The Mecha Utopia
When Ethan opened his eyes, the rain had stopped making sense.
It fell upward.
The last thing he remembered was hiking alone through a mountain forest before a flash of white lightning swallowed the trail. Now he stood beneath impossible skyscrapers that pierced storm clouds glowing electric blue, while neon signs displayed symbols from no language he'd ever seen.
At first, he thought he had died.
Then the city noticed him.
Thin strands of living energy wrapped around his body, not to harm him, but to study him. Instead of resisting, Ethan reached out—and the energy answered. It flowed through his veins like liquid lightning, granting him the ability to sense invisible currents that powered the city and the strange creatures hiding between dimensions.
The people of this world called newcomers like him Drifters—travelers pulled from dying realities whenever the balance between worlds began to fail. Most never survived their first week.
Ethan did.
With nothing left of his old life but the hoodie on his back and a stubborn refusal to give up, he became a courier, explorer, and reluctant protector of the city's forgotten districts. Every mission uncovered another clue: the same lightning that brought him here wasn't an accident—it had chosen him.
Somewhere beyond the endless towers was a machine capable of reopening the gateway home.
The problem was that every day Ethan spent in this world, he felt less like a visitor... and more like someone it had been waiting for all along.