Chapter 2: A Twenty-Seven-Year-Old Scar

The harsh neon glow of the Hunter's Plaza dissolved, melting away into a pristine, sterile white. For a fleeting moment, Lin Yu wasn't standing on the grimy pavement, coins digging into his palm, but lying on a bed with sheets so crisp they rustled with his every breath. The air didn't smell of street food and exhaust fumes; it smelled of antiseptic and filtered oxygen.

The memory was a scar, one that never quite faded. It was his genesis, the first page of a book he couldn't remember writing.

Five years ago.

He had woken up to the quiet, rhythmic beep of a vital-signs monitor. His first sensation was a dull, throbbing ache at the base of his skull, a deep and persistent pain that felt ancient. He opened his eyes, blinking against the gentle, indirect light of the room. Everything was white: the walls, the ceiling, the thin blanket covering him. A single, massive window dominated the far wall, its smart-glass currently opaque, blocking the outside world.

He tried to sit up, but a wave of vertigo sent the room tilting. His muscles felt weak, atrophied, as if they hadn't been used in a lifetime. He looked down at his hands, turning them over. They were the hands of a boy, slender and uncalloused. He felt a profound sense of dislocation, a feeling that his mind and his body were strangers who had just been introduced. Who was he?

The name Lin Yu surfaced in his mind, but it felt hollow, a label on an empty box.

The door hissed open, and a man and two women in immaculate white uniforms entered. They moved with a serene, practiced calm that was both reassuring and deeply unsettling. The man, whose name tag read Dr. Alistair Chen, had a kind face, crinkled at the corners of his eyes, and a smile that didn't quite seem to reach them.

"Good morning, Lin Yu," the doctor said, his voice smooth and melodic. "It's wonderful to see you awake. My name is Dr. Chen. Do you know where you are?"

Lin Yu tried to speak, but his throat was dry, the words catching like sand. He managed a weak, raspy, "No."

"You're in the New Dawn Civic Hospital," Dr. Chen explained, his tone patient and soothing, like he was calming a frightened animal. "You've been with us for quite some time. You were involved in an accident. A very serious one."

The doctor's words were the key, unlocking a terrifying fragment of memory. Fire and screaming. The sky, torn open and bleeding crimson and orange. A deafening roar that wasn't just heard but felt in his bones, a sound that shook the very foundations of the world. And then, a searing, blinding light, followed by an absolute, crushing blackness.

"The meteorites…" Lin Yu whispered, the words coming more easily now.

Dr. Chen's smile tightened for a fraction of a second. "Precisely. The Great Meteor Fall of '62. A tragic day for all of humanity. You were found in the wreckage of a collapsed building. A miracle you survived, really. You sustained a significant head injury, which has resulted in… well, some memory loss is to be expected. You've been in a coma ever since."

A coma. The word hung in the air, heavy and unreal.

"What… what year is it?" Lin Yu asked, dread coiling in his stomach.

"It is the year 2084," Dr. Chen said, his delivery perfectly matter-of-fact.

The number didn't compute. Lin Yu's mind scrambled, trying to grasp the impossible scale of it. 2084. The meteor fall was in 2062. His eyes widened in horror. "Twenty-two years?" The question was a strangled gasp. "I've been… asleep for twenty-two years?"

One of the nurses, a woman with an equally placid smile, stepped forward and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder. Her touch was firm but strangely cold. "It's alright. I know this must be a shock. But you should know, there have been incredible advancements while you were sleeping."

Dr. Chen nodded enthusiastically. "Indeed. One of the greatest boons to come from the '62 event was the accelerated pace of our technology. In the face of near-extinction, humanity accomplished wonders. The most significant discovery was made in 2067. We call it Chrono-Stasis. We effectively halted the cellular aging process for humanity."

Lin Yu stared at him, uncomprehending.

"It means we don't get old anymore, dear," the nurse explained gently. "Not in the way people used to. You went into your coma in 2062. The technology was implemented five years later. So, while twenty-two years have passed, you've only physically aged five of them. You were found when you were twelve. Biologically, you are now seventeen."

Seventeen. In the body of a seventeen-year-old boy, he was a thirty-four-year-old man, a temporal paradox created by twenty-two years of stolen sleep. The numbers spun in his head, meaningless and horrifying. He felt a hysterical laugh bubble up in his throat, but he choked it back down.

"The world is very different now, Lin Yu," Dr. Chen continued, his voice taking on an almost evangelical fervor. "Safer. Stronger. The meteorites didn't just bring destruction. They brought… opportunity."

He gestured towards the large window. "Please, see for yourself."

With a soft chime, the opaque smart-glass cleared, becoming perfectly transparent. Lin Yu's breath hitched.

He wasn't looking at a city. He was looking at a dream, or a nightmare. Skyscrapers of impossible heights clawed at the sky, their surfaces a patchwork of gleaming metal, dark glass, and cascading holographic advertisements that flowed like digital waterfalls. Sleek, silent vehicles zipped between the towers on rivers of light. The sky itself was a canvas of purple and orange, the setting sun fighting for dominance against the relentless glow of a thousand neon signs.

And then he saw them.

Scattered across the cityscape, nestled between the futuristic towers, were shimmering, distorted patches of reality. They looked like massive, vertical panes of fractured glass, reflecting the city in a thousand broken ways. They pulsed with a soft, internal light, a constant, silent hum of energy that he could feel even through the hospital window.

"The Doors," Lin Yu breathed, the name coming to him unbidden, another fragment from a life he didn't know.

"The very same," Dr. Chen beamed. "The craters left by the meteorites stabilized into these… gateways. Portals to other dimensions. We call them 'Layers.' Dangerous places, to be sure, teeming with monstrous creatures. But they are also filled with unimaginable resources, artifacts, and power. They are the engine of our new world. They are how we grew strong."

Dr. Chen explained the 'System,' a game-like interface that had integrated with humanity, allowing them to choose roles—Warriors, Sorcerers, Archers—and gain skills to venture into the Doors. It was a world of Hunters and monsters, of levels and loot. A world rebuilt from the ashes, stranger and more dangerous than anything he could have imagined.

He felt a profound, gut-wrenching sense of alienation. This wasn't his world. He didn't belong here. He was a ghost, a relic of a time before the sky fell, woken up in a future that felt more like a fantasy novel than reality. The doctor's words, the nurses' smiles, the impossible city outside the window—it all felt like a meticulously crafted stage play, and he had been thrust onto the stage without a script.

The doctor placed a data-slate in his hands. It detailed his new identity, his government-assigned stipend, his discharge papers. A new life, pre-packaged and ready to go.

"The world is waiting for you, Lin Yu," Dr. Chen had said, his smile unwavering. "Welcome to the year 2084. Welcome to the dawn of a new age."

Present day.

The memory dissolved, leaving Lin Yu standing in the chaotic plaza, the cold coins still in his fist. The kind-faced doctor, the sterile white room, the stunning view of the new world—it all felt like a lifetime ago. The initial shock had long since curdled into a weary, bitter acceptance.

The dawn of a new age. For others, maybe. For him, it had been the beginning of a five-year prison sentence. His integration into the System, the ceremony every citizen went through, had failed. A power outage, they'd said. A one-in-a-billion fluke. It had left him scarred, incomplete. A Zero.

He looked across the sea of faces, at the powerful Hunters and the bustling merchants, at the world built on a foundation he could never stand on. He was a man out of time, a boy who had aged but not grown, a scar left over from a world that no longer existed.

And standing in the middle of it all, waiting for him, was Su Wan. His gaze locked onto hers, the one fixed point in his spinning, chaotic universe. He took a deep breath, the city air still tasting of ash and ozone, and began to walk toward her.