The First Runner

Where the hell am I?

📌 Chapter Update Notice

This chapter has been edited and rewritten to expand the scene and add more detail. Minor changes have been made to improve flow, pacing, and character development.

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Jess POV:

I jolted awake, air slicing into my lungs like a blade. It was stale and dry, coated in dust and rust, like I'd just taken a breath inside a forgotten tomb. My chest rose and fell in wild rhythm, heart pounding so violently it felt like a trapped animal clawing at the inside of my ribcage, desperate to escape.

Then came the noise.

A low, screeching groan of metal grinding against metal, sharp and raw, like the scream of something ancient being forced back to life. The ground beneath me lurched without warning — violent, jarring. I lost my balance and hit the floor hard, scraping my elbow on the rough metal surface. My hands scrambled for purchase, pushing me backward on all fours until my spine slammed into something cold and solid. I slid along it until I reached a corner, curling in on myself instinctively.

My breath came in shallow gasps. The air smelled like burnt oil and old smoke, a mechanical rot that clung to my tongue. Despite the chill, sweat prickled along my forehead, salty and panicked.

And then — another jolt.

The entire room heaved upward like an ancient mine shaft crank had been thrown into motion. Chains screamed under the weight, pulleys groaned with mechanical protest. The sound filled the darkness, bouncing back at me in jagged echoes that twisted around my ears. I clutched my knees tighter to my chest, as though the act might steady the world that was clearly falling apart. The floor swayed beneath me in rhythmic jerks, rising higher with each tug, like something was dragging me away from the earth — or maybe deeper into it.

I was in a box. That much I knew.

But everything else? Nothing.

Panic scratched at the inside of my throat like barbed wire. I opened my mouth but no sound came out — just a hoarse wheeze. My thoughts scattered, flashing, then folding in on themselves. Where was I? Who had put me here? Who was I?

My heart thudded louder.

I tried to focus — to hold onto something — but every time I reached inward, all I found was static. My mind was screaming with information, but it wasn't mine. Not really.

I knew how gravity worked. I knew how to count backwards from a hundred. I knew the smell of cut grass and what a thunderstorm looked like rolling across the sky. I could see snow in my mind — the kind that clings to pine needles — and taste the sugary stickiness of ice cream on a hot summer day. I remembered lakes, city squares, crowded train stations, the sensation of bare feet on pavement —

But none of it was connected.

No names. No context. No one waiting for me on the other side of this nightmare. Just images — like borrowed memories from a life I never lived.

Faces came to mind, blurry and shifting, like watercolors bleeding together. I tried to focus, tried to grab hold of one — anyone — but they slipped away like smoke. There were no names attached. No voices. No warmth.

I didn't know my own name.

That realisation hit me harder than the box's movement ever could. It emptied me.
Like someone had gutted my soul and left the shell running on autopilot.