At first, he thought he was still drifting.
The world seemed hazy, far off, quiet.
A soft wind brushed his cheek - warm, light - but just for an instant he thought it wasn't real. Just one more trick in that never-ending emptiness.
Yet soon the wind came back - harder now, bringing scents of damp wood along with early daylight freshness.
A sound followed.
Leaves rustling.
Birds chirping high up above.
His eyes opened.
Light hit them hard, sharp after endless black. He flinched, squeezed his eyes shut, breath shaky. Trying once more - slow, cautious - the glare broke into forms.
Trees.
Tall, yet stretched wide. Ancient, but still standing. Sunlight sneaks through - soft green glow on leaves.
He opened and shut his eyes a few times.
The ground under his feet wasn't some empty nothing. Just soil - mushy, wet, scattered with old leaves along with patches of moss.
He stopped drifting through the air.
He lay there... still.
On his back.
In a forest.
He looked up, frozen, hoping the sky would flicker once more, that those bright gaps might rip open and drag him into another drop. Yet silence stayed. Not a flash, not a pull, not even a wobble.
Just air drifting between limbs.
Just the soft sound of living things moving.
His chest lifted gradually, aching with each breath.
His fingers jerked through the dirt.
Where…?
The idea stopped mid-way.
Besides, a different thought pushed ahead, clearer and more biting:
Who…?
He jerked upright, gasping. It didn't seem right - way too quick, as if his body moved without asking first. Dizziness hit hard, the room fuzzing out around him.
He put a hand on his head.
Nothing.
Nothing came back.
No name.
No history.
No sign of a face stuck in his thoughts.
No sound to hold on to.
No picture showing what he should've looked like.
His chest clamped up fast.
He opened his mouth - maybe to say hi, maybe to ask something - but nothing fit right. Out came a croak, weak and rough, like it wasn't even his own
"H…hello?"
It bounced quietly from tree to tree.
No one answered.
He gulped loudly. His neck ached, almost as if he'd been shouting nonstop - maybe even longer - and couldn't recall a second of it.
He looked through the trees once more, hoping to spot anything he knew.
A home.
A landmark.
A road.
A sign.
His own footprints.
Nothing.
The world nearby seemed overly green, kind of bursting with life, nothing like what he'd seen back home.
He brushed the material over his heart - a worn-out green sweatshirt.
He just didn't know what it was.
Wasn't sure whose it was - maybe his, maybe taken from someone, or handed to him by chance.
It was as if I'd put on someone else's jacket - didn't fit right, didn't feel mine.
His hands trembled.
"I… don't know who I am," he whispered to no one.
The words slammed into him - sudden, sharp, like a punch outta nowhere.
He gasped. His ribs clenched up tight. Trees smudged together when moisture built behind his greenish eyes - eyes he'd never seen before now, not really, till they shimmered back at him from a muddy puddle resting nearby.
He moved ahead on his hands, shaky but slow, hunched above the thin pool.
The image bent, wobbled - yet still worked.
A face looked right at him.
Young.
Caucasian.
Messy cut with a mid fade on the sides.
Eyes way too shiny, yet somehow empty. Or maybe just full of nowhere.
He had no idea who that was.
Still nothing. Not a single spark.
He stretched out to the water, brushing the top just a bit. Ripples spread right away, smashing the image - almost like what he saw of himself couldn't last.
He dropped down on his heels, his shoulders shaking.
"What… what's my name?" he muttered once more, sounding lost now.
The woods stayed silent.
Somewhere up high, a bird launched itself, its wings beating against the treetops.
The noise seemed fake.
He shoved his hands back into the soil, letting the grit steady his nerves. Yet his palms kept quivering - badly. The shaking pissed him off; it left him raw, like he had no armor against what was out there.
He wrapped his arms tight without thinking.
Every breath hurt.
Not in body - more like feelings.
Every breath seemed to echo the emptiness within his thoughts.
He glanced at his palms.
Scarred knuckles.
Callouses.
Scars faded years back.
Hands that once battled stuff his mind had lost. Yet still carried scars from unknown fights.
Hands attached to a person he didn't recognize anymore.
He balled his hands tight.
He wasn't sure what made his hands tighten.
It felt instinctive.
As if some part of him once struggled. Then started fleeing. Staying alive when things got rough.
Yet he found it hard to imagine even a bit.
A soft gust moved through the trees, tugging at his hair a little. As it swept past, he shut his eyes, feeling the air drift across his face.
He felt small.
Not in body - more like soul.
Little within this globe.
Small in himself.
Little, since he couldn't recall which name was his.
He stood slowly.
His legs shook, nearly buckling. But he grabbed a tree to stay up, breathing slow. The bark felt jagged, solid - something true. Then he leaned his head into it, barely quivering.
"Alright," he muttered weakly, talking into the silence since nobody answered back - so far. "Fine. You're around. You're... breathing. Just... clueless for now."
The words didn't do any good.
Yet speaking up seemed worse than staying quiet.
He blinked awake once more.
The woods went on forever, no matter where you looked.
Quiet.
Ancient.
Foreign.
A lone idea popped into his head - not a recollection, yet something deeper: gut feeling
Move.
Not since he had no clue which way to head.
Not since he'd thought it through.
It wasn't that he knew something specific.
Yet being motionless seemed worse than death.
He moved forward a single pace.
Then another.
The ground moved beneath his feet.
He had no clue about his own identity.
He had no clue about his origins.
He had no clue which world he'd ended up in.
He wasn't sure who was after him - or what he'd been escaping all along.
Yet he moved on, heading farther among the woods.
Each time he moved, hollow spots inside his head throbbed with a soft pain.
He seemed like a spirit inside a shell.
A title that's got no label.
A soul with no history.
A spirit landed in a place he didn't belong.
Then when the woods closed in around him, all that stayed with him was a hushed dread slipping out in whispers:
"I hope… I wasn't someone bad."
Asap carried on moving well past when the HUD quit spitting out updates.
The woods pulled him deeper - shades of green, tangled undergrowth, flickering light sliding slow like it didn't belong. It seemed calm, sort of quiet, yet his heart squeezed tighter with each step forward. That blank spot in his mind had weight now, a raw gap pulsing under every inhale.
He couldn't remember what he was called.
He had no clue about his origins.
He had no clue why it seemed like he'd already been moving way before opening his eyes in this place.
The quiet just made the doubt stronger.
He moved a bunch of drooping branches out of the way, then walked deeper into the forest. It got darker. The atmosphere felt heavier. Trees crowded in - huge, old ones, their trunks covered in winding lines that seemed made by something else, not just time or weather.
He touched a groove with his fingertips.
It was warm.
He jerked his hand away, pulse spiking. In woods, warmth don't fit - especially not this kind. Especially not if it's alive.
He stepped backward - yet pushed ahead once more.
Don't freeze.
Don't stop.
You're unsure of your past… yet standing idle just doesn't fit.
He walked on.
The HUD hung softly near his sight - not bright, just there, like it was trying not to get in the way. With each stride he took, the map flickered lightly; yet his little blinking dot seemed tiny compared to the wide-open wild around it.
He didn't follow any trail.
Just instinct.
A pull.
A soft pull under his chest, almost as if some hidden part knew motion before thought did.
Later, he spotted a huge tree that had crashed down - broken apart, covered in green moss along its base. Probably been there for ages, perhaps even fifty years or more. As he hopped on top, his shoes slid a bit on the wet surface. Once past it, the ground sloped downward suddenly, opening up into a small cut where a thin flow of water crept between stones.
The water sparkled strangely, flickering from blue to green as if confused about what world to pick.
"Is any of this actually true?" he muttered under his breath.
His voice came out odd - as if he barely knew it himself.
He squatted by the water, sliding his hand in. A sharp chill hit right away. The moving surface twisted his image, breaking it into rough streaks - as if a glitch flashed through for just an instant.
He blinked - then moved nearer.
The reflection stabilized.
Green eyes.
Confused.
Tired.
Empty.
He couldn't tell whether those eyes ever showed drive, rage, or longing. Maybe he'd been respected - maybe a threat. It was unclear if he'd cared for something real. Anyone at all.
He stood there, gazing at his reflection in water that looked fake - suddenly, the uncertainty crushed him, heavy as a fist against his ribs.
"Who was I?" he murmured.
The woods stayed quiet.
He got up once more, brushing droplets off his fingers against his sweatshirt - fleece material, frayed near the cuffs, marked with grime he couldn't recall picking up.
Wondered if he'd ever worn clothes like these before.
Did this hoodie really belong to him?
Was it handed to him by someone?
Could he have taken it?
His head pulsed, soft-like - thoughts pushing up, only to smack into a foggy block.
A gentle wind moved across the open space, bringing along a weird smell - sharp, kind of like frozen sparks. His head snapped up, eyes darting through the woods.
Nothing.
Just leaves fluttering.
Branches swaying.
Light shifting.
Yet a chill crept along his spine, slow and sharp.
He walked again.
The woods shifted slowly - just a little at first. Trees shot up higher. Their roots beefed up. The breeze turned crisp. A thin fog curled low, wrapping his feet each time he moved ahead.
He scratched one arm, then the other.
The further down he moved, the stronger it got - like stepping into something ancient, still, just sitting there. No clue why he sensed it, yet the sureness thumped low in his chest.
The HUD blinked - just once - spilling a faint alert across his sight
NEW AREA DISCOVERED: DEEPWOOD VEIL
LEVEL RANGE: UNKNOWN
DANGER: — (glitched)
He swallowed hard.
Still, the setup had no clue about this spot.
The woods got even blacker. For a moment, the trail shrank until he needed to slip through a gap where two huge roots curled up, stiff and snake-like. Odd marks lit up low on those roots - shapes he couldn't name, yet somehow knew.
He touched one.
The glow pulsed.
His heartbeat jumped.
He staggered backward without thinking, bracing for whatever might come next. Maybe a noise. Or movement. Could've been an animal - hard to tell. Just… anything at all.
But nothing came.
He let out a shaky breath while pushing forward.
The hill angled up ahead, pushing him toward a rocky edge. As he moved higher, hands clutching roots or jagged rock, his breathing came in short bursts. Not frail exactly - yet nothing like someone built for this. Could he run far? Had he ever been strong? A fighter once - or just someone who stayed off their feet?
He didn't know a thing.
Getting to the highest point, yet nothing but trees showed up - no end in sight. Not a single town anywhere around. Besides that, no smoke from burning wood appeared. Instead, just silence took over. In fact, not even paths broke through the green.
Just trees sitting beneath a sky always on the move.
Alone.
Completely, utterly alone.
His throat tightened.
He plopped onto a big rock, just taking a second to catch his breath. Actually feel it this time. The chill air rushed into his chest, making everything real - way more than any screen, compass, or weird markings ever did.
He tilted backward, eyes fixed above.
Clouds moved above in odd, flowing shapes - almost fake, kind of how a program draws trees after glancing at one real leaf. Instead of grace, there was something off, like imitation wearing confidence. Each curve felt rehearsed, not born. It reminded you of copywork passed off as art.
The silence weighed heavier.
He wasn't sure who he really was.
Nobody recognized him here, just like everywhere else.
A shadow who still breathed.
He grabbed some grass under his hand - just needed to touch something solid.
A soft beep rang out behind his eyes.
PRIMARY OBJECTIVE UPDATED:
Find Civilization
Secondary: Reconstruct Identity
He exhaled quietly.
"Civilization," he muttered quietly. "Right. Someone out there must exist."
Still, inside, he felt uneasy - yet that fear stayed hidden.
What if he disliked who he once was?
What if nobody else did?
What if it's better to let things go?
The breeze replied through a chill hush.
Even so, he shoved away from the rock and kept moving - further into the shadowy woods, heading for a life he didn't know if he even missed anymore.
Yet moving ahead stood as his sole option.