Chapter 1:The Crack in the sky

Chapter 1 — The Crack in the Sky

They said the sky shattered a hundred years ago.

Not broke. Not exploded. Shattered—like glass, like the heavens themselves gave up trying to hold it all together. No one truly knows what caused it. Some blamed the mages. Others whispered about ancient weapons, forgotten gods, or something worse.

What really mattered was what came next.

From the broken sky fell things. Creatures. Shards. Power. Madness.

The old governments panicked. Cities collapsed. Nations burned. In the chaos, the remaining world leaders joined forces and built Veyruum—a colossal city the size of six countries welded together with steel, fear, and too many rules.

They walled it off, called it humanity’s last safe zone.

But even that wasn’t really safe.

Outside Veyruum, in the wild, twisted forests and ruined lands, something else grew—old shadows, new nightmares, and broken things looking for meaning… or blood.

Damon was born into the aftermath. He didn’t know peace or how things used to be. All he had was a small bunker in the forest, a dull knife, and a wolf named Hopper.

And fear.

So much fear.

He flinched at thunder. Shook when he saw blood. He froze when people screamed. It wasn’t weakness. It was honesty. Damon didn’t pretend to be brave. He wasn’t.

But something was changing.

He could feel it.

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“You’re staring at the ceiling again,” Hopper said, sprawled out beside Damon on the thin mattress in the bunker.

“I’m thinking.”

“You always say that when you’re scared.”

“I’m not scared.”

Pause.

“I’m terrified,” Damon admitted.

The wolf huffed, his icy blue eyes glowing faintly in the dim light. “You’ll be okay. You have me.”

“Yeah,” Damon whispered, managing a smile. “I do.”

He sat up, rubbing his eyes. The bunker walls were covered in chalk lines—marking days, thoughts, and failed plans. Damon had spent the last year sketching possible routes out of the forest, drawing weapon designs he didn’t know how to build, and writing lists of things he was afraid of.

The last one was the longest.

“I think I need to leave soon,” he said. “Go out there. Try to be more than this.”

Hopper lifted his head. “You’re already more. You just don’t see it yet.”

There was a silence between them. Comfortable, but heavy.

Damon stood and walked toward the metal door. He hesitated, hand on the handle. The world outside was brutal. He’d seen it. Heard it. Smelled it.

But it was also beautiful. And alive.

And he was tired of hiding from it.

He opened the door.

Sunlight spilled in like a flood of gold and heat. The forest was quiet, for now. Trees reached up toward the fractured sky, vines shimmered with faint bioluminescence, and somewhere in the distance, something howled.

Damon took a breath.

One step.

Then another.

Hopper followed, silent but steady.

The world had cracked. Monsters roamed. Cursed weapons existed. Shards of magic still fell from the heavens, and people hunted each other for power.

But Damon walked forward anyway.

He didn’t know where the road led.

He only knew it was time to begin.

[End of Chapter 1

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