Oblivion's Edge: Voidbōrn

2 Living life on the EDGE

The Enhanced Dimensional Gateway Environment.

Commonly known as The EDGE.

It was not a place of comfort, nor a place for questions. It was a world between worlds, a mirrored reflection of Earth that seemed to stretch forever, suspended in a state of cold perfection and harsh survival. No one remembered exactly how long it had been since humanity's original Earth had fallen. The past was a misty haze, too far buried to matter.

What mattered was the present.

What mattered was living.

Surviving.

In the Edge, no one was allowed to question the truth they were given. The leaders shadowed figures of authority, dictated every aspect of our lives, weaving a web of rules and routines that kept them in check. The architecture was sterile and geometric, perfect in its angular lines, yet barren.

No warmth.

No color.

Everything was grey or silver, brushed with a sheen that was almost too clean. Even the sky above, too smooth, too flawless, was a reflection, a lie.

And all around, there were whispers. Whispers of rebellion, whispers of something beyond the glass, beyond the walls. But no one dared to question the system.

Except for °Aēlion-197.

Every morning, Aēlion woke to the harsh chime of the edge-clock, a mechanical sound that echoed through the cold, sterile walls of his dormitory. The others in his barracks rolled out of bed without a sound, the practiced motions of soldiers drilled into their bones since they could walk.

Their faces were expressions of cold focus, their bodies trained to fight, to survive, to serve.

Unlike them, Aēlion's routine was more about survival than obedience or serving. He wasn't like the others. He didn't fit the mold of a soldier-in-training, a cog in the war machine. While the others eagerly counted how many practice drones they could shoot down, Aēlion preferred the quiet, the books, the hidden knowledge in the corners of the archives.

His thoughts were too wild, too messy to be bound by the confines of their regimented life. He wanted to know what was out there, what was beyond the Edge, what had happened to the real world.

The others noticed this. They saw how he lingered in the back of the training fields, how he never seemed to really care about their endless drills, their constant striving for higher ranks. They laughed at him.

"Voidbōrn," they would sneer, calling him that behind his back, sometimes to his face. "°Aēlion-197 thē Voidbōrn. Yōū'rē nōt ōnē ōf ūs. Jūst ā ghōst prētēndīng tō bē rēāl, nōw disāppēār."

It didn't bother him much anymore. The truth was, Aēlion didn't feel like he belonged.

Not here.

Not in the Edge.

The system had given him a name, a number, and a place, but it had never given him a purpose. Not the way it had for the other soldiers.

Their purpose was clear: train, fight, and one day, take back the world from the aliens. But Aēlion was different. He knew it, deep in his bones. There had to be more than this, more than the silent obedience, more than the hollow routines.

After training, Aēlion returned to the small quarters he shared with his mother, °Vehlarā-122.

She wasn't your regular mom. She never scolded him for his curiosity or asked him to focus on his drills. She knew, deep down, that he wasn't meant to be like the rest.

"Cōmē hērē, Aēlly," she would say every evening as he entered their small, dimly-lit room. Her voice was soft, always quiet, as if she feared being overheard. "You're getting better. Your English is improving."

Aēlion would sit beside her, careful not to make a sound, his heart beating faster at her words. The forbidden languages, English and Spanish were their secret. She had taught him to speak them when he was younger, under the cover of darkness, away from the prying eyes of the guards and the system.

The Edge strictly prohibited anyone from speaking the old languages, fearing that it might remind them of a world long gone.

- Info: Nūrēlliān is the official language spoken in the Edge and the only one permitted. It was developed by the leaders as a new, unified language to eliminate linguistic diversity and promote common understanding.

"You've learned well," Vehlarā would whisper, tracing the shape of letters in the air as she spoke. "You must never forget your origins, Aēlion. Never."

Her eyes would glisten with something he didn't quite understand.

Was it pride? Fear? Or something else entirely? She never explained.

He sometimes wondered why she taught him these languages. Did she want him to remember the past? Was there something she knew, something important about the world before the Edge, that she hadn't told him?.

There were days when Aēlion found himself staring at the walls, asking himself the same question. What were they hiding from him?

The tension between what he was taught and what he felt was growing. He was becoming more and more aware that the Edge was a lie, a web of half-truths and fabricated memories. And yet, the world outside, the real world, seemed so far away. The walls, the mirrors, the constant surveillance, everything in the Edge was designed to keep them from looking beyond.

One day, after everyone had left for training, Aēlion made a decision. He would do what no one else had dared. He would find the truth.

It was risky, dangerous even. But he couldn't just sit and wait any longer.

Aēlion slipped into the restricted archives, a place where the real records of humanity's history were hidden away. The ancient files, documents of a world lost, of a time before the Edge. The guards rarely patrolled the area, too focused on keeping the soldiers in line.

Aēlion's fingers hovered over the interface, his pulse quickening with excitement and fear. He had seen the forbidden files before, briefly, in flashes when he had snuck into the room as a child. But this time, he needed more. He needed the truth.

The screen flickered as he bypassed the security, his fingers flying over the keys. He was almost there, almost ready to see what lay hidden from everyone else.

But then-

A sound. The softest echo of footsteps.

Aēlion froze, his heart pounding in his chest.

He couldn't afford to get caught now.

The lights in the archives flickered as he quickly powered off the console. He barely had time to hide when the door creaked open. He swallowed hard, praying that the shadows would conceal him.

Footsteps. The low murmur of voices. A guard and an officer? Or someone else?

Aēlion held his breath.

Would this be the moment they finally caught him?.

...