hoodie kid—his voice light but edged with sarcasm—broke the spell.
"…Okay, not to state the obvious, but what the hell is going on?"
American accent. East Coast. Sharp tongue, sharp mind.
"Where are we?" asked the redhead, already calculating.
Yuri stepped forward, eyes never leaving the others. "Shelter 17," she answered, voice clipped. "The terminals in our rooms confirmed it."
The big guy exhaled through his nose, voice like rolling gravel. "Doesn't feel like a shelter," he said. "Feels like a damn cryo crypt."
"Agreed," the redhead added. "If this is a rescue op, it's got terrible hospitality."
Names started to spill out—not naturally, but like pressure being released.
"Chris," the hoodie kid offered, still watching the space around us like it might bend. "I think I'm sixteen. That much I remember."
"Greg," said the giant. His voice was surprisingly warm. "I remember my kids. Faces more than names." He rubbed his forearm absentmindedly, where a band of glowing tattoos shimmered faintly. "Nothing else. Not even how I got here."
"Jasmine," said the redhead. Her accent was Scottish, her tone dry. "And I'm not dead, so let's consider that progress."
The first guy to step out nodded. "Jake. Twenty-two, I think. No memories past… a frozen skyline. And a hockey rink. Weird."
They turned to me.
Chris squinted, taking in my gear and stance. "And you? Got a name, soldier?"
I hesitated. The others had something. At least a name, a flicker of history. Me?
"Nothing," I said. "Not even a feeling."
Jasmine arched a brow. "Well, you've got '07' lit up on your collar like a flare," she said. "Easier than calling you 'mystery man.'"
Greg laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. It felt like getting hit with a padded sledgehammer. "Seven, then. Clean. Strong. Has a good ring to it."
I said nothing, but the name echoed in my head.
Seven.
Like an old key turning in a lock that hadn't opened in years.
Yuri glanced between us all, her expression unreadable. Then she said, just loud enough for me to hear:
"So… it's not just you and me."
I nodded.
Whatever this place was, it had more players than we thought.
And we'd just been dealt in.
Shelter 17.
That's what the faded metal plaque said, bolted into the corridor wall near the central terminal.
Half-covered in frost, its sharp blocky letters stood out against the dull steel like a whisper from the past.
There were no signs of who built this place. No logos. No flags.
Just a number.
It didn't tell me why we were here. Only that we weren't the first.
The others wandered through the corridor slowly, their eyes still adjusting to the sterile light, their minds clearly racing with unanswered questions. Our footsteps echoed in the silence, bouncing off the curved walls and low ceilings. The shelter was cold but livable—just enough heat to stay functional. More of a bunker than a home.
I stuck to the back, rifle slung across my shoulder, watching. Measuring.
Shelter 17 layout
The layout was straightforward—a central living ring with branching sections:
Sleeping quarters lining the inner loop
A cafeteria near the center
A sealed training chamber off the main path
A utility hall with locked storage and unpowered doors
And at the far end, a thick airlock door, red-lit and sealed tight
Every corner of this place felt deliberate. Stocked rations. Towels, hygiene packs, bottled water.
Every room symmetrical. Every drawer empty but clean.
This wasn't an accident. It was a reset.
Chris stood at the central touchscreen terminal, poking at the inactive schematics. "Shelter 17," he muttered, reading data from the map. "No uplink. No signals. It's isolated on purpose."
"Military?" I said under my breath.
He didn't look at me. "Or a tomb."
I drifted around the shelter on my own. The others were still figuring out where they fit. Their rooms were bare—no gear, no prep. Mine had been the only one with equipment laid out like someone knew I'd need it.
That disturbed me more than the glowing number on my skin.
In the training room, I spotted Yuri kneeling in the center. Her katana lay flat across her lap, its pristine sheath resting against the floor like a shrine offering. She was motionless—eyes closed, breath slow, posture immaculate.
Then she moved.
Not like a fighter.
Like a dancer made of iron.
Each cut was exact. Clean. Her blade sliced the air with such control that I could swear I saw its edge ripple—just faintly, like the afterimage of heat on glass.
I stayed in the doorway.
She didn't look at me. But I knew she was aware.
The Scanner and the Spark
The cafeteria was quiet, lit by pale lights that buzzed faintly overhead. Old vending units lined the far wall, most long-dead. A few tables stood crooked or half-folded from age. But for now, it was the only place in Shelter 17 that felt remotely human.
Greg had taken it upon himself to help organize the rations. He grinned like a proud ox as he lifted a sealed metal crate—at least six feet long, stacked with emergency gear—and casually hoisted it onto his shoulder like a bag of potatoes.
CLANG.
The crate's bottom edge clipped the table as he dropped it. Steel shrieked. A corner bent inward with a sickening crunch.
We all froze.
"…Oops," Greg muttered, sheepish as he stared at the crumpled panel. "That one moved weird on me."
Chris raised an eyebrow, walking over with arms folded. "Greg, that crate's labeled Class-3 storage. That's reinforced steel."
Greg blinked. "Huh. Didn't feel heavy."
A faint shimmer pulsed beneath the skin of his neck—32, glowing a little brighter than before.
At the same time, Jake, leaning near a half-functioning dispenser, let out a sharp curse.
"Dammit—!" He dropped his drink. The bottle clattered and rolled across the floor, half-encased in frost. His hand glistened, cold mist drifting up his fingers. Ice was forming around his knuckles—like frostbite, but clean, beautiful.
"Okay… what the hell," he whispered, staring.
Then came Chris.
He had been toying with a strange, flat device—like a metallic clipboard with a cracked arcane screen. He found it in one of the side cabinets earlier that day, half-buried in packing foam. Most assumed it was junk.
Suddenly, a blue flicker pulsed from it—followed by a loud pop.
A glowing glyph spun briefly at Chris's feet, jagged lines looping like a digital spell circle. His eyes widened.
"Wait, I didn't press—"
THUNK.
He vanished.
The floor shimmered with a ripple of mana—and Chris dropped out of a portal on the other side of the room, landing flat on his back with a loud groan.
"…Ow," he muttered. "Okay. I am never using this thing indoors again."
The device—whatever it was—was still glowing. Chris slowly raised it, blinking at the screen. Strange runes shifted into readable data, displaying rows of fluctuating values.
"Okay…" he said. "So this scanner is showing mana signatures. Like… magical power reserves."
Greg scratched his head. "Magical?"
"Yeah. You're loaded," Chris said, pointing at him. "It's not even subtle. Yours spiked when you lifted that crate. Like your strength's… part of your baseline. Passive."
"Wait," Jake cut in, "Are you saying we've got powers now?"
Jasmine tilted her head. "He's not wrong. I've been feeling… off. Like I'm breathing in something that doesn't belong."
As if on cue, a shimmer moved across her skin. Light bent slightly around her form, warping the air. She blurred for half a second—then snapped back into clarity. Her green eyes were already on me. I knew she saw that I had noticed.
Yuri crossed her arms. "Not just physical. Some kind of energy shift. You all feel it, don't you? Something beneath the skin."
Chris tapped the scanner again. A glitchy, fractured sigil briefly projected in front of him—like a flickering ring of broken geometry.
"Look at this," he said, excited and unnerved. "The scanner's generating a sigil signature for each of us. Greg's lights up red, Jake's pulses icy blue. Mine's a swirl of static."
Jasmine looked toward the device. "What about me?"
Chris flipped the screen and whistled. "Yours doesn't have a shape. It hides even from this thing. That's… weirdly appropriate."
Greg laughed, nervously. "So what are we, then? Mutants?"
Chris frowned. "More like… subjects. This scanner shouldn't exist if we were still on Earth."
Jake's voice dropped. "Then where are we?"
I said nothing. I looked at my hands—expecting a glow, a spark, anything. But there was nothing. No frost. No mist. Just the feeling of steel. Familiar. Cold.
Chris turned the scanner toward me.
The screen fuzzed out. Lines crossed. The entire interface glitched.
"Huh," Chris muttered. "It won't scan you."
Everyone stared.
I shifted uneasily. "I haven't seen anything from me."
"Yet," Yuri said softly, standing by the door. Her eyes hadn't left me. "But you will."
Nightfall and Theories
Later that night, we gathered in the cafeteria again. The heaters buzzed low, casting a dull warmth that barely reached the edges of the room. The air had grown colder—like the storm outside was slowly winning.
Chris sat cross-legged at one of the tables, a cracked touchscreen tablet in front of him. He'd drawn up a rough schedule with a half-functional stylus—watch rotations, scavenging shifts, and basic survival training. Trying to make order out of the chaos.
"So far," he said, tapping the screen, "we've got: Greg—super strength. Jake—ice manipulation. Jasmine—stealth, illusions. Me—portals. Yuri probably does some kind of energy blade thing, and…"
He glanced at me.
"The soldier with the gun."
Greg grinned and pointed. "Don't forget our lucky number Seven."
I said nothing. Just kept my arms crossed, seated a little farther back. Watching. Thinking.
Jasmine shifted in her seat. Her voice was soft but steady. "I don't think we were chosen for who we were. Not really. It's what we could become that mattered."
Chris nodded slowly, then looked down at the digital screen. "My number's 800. Yours is 07. Jake is 12. Yuri is 08. That's not random."
Greg raised a brow. "So you think there's more of us?"
Chris leaned forward, eyes serious now. "I don't think we're the only ones. Not even close. My number alone suggests… hundreds. Maybe even more. We might just be the first wave—or the last survivors. Hell if I know."
There was a pause. The kind that hangs in the air after someone says something too big to unpack in one night.
Yuri stood near the edge of the room, her arms folded as she quietly examined the rest of us. Her gaze lingered longer on Greg, Chris, Jasmine, and Jake.
"They move like civilians," she murmured. "Like people who haven't trained for what's coming."
Her eyes shifted to me—and for a moment, they weren't judging, just observing.
"But you and I..."
She reached down, gently touching the second blade strapped behind her back. The one she hadn't drawn yet. Its design was older. Arcane sigils etched along the spine—faint, but functional. "This blade was in my room," she added, voice low. "Not mine originally. But it felt like it belonged to someone like me."
I caught her meaning.
Like a weapon left behind… for the next soldier.
Later, I returned to my room. The silence was heavier than before. I sat on the edge of the cot, my rifle laid across my lap like it had always been there. My hands moved without thinking—checking the bolt, the scope, the magazine feed.
The gear felt like mine.
Even if I didn't know why.
My body moved like it remembered wars I couldn't name.
But I hadn't shown anything. No frost. No light. No tricks or sigils.
Just instinct.
And questions.
My number—07—glowed faintly beneath the collar of my shirt. It didn't feel random.
The others had powers. I had a weapon.
But maybe that meant I was meant to pull the trigger last.