Echoes of Oblivion

The silence inside the pod was suffocating. Aarav could hear nothing but his own heartbeat pounding against his ribs. The glass surrounding him was cold, fogging slightly with his breath. A soft hum vibrated through the walls, and then—

Light.

Blinding, golden light flooded his vision as the pod hissed open. Aarav stumbled out, disoriented, his knees nearly giving way. His surroundings had changed again. The sterile metallic chamber was gone. Instead, he was standing in an open space—vast, endless, and eerily familiar.

A city stretched before him. Towering skyscrapers lined with glowing veins of energy. Hovering bridges connecting buildings. Airships drifting soundlessly through a sky that looked both artificial and infinite. The same city he had seen through the mirror.

But something was wrong.

It wasn't alive.

Everything looked abandoned. The lights flickered, some buildings crumbled as if time had left them behind. The sky was a static haze, frozen in a twilight that never shifted.

Aarav took a shaky step forward.

"You're remembering, aren't you?"

The voice came from behind. Aarav spun around.

Lyra stood there, watching him carefully. But there was something different about her now—an edge of hesitation, like she knew something he didn't.

"What is this place?" Aarav asked, his voice hoarse. "Where am I?"

Lyra exhaled. "Not where. When."

A chill ran down his spine. "What?"

She gestured to the city. "This was our world. Yours and mine. But it's been erased."

Aarav's pulse quickened. "That doesn't make sense. I—I've never been here before."

Lyra's golden eyes studied him, filled with something between sorrow and urgency. "You have," she whispered. "You just don't remember."

Before he could protest, the ground beneath them trembled. A deep, echoing vibration rippled through the air.

They weren't alone.

Lyra grabbed his wrist. "We have to move."

But Aarav didn't move. He was staring past her, at the skyline. At the giant, shifting figures moving between the abandoned towers. Silhouettes of something massive—their glowing red eyes cutting through the darkness like warning signals.

"Who are they?" His voice barely rose above a whisper.

Lyra tightened her grip. "The ones who erased us."

The ground quaked again. The shadows were getting closer.

"Run, Aarav!"

And then—

The sky shattered like broken glass.

A deafening hum filled the air, and everything around him collapsed into fragments of light. His vision blurred, his body felt weightless, like he was being pulled out of reality itself.

The last thing he heard was Lyra's voice, distant and desperate.

"Find the truth before they find you."

Then—

Nothing.