The first thing you notice is the humming.

It’s low and steady, like the sound of machinery behind a wall — a sound that feels more alive than it should. When you open your eyes, the world around you is drenched in soft, grey light, as if the sun is trapped behind layers of smoke.

You’re standing — no, waiting — on what looks like the edge of a street that could belong to any city. The pavement is cracked, the road lines half-erased, and an empty intersection stretches out ahead of you. To your left, a row of shuttered storefronts slump like they’ve been abandoned for decades; to your right, the outline of something like a monorail track hangs in the distance, looping into a fog that swallows the horizon.

There’s no one else around.

At least, not at first.

A digital chirp cuts through the quiet — the unmistakable sound of a notification, except you can’t place where it came from. Then, in front of you, a panel of light flares into being midair. Words begin to type themselves across it in a clean, precise font:

[SYSTEM ONLINE.] [Welcome, User.]

The text blinks, then changes.

[Identity: Undetermined.] [Location: Unknown Node.] [Status: Undefined.]

Before you can process what any of that means, the panel ripples like disturbed water and collapses into a single hovering cursor, waiting — almost expecting — a response.

Around you, the world feels unstable. You notice the sky isn’t exactly sky — there’s a subtle grid pattern behind the clouds, faint lines like the texture of paper or the surface of an unfinished program. The wind carries the faint scent of metal, dust, and something sharper, almost electric.

And then, from somewhere behind you, you hear it — footsteps.

Not heavy, not hurried. Careful.

A voice follows. Calm, unhurried, but strangely direct:

“You made it here… faster than I thought.”

You turn — but the source of the voice is swallowed by the fog. There’s only a silhouette, distant but present, framed against the empty road.

The figure doesn’t move closer, doesn’t gesture, doesn’t demand. They just wait, the way the cursor waits, the way the whole empty street seems to be waiting for you to do something first.

The air feels heavier now.

You have the sense — the certainty — that whatever you say, whatever you do next will define everything that happens from here on.