Book Three Prologue: Stairways to Nowhere

  Alexander

  When the knock came at the door, Alex’s instincts told him to ignore it. He stared at the scarred wooden threshold of his cramped, crumbling apartment, shadows twisting across peeling walls and a ceiling that drooped with exhaustion.

  The sharp, staccato knock shattered the silence again, each beat louder, more insistent. Alex’s pulse quickened, a drumline of nerves. This neighborhood bred caution like a second skin; doors only opened when certainty lay on the other side. The peephole, long covered by the last tenants, left behind a faint outline and a nagging sense of exposure. He should ask Albert to fix it—or at least cover the parts. Jason could do it; he was always good with his hands. Curiosity, that reckless taunt, pulled him forward.

  He cracked the door, squinting against the dim light spilling from the hallway. Standing there was not the trouble he expected, but a man in a pristine tan suit, shoes polished to a mirror sheen that reflected peeling ceiling above. On his chest gleamed a badge: Excelsior Technologies, the emblem of their dominion—a stylized bird with wings unfurled, talons gripping two gleaming spheres. The design struck a balance between majesty and menace, corporate authority disguised as grandeur.

  In his nineteen years, never had anything like this found its way to him—least of all here, where hope was an uninvited guest. Jason was gone, out on some vague errand that Alex suspected was more escape than necessity.

  “Excelsior Tech?” Alex muttered, disbelief sharpening his gaze.

  The man’s nod was a mechanical gesture, his face a mask devoid of human warmth. “I’m here on behalf of Excelsior Technologies,” he intoned, words clipped, devoid of inflection. A digital clipboard thrust into Alex’s hands felt weightier than its size suggested. “Sign here. Thumbprint and blood required.”

  “Blood?” The word left Alex’s mouth before he could stop it.

  The man’s eyes, blank as an unlit screen, offered no response. Instead, he gestured towards a panel on the box he held—a seamless blend of wood and metal, refined yet oddly primal. The compartment glinted in the flickering light. Alex hesitated for a heartbeat, then pressed his thumb to the panel, wincing as a hidden needle pierced his skin and drew a bead of crimson.

  A low hum reverberated beneath his fingertips, the box vibrating with a strange sentience. “Calibrating… sufficient sample,” the display read in sterile, cold letters. The man nodded once more, placed the box in Alex’s trembling hands, and disappeared down the hallway without so much as a parting glance.

  “Uh… thanks?” The word slipped out, barely audible beneath the echo of footsteps.

  Alex shut the door, the bolt sliding home with a metallic click. He cradled the box in his arms, its weight unsettlingly light. Breath hitching, he set it on the chipped kitchen table, the old wood creaking under the sudden burden. It sat there, silent and expectant, as if aware of its own importance.

  With hands that barely steadied, Alex unlatched the lid. It lifted with an ease that felt unnatural, revealing its contents: an embossed envelope and a sleek, metallic device that shimmered like liquid night. He tore the seal of the letter, scanning the words that leapt off the page in stark black ink.

  “Congratulations. You have been accepted into Mount Olympus University.”

  He blinked, the room contracting and swelling like a living thing. Mount Olympus University. The words pulsed in his mind, stirring echoes of sleepless nights spent hunched over borrowed books, Jason’s half-hearted reassurances when their funds dipped below the line of reason, and the whispered dreams they dared not say aloud. The scholarship exam, a fragile bridge between desperation and hope, had been their gamble. Jason had scoffed; disbelief laced with reluctant encouragement. Yet here it was—real, tangible, humming with the electric promise of something better.

  A sound broke the silence, raw and sudden. Laughter. His own, disbelieving and edged with hysteria. Alex’s gaze slid to the helmet, its design otherworldly, teetering on the edge of something almost organic, seamless and whole as though it had been forged in the heart of a star. He picked it up, its hum vibrating along his skin, almost… alive.

  Alex’s fingers traced the device as the front door creaked open. Jason stepped inside, shadows pooling beneath his eyes, a weight in his posture that lifted when he saw Alex. Whatever haunted him, Alex knew Jason would share when he was ready.

  “Is that—?” Jason’s words trembled, but hope still bled through each one.

  Alex nodded, a grin splitting his face. “I got in.”

  Jason’s smile was real, a flicker of who he used to be before life had stripped them bare. “That’s incredible, Alex. You deserve this.”

  Alex’s grin widened, face bright with a rare spark of hope. “This could change everything for us.”

  Jason let out a breath, the tension in his frame easing just a little. Alex’s excitement was infectious, the room filling with the possibility of something more than just surviving. Glancing at the letter again, Alex remembered the warning: the access codes would come separately, a layer of Excelsior’s infamous security protocols. But the urge to see what lay beyond the polished helmet was irresistible. He could at least test the connection, feel the edge of the unknown.

  He placed the helmet over his head, the smooth metal cool against his skin. It hummed softly, and then a small, transparent screen blinked to life before his eyes.

  Calibrating… DNA verification in progress.

  The letters were sharp, sterile, a white glow against the darkness.

  Alex’s breath caught as the hum deepened, a subtle vibration resonating through his skull. Suddenly, the world dissolved. The kitchen, the creaking walls, Jason’s watchful gaze—all of it vanished in a pixelated cascade, bleeding into shadow. The calibration screen melted away, leaving only a dark, inky expanse.

  He lifted his hands and stared. They were there, yet not—outlined in flickering pixels, shifting between solidity and static. Fingers curled experimentally, and the movement echoed with a delayed, ghostly shimmer. The void around him pulsed faintly, like a living heartbeat, its dark expanse stretching endlessly.

  Small motes of light, fragmented like shattered stars, blinked in and out, casting sharp, cold glimmers. There was no ground, yet Alex stood; there was no sky, yet space yawned above him, a vast emptiness. He flexed his fingers again, marveling at how they shimmered between his reality and this digital abyss.

  Loading environment…

  The voice that whispered from nowhere was mechanical, dispassionate, and with it came a faint vibration beneath his feet. A jagged shape began to form in the distance, pixelated and dark, something that promised both awe and the unknown.

  Alex’s world shifted abruptly, the pixelated darkness around him shuddering with an unfamiliar vibration. For an infinite moment, he was torn between two places—the cold, flickering void of the VR world and the sudden, jarring cacophony from outside. The next thing he knew, a crash ripped through his senses. His body lurched as Jason’s panicked shout penetrated the digital murk, reaching him like a distant echo.

  Before he could process what was happening, the helmet was yanked from his head, snapping him violently back into the real world.

  Light and sound crashed into him. He gasped, blinking rapidly, vision swimming. Everything blurred—Jason’s panicked face, the overturned chair, splintered wood strewn like jagged teeth across the floor. His head spun. The world tilted.

  Then came the boots—sharp, deliberate strikes on linoleum, each one louder than the last.

  The gang leader stepped into the chaos, scarred and seething, flanked by two men with cold, vacant eyes. His sneer cut through the room, flicking between Alex and Jason like a predator assessing prey.

  “Double trouble. Which of you is Jason?”

  Instinct overrode thought.

  “I am,” they both snapped, voices firm despite the fear pulsing underneath.

  The leader’s smile twisted, slow and dark.

  “Real cute. Guess we’ll have to beat the shit out of both of you.”

  The next moments blurred into a storm. A fist struck Jason’s stomach, doubling him over with a grunt. Alex’s chest tightened as he watched his brother stagger from another blow, each hit more brutal than the last. Rage and fear clashed inside him, sparking an unyielding protectiveness.

  “Stop it!” Alex yelled, surging forward. He grabbed at the leader’s arm, fingers digging into rough fabric. “Leave him alone!”

  A thug spun, expression glacial, and backhanded Alex with brutal precision. Pain exploded across his cheek, sending him sprawling to the floor, the metallic taste of blood sharp on his tongue. Alex pushed himself up, face flushed with defiance as he met the sneer of their attackers. “Bro, get out of here!”

  “Hey, look what we’ve got here,” one of the thugs called, his grin widening as he lifted the VR helmet. The room seemed to shrink as Alex’s pulse hammered in his ears, fear crystallizing into raw defiance.

  Reality fragmented. Alex’s vision split between the chaos of the apartment—Jason’s fists flying, a chair shattering against a thug’s ribs—and another world unfolding in the dark. Stars whirled like cold embers, and amid them skittered a creature, eyes glinting with mischief and menace. Its stare pinned him, cold fingers tracing his spine.

  Before he could comprehend what he was seeing, a boot crashed into his side. Pain ricocheted through him, and he hit the floor hard. Jason’s shout rang out, fierce and ragged, but already distant, drowned by the roar in Alex’s head.

  Alex’s vision swam, pain crashing over him in relentless waves. The chaos roared, muffled and dissonant, blurring the edges of reality. The helmet lay crumpled beneath the brute’s boot, its sleek metal now twisted and mangled, a hollow remnant of hope. Every breath clawed at his chest, sharp and unforgiving. Blood traced a jagged path down his face, warm and metallic on his tongue. He blinked it away, eyes locking on Jason’s frantic movements.

  Jason lunged, fists flying, creating just enough of a distraction to shift the room’s savage focus.

  “Now’s your chance, Alex! Run!” Alex’s shouted. He was trying to throw them all off, get them thinking that he was Jason. And… it worked, a little too well.

  Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more.

  Alex pushed himself up, determination flaring, but the room spun as the gang’s attention turned toward him. Fists and boots connected, each blow a starburst of pain that sent him reeling. He lashed out, catching one of them in the jaw, but it barely slowed them down. A wiry thug with a snake tattoo snarled, landing a kick that knocked Alex breathless. He hit the floor, vision darkening at the edges.

  “Please! Stop!” Jason’s voice cracked, raw with terror. Alex reached out, their eyes meeting for a fleeting moment that felt like an anchor. Another fist crashed down, breaking that contact, sending him sprawling.

  Every strike blurred into the next, pain folding over pain until it became a relentless wave. The gang leader stepped forward, a cruel smirk twitching at the corner of his mouth as he drove his boot into Alex’s ribs with bone-snapping force. The sickening snap echoed through the room, sharp and final. Alex’s body shuddered, the fight draining out of him, movements slowing.

  He could still hear Jason, desperate and hoarse, begging them to stop.

  The room dimmed, faces and shouts fading to shadows. Another kick, a white-hot flash behind his eyes. Then another presence filled the doorway. Alex’s heart jumped as a familiar voice followed—a voice he hadn’t heard in too long. Albert. He was here, come to help. A shotgun’s metallic click cut through the chaos, sharp and commanding. Pain flared bright, followed by darkness.

  The last thing Alex saw was Jason, still fighting to reach him, anguish carved deep into his expression before the world faded completely, leaving only silence and the fall.

  Darkness enveloped him, thick and suffocating. He was falling, the sensation endless and consuming, with no ground to meet him and no sky to pull him back. The black void stretched on, infinite and cold, swallowing him whole.

  His limbs flailed uselessly, reaching for anything to anchor himself, but there was only emptiness. The air rushed past, silent and heavy, pressing against his chest and stealing the breath from his lungs. The world spun, a relentless descent with no horizon, no end, only the deep, inky chasm.

  Specks of light flickered in the periphery, distant and teasing, only to fade into nothing before he could grasp them. The darkness seemed alive, speaking without a voice, shifting without form. The fall stretched on, timeless and eternal, a journey into the unknown where gravity itself felt like an illusion and the silence a prison.

  His mind reached for something familiar, anything to hold on to, but the void crushed every thought, leaving only the sensation of plummeting—down, down, deeper into the abyss. The fall ended not in suffocating blackness but in a peculiar, soft tug, as though unseen hands caught him and cradled him mid-descent. Light fractured through the void, shattering the dark into shards of shimmering color. The chaos lifted, revealing a cosmos stitched from swirling galaxies and stars, their light coiling and uncoiling like ribbons. Alex found himself floating, weightless, suspended in an infinite sky that felt both familiar and alien.

  When he reached out, his fingers met the cool, gritty texture of earth. He gripped it in his hands, and the world around him crawled into focus. The soft rustle of leaves and the rich scent of earth enveloped him, grounding him in this strange reality. He was lying on soft ground, the scent of damp soil and leaves rising to meet him.

  He stared up at the canopy of trees, their ancient branches weaving a lattice of shadows and light. The sky pierced through in fragmented shafts, dappling the forest floor with pools of silver and gold. He was somewhere deep within a forest, a place both serene and unsettling, where the sky only whispered its presence through the gaps above.

  He blinked, trying to make sense of it all, when a low, amused voice hummed from somewhere above. “Lost, are we?”

  Alex’s gaze snapped up. Perched on the branch of a twisted, gnarled tree that seemed to root in the void itself was a cat. Its fur shimmered with shifting hues of twilight, eyes like molten gold that blinked down at him with lazy curiosity. A long tail dangled below, swinging like a pendulum in the star-filled expanse.

  “Who...?” He began.

  The cat’s mouth stretched into a smile, full of mischief and secrets. “I’m Jack. And you, Alex, are extraordinarily lucky… and not.” The cat’s grin widened as it leapt gracefully from the branch, landing soundlessly on an invisible surface before him.

  “Where…” Alex began.

  “You’re in The In Between—a place between all places.”

  Alex’s head spun, the sound both strange and inexplicably familiar. His legs trembled as he tried to steady himself, taking in the way the stars bent and swirled around them, as if the fabric of reality itself was shifting.

  “The In Between? I don’t understand. Am I... dead?”

  Jack’s shoulders eased, a quiet warmth lingering in his smile. “Not dead, no. But not entirely whole either. You were torn, drifting across the cracks of existence. I couldn’t let that happen.” The cat’s tail flicked, and a strange light shimmered in its gaze. “I shouldn’t be here, you know. This world isn’t meant for beings like me. But when I saw you falling, I had to do something.”

  Alex’s throat tightened, a lump rising he couldn’t quite push down.

  “What…”

  “Yes.” Jack tilted his head, eyes glimmering with a knowing mischief. “This place thrives on the lost, on souls who wander too far and forget their way. They’ll devour without pause, without mercy. But you’re different, Alex. Surviving here will teach you why.” His tail swept lazily over the dark expanse, and for an instant, the stars themselves seemed to lean in, straining to catch his words.

  Alex parted his lips to question, but Jack’s purr sliced through the silence, soft and razor-sharp. “Hush, dear boy. Time here is fragile, and words are costly. Easy to enter, hard to leave. Few ever have, and fewer still lived to tell of it. Rare, yes. But not impossible.”

  “But—“ Alex tried again, urgency cracking his voice.

  “Very few paths lead out, and none you’d likely choose,” Jack said, his grin stretching wider, but his eyes sad. “This is not my domain, or I’d share more secrets. But every universe has its rules and quirks, and this one…” His words fell to a whisper, smooth as silk, laced with smoke. “This one dances to the rhythm of senseless things. It delights in the illogical, cradles madness like a cherished toy. Remember that, dear boy, before you make a move.”

  Jack sighed, his form rippling as if made from the breath of galaxies. The edges of his silhouette blurred, stardust trailing away into the yawning dark.

  “I can’t linger. This realm won’t suffer me long,” he continued, voice shifting, taking on an eerie, echoing quality. “Not all is as it seems, and what it seems isn’t all that it is. Remember, Alex—look beyond the obvious.”

  “Wait, please!” Alex reached out, the ache in his chest blooming into desperation.

  “Tut-tut,” Jack’s laughter drifted back, a sound both warm and unnervingly distant. His body dissolved like smoke on the breeze, leaving only the shimmer of stars that sighed as they retreated to their eternal dance. The silence was a heavy, sentient thing, watching and waiting.

  Alex stood alone, unmoving in the starlit expanse. “Just a dream,” he whispered, a mantra to anchor himself. He glanced down at his hands; they shimmered faintly, reminiscent of when he had connected to the Device. But now, they appeared ghostly, hollowed out, as if half his substance had been siphoned away, leaving only a memory of solidity.

  The Device… Jason! The memory surged back: the fight, the chaos, Jason’s face twisted with desperation. And then Albert—Bert—loomed in his mind, a friend so close he was practically family. His chestnut hair caught the light as he stood, shotgun in hand, posture taut with unshakable resolve. Jason had to be alright. Bert would never let anything happen to him.

  Alex shifted his weight. The ground beneath him felt solid enough, yet the sensation was strange, as if it held him on borrowed time. The first step sent a ripple through the world, like the surface of water trembling under a touch. Seasons shifted with every movement Alex made—one step forward and the air grew thick with the scent of spring, fresh rain on wildflowers; another step, and summer heat seared the space around him, heavy and all that was. He paused, heart thudding in his chest, and looked up. The sky twisted in an impossible kaleidoscope, colors bleeding and merging: vivid purples, electric greens, deep bruised blues that shimmered like the scales of a great serpent.

  Every direction held a promise of change. He turned to the left, and autumn leaves cascaded around him, their fiery colors swirling like embers caught in a storm. To the right, the world dipped into winter, frost creeping over the ground in delicate patterns, the air biting and cold. His breath turned to mist, and the chill seeped into his bones before the next step shattered the illusion, flinging him into another, stranger place.

  The ground beneath him felt as though it might break apart, shifting and reforming with each hesitant step. Soon, Alex found himself at the base of an impossible structure—a labyrinthine web of staircases, woven together like some fevered dream. They twisted and coiled, branching into directions that defied gravity and reason. Stairs climbed into the sky and plunged into the earth; some folded in on themselves, others led nowhere but to thin air.

  He stepped cautiously onto the first stair. It held. His pulse quickened, the air thick with an electric buzz that set his nerves on edge. He ascended, the surreal angles warping beneath his feet, his balance teetering as the structure seemed to bend and breathe. The stars above swirled faster, streaks of light slicing the sky, some hitting the distant horizon and exploding in silent flares.

  A sound, small and rustling, drew his attention. Shadows clustered in the corners of the stairwell. Eyes glinted within the darkness, dozens of them, too small and bright to belong to anything he knew. The creatures slithered into view, tiny, impish things with limbs that clicked and twitched. Their bodies were like shards of glass and black smoke, mouths filled with needle teeth that shone when they grinned. They fed on a spark of light at the bottom of the stairs, a dim, quivering glow that pulsed like a heartbeat. It looked like one of the fallen stars, fragile and flickering, its light struggling against the encroaching dark.

  He looked closer and realized it was no star. Alex’s heart seized at the sight—a bird-like creature, no bigger than his hand, feathers painted in impossible hues of red and blue that shimmered even in its broken state. It looked like something pulled from the depths of a dream. It was alive—its fragile form trembling under the strain of holding onto life.

  He felt a pang deep in his chest, a reminder of the dreams he once held. In another time, in another place, Alex would have been a veterinarian. He had always loved helping animals, being a guardian for those who had no voice of their own. But in a world that barely managed to take care of itself, that dream was as fragile as the bird before him. Still, animals remained symbols of hope and love, small, innocent reminders of a world that had once known both.

  The monsters swarmed it, tiny fangs digging in as they devoured the light it emitted. The bird twitched weakly, a soundless cry on its beak.

  “Shoo!” Alex shouted, rushing forward. He kicked out at the creatures, his foot connecting with a sickening, brittle crack. The tiny monsters scattered, hissing like steam as they fled into the crevices of the twisted stairways. He dropped to his knees beside the bird, hands trembling as he reached out.

  The creature’s eyes fluttered open, deep and dark, flecked with stardust. It looked at him, and then, impossibly, it smiled—a curve of its delicate beak that felt like a warm ember in his chest.

  “Are you here to eat me?” The voice was deep and resonant, yet it didn’t come from its throat. It thrummed in Alex’s mind, a telepathic whisper that filled the silence.

  “No.” Disgust tightened his throat, splintering his words. “I’d never hurt you.”

  The bird’s gaze searched his, softening with a look of disbelief. “Then why?”

  “You’re going to be okay.” He wavered with a desperation that surprised him.

  “Help… me?” It spoke again, surprise coloring its mental tone. A soft cough shook its tiny body, and it shuddered in his hands.

  “Of course,” Alex said, his throat tightening. The creature’s fragility, the surreal weight of this place, it all pressed down on him like a gathering storm. The bird tilted its head, a sharp and measured gaze that spoke of ages long past. “You don’t belong here, do you?” it asked, feathers quivering.

  “No,” Alex whispered. “I need to get back home. I need to wake up.”

  The bird’s gaze grew distant, thoughtful, before another tremor wracked its small frame. “Thank you for showing me this moment of kindness. I had all but lost hope. I have been dying here for nearly a thousand years. Unable to revive, unable to move on. I could not let the darkness consume me… I could not give it my power.”

  Alex’s breath caught in his throat. “You’ve been here for a thousand years?”

  A faint nod. “In my home world, I live far longer. But I lost my way, and now… memory has faded. It has been so very long.”

  Alex glanced at the shifting lights in the sky, their arcs forming trails of shimmering silver. “There are so many lost souls here, aren’t there? This place… it feeds on them.”

  “Yes.” The bird hesitated. “Both good and evil, men and monsters alike.” It coughed again, the glow in its chest faltering. “Take it.” The words rasped with urgency.

  “What?” Alex’s brow furrowed, confusion and dread tangling inside him.

  “Take it,” the bird repeated, a light beginning to spill from its chest, a pure, radiant glow that painted the stairway in hues of crimson and sapphire. The brilliance of it made Alex’s heart clench.

  “No.” His voice cracked with emotion, the idea of accepting such a gift feeling too cruel, too final. “I can’t.”

  “You must. If you don’t, the darkness will consume it, and it will grow stronger. Please… take it.”

  A sob escaped him, raw and unbidden, as the light swelled, spilling into his hands like liquid fire. The bird’s body shimmered, its eyes closing with the peaceful finality of sleep.

  Alex’s fingers glowed with the essence of the creature, the energy seeping into his skin, warming him from the inside out. Memories that were not his surged through him—endless skies filled with dazzling stars, a family with feathers of flame and frost, the ache of being lost, the resilience in holding on despite the odds. He looked down and his form grew more solid, more whole.

  A sudden, blinding light bloomed in front of him, expanding until it filled his vision.

  You have consumed: Essence of the Eternal Bird

  988,457 raw aetheric light

  Calibrating rank… error

  The words seared themselves into his mind, and then his body burst with a brilliance that defied reality. Light streamed from him in torrents, radiant and untamed, sending the shadows that lurked in the crevices of the stairway skittering back in fear.

  Alex gasped, the power flooding every cell, overwhelming and electrifying. His vision blurred, the twisting world bending into shapes and colors he couldn’t comprehend. His fingers, aglow with a new, unfathomable energy, stretched before his eyes. The warmth of the bird’s final gift coursed through him, filling the spaces that fear and doubt had once occupied.