Chapter 1: The Withering Begins

The world didn’t end in fire or flood.

It ended in breathlessness.

At first, the illness was called The Withering Flu. Harmless, they said. Just another mutation of a common respiratory virus. But within weeks, it swept through cities like an invisible wildfire, and what began as coughs turned into a slow, irreversible erosion of the lungs. People stopped breathing—not all at once, but piece by piece, cell by cell, as though something had told their bodies to forget how.

In the crowded ER of St. Vincent Biocenter in Manila, Dr. Abner Campenciño’s gloves were soaked in antiseptic and blood. The body on the table was no longer a patient—it was a memory.

His daughter.

Maris.

She had only been twelve.

He stood frozen, the chaotic sounds around him fading to a low murmur as her small, unmoving body lay before him. Her hand, once warm and clumsy in his, now curled like dry petals against the sterile sheets. The ventilator beeped once, then stopped. He didn’t need the nurse to confirm what he already knew.

The Withering had claimed her.

He tore off his gloves.

For a man who had once been nominated for the International Biomedical Genius Award, the silence of failure was deafening.

Outside the hospital, the world was unraveling. News anchors, once polished and poised, now spoke with tremors in their voices. Satellite images showed entire villages in Africa and parts of Asia going dark—no power, no people, no answers.

Scientists couldn’t explain it. No bacteria. No virus. No traceable pathogen. Just degradation. Microscopic tissue damage, as if cells had lost the will to replicate. Conventional medicines failed. Vaccines offered no immunity. Even cutting-edge nanotech couldn't reverse the decay.

The Withering was not something to be fought—it was something to be understood.

And that terrified everyone.

Two months after Maris’s death, Dr. Campenciño was a ghost of his former self. Once hailed as the father of neural biosynthesis, he now spent his days watching archived footage of his daughter’s laughter. He'd abandoned his lab at the university. Manila's air, once vibrant with the buzz of jeepneys and vendors, now felt stale. Curfews, lockdowns, and whispers of hopelessness blanketed the city.

Then, one night, the call came.

It was from an encrypted line—an international research contact from Norway. Her voice was terse, direct.

“Abner, we found something buried in the Larsen C ice shelf. A containment vault... very old, not human in design.”

He said nothing.

“The readings are abnormal. Radiation-neutral, thermally stable. But inside... there’s a gas. Contained. Alive.”

His brows furrowed. “Alive?”

“That’s the only word we have for it. And it reacts to tissue samples with cellular restoration. Complete regeneration. Not just healing—rebuilding.”

He sat up straight.

“We want you. It responds to biological commands, but only under very specific frequencies. We've tried over a dozen specialists. It reacts to no one else. Except your sequence.”

He blinked. “You ran my DNA without permission?”

“This isn’t about permissions anymore, Dr. Campenciño. This is about survival.”

He arrived at the research station near the Antarctic shelf three days later. The world had all but forgotten about exploration—the only thing now being explored was death. But the vault buried in the ice wasn’t natural. It was octagonal, inscribed with what looked like crystalline veins pulsing faintly from the inside.

When they opened it, the gas did not escape.

It waited.

Swirling. Bright. Pale cyan and silver, glowing like a living mist.

Abner stepped forward and placed a gloved hand on the glass. To the shock of every scientist present, the gas surged toward him, mimicking the shape of his hand—separated only by millimeters of reinforced transparent alloy.

It responded to him.

They called it Abneron.

Named after him.

They began controlled experiments immediately.

Abneron didn’t spread. It had no odor, no weight. But when introduced into damaged biological tissue, the results were beyond comprehension. Dead muscle revived. Cancerous cells restructured themselves into healthy tissue. A lab rabbit with a severed spine regained mobility in thirty-six hours.

Abner watched it happen with breathless disbelief.

In a matter of weeks, Abneron outperformed every known cure in history. Its gaseous properties allowed it to diffuse gently through any material—no need for injections, no surgery. It repaired the body like it had a blueprint to reference. It didn’t just heal—it restored. Some called it a miracle. Others called it magic.

Abner called it… redemption.

And yet, as he stared into the swirling containment chamber late one night, alone, he couldn’t help but wonder.

Where had it come from?

Why was it responding to him—and only him?

And above all…

What had it been waiting for?

End of Chapter 1

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