Echo’s Awakening

They say the world ended in the year 2150.

But it wasn’t an explosion, nor a nuclear war, that destroyed us.

It was something far worse.

It was silence.

One morning, people woke up to find they were no longer alone.

There were others among us.

They looked human…

until they didn’t.

The Vini arrived on our planet without warning. No ships were seen, no lights crossed the sky, no signals came from outer space. They simply appeared. They infiltrated so quickly that by the time we tried to react, they already controlled everything. Eventually, we discovered how they came: dimensional portals— invisible fractures in reality connected to their world, Vynia. The portals open in places of intense natural energy: mountains, forests, volcanoes, deserts.

At first, we believed they were humans with mutations.

But it didn’t take long to learn the truth.

They could change shape— their faces, their voices, even their scent. There was no way to tell them apart from us.

Until one of them forgot to blink.

Or their skin began to glow faintly beneath the moonlight.

That’s when we learned to watch from the corner of our eyes.

To distrust everyone.

Even our own brothers.

Not all Vini revealed themselves in the same way. Some were nearly perfect imitators. Others let their true form slip through: tall beings with translucent skin, threaded with streams of bluish light that pulsed like living veins. Their eyes were completely white, pupil-less—yet they could see beyond matter itself, as if peering straight into the mind.

When they spoke, their voices echoed twice, as though two separate beings lived within the same throat.

They say the Vini don’t feel emotions like we do. That they feed on vital energy— and the more fear we feel, the stronger they become.

Some humans disappeared and returned days later… hollow. Their eyes empty, as if something inside them had been consumed.

Within a few years, cities collapsed. Governments fell without ever fighting back.

The Vini divided the planet into four territories, destroying everything that was of no use to them. What remained, they turned into factories, prisons, or experimental zones.

Of what was once South America, only ruins remain. Poisoned jungles. And a handful of hidden communities buried deep within the forests.

That’s where I was born.

It is now the year 2225.

Seventy-five years have passed since the fall of the last human government.

They say only a few thousand of us remain— living underground, or hiding among roots and fog.

My name is Victoria.

I am eighteen years old.

I am part of the resistance.

My parents were killed when the Vini attacked our settlement. Since then, I’ve lived with my younger brother, far from anything they can touch.

And even though I grew up in a world where monsters wear the faces of men…

I still dream of the day we’ll be able to look up at the sky without fear.

This is my story.

The story of how we survived…

and how it all began.