He woke in pieces.
Pain was the first thing he noticed—stiff and sharp, buried deep in his muscles like splinters of glass. His ribs felt bruised to hell. His throat was dry, his lips cracked. Every inch of his skin ached like he'd been run through a power line and left to bake under static sun.
The ground beneath him was cool. Dirt and something like moss. Smelled faintly metallic. Wrong. Just like everything else here.
Orin rolled onto his side with a groan and winced as a fresh jolt of pain lit up his spine. His body wasn't meant for this. He was just a guy—a regular, tired, slightly out-of-shape college dropout who spent more time gaming than sleeping.
And yet… he had moved through time.
He remembered it too clearly. The world pausing like a broken VHS. That moment of weightlessness. And her—Maria. Dying. Shadow's scream echoing through his chest like it had come from his own lungs.
He blinked the memory away and sat up slowly, feeling every vertebra complain. His hands were trembling.
"No way that was real," he muttered. "No way that was mine."
But it had been. Somehow.
His boots—the red-lined ones he'd mysteriously woken up with—were still glowing faintly. The light pulsed in rhythm with his chest, slow and tired, like a drained battery just barely holding on. He poked at one of them, half expecting it to disappear. It didn't.
"Chaos Control," he said aloud, testing the words again.
Nothing happened this time.
Figures.
Orin sat in silence, trying to slow his breathing. The adrenaline was gone. Now all that was left was soreness and a gnawing emptiness in his gut. He wasn't hungry. Not exactly. It was something deeper. Like his body had been hollowed out by the surge of power and was struggling to fill itself again.
He leaned back against a nearby rock and stared up at the sky. Still red. Still warped. It looked like someone had smeared oil over the sun.
"How do you heal from something like that?" he whispered. "How do you… come back?"
He didn't expect an answer. But something answered anyway.
A faint shimmer in the air. A flicker like static. A voice, far away, and not quite human.
"Subject CHAOS VECTOR… vital integrity compromised. System recalibrating."
Orin's eyes snapped open.
He wasn't alone.
"Who's there?!" he shouted, struggling to his feet. Pain flared in his side, but he ignored it.
Silence. Then:
"Synchronization incomplete. Memory fragments remain unstable. Physical recovery initiated — estimate: 13.4% restoration."
His heartbeat spiked. "Show yourself!"
Nothing appeared. Just more of that glitched, distant hum—like an old dial-up modem buried beneath the soil.
Then, a glow in the distance. Flickering. Like a screen in the dark.
Orin hesitated, then limped toward it.
The clearing wasn't natural.
It looked like something had carved a perfect circle into the forest—trees severed at unnatural angles, their cores leaking black sap. At the center stood something unmistakably game-like: a broken checkpoint post. The top was cracked, the orb flickering weakly, cycling between red and gold. Like a checkpoint that had been trying to activate for years.
It wasn't the only thing there.
Hovering just above the post was a ring. But not like the pristine ones from the games. This one was bent, flickering with digital corruption, its gold sheen chipped and flickering with static veins.
Orin stepped closer. His boots buzzed louder.
"Is this… some kind of save point?" he muttered. "Or a trap?"
He reached out—and the moment his fingers brushed the ring, it burned.
White-hot pain flared up his arm. His vision went white.
And he saw it again.
Maria.
But this time, there was more.
Shadow, still in the G.U.N. base. Kneeling. Rage blooming behind his eyes.
"I promise you, Maria… they'll pay for what they did."
The voice was ice. And it wasn't just something Orin heard. It was something he felt—like it had been carved into his bones. The anger. The grief. The purpose.
He stumbled back from the ring, clutching his chest.
"What the hell is happening to me?" he gasped.
The checkpoint orb pulsed once, then went dark.
"Chaos Signature accepted. Fragment retrieved."
Orin looked down.
A symbol was glowing faintly on the back of his hand—almost like circuitry. Faint. Red. Angular.
The pain ebbed. And for the first time, he realized something: his side didn't hurt as much. His ribs were still tender, but the sharpness was gone. His breathing, steadier.
"…It's healing me."
He looked at his hands. They weren't trembling anymore.
"Not fast. But… yeah. I'm recovering."
The hum inside his chest had changed. It wasn't as wild, as erratic. It was calmer. Not quite restful. But less like a scream and more like a whisper.
He sat at the edge of the clearing, staring at the corrupted ring.
Whatever this place was, it wasn't just a copy of a game. It was something deeper. Something alive. And it was using his memories—of Shadow, of himself—to change him.
But why?
Hours passed. Or maybe minutes. Time still didn't feel right here.
He was resting, eyes half-closed, when he heard a sound—metal dragging across stone.
He stood, instantly alert, body still aching but functional.
From the treeline emerged something tall, lumbering, and partially broken.
A machine. At least, it used to be.
Its paint was faded, but Orin recognized the design: a combat droid, vaguely familiar. It looked like one of Omega's model line—but wrong. The right side of its face was melted, wires exposed like torn veins. One glowing green eye flickered as it turned toward him.
"Target identified," it said in a voice full of static. "Not from this cycle."
Orin backed up, fists clenched. "I'm not looking for a fight."
"No fight. Observation. You are anomaly-class. Temporal distortion attached. Recent use of Chaos Control logged."
"…You were watching?"
The machine paused. Almost thoughtful.
"This world… loops. Shatters. Rebuilds. You are… new code. Unsynced. Dangerous."
Orin didn't know what to say to that.
Finally, the machine added:
"If you proceed, you will break more than time."
It turned away.
"Signal Source detected northwest. Chaos frequency: unstable. High threat."
Then, it simply walked away, dragging its melted foot behind it.
Orin stared after it, mind spinning.
A signal source. A threat. Another piece of the puzzle.
Another fight.
He looked down at his hands again.
Still trembling. Still healing.
But steady enough.
"Guess I'm not done yet," he muttered.
Then he turned toward the northwest—toward whatever came next.