Story Title :- Riftborn Chronicles
Chapter 3: The Mark of Entropy
The skytrain hurtled through the dead zone—an expanse of shattered city blocks and blackened soil, warped beyond recognition. No signs of life. No light. Just the pale glow of the Rift's tendrils in the distance, crawling slowly across the horizon like a dying god’s breath.
Kael sat near the back of the train, eyes closed, trying to block out the constant low hum of reality bending. But even in stillness, he felt it: the pull.
Asha worked at the front, her orb syncing with the train’s core systems, trying to keep the ancient rail on track.
Kael’s thoughts swirled around her words.
You’re a Rift-node… a temporal focal point.
He stared at the faint sigil burned into his chest—still glowing softly under his shirt, veins of gold and blue threading outward like roots. The longer he looked at it, the more alive it seemed, shifting subtly with every heartbeat.
“What did they do to me…” he whispered.
The train shuddered violently as it passed through another interference field. Glass windows flickered between cracked and whole. Advertisements on the inner walls blurred, displaying years-old slogans for products that no longer existed.
Asha moved to his side, slipping into the seat across from him. Her expression was unreadable.
“You're destabilizing again.”
“I’m just sitting here.”
“Your aura isn’t. The closer we get to the Riftline, the stronger your influence becomes. You're syncing with entropy at a rate I've never seen.”
Kael exhaled. “So what, I’m just some walking Rift bomb?”
“No,” she said. “You’re more like a bridge.”
He frowned. “Between what and what?”
Asha hesitated. “Between worlds. Between time threads. Between the laws that hold this reality together and the chaos trying to break them.”
Kael stood, pacing. “I didn’t ask for this. I was a soldier. A damn Reaper. I followed orders. I shot monsters and closed anomalies. Now I’m the anomaly.”
“That’s exactly why they’ll hunt you,” she said softly. “You’re proof that containment is no longer possible. That something bigger is coming.”
Kael stopped near the window. The train approached an old station—a forgotten checkpoint station marked SECTOR 9G: ENTROPY LOCK ZONE.
Rust-covered warning signs blinked feebly.
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. CHRONO-HAZARD DETECTED. DO NOT ENTER.
The train ground to a halt.
“We walking from here?” he asked.
“No,” Asha said. “We’re meeting someone.”
Kael looked at her sharply. “You didn’t say anything about a third party.”
“That’s because he’s unpredictable. But we need him.”
Kael gritted his teeth but followed her as she stepped off the train.
The platform was nearly devoured by vines and soot. The station itself was barely standing—its walls flickering between ages, some moments showing pristine steel and others reduced to rusted stone.
Asha led Kael into the terminal's lower levels.
And then he felt it again—that unnatural vibration in his bones. A kind of wrongness layered over reality like oil on water. Static filled the air, and time... stuttered.
Footsteps echoed ahead.
A man emerged from the shadows, tall and cloaked in a patchwork robe of Rift-cloth and metal plates. His eyes glowed silver, and runes floated lazily around his wrists.
Kael immediately felt his power.
“This him?” the man asked, voice a deep echo that carried like thunder in a tunnel.
Asha nodded. “Kael Draven. Shatterborn.”
The man’s gaze shifted to Kael. “You’re more than that. You’re bleeding timelines like smoke from a broken engine.”
Kael stepped forward. “Who are you?”
The man offered no name—only a title. “I am Haron, Rift Sage of the Outer Fold. Keeper of forbidden chronomancy. And if I’m right… you’re the one the Rift has been waiting for.”
Kael raised an eyebrow. “Yeah? And what does the Rift want?”
“To live,” Haron said. “To grow. The Rift is not merely a tear. It is a seed. A new form of existence—one beyond linear time.”
Kael’s skin crawled. “Sounds like extinction with extra steps.”
“Not extinction,” Haron corrected. “Evolution.”
He stepped closer. The runes around him flared, reacting to the sigil on Kael’s chest.
“The mark you bear is the Sigil of Entropy,” Haron said. “It is ancient. Forbidden. Long before Deepcorp, before the Reapers, before the Rift was named… there were the Architects. They created keys to open the Veil between worlds. Most were destroyed. But one survived.”
He tapped Kael’s chest. “You.”
Kael’s voice was low. “Why me?”
“Because the multiverse is collapsing. And you are the fracture-point. The fulcrum. Either you seal the Rift permanently... or it consumes all time.”
Kael sat down hard, breath shallow.
This was bigger than missions, bigger than anomalies.
He wasn’t just changed.
He was chosen.
He looked at Haron. “Can you teach me to control it?”
“I can teach you to endure it. Control? That comes at a cost.”
“What kind of cost?”
Haron’s eyes darkened. “Memory. Identity. Anchor points to this world. Each time you use your power, you pull pieces of yourself across other timelines. Eventually, you’ll forget which version of Kael you are.”
Kael looked at Asha, who nodded grimly. “It’s why most Shatterborn don’t survive long. Their minds fracture.”
“And if I don’t use the power?” Kael asked.
“Then others will,” Haron said, “and you’ll be the one standing in their way when the worlds collapse.”
Kael clenched his fists. “Then teach me.”
Over the next few hours, Haron led them into the ruins below the station, to an ancient chamber where time pooled like liquid in the air.
There, Kael was taught to sense the lines of causality. To feel the drift of echoes—moments from futures that hadn’t happened yet, memories from lives that weren’t his.
It was maddening.
But he endured.
He learned to pull a second of time forward and shove another backward. To trap entropy in a loop for a few heartbeats. To shatter and reassemble his perception around a single moment.
The more he trained, the brighter the sigil burned. And with it, came the whispers.
“You are not one. You are many.”
“You are the collapse… and the salvation.”
Asha watched from a distance, uneasy.
Haron eventually pulled Kael aside. “There’s one last test. A Rift Mirror. It will show you what lies ahead—if you follow the path of power.”
He gestured to a circular device built into the chamber’s wall—a disk of glass that shimmered like liquid metal.
Kael stepped forward and looked.
And saw…
A city burning. A version of himself wearing Null armor, eyes black with power, standing atop a mountain of ash. Asha dead at his feet. Rift tendrils erupting from his spine.
Then, another version—older, scarred, standing in the center of a healed world, the Rift sealed behind him, glowing with white light.
Two futures. Two choices.
Kael stumbled back.
Haron’s voice was low. “The Rift gives you power. But power always demands a price.”
Kael stared at his hands.
He had already begun to pay.
Suddenly, alarms blared in the upper station.
Asha’s orb pulsed red.
“Null forces incoming,” she said. “Five minutes out. Heavy armor. Scorch units.”
Kael stood.
“I’m done waiting,” he said. “Let’s move.”
They climbed back to the station just as a Null gunship roared overhead, searchlights scanning the ruins.
Kael’s sigil pulsed, synced with the approaching threat.
And this time, he didn’t fight the power.
He welcomed it.
End of Chapter 3
