The city hummed with its usual indifferent drone—cars honking, distant sirens wailing, neon signs flickering through a misty drizzle. Arin Kade walked the cracked sidewalks of Lysara City, his shoulders hunched as if carrying the weight of every failure he'd ever known.
At twenty-one, Arin was invisible to the world.
No friends. No family. No future.
Just a string of dead-end jobs and cold nights alone in his cramped apartment.
He pulled the collar of his worn jacket tighter around his neck and stared down at the grimy street, where a stray dog rummaged through a trash bin. For a moment, the dog's desperate scavenging mirrored his own fight for scraps of dignity.
Today had been a low point—again.
---
The Humiliation
The morning started like any other, with Arin stepping into the glass-walled office of Virex Solutions. A private firm known for its cutthroat environment, where human lives were just cogs in a profit machine. Arin had worked there for nearly a year as a junior data analyst—a job he hated but needed.
His supervisor, a sharp-tongued man named Malik, was already waiting at his desk, arms crossed and eyes burning with disdain.
"Arin," Malik called without looking up, "I need those reports by noon. And don't mess them up like last week."
Arin nodded quietly, swallowing the lump forming in his throat.
But as the morning wore on, a small error—a typo in a spreadsheet—became Malik's excuse to make an example of him.
"Are you even trying?" Malik sneered during a meeting. "I swear, you're more useless than the data you handle. I'm done with your incompetence."
The room filled with laughter from colleagues. Arin's face burned with shame. The weight of their mockery pressed down, making his chest tighten.
When Malik handed him a resignation letter instead of the usual paperwork, Arin's world tilted.
"Sign it," Malik ordered. "Before I make sure you never work in this city again."
---
Walking Home
He didn't fight back.
Arin signed, gathered his belongings, and left the building without a word.
Outside, the rain had begun to fall, soft at first, then heavier. He pulled his jacket hood over his head and walked aimlessly through the maze of city streets, the neon lights blurring in his tired eyes.
With each step, memories clawed at him—his family's smiles, now just ghosts; the accident that took them all away two years ago; the crushing loneliness since.
He wondered if anyone even noticed when he vanished from their lives.
---
The Accident
As Arin crossed the street near the old industrial district, his mind still tangled in regrets, a speeding truck rounded the corner. Time slowed—a surreal bubble expanding around him.
A scream was lost beneath the screech of tires and the shattering of glass.
Metal collided with flesh.
---
Death's Threshold
Arin felt the world slip away.
Cold darkness embraced him like a lover, and then… silence.
No pain. No fear. Just an endless void where stars blinked softly in the black.
A voice shattered the calm—calm but powerful, ancient and unyielding.
"Welcome, Arin Kade."
A sphere of swirling blue light materialized before him, rotating slowly, embedded with glowing clocks and shifting symbols.
"You have crossed beyond death. The Chronos Core has chosen you."
The orb pulsed. Time itself seemed to warp and fold around Arin.
"You are granted the power to bend time, to travel dimensions, and to reshape fate. But such power carries consequences. Use it wisely, or be lost forever."
Arin's heart beat—something he thought would never happen again.
"Why me?" he whispered.
The orb's glow deepened.
"Because even the lost can change the course of eternity."
---
A New Beginning
Suddenly, his vision snapped back to the rain-soaked street, the sounds of the city rushing in.
His body was whole. Breathing. Alive.
But in his palm lay the glowing Chronos Core crystal—warm, humming with energy, a promise and a curse.
Arin looked up to the endless sky.
The world had ended for him once.
Now, it was beginning again.