Ether: Pulse of the Forgotten

There was no warning.

One moment, you were sitting in your room, phone in hand, scrolling through the same recycled nonsense. The next—a flash of pale blue light. Weightlessness. Silence thick enough to smother your heartbeat. Then the sensation of falling.

Not figurative. Falling.

The wind tore at your clothes as the world shifted around you—a sky of dull silver, clouds stretched thin like veins of smoke, and below, a vast forest of endless green waiting to swallow you whole.

Around you, scattered in the void, were others. Half a dozen, maybe more. Faces twisted in panic. Limbs flailed as gravity claimed them. Among them, Sasha.

She screamed your name through the rush of wind.

"Kai!"

You twisted midair, found her falling just ahead. Same long black hair. Same soft brown eyes, wide now with pure fear.

You reached for her. Caught her wrist. "I got you!"

The system's voice hit before the ground did.

 [Tutorial Initiation: Commence.]

[Survive.]

Impact.

The world shattered into reality around you. You hit the ground rolling, dirt and leaves and shattered branches breaking your fall. Pain flared through your side, but nothing lasting. You coughed, staggered up, and scanned the area.

Trees. Massive ones. Bigger than anything back on Earth. The air was thick, heavy—not just humid, but charged. Like the world itself was holding its breath.

Sasha landed hard nearby, groaning as she pushed herself up. You were already moving toward her before she finished standing.

"You okay?" you asked.

She nodded, brushing hair from her face. "I... think so. Where the hell are we?"

You looked up. The sky was the same dull silver. No sun. No stars. Just an endless ceiling of muted light.

"I don't know," you said, but the truth was... part of you did. Not from experience. Instinct. Something deeper.

And then the next line hit. The one you'd been waiting for without knowing why.

 [Mana has been introduced.]

It was instant.

You felt it—no, you saw it.

The moment mana entered the air, something ancient inside you stirred. A pulse behind your eyes. A burning thread winding its way down your spine.

You staggered.

"Kai?" Sarah's voice came distant, muffled.

Your vision blurred, then sharpened beyond anything you'd ever known.

Colors fractured. Lines shifted. And as if the world itself had been nothing but static until now.

Silver. Pure silver flooded your irises. Shifting lines spiderwebbed across your pupils, weaving into infinite patterns, constantly in motion, constantly analyzing.

The world wasn't just visible anymore. It was laid bare.

The flow of mana. The currents of energy rippling through the trees, the grass, the very air itself. You could see them. You could feel them. And more importantly, you could control them.

And just like that...

You weren't normal anymore.

"Your... your eyes," Sarah whispered, taking a step back.

The others around you—strangers dragged into this same nightmare—noticed too. Their gazes darted between you and Lia, murmuring under their breath.

"What the hell is that?"

"Was that supposed to happen?"

"Is that... an ability?"

You didn't answer. You couldn't. You were too busy watching the world come alive in ways you'd never imagined.

Similar to mana but distinct energy pulsed everywhere. In everything. You raised your hand, and it moved with you, swirling like threads of liquid light through your fingertips.

And then, as if summoned from the void itself, the first creatures appeared.

Monsters.

Long, gangly things with bone-thin limbs and jagged maws. Their skin shimmered like wet stone, eyes glowing faintly yellow.

They were fast. Too fast.

Someone screamed.

You didn't.

Instead, you breathed.

And as the first monster lunged for you, you whispered the words that felt like muscle memory.

Energy coiled around your palm. A sphere of swirling, silent force, barely visible but dense enough to bend the air itself.

The creature never stood a chance.

The sphere struck its chest—no explosion, no sound. Just sudden stillness. Then the monster crumpled, lifeless, its insides shredded, its body collapsing inward with a muted thud.

The others froze.

Sasha stared.

For a long time after the creature's body hit the dirt, no one spoke. 

The man in question didn't even realize himself what he did, what he'd become, but the transformation was already well underway, from a blue color worker into a monster.

_____

Kai's heart pounded in his ears. Not from the kill—he barely understood how it had happened. It was reflex. Instinct. One second, panic; the next, his hand was raised, and something unseen had answered his call.

And now this thing—whatever it was—lay motionless at his feet.

[You have slain Cave Dweller - Level 2.]

He stared at his own palm, flexing his fingers.

"What… the hell did I just do?"

"Your eyes…" Sasha's voice broke the silence.

Kai turned toward her. She wasn't looking at the monster. She wasn't looking at the wound it had taken or the way it lay crumpled like discarded fabric.

She was staring at him.

Or more specifically, the silver in his irises, the shifting lines that hadn't stopped moving since mana first swept through the air.

"I don't know," Kai admitted, voice low, rough. "I don't know what's happening."

Sasha didn't reply. She just nodded once and stepped back, keeping space between them.

The others murmured among themselves. Quiet. Nervous. Kai couldn't blame them.

They were all strangers here. A random group thrown together in some alien forest, fighting to survive against monsters none of them had seen before.

Kai knelt beside the creature's body. Up close, it looked less monstrous, more pathetic. Its limbs were thin, brittle. Its skin was rough and uneven, like stone scraped raw. He touched it carefully, half-expecting it to dissolve or vanish into particles, like in some game.

But no. It was just dead.

And the worst part was… he hadn't even meant to kill it.

When the mana entered the world, when that system message flashed in his mind, something inside him had shifted without his permission. He didn't know what changed about his eyes or why he suddenly saw shimmering lines in the air. He didn't know why energy responded to him like a trained animal.

It wasn't his power. Not yet.

It felt like a loaded gun in his hand without a safety. And he had no idea if he'd just fired a warning shot or started a war.

"…We should move," one of the other survivors said, some guy Kai hadn't even caught the name of yet. "If there's more of those things out here…"

"Yeah," Sasha agreed quietly. "We need shelter. Food. Water. Weapons."

Kai stood. "Yeah. Let's go."

But even as they gathered their things and started walking, Kai couldn't stop glancing at his hand.

The sphere. Whatever it was. Whatever he'd done…

It hadn't drained him.

It hadn't hurt.

It felt easy.

Too easy.

_____

The first day passed in silence.

They walked until their legs burned, until the sky—if it could even be called that—dimmed into something resembling night. There was no sun, only shifting hues of dull silver and gray, like the world couldn't make up its mind.

They found a cave by dusk. Large enough to fit the group, deep enough to keep them hidden.

Sasha sat by the entrance, hugging her knees to her chest, watching the treeline like something might leap from the shadows at any moment.

Kai sat beside her, leaning against the wall, exhaustion setting into his bones.

"We're not ready for this," Sasha whispered.

Kai didn't answer right away. He watched the forest, the way the wind barely stirred the branches. It felt wrong. Like they'd been dropped into a painting where nothing moved unless you touched it first.

"You're right," he said eventually. "But we're here."

She glanced sideways at him. "And your eyes?"

Kai exhaled through his nose, rubbing his temples. "I don't know. I've never seen anything like this."

Something deep inside him, was awake and waiting.

They slept in shifts that night. The fear of more creatures kept everyone on edge.

But nothing came.