The rain hadn't stopped for three years.
It fell sideways now. As if gravity had gotten bored.
Reigen Solari stood ankle-deep in what used to be a highway, the lines faded, the world upside-down. Buildings floated half-submerged above, tethered by roots that didn't belong. The sky — if you could call it that — looked cracked, stitched by bolts of violet lightning that never reached the ground.
His hands were trembling, not from cold, but from remembering.
He reached into his soaked coat and pulled out a roll of paper — torn, mud-stained, but still sacred.
Blueprints.
"Stairway Model 19: Reigen's Promise," it read.
He unrolled it, holding the edges tight as the wind screamed like a grieving god.
"You still with me?" he whispered to the drawing.
A tower reaching through the clouds. Floors stacked like memories. Rooms that faced the stars.
His voice cracked.
"I know, I know. I failed you. I failed them all."
A distant siren wailed. No — not a siren. A creature.
The Woken.
They weren't human anymore. Not since the river in the sky had cracked open. Not since the rain started falling upwards some days.
Twisted by memory and regret, the Woken hunted architects, engineers, artists — anyone who dared to shape the world instead of accept it.
Reigen ran.
The paper slapped against his chest with every breathless step.
He didn't know where he was going. But his legs moved anyway — toward the mountains floating sideways in the horizon, toward the massive staircase of broken stones he once dreamed of building.
As the howling got closer, his mind played tricks again.
Voices.
"You said we'd ascend, Reigen."
"You said the sky would hold us."
"Liar."
He screamed, falling to his knees as the mud swallowed him whole.
And then — silence.
The rain stopped. The sky blinked.
He opened his eyes to see a woman staring down at him — barefoot, draped in feathers and metal.
Eyes like broken compasses.
"You're the one who draws buildings that don't exist," she said.
He couldn't speak.
She offered her hand.
"Then come with me. We're going to build something that never falls."