In the decaying slums of Virelon, under a bruised sky filled with broken stars and flickering satellites, fifteen-year-old Ezer Eben stood on the rooftop of a crumbling tenement. From here, the neon-tinted skyline of the Inner Sectors shimmered like a mirage—taunting, unreachable. He was the seventh of nine children, born to Yorah and Leni Eben, two worn-down laborers in a city that chewed up families like his and spat them out into deeper poverty.
Their two-room shelter barely held the family, and every night, the air inside tasted like rust and sweat. Ezer had grown up watching his parents struggle, his siblings fall into dead-end jobs, disappear into prison grids, or worse—vanish into the Wastes where few ever returned.
But Ezer was different.
He believed in something more. Not miracles. Not charity. Just hard, unrelenting work.
His first job was scrubbing dishes in a half-collapsed restaurant at the edge of Sector 9. The place was barely standing, kept alive by a generator that stuttered more than it ran. He washed greasy plates for half-meals and occasional credits, hands chapped raw by chemical-laced water. He dpidn't complain. He worked.
Later, he ran courier jobs—riskier work, faster pay. After that, he started joining scavenger teams that combed the borders of the city for tech salvage. But even that wasn't enough. His father's cough had turned bloody, and Linah, his little sister, had gone three nights without a real meal.
Then came the Dungeons.
They weren't called that officially, of course. The High Governance called them "Dimensional Anomalies"—fractures in space-time that erupted after the final Rift War. They appeared randomly across the city, sometimes glowing like portals, sometimes invisible until too late. Most were sealed off by the authorities, but in the Outer Sectors, they were fair game. Dangerous. Untouched. Unregulated.
And filled with relics and resources the black markets paid fortunes for.
It didn't take long for rogue hunters and broken syndicates to start sending in teams—most didn't come back. But Ezer saw the opportunity. If you survived a Dungeon, even once, you could earn enough credits to feed a family for a year.
He didn't hesitate.
His first break came when a scav team lost a runner to a rogue anomaly burst. Ezer volunteered. They laughed at him—skinny, young, dish-washer hands. But they needed bodies. He went in, alone, carrying a pulse-knife, a portable phase beacon, and a cracked helmet with half a HUD display.
The Dungeon was unlike anything he expected.
Rooms that shifted. Creatures made of light and metal. Puzzles locked by language no one remembered. Death was everywhere—on the walls, in the air, inside your own mind if you stayed too long. But Ezer moved carefully, patiently. He studied the patterns, the shifting tiles, the glitching environment.
He came out two hours later with a gravity shard and an intact chrono core.
He got paid.
Not a fortune, not yet. But enough to bring home food. Real food. Enough to buy medicine for his father's lungs. Enough to see Linah smile for the first time in weeks.
He didn't stop.
Dungeon runs became part of his routine. Sometimes, he worked solo. Other times, he joined temporary squads—each time, learning more, getting better. He saved every credit he could. Not for himself, but for a future he hadn't yet seen clearly—only believed in. He still worked during the day—cleaning filters, delivering tech, washing dishes when no other work came. But the Dungeon runs were different.
They were dangerous. They were maddening.
But they paid.
Then, one night, everything changed.
He heard whispers about an untouched Dungeon zone deep beneath the ruins of the Eastern Wall—buried tech from the Old Times. No registered runs. No known survivors. It was said to be cursed, unstable. Off-limits even to the syndicates.
Which meant: priceless.
Ezer went alone.
The entrance was hidden beneath a collapsed mag-rail station. Layers of dead wire and dust gave way to a chamber pulsing with ancient energy. He stepped inside—and immediately knew this was different.
This wasn't a Dungeon.
It was something else.
The walls were smooth and humming, lit by threads of glowing silver. Symbols blinked on the floor. At the center was a pod—sealed, breathing. Beside it, a console flickered with alien glyphs, and a cracked data screen displayed a single word in faded, pre-war language: G.A.I.A.
Ezer stepped closer.
Then a voice echoed behind him.
"Stop."
He turned sharply. A girl stood in the entrance, maybe sixteen, dressed in scav gear that didn't belong in the Sectors—sleek, advanced. Her eyes locked with his.
"You shouldn't be here," she said. "This place isn't a Dungeon. It's something much more dangerous."
Ezer didn't flinch. "I'm not here to steal. I'm here to change my life."
She stared at him for a long moment. "Then don't touch it. Understand it first. Or it'll change you into something you can't undo."
Suddenly, the floor trembled. Warning sirens blared from deep below. Ezer looked at the pod, then back at the girl. Something old and intelligent pulsed in the air—watching.
Outside, drones began to descend—sensors locked on the anomaly.
The girl cursed. "You led them here."
"Run?" Ezer asked.
"No. We activate the failsafe—together."
Ezer glanced at the pod. His hand hovered near the interface.
This was the start of something bigger than survival.
And he was ready.