You wash out onto a flooded street, coughing and covered in synthetic algae that glows faintly green like radioactive slime. Contaminated water fills your nose and mouth—chemicals and decay and the lingering ghost of abandoned hope. You lost the ink… You’ve failed the mission.
Standing water floods majority of the road and passage way around you — knee high water, maybe deeper in nearby areas. Passers wade through the water. They pay the floodwaters no mind, as if this is the norm in AetherPoint.
Straight ahead, neon lighting patterns shift from chaotic strobing to steady, calming green pulses—that must be a SAFE ZONE.
Your borrowed body aches everywhere. Lungs burn from synthetic water that tastes of chemicals and despair. Cuts and bruises from impacts you barely remember burn and throb in unison. Exhaustion creeps through every nerve.
You try to apply your last pain patch, but the water has soaked through your clothing. The patch shorts out on contact, sparks flying from its micro-circuits. Waterlogged and useless.
The phantom pain has become overwhelming—again, maintaining this tether requires almost superhuman concentration.
But as you limp towards the safe zone you see a problem. A big big problem…
More serpent gang members block the safe zone entrance — you estimate seven or eight of them. Two of them you recognize immediately dripping wet with contaminated water. Plus patrol drones circle at a not-so-safe distance, their lights creating a slowly tightening noose of illumination.
From your comms comes Nina’s voice: “Bad news. Patrol intercepted the ink.”
“UNICORN ARTIST!!!” — two words you’d hope to never hear again…
The Gang Leader’s fresh proxy emerges from shadow-draped shipping containers. This body is unmarked, hungry, predatory. An industrial plasma cutter slides from his jacket with a predator’s smile. Your UI literally describes it as “Probably Stolen from a dockyard metalworking shop.” Its barrel glows cherry-red — apparently some sort of superheated gas builds pressure inside. The smell of ionized air cuts through AetherPoint’s mild chemical stench.
The other gang members recognize their leader’s cry and start pushing through the crowd towards you…
“You cost me a perfectly good proxy!” he yells, finger caressing the trigger. “Time to return the favor.”
The first gang member’s shank slices through air with a wet whistle. You jerk backward—not fast enough. Bioelectric current crackles along the blade’s edge as it kisses your ribs. CRACK. Lightning shoots through borrowed bone. Something important breaks inside your chest with the sound of snapping kindling.
You gasp as the taste of copper floods your mouth. The second attacker’s fist pistons into your kidney like a sledgehammer wrapped in flesh. Your vision strobes white. Knees buckle. Contaminated water sloshes around your ankles.
Overhead, patrol drones shriek like mechanical banshees. Blue stun bolts lance through the night down on the gang members. Sparks cascade from their crude armor like deadly rain. But the gang members must be wearing protective gear that’s somehow rigged to turn deadly voltage into mere suggestion.
Your hand closes around nearby jagged rebar protruding from broken concrete. You rip it free with desperate strength and swing it in a vicious arc. Metal meets skull with a wet THUNK that reverberates through your borrowed bones. The first attacker’s eyes roll white. He spins like a broken doll before splashing into toxic algae, unconscious before he hits the water.
But the second gang member drives forward like a battering ram. Your knees slam concrete hard enough to crack bone as you duck into the water dodging under his assault.
Riot shields clash against improvised weapons with the sound of thunder trapped in metal. Patrol officers surge through the knee-deep water, their stun batons painting electric hieroglyphs across the night. “Stand down! I repeat! Stand! Down!”
The gang members pay the warning no mind, rushing the the Patrol officers with zero fear!
But behind them, Out Castes flow from the shadows like living nightmares, their eyes tracking your every movement with inhuman patience. Where they walk, reality seems to flinch.
Gang metal rings against patrol shields. Plasma fire carves geometric patterns through toxic air taking down patrol drones one by one. Out Caste hands reach through space itself, bending shadows around their fingers.
You roll sideways across the wet concrete. A stun baton impacts where your skull lived an instant before, cracking on the surface of the water with volcanic force. Pain explodes through your jaw as an elbow finds its mark—bone meets bone with the crystalline sound of breaking glass. Stars detonate behind your eyes like dying suns.
The Gang Leader’s plasma cutter whines to life. “Hold still, Unicorn artist!”
But an Out Caste materializes behind The Gang Leader like darkness coming to life. No footsteps. No sound. One moment empty air—the next, sharp inhuman-like shadows pressing into the base of a screaming skull. The Gang Leader’s eyes roll back to show only white. His body drops like cut marionette strings.
Another gang member immediately grabs the plasma cutter and begins firing wildly at the Out Castes.
A riot shield hammers your shoulder from your blind spot with the force of a collapsing building. You spin into another fist—kidney shot that folds you in half, retching contaminated water.
Your hand finds broken drone fragments floating in the flooding street inches away from you. You hurl the jagged metal with desperate accuracy as it punches through a patrol visor with the sound of shattering diamonds—spider-web cracks spreading like frozen lightning across reinforced plastic. The officer stumbles backward, blind and cursing the darkness.
Blood streams from a dozen cuts on your body, stinging constantly from synthetic algae in the rising water. Your vision blurs. Skye’s body staggers like a machine with failing motors, each movement a small betrayal of flesh and bone.
Time seems to hault into crystal clarity.
To your left: Out Caste weapons reach from shadows that seem to drink light instead of casting it. Where their hands move, darkness follows—not absence of illumination, but something that devours photons. The neon glow from the street bends around their knuckles like water around stones. Light itself seems afraid to touch them.
To your right: Stun baton sparks blue death a few feet from your temple. A patrol officer’s face mask shows your reflection—blood streaming, eyes wild, a broken thing about to break further as electricity arcs between the weapon’s contacts.
Straight ahead: The plasma cutter aimed at your chest, its barrel white-hot and hungry. The gang member’s finger hovers over the trigger. Heat radiates against your skin. The air itself smells burned.
Your borrowed heart hammers against cracked ribs. Each beat sends lightning through your chest. Blood drips from your split lip to splash in contaminated water that rises past your ankles.
Three enemies. Three death sentences. Three futures converging on your broken body in perfect, deadly synchronization.
How do you defeat them?
You can’t.
You’re outnumbered. Seven-to-one at minimum. Outpowered—your borrowed body is failing, phantom pain climbing toward unbearable. Out of options. The geometric patterns reveal every path forward leads to capture, death, or something worse than both. So THIS is the life of an Amnesiac in AetherPoint…
But then…
Through the haze of pain and desperation, you remember something crucial…
The objective has never been to beat the bad guys in AetherPoint.
It is to survive AetherPoint.
Live to fight another day…
SURVIVING is how you win.
Instantly your patterns shift, showing you something new—golden threads weaving through the chaos behind you. Not the red of violence or blue of authority, but something else entirely. Something that whispers escape in colors that taste like hope.
You turn.
You make out a small drain-like opening. An “Access Point” is what your UI identifies it as. Its entrance bears the scars of history—scratches in the metal that could possibly be claw marks or even stains that might be decades-old blood. Even fragments of old prison markings remain visible around the access port—numbers and warning signs from AetherPoint’s dark past as a floating correctional facility.
When everyone expects you to die, that’s when you find a way to live. Live to fight another day—that’s the AetherPoint way.
And that’s why your split lip curves upward to a smile. Blood paints your teeth crimson. A grin that speaks fluent AetherPoint—the language of impossible odds and certain death and the beautiful insanity of refusing both.
“Not tonight,” you whisper.
In an instant you dive backward toward the tunnel entrance, splashing beneath the shipping containers as stun bolts, plasma bursts, weapons made of shadows converge on the space where you stood milliseconds before.
You squeeze through the narrow opening as pursuit explodes behind you in frustrated violence. Someone tries to follow, but the tunnel is too narrow. Shouts of rage and pain echo behind you as you disappear into darkness.
The tunnel stretches ahead into absolute darkness, its walls slick with moisture and centuries of neglect. Your phantom pain continues to pound as adrenaline fades, though without the patches, relief remains limited.
You gasp into your comms. “Heading to Long Island (Reclaimed),” a massive sign on the wall ushering you further ahead.
“Copy that,” Nina responds, relief evident in her voice. “Pursuit is breaking off. Wherever you are, they can’t follow.”
You crawl through muck and wires, past junction boxes that spark with dying electricity. Scratched numbers cover the walls—prison-like cell designations from centuries (and perhaps ages) past. Ventilation grates hang askew, their metal bars bent from desperate hands. Dark stains pattern the concrete—rust, or something worse…
“When this is over,” Nina continues, “I want answers. Real answers. About what’s happening to you, why you’re acting different and why half of AetherPoint suddenly wants your head.”
“Sure thing chick,” you reply — a bit of Skye seeping through…
The tunnel begins to slope upward. You must be leaving the floating city of AetherPoint and heading toward solid ground.
“Well more bad news about the ink,” Nina says after reviewing the damage reports. “It’s headed towards AetherPoint Evidence Depot…”
The words hit you like a physical blow. All that fighting. All that pain. All those risks—for nothing???
No.
You refuse to accept this. Not after what you’ve been through. Not after what Skye has sacrificed. Your fists clench in the tunnel’s darkness. Your jaw sets with newfound determination. This isn’t over. This is far from over.
The evidence depot isn’t the end of the story—it’s just another obstacle to overcome.
“Look at it like this — APD is just holding our ink for safe keeping while we figure out our next move. We’ll figure out a way to take it back when the time is right — and soon,” you say, the words flowing from your lips with a certainty that surprises even you.
“Skye…” Nina’s voice carries warning, but also a note of impressed disbelief. “That’s exactly the kind of thinking that lands people a thousand year prison sentence in the Etherverse. But… if you got a plan, you know I’m in.”
MISSION OBJECTIVES: COMPLETE flashes across your vision in triumphant green letters – to your surprise.
✓ 1. PROTECT SKYE AND THE INK
✓ 2. SURVIVE AETHERPOINT UNTIL DAWN
The tunnel levels out, and ahead you can see natural light filtering through what appears to be an exit grate. Long Island (Reclaimed) beckons—solid ground and temporary safety.
Dawn breaks across the horizon in brilliant orange and gold, painting the sky with the colors of victory. You’ve escaped AetherPoint—one of the most dangerous places on the planet—and emerged alive. Intact. And unbroken…
Well, mostly unbroken.
The Archivist’s voice materializes in your mind, but something’s different. Not excitement—certainty. Cold, absolute certainty.
“I always knew you would make it,” she says. You hear certainty in her voice. She doesn’t mean ‘believed’ or ‘hoped’ you’d make it. She knew. Past tense. Like she’s already seen your entire future…
Before you can process this revelation, phantom agony explodes through every nerve in your body like liquid fire. 19 out of 10. Then 20 out of 10. It keeps rising. Your vision whites out. Your borrowed muscles seize. You collapse to your knees, screaming as pain beyond human comprehension tears through your mind.
“Skye?! SKYE!” Nina’s voice cuts through your comms, sharp with panic. “What’s wrong? What’s happening? Your vitals are—”
You close your eyes and gravity seems to pull at all angles. The tunnel spins. Reality fractures. You must be untethering…
Opening your eyes for an instant, you see The Archivist standing over you. Not in your mind. Standing there. Real as the pain, real as the blood, real as the terror flooding your borrowed veins.
“You’ve made it,” the Archivist whispers as darkness claims you. “You’re so close. But gather yourself as best as you can—the final card is upon you.”
“Final card?!” you scream out, but your voice sounds wrong, distant, like it’s coming from someone else’s throat.
Nina’s frantic calls fade to static. The tunnel walls seem to breathe.
“Yes,” the Archivist says, and her smile is the last thing you see before the world dissolves. “The final card is what you’ve been fighting for all night…”
She leans closer, her words drilling into your skull like ice picks.
“It’s time for THE CURE…”