Chapter Text
The morning air was thick with the scent of rain, though the sky outside my window remained a dull, unwavering gray. My body was sluggish, unwilling to part ways with the comfort of my sheets. But something was wrong.
I felt it before I saw it—a warmth against my skin, like standing too close to a fire. My eyes fluttered open, and there it was.
A golden orb, hovering silently above my head.
It pulsed softly, as though breathing, casting a glow that danced along the ceiling. My heart pounded. I pushed myself upright, the mattress creaking beneath me.
And then it spoke.
"Take, or double it and give it to the next person?"
The voice was neither deep nor high, neither mechanical nor organic. It was… timeless. It filled the space, yet felt as though it came from within my own head.
I stared at the orb, my mind sluggish from sleep. "What?"
"Take, or double it and give it to the next person?" the orb repeated, patient, unyielding.
This had to be a dream. I pinched my arm. Hard. The sharp sting confirmed otherwise.
I swallowed. "Take what?"
The orb pulsed. "The gift. The burden. The choice."
That didn't help. I ran a hand through my hair, trying to shake off the drowsiness. "And if I take it?"
"The cycle breaks."
Something in those words sent a chill down my spine. I had heard of social experiments like this online—videos where a person was offered money and had to decide whether to keep it or pass it on. But this wasn't a camera prank. There was no stage, no audience.
Just me. And the orb.
"Who was the last person to take it?" I asked.
The orb pulsed again. "One thousand years ago."
I blinked. "A thousand?"
It didn’t respond.
I sat there, staring at the glowing sphere, my mind racing. If nobody had taken it for a millennium, did that mean the gift—or the burden—was growing exponentially? What kind of power was locked inside?
Would I be the fool to accept what a thousand years' worth of people had turned down?
Or was I about to claim something unimaginable?
My fingers twitched. The choice felt heavy, far heavier than it should have. And yet, as the seconds passed, I realized something deep in my gut: I wanted it.
"Take," I whispered.
The moment the word left my lips, the orb flared.
Blinding golden light engulfed my vision, forcing me to squeeze my eyes shut. A sensation flooded through me—not pain, not exactly. It was expansion. Like my body was a dam that had just burst open, and something powerful, ancient, and vast was flooding in.
I gasped, clutching my chest as an electric pulse shot through my veins. It wasn’t heat, nor cold, but a force beyond temperature, beyond sensation. My bones hummed, my mind burned with something too large to grasp. I felt as though I had lived a thousand lives all at once, as though a thousand whispered voices coiled inside me, overlapping, clashing, merging into something new.
And then, just as suddenly as it had come, the sensation vanished.
The light faded.
I was still sitting on my bed, still in my tiny apartment. But something was different.
The orb was gone. I lifted my hands. My skin looked the same. My room was unchanged. But deep inside, I felt other.
A whisper touched my thoughts. Not words—just an impression, a knowing.
The world had changed. And I was the reason why.
The rest of my morning was a blur. I stumbled to the bathroom, splashed cold water on my face, and stared at my reflection.
Same brown eyes. Same dark hair, messy from sleep. No golden glow, no cracks of energy in my skin. Just… me.
But something was different.
When I focused, I could hear things. Not sounds exactly, but thoughts. Not my own.
My neighbors. Their minds. Fragments of worries, of joys, of mundane concerns.
Where did I put my keys?
Don't forget to call Mom.
If I don’t get this promotion, I’m screwed.
I stumbled back, gripping the sink. The whispers faded.
I exhaled shakily.
What the hell had I done?
I tried to go about my day normally. I made coffee. I got dressed. But the moment I stepped outside, I felt it again—something off about the world.
The city buzzed as always, cars honking, people moving with the familiar rhythm of life. But beneath it, an undercurrent. A disturbance.
I wasn’t the only one who had changed.
I could see it in the way the wind moved—like it had a will. I could feel it in the way the earth vibrated beneath my feet—not from traffic, but from something else.
I caught snippets of conversations, stray thoughts slipping into my mind before I pushed them away.
And then I saw them.
A group of people gathered at the street corner, staring at a news broadcast playing on a giant screen above a building.
I joined them, my stomach tightening.
The screen showed live footage of a remote, desolate area. A crater. Smoke rising from the earth. Scientists, soldiers, and reporters swarmed the site.
"Early this morning, a massive impact was detected in the Wastelands, though experts confirm no meteor was recorded entering the atmosphere. The origin of this anomaly remains unknown."
A chill ran through me.
I knew where that crater came from.
It was the moment I had taken the orb.
A thousand years of energy, of power, of potential, all condensed into me—and the world had noticed.
I backed away, my pulse hammering.
This wasn’t just about me. I had broken something.
Or maybe… I had started something.
And I had no idea what would come next.