I was supposed to be in a prison cell, not standing in a cold, white room with nothing but a chair and a floating screen.
The screen blinked. Then a soft beep.
Welcome, Marcus Vale. Sentence Confirmed. You have been selected for the SANCTUARY Initiative.Accept Terms to Proceed.
I stared at the words. A few hours ago, I'd been shackled, waiting for the guards to throw me into lockup. Then someone in a suit came in, said something about a "correctional gaming system" and "alternative rehabilitation," and next thing I knew, I was being injected with something cold and electric.
Now I was here.
I blinked. "Is this a VR sim?"
Nothing answered. Just the screen, humming like it was impatient.
Accept Terms?
I sighed. "Sure. What could go wrong?"
The screen pulsed, and the world tilted. My body felt like it fell backward through a tunnel. No wind, no sound—just weightless falling.
Then—
Pain.
Not real pain. Not like being stabbed. More like… being crushed from the inside out by guilt I didn't understand.
I hit something hard. Gravel. My head spun. I opened my eyes.
The world wasn't white anymore. It was gray. Dusty. Broken.
I lay on cracked stone, surrounded by low buildings that looked like someone had tried to render a medieval village but got lazy halfway through. The sky above was overcast, and the air smelled like rust and smoke.
There was a UI overlay blinking faintly at the edge of my vision.
Class: WRAITHBOUNDLevel: 0Experience: 0Soul Integrity: Fractured (1/10)Combat Access: LockedPrimary Objective: Seek Redemption
I groaned. "Locked combat? Seriously?"
I pushed myself up and stumbled to my feet. My clothes were plain—gray shirt, black trousers, no armor. I had a single item in my inventory: a tarnished chain. No sword. No skills. No hope.
"Great," I muttered. "They dropped me in as a tutorial boss."
A door creaked somewhere nearby. I turned, instinctively raising my hands.
Nothing attacked me. Yet.
Instead, an old man with a cart shuffled by. He didn't look up. His face was pale and tired. Like he'd seen too much and didn't care anymore.
"Hey," I called. "Where am I?"
The man paused, looked at me, then muttered, "One of the broken. Keep walking, ghost."
He pushed his cart away without another word.
I stood there, awkward and confused.
Wraithbound. That was my class? What did it mean? I opened the status screen.
WRAITHBOUND – A cursed class. You cannot gain experience through violence.You must seek redemption.Sins Echo. Pain Echoes. You will Echo.
Not super helpful. But the part about no violence? That felt like a bad joke.
How was I supposed to survive in a game world where I couldn't fight?
I wandered forward, keeping close to the walls. The town—or whatever this was—felt abandoned. Doors were shut, windows boarded. Somewhere in the distance, I heard a scream. Not the exciting kind. The kind that made your spine go tight.
I found a broken sign lying in the dirt. I flipped it over.
Welcome to DUSTEND. Confess. Cleanse. Continue.
I didn't like the sound of that.
"Confess, huh?" I said, mostly to keep myself from losing it. "Do I get bonus points if I say 'I'm sorry' with tears?"
A prompt appeared.
Confession Detected. Soul Integrity +1.
I froze. "Wait, what?"
The message stayed a second longer, then vanished.
I wasn't even serious. But somehow, the system thought I was? Or maybe it didn't care.
I checked my status again. My Soul Integrity had bumped up to 2/10. Still fractured. But not as bad.
"Well… okay then." I scratched my neck. "Maybe this is how I level."
I kept moving. Eventually, I found a wooden bench outside what looked like a chapel. It leaned to one side, windows shattered. A rusty bell sat in a cracked tower above.
I sat down.
My stomach growled. Did I even need to eat here? Did pain mean anything?
A notification dinged.
You are now in a Safe Zone.Meditation unlocked.
"Meditation," I said aloud. "Sure. Let me just zen my way out of guilt."
I tapped the option.
The world dimmed slightly. A warm glow wrapped around the edges of my vision. I felt… calm.
Not peaceful, exactly. But not drowning anymore.
A memory surfaced. A real one.
A car. Rain. Someone shouting my name. Then silence.
I shut it down.
Not now. I wasn't ready for that.
Another prompt popped up.
Memory Suppressed. Echo Delay Triggered.
"What does that mean?"
No answer, of course. The system loved being cryptic.
I stood up, brushing dirt from my pants. I didn't feel stronger. But I felt something. A direction. Like the game—or whatever this was—wanted me to move forward.
I turned toward the center of town.
Then a voice rang out behind me. Dry. Sarcastic.
"You don't walk like someone who's accepted his fate yet."
I spun.
A girl leaned against the chapel wall, arms crossed. She wore layered armor made from scrap parts, dyed black and red. Her eyes scanned me like I was a puzzle.
"Wraithbound, right?" she said. "Figures."
I blinked. "You can tell?"
"Only the Wraiths look that lost their first day."
She pushed off the wall and walked over.
"I'm Nell," she said. "Support-class dropout, semi-professional data scavenger, and your new best friend. Unless you get killed in the next hour, which is… honestly possible."
"…Marcus," I said.
"Yeah. Welcome to Sanctuary, Marcus. Try not to die before your first confession. It gets messy."