The hum of the nuclear generator echoed through steel corridors. Behind thick concrete walls, red warning lights pulsed urgently, mourning the fate of this place. At the center stood Rian Rahman, clad in a white lab coat scorched with black burns.
His hands trembled over the control panel. Rows of numbers spiked wildly. The reactor's temperature had burst past the danger line, steam hissing and pipes shuddering under the pressure.
"Damn…" Rian muttered, his voice lost beneath the wailing alarms.
He caught his reflection in the radiation glass: pale skin, sunken eyes, sweat-matted hair. On his shoulders rested the proud title—Father of New Energy—a title that mocked him now.
All his life, Rian Rahman, a brilliant mind who'd pushed Earth's technology to its peak, had believed one thing: energy could lift humanity. But in this reactor room, that energy had become a demon, ready to devour its maker.
A crack split the main tank. White vapor hissed upward. Warning codes flashed across the monitors: CORE MELTDOWN IMMINENT.
Rian thought about running. But where? The reactor lay buried dozens of meters underground. Even if he escaped, the blast would consume everything above.
His fingers flew across his work log. A final note.
Energy, in the wrong hands, is wilder than magic.
The crack split wide with a roar. A searing flash filled the control room, swallowing him in a heat of thousands of degrees.
Everything he had built—dreams, theories, hope—melted with the lab coat that turned to ash.
Darkness. Silence.
No alarms here. No humming machines. Just emptiness, swallowing him like a boundless black ocean.
Then… a voice. Far. Hoarse.
"Ain! Ain!!"
***
Rian gasped awake. The sky above was no longer a ceiling of steel and flickering lights.
Instead, a dull orange sky, heavy with gray clouds. Cold wind slapped his face. Sheer rock walls rose around him, tree roots dangling down to choke the sunlight. Damp earth and sap filled his nose.
He lay at the bottom of a narrow ravine. His body shivered—thin, bare-chested, scratched raw. His hands were small. This was not Rian Rahman.
Who's Ain? The thought came like a whisper.
"There he is! The rope! Hurry, lower it down!"
Figures crowded the rim of the ravine. A frayed rope tumbled down. Three skinny men scrambled down, grabbing him by the shoulders. They spoke in a tongue unfamiliar yet strangely clear in his mind.
"Ain… Ain, hold on, son…"
Their rough, calloused hands lifted him carefully, bracing his limp legs. The rope scraped and groaned against jagged rock. Inch by inch, they hauled him up into the fading light.
***
They carried him down a rocky slope. In the distance, ramshackle wooden huts piled together at crooked angles. Rusted tin roofs leaked over muddy lanes, puddles slick with black water. Thin smoke from cooking fires mingled with the stench of waste and rot. They laid him gently on a frayed mat in the corner of a shack patched with rusted metal sheets.
An old woman knelt beside him, her lined face trembling with held-back sobs. Her hand brushed his cheek—a touch that reminded Rian of the mother he'd barely known on Earth.
"Ain… wake up, son… don't leave me…"
Rian tried to speak, but his tongue felt stone heavy.
So… Ain… this is my body now?
Eighteen years old, ribs sharp under filthy skin, tangled hair falling over dull eyes. He wanted to ask why, how, but no words would come.
***
That night, cold wind cut through the thin bamboo walls. Outside, children's cries drifted on the breeze. Far away, the faint outline of a massive stone wall cleaved the sky—dividing this squalid village from the city glittering behind it.
By dawn, he had a name: Ain. That was what they called him now.
The old woman clutched his hand tight as she guided him through cramped alleyways.
They joined a line of people, hauling torn sacks and cracked clay jars. The air reeked of sour garbage, damp rags, and hacking coughs.
At the towering city gate, a line of Null—people with no magic—waited in a snaking queue. Hoping for clean water, stale crusts of bread, or thin porridge on the edge of rotting.
Ain lifted his head. Above, city guards stood stiff and regal, white cloaks snapping in the wind. The wands in their hands flickered blue light, and the Null flinched under their eyes.
Beyond the iron fence, Ain glimpsed crystal lanterns, dragon statues, carriages drifting above tiled roofs. Nobles drifted by in silk and gold, lace trailing behind them. Their children played with magic, conjuring fireballs in their small palms, laughing as they danced.
Ain felt a hard shove at his back, pushing him into the mud. The Null crouched low, heads bowed. They were forbidden even to look the mages in the eye. A noble's hound was worth more than people like him.
Ain clenched his small fists. The cut on his head throbbed, but inside, a fire caught spark—one that would not die.
If they have magic, then I have something greater. Knowledge that once lit a man-made sun.
And in the stinking mud, beneath that towering wall of magic, Ain made himself a promise: the revolution would begin—even if he had to spark a nuclear fire in a world that feared science.