Chapter 0: The Observer
"When time fractures, even gods forget how the story began." — Unknown
The stars did not shine in this sky.
They pulsed—erratic, sickly—like the fading neurons of a dying mind.
A black void stretched overhead, cracking like ancient glass, streaked with veins of gold that hummed softly in an alien rhythm. Below that fractured heaven, the world was dead. Or perhaps… not born yet.
At the intersection of endings and beginnings, a man stood alone.
He was dressed in black from head to toe, but his cloak carried veins of gold that shimmered like lightning beneath obsidian silk. A long katana rested along his back, its hilt etched with shifting celestial runes. A gun — equally black and gold — rested holstered on his left thigh. The mask on his face bore no mouth, no eyes. Just a single vertical slit that pulsed like the pupil of a sleeping god.
He was known only by one name.
Author.
No one knew where he came from.
No one knew when he first appeared.
But every version of this world had a page with his fingerprint on it.
He stood at the edge of a broken cliff, high above the remnants of a reality he had once let burn. Windless air circled him like whispered regrets. His hand rested lightly on the hilt of his sword, though there was no danger in this place.
Only memory.
A single, flickering journal hovered beside him—suspended in time. Its pages flipped slowly on their own, displaying scenes that had not yet happened.
"She's waking up," he said to the silence. "Again."
Below, in a city of glass and ash, a 14-year-old girl stirred in her bed—her dreams spiraling into chaotic images of blood, betrayal, and fire. Her name was Syra Kaelion. Daughter of Ares, last wielder of the Keys of Heaven, and unwitting executioner of the man she would come to admire most.
Author's fingers twitched. A ripple spread through space itself. He tilted his head.
"Every story wants to begin the same way," he whispered. "But not this one."
Scene 1: The Rift Between
He stepped forward, and the world reshaped itself. The cliff vanished. The dead sky blinked out.
Now he stood in the Vault of Broken Timelines, a dimensional corridor where each door led to a different possibility. One path showed Syra dying in the womb. Another, her rising as the new Queen of Hell. Another, where she never existed at all.
He walked past them without pause.
"The Archivists were wrong to erase her," he muttered, brushing dust off one cracked door. "They thought the key could be removed. But the cipher is blood, and she is the only one born from flame and oath."
He paused at a door glowing red. It shook with rage, splinters breaking free from its frame.
"Locked," he said. "For now."
He reached the final door: golden, but rotting. Half-open, as if unwilling to close completely. He stepped through it.
Scene 2: The Dream Before
A field of flowers—silver petals on black stems—waved soundlessly beneath a pink sky. Here, in this preserved moment, time froze seconds before it was destroyed.
Syra, at age three, danced through the flowers. Her father watched nearby—Ares Kaelion, tall, fierce, cloaked in silence and sorrow. He hadn't yet shattered the Key. He hadn't yet been betrayed.
Author didn't approach them. He simply watched.
"This was the last day she smiled," he said aloud. "Before prophecy chased them. Before blood stained her hands."
From his sleeve, he pulled a thin shard of the future—a broken mirror that showed Syra at fourteen, kneeling beside her dying father.
"Why… why didn't you tell me?"
"Because only you could stop me."
He closed the mirror.
Scene 3: The Circle of Lies
The flowers disintegrated. The sky cracked.
Author stood again in the void—his void—above Earth and Hell intertwined.
Seven pieces of the Heaven Key scattered across dimensions. Ares had made that choice. Lucian had made his betrayal. But it was Syra who would carry the weight.
And Author? He would carry the pen.
He turned to his floating journal and pressed two fingers to its surface. Pages turned rapidly until a blank one remained.
He began to write.
"Day 0: The Fall Begins."
Far below, Syra awoke with a gasp. The world outside her window was already rumbling.
Scene 4: Echoes of Ares
Author appeared next in a fragmented moment—the last conversation between Ares and Lucian.
They stood at the cliffside fortress, moonlight split across their blades.
Lucian: "You're clinging to dead gods, brother. There's no salvation in their ashes."
Ares: "It's not salvation I want. It's silence. Peace for her."
Lucian lunged forward. Steel clashed.
From afar, Author observed.
"This duel happens in every timeline," he mused. "Some things even I cannot rewrite. But I can… delay."
He snapped his fingers.
Time halted. Blood froze in midair. The sword's edge hung inches from Ares's throat.
"I can't stop it," he whispered, almost to himself. "But I can guide the child."
Scene 5: The Rewrite Begins
Author stood once more above the cityscape of 2099. Rain fell upward here. Cars froze mid-explosion. Buildings twisted into impossible angles.
His golden eyes glowed behind the mask.
Below, Syra was already walking toward her destiny—toward betrayal, toward loss, toward a future with fire in her veins and judgment in her hands.
Author (softly): "She doesn't know it yet. But she is the Key. And the world will hunt her for it."
He opened his journal one last time and tore out a page.
It fluttered down through the void—through layers of memory, magic, and future—until it landed on Syra's doorstep.
She would find it in two days. She would think it a warning.
It was a map.
Final Scene: The Observer Moves On
The stars began to pulse again. The rift above him widened. A voice, ancient and curious, echoed in the dark:
???: "You interfere too much."
Author: "I interfere just enough."
???: "You cannot save them."
Author (smiling): "No. But maybe… she can."
And with that, Author stepped back into the shadows.
The story had begun.
But the rewrite?
It had only just started.