Chapter 1 : The Legacy
I wake to the sound of hymns.
Not the gentle kind—the ones that cradle you back to consciousness with soft melodies and warm harmonies. No. These are theotherkind. The brutal, mechanical chants that blast from every street corner at exactly 6:00 AM, courtesy of the Thawne Civic Authority’s mandatory “Morning Devotion” program.
“Praise to the Lightning God, who saved us from chaos...”
I pull my pillow over my head, but it’s useless. The words seep through the thin walls of my apartment like poison gas, relentless and invasive.
“Praise to Eobard Thawne, the Fastest Man Alive, who rebuilt our world in perfection...”
I throw off my blanket and sit up, my bare feet hitting the cold floor. My studio apartment is tiny—just a bed, a kitchenette that barely functions, a bathroom the size of a closet, and a single window that overlooks Future Gotham’s Temple District. I stumble to that window now and pull back the threadbare curtain.
The view steals my breath. It always does, but never in a good way.
Three massive golden statues of Eobard Thawne dominate the skyline, each one at least fifty stories tall. They’re positioned in a triangle formation around the Central Temple, their hands raised toward the sky as if conducting lightning itself. The morning sun catches the gold plating and sends blinding reflections across the city, turning everything into a gaudy, oppressive spectacle.
Propaganda banners hang from every building:“IN SPEED WE TRUST.”“THAWNE GUIDES US.”“THE LIGHTNING GOD LIVES ETERNAL.”
I feel the familiar nausea rising in my throat.
Seventeen years. Seventeen years since Thawne supposedly “ascended” into the Speed Force, consumed by his own power while “saving” the dimension from some vague, never-fully-explained catastrophe. Seventeen years of this theocratic nightmare that replaced one dictator with theworshipof that same dictator.
I don’t remember much from before—I was barely six when it happened. But I remember enough to know this isn’t normal. That cities aren’t supposed to feel like open-air prisons wrapped in religious fever.
My stomach growls, pulling me from my thoughts. I glance at the clock: 6:47 AM. I need to be at the depot by 7:30 for my shift.
I move through my morning routine with mechanical efficiency. Splash cold water on my face—the hot water’s been out for three weeks, and my landlord won’t fix it because I can’t afford to bribe him. Pull on my work clothes: black compression pants, a fitted gray tank top, scuffed running shoes that are held together more by duct tape than original stitching. Tie my dark hair back in a tight ponytail.
I grab my courier bag—weathered canvas with the Velocity Express logo fading on the side—and sling it across my chest. The weight is familiar, comforting even. This bag has been with me for three years, since I aged out of the state orphanage and had to fend for myself.
I take one last look around my apartment. There’s nothing here that marks it asmine.No photos, no decorations, no personal touches. Just functional furniture and blank walls. It’s temporary, I keep telling myself. Everything in my life is temporary.
I head out the door and down four flights of stairs—the elevator’s been broken for months—and step into the streets of Future Gotham.
The city assaults my senses immediately.
The hymns are louder out here, pouring from speakers mounted on every light post. The streets are already crowded with people making their way to the Central Temple for mandatory morning prayer. Most wear the yellow armbands that mark them as “Faithful of the Lightning”—true believers who attend services multiple times a day. Their faces are serene, almost zombified in their devotion.
I keep my head down and walk quickly, weaving through the crowds with practiced ease. I’ve learned to make myself invisible in this city—just another anonymous face in the endless stream of worker drones keeping Future Gotham functioning.
The architecture around me is a grotesque mixture of Gothic revival and speed-worship aesthetics. Every building features lightning bolt motifs carved into stone, yellow and gold accents on every surface, and those damn statues—smaller versions of the three massive ones—positioned at nearly every intersection. Thawne’s face stares down from murals painted on walls, his expression frozen in that confident, almost mocking smile that makes my skin crawl.
I turn onto Velocity Boulevard, the main artery running through the Temple District toward the industrial sector where I work. The street is lined with businesses required by law to display Thawne iconography in their windows. Restaurants, shops, even the seedy bars—all of them draped in yellow and gold, all of them with his image prominently displayed.
A group of children passes me, heading to one of the state schools. They’re singing the Thawne anthem, their young voices clear and enthusiastic:
“Lightning blessed, lightning born,Through his speed, we’re reborn,Fastest god who conquered time,In his name, we’ll always climb...”
I feel sick.
These kids don’t know anything else. They were born into this system, raised to worship a dead dictator as if he were divine. They’ll never question it, never wonder if there’s somethingwrongwith building your entire society around one man’s cult of personality.
I walk faster, my legs carrying me with that odd, restless energy I’ve always had. People sometimes comment on how fast I move—how I seem to blur slightly when I’m in a hurry, how I’m always the first to arrive anywhere. I shrug it off as natural athleticism, a side effect of years running packages across the city.
But lately...
I shake my head, pushing away the thought. Not now. I can’t think about the weird moments, the strange sensations, the times when the world seems to slow down around me and I feel like I’m moving through molasses while everyone else is frozen.
I can’t think about the nightmares.
The depot comes into view—a massive warehouse complex on the edge of the industrial zone, surrounded by chain-link fencing and guard towers. Velocity Express is one of the largest courier companies in Future Gotham, contracted by the government to handle everything from official documents to civilian packages. We’re the lifeblood of the city’s logistics network, and we’re worked like dogs for barely minimum wage.
I show my ID badge to the guard at the gate. He barely glances at it before waving me through. I cross the concrete yard, past rows of delivery vehicles and loading docks, toward the dispatcher’s office.
“Avery! You’re late!”
I turn to see Marcus jogging toward me, his round face flushed with exertion. Marcus is one of the few people at Velocity Express I’d actually call a friend—a broad-shouldered guy in his mid-twenties with an infectious laugh and a tendency to complain about everything while somehow remaining relentlessly optimistic.
“I’m seven minutes early,” I counter, pointing at the clock tower visible above the warehouse.
“Yeah, but Jorge’s been on the warpath since he got here. Something about missed quotas and government penalties. He’s assigning the nightmare routes today—you know, the ones that require like eight trips up and down skyscrapers.”
I groan. “Perfect.”
We walk into the dispatcher’s office together, joining the crowd of couriers gathering for morning assignments. Jorge stands at the front, a clipboard in his meaty hands, his face already red with barely contained rage.
“Listen up!” he barks. “We’re behind on our monthly contract obligations, which means the Thawne Civic Authority is breathing down my neck, which means I’m about to make your livesmiserableuntil we catch up. Understood?”
Scattered murmurs of acknowledgment.
Jorge starts calling out names and routes. I tune out until I hear mine.
“Ho! You’ve got the Temple District premium run. Forty-seven packages, multiple high-rises, and you need to finish by 2:00 PM because there’s a prayer rally that’s going to shut down half the district. Don’t be late.”
I nod and move to the loading area to collect my packages. Temple District premium runs are exhausting—lots of wealthy residents in luxury apartments who tip well but expect you to basically teleport their deliveries to their doors. The buildings are old, the elevators are slow, and there’s always some complication.
But the money’s good, and I need every credit I can get.
I load the packages into my courier bag—it’s specially designed with compression technology, making the load lighter than it should be—and head out.
The morning air is cool against my skin as I start running.
And that’s when everything changes.
I’m three blocks from my first delivery when it happens.
One moment, I’m jogging at a steady pace, my breath even and controlled. The next moment, the worldstretches.
Everything around me seems to elongate, like reality itself is being pulled taffy-thin. The people walking on the sidewalk move in extreme slow motion—a woman’s coffee cup suspended mid-fall, drops of liquid hanging in the air like amber beads. A bird frozen mid-flight. A car inching forward so slowly I can count individual rotations of its wheels.
And I’m moving through it like I’m underwater, pushing against invisible resistance, my lungs burning, my heart hammering in my chest.
What the hell—
Then it snaps back.
The world rushes forward. The coffee cup hits the ground and shatters. The bird completes its flight path. The car speeds past. Everything is normal again, moving at regular speed, and I’m standing there gasping, my hands shaking, sweat dripping down my face.
A man bumps into me. “Watch it, girl.”
I barely hear him. I’m too busy trying to process what just happened, trying to convince myself it was just... just what? A hallucination? A momentary lapse? Low blood sugar?
But I felt it. Theresistance.The sense that time itself had become viscous, thick, and I was the only thing moving at normal speed—or was I movingtoo fastand everything else had slowed down?
My hands are still shaking.
“You okay?”
I look up. A middle-aged woman is staring at me with concern, her hand hovering near my elbow like she’s afraid I might collapse.
“Yeah,” I manage. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just... low blood sugar. Forgot to eat breakfast.”
She nods sympathetically and moves on.
I force myself to keep walking, to continue toward my first delivery. But my mind is racing, my body humming with an energy I don’t understand.
This isn’t the first time.
These episodes—thesevisionsor whatever they are—have been happening more frequently over the past few weeks. Little moments where reality hiccups, where time seems to stutter and skip like a scratched recording.
I’ve been ignoring them, telling myself they’re stress-related or maybe some weird medical condition I can’t afford to have diagnosed. But deep down, in a place I don’t want to acknowledge, I know something is wrong.
Something ischanging.
I deliver my first package—a luxury watch to some executive’s penthouse—and try to focus on my work. But the feeling lingers, that strange restless energy buzzing under my skin like electricity looking for a ground.
By the time I’m on my tenth delivery, I’ve almost convinced myself it was nothing.
Almost.
But when I’m climbing the stairs to a fourteenth-floor apartment (because of course the elevator is out of service), I feel it again—that same stretching sensation, that same underwater resistance. I freeze mid-step, gripping the railing, watching as a spider on the wall moves frame by frame across the concrete, its legs stuttering through space in slow motion.
Then normal.
I finish the climb on shaking legs and deliver the package with a smile that feels like it might crack my face in half.
Something is very, very wrong with me.
And I have no idea what to do about it.
I spend the rest of my shift in a haze of mounting anxiety, delivering packages on autopilot while my mind spins in circles. By the time I finish my route and return to the depot, I’m exhausted in a way that has nothing to do with physical exertion.
Marcus catches me as I’m turning in my delivery confirmations.
“You look like hell,” he observes cheerfully.
“Thanks. You always know exactly what to say.”
“Seriously though, you okay? You seemed off today.”
I consider telling him. Consider admitting that I might be losing my mind, that reality keeps glitching around me, that I feel like I’m vibrating out of my own skin.
Instead, I say, “Just tired. Didn’t sleep well.”
He accepts this with a nod. “Yeah, those damn morning hymns. I’ve been wearing earplugs, but my girlfriend says I sleep through my alarm now.”
We chat for a few more minutes about nothing important, and then I head home.
The Temple District is even more crowded in the evening, filled with the faithful attending sunset prayers. I navigate through them like a ghost, invisible and untouchable.
When I finally reach my apartment, I collapse onto my bed without bothering to change clothes.
I stare at the ceiling, watching shadows shift as the dying sunlight filters through my window.
What’s happening to me?
No answer comes.
Eventually, exhaustion drags me under, and I fall into sleep.
The nightmares are waiting...
