Sorry it took me so long I was doing things for my parents they need help and thank you and share if you want to and here you go
Orin woke up to a strange quiet.
The kind of stillness that wasn't silence, but the pause before a storm. No car horns. No wind brushing the balcony rail. Even the birds—usually chirping just before dawn—were dead quiet.
His eyes cracked open. The apartment ceiling stared back. Faint cracks lined the plaster above his bed. His roommate, Nari, was still asleep on the couch in the next room, a mess of tangled hair and one arm draped off the side like she'd melted into the cushions.
He should've felt rested. The system was back online. His body had healed more since arriving here—fractures knitting faster, muscles lighter, denser. But something gnawed at the edge of his awareness.
There it was again.
A pulse. Faint. Like a sonar ping only he could hear, deep in his chest.
[System Notification]
[Chaos Signature Detected — Source: Local. Signal strength increasing.]
Orin sat up fast.
"Where?" he whispered. The system responded with a flicker—an energy ripple expanding in a cone, like echolocation—but it didn't give coordinates. Just direction.
Southwest. Toward the older districts.
Whatever it was, it wasn't normal. But it felt… familiar. Wrongly familiar. The same wrongness that buzzed in his veins when he first arrived in this world.
He didn't wait for Nari to wake. He grabbed his hoodie, adjusted the strange red-striped boots that had practically fused to him by now, and vanished out the balcony window.
The rooftops were slick with morning dew, shadows stretched long between them. Orin hopped a ten-foot gap without thinking. His legs obeyed without hesitation now. Another jump, another rooftop. His feet hit the concrete with barely a sound.
The pulses grew stronger. No longer just chest-deep. They touched his nerves, like static before a shock.
He could feel it now. Not just direction, but rhythm. Like a heartbeat.
Not his own.
The city below began to change. The buildings grew older, denser. Neon signs gave way to shuttered stores and rusted fire escapes. An industrial stretch—abandoned rail yards, half-flooded warehouses, and cracked concrete courtyards forgotten by time.
And then he stopped.
The pulse hit like a bass drop in his core. His breath hitched.
The emerald was here.
He dropped down from a fire escape into a yard surrounded by rusted fencing. The ground was broken asphalt and patches of dry grass. Ahead was a two-story structure—what looked like an old freight office—windows boarded, its roof sagging slightly under age.
[Signal Stabilized.]
[Warning: Spatial irregularities detected. Recommend caution.]
Orin stepped closer. The door creaked open without resistance. Inside, it smelled of dust, rust, and something sharper—like burned air.
He moved slow. Shadows shifted in strange ways inside. His Chaos Sync was humming at full tilt now, a soft red flicker glowing from beneath his skin.
And then—
Click.
He froze.
Something shifted in the ceiling. A mechanical whirr spun up like a long-dead motor waking up. A dart shot from the wall—clean, fast, and aimed at where his heart had been a half-second ago.
Orin ducked, twisted left, and landed in a crouch. The dart embedded in the wall with a soft thunk, leaving a tiny scorch mark.
"Oh," he muttered. "We're doing Indiana Jones now?"
Another panel slid open near the back—this one not shooting projectiles, but revealing a floor tile now glowing red. Lasers? He didn't wait to test it.
He Chaos-dashed to the far wall in a burst of crimson energy. The moment his feet touched down, another section of the ceiling collapsed where he'd been.
The system pinged again.
[Trap Zone Engaged.]
[Hazard Level: High (Human) / Moderate (You)]
[Proceed to Core Signature at Depth Level -1.]
He found a stairwell near the back, almost buried under a fallen cabinet. The air down there was worse—metallic and sharp, but also charged. Like the basement held a storm trapped inside concrete.
He descended, muscles coiled and ready.
Something waited below.
Not a person. Not a machine.
Something older.
And it wanted to be found.
The air got thicker with every step.
Orin descended the stairs slowly, hand trailing the wall. Each breath buzzed like static in his throat. His Chaos Sync was glowing now—lines of faint crimson light pulsing under his skin, following his veins like lit fuse wire.
The basement level opened into a single concrete room.
Wrecked electronics littered the floor—busted CRT monitors, coils of wire, smashed control panels half-swallowed by dust. A shattered tank sat in the far corner, glass like slivers of ice. It looked like it had been holding something once.
And there, in the center of it all—floating inches off a pedestal of cracked metal—was the Chaos Emerald.
Green.
Vibrant. Alive. Almost singing.
His breath caught in his throat. Not because of awe—but recognition. His body responded before his brain did. Muscles tightened. Eyes narrowed. Heart—
No. Not heart.
Energy.
A pulse rippled out from the Emerald.
Orin flinched, staggered one step back, hand to his head. His vision whitened—and then—
FLASH.
He stood on a bridge of metal, overlooking a dying planet.
Not himself. Not Orin.
Someone taller. Stronger. Cold wind blew against his quills—black and red. Boots thrumming with built-in propulsion.
Shadow.
The Emerald hovered before him, glowing the same vibrant green, as wind howled through the silent void of a space colony high above Earth.
He wasn't feeling sadness. Not now.
He was feeling purpose.
A moment frozen in time. The seconds before something irreversible.
He reached for the Emerald, and the voice in his head—this time his own, not Shadow's—whispered:
"This power… is mine too."
The green glow turned white—
—and the vision broke.
Orin dropped to one knee, breath catching like he'd just run a mile.
The Emerald still floated in front of him, but now it felt connected. Not just an object—an anchor. Something like him. Something linked.
[Chaos Ability Resonance: Confirmed.]
[Skill Update: Chaos Pulse — Ability in Development]
[Memory Sync Incomplete. Fragment Retained.]
He stood slowly, hand hovering just inches from the Emerald. It pulsed again, gentle this time. Inviting.
Not a trap. Not a weapon. A compass.
And then he noticed it.
The faint green circle spreading beneath his feet—shifting symbols, some alien, some almost familiar, drawing lines into a sigil.
"Oh no…"
He jumped back just as the symbols flashed bright.
A bolt of energy discharged into the room's far wall, cracking the concrete like glass under pressure.
[Warning: Chaos Saturation — Room Instability Detected.]
The pedestal cracked.
The Emerald trembled, hovering higher now, as if deciding whether to fly or fall.
Orin didn't wait. He reached forward, hand open—and the moment his fingers grazed the emerald's surface—
It vanished.
Teleported.
He stumbled back in shock.
Then a new ping rang in his head.
[Emerald Displacement Detected.]
[Signal Masked. Tracking Lost.]
"What?" he hissed. "It just left?"
No answer. Just a fading warmth in his hand—like the Emerald left something behind. A thread.
Whatever this world was—it wasn't just full of Chaos Energy. It was built on it. And now it was moving. Shifting pieces like a board game resetting mid-match.
He needed to get out. He'd seen enough for one day.
But even as he ran up the stairs, back into the ruined building above, he knew something had changed. The resonance was still with him. The memory fragment. The instinct that hadn't been his but now lived in his hands, his muscles, his mind.
Whatever the Emerald showed him—
It wasn't just a memory.
It was a key.