Forgotten Stars

The sky above Planet Xerathis wasn’t really a sky. It was a cracked canvas filled with shattered light—plasma explosions, drifting fragments of warships like doomed meteors, and corpses frozen mid-dance with death. Amid this cosmic chaos, a band of soldiers clung to the wreckage of their half-destroyed flagship. They called themselves The Order, and tonight, they might be the last ones to be called anything at all.

Irene, their commander, stared at a fading holographic screen. Her left hand clutched a crescent pendant at her neck—a final keepsake from her daughter who had died young on a long-lost planet. “Energy capacity at 12%. Shields down. Weapon systems offline,” she murmured, her voice as flat as ever. But Raydan, the member she’d come to see as a son, knew all too well how fragile those words sounded.

“We retreat,” Raydan hissed, blood from a cut on his temple staining his black-and-silver combat uniform. “You know we can’t win today.”

Irene looked at him. Behind her cracked helmet, her pale blue eyes held memories of thousands of battles they’d fought together. “Retreat to where, Ray? To another planet we’ll just let ‘them’ destroy?” She pointed to a two-meter-thick glass window, where the enemy fleet swarmed like fire ants—golden ships emblazoned with a spiky sun emblem.

In a corner of the command room, Veyra—the technomagic expert with catlike eyes who always wore a red scarf—bitterly laughed as she patched a burn on Kael’s arm. “Hear that, Cyborg? Death’s Bachelor is scared.”

Kael, the half-machine man with a perpetually cold expression, glared at Raydan. “You’re weak. Always have been.” The engine on his back hummed ominously, ready to blow.

Suddenly, alarms blared. The holographic screen bathed in red. “Enemy sniper locked on!” cried Lyra—Raydan’s sister and a famed sorceress across the stars—as her fingers danced over the control panel.

“Emergency teleportation! NOW!” Irene shouted.

But it was too late.

A golden light swept across the deck. Raydan only had time to see Garron—the three-meter-tall stone creature who always served as their shield—leaping forward while screaming, “NOOO—!”

Then came the explosion.

When Raydan opened his eyes again, half of Garron’s body was drifting in the void. Cracks in his stony skin leaked an orange, magma-like glow. “Sorry… couldn’t… stay until the end…” Garron gasped, before his whole body burst into cosmic dust.

“GARRON!” Raydan screamed, his voice swallowed by the void.

On the remaining screen, the Dominion fleet drew closer. Among them loomed a towering figure in a robe of light—First Herald, the chief executioner of the enemy faction. “Surrender the last ‘Fragment’,” his voice echoed through mental frequencies, cutting through their minds. (Fragment was the nickname for Raydan—the only one capable of repairing the Inter-Universe Veil.)

Irene grabbed Raydan’s arm. “Veyra! Open a portal to Coordinate K-09!”

“But that—”

“DO IT!”

Veyra flicked her finger, and the space before them tore open, revealing the red-green planet Phrote—a world lagging behind technologically, thousands of light years from their original coordinates.

Suddenly, Kael stood up. His eyes—one blue, one red—sparkled with mischief. “That’s enough.” The engine on his back glowed red.

“Jealous because Irene cares for him more than you?” Lyra sneered, her magic already weaving a shield.

Then came a second explosion—this time from within. Kael destroyed the ship’s generator.

“TRAITOR!” Veyra roared, charging forward, but Kael had already dashed for the escape pod.

The ship began to crumble. Irene pulled Raydan into the escape chamber. “You have to live,” she whispered, shedding the first tears Raydan had seen in 200 years. “For Mika.”

Mika—the name cut deep. Their adopted sibling, trapped at a medical station three sectors away—a child who’d never seen the real sun.

“Don’t…” Raydan bit his lip until it bled. “You know I can’t—”

Irene pressed her hand against his temple. Golden energy flowed—a forbidden magic called Memory Weave, used to manipulate memories. “Forgive me, Ray. Sleep now. And… be human.”

Raydan screamed as his consciousness was wrenched away. The last thing he saw was Irene’s bittersweet smile, her body growing translucent as the ritual of reincarnation began. Veyra and Lyra shrieked in hysteria as they were dragged into the emergency portal.

And then—

Darkness.

Elsewhere in the galaxy, aboard The Order’s new flagship, Veyra smashed a console with her spatial sword. “He’s dead! DEAD! Because you were too weak to kill that traitor!” Lyra stared blankly at the stars. In her hand, a fragment of Garron pulsed softly. “We continue the war. For them.” In a storage room, Kael gazed at a cup filled with blue liquid—Raydan’s blood, which he had stolen before his betrayal. “You’ll be useful, The Vessel…”

Novae—a sprawling metropolis with holographic skyscrapers and magnetic trains. An 18-year-old young man lay comatose in the ICU at Saint Aurora Hospital. Elijah Voss, the only son of a renowned tech mogul family, had been in a coma for two weeks after a hoverbike accident. His EKG was flatlining, yet doctors couldn’t explain why his organs continued to function perfectly.

At the final moment of the ritual, Irene directed the reincarnation energy to that coordinate. Raydan’s soul—torn between consciousness and oblivion—hurtled through a nebula and entered Elijah’s body.

Beep… Beep… Beep…

The EKG monitor suddenly pulsed. Nurses screamed in hysteria as Elijah opened his eyes—once brown, now glowing with electric blue. Outside the window, two crescent moons—one silver, one purple—lit up Novae’s hologram-strewn night sky.

“Patient… alive… But how?!”

Elijah sat up, trembling as he clutched his head. Raydan’s memories clashed with fragments of a false life—arguments with his father, a reckless girlfriend, drug-fueled parties—all masks Irene had woven to hide the truth. Somewhere deep within, Elijah’s original self screamed before vanishing, overwhelmed by the awakening consciousness of the War King.