THE GODCHASER

CHAPTER ONE

His hands were dying.

Elian held them up to the light streaming through his apartment's floor-to-ceiling windows. The glow that should have emanated from his palms, the soft radiance that marked achievement and success in The Glittering, was flickering. Not steadily like it had for the past decade. Flickering. Like a candle struggling against wind. Like something that had burned bright and was now guttering toward darkness.

In The Glittering, your hands told everyone who you were. Bright meant valuable. Dim meant worthless. Dark meant disappeared. Sent to the Outer Districts where the failed went to die slowly, forgotten by the city that measured worth by luminescence alone.

His hands had been brilliant once. Ten years of architectural triumph. Buildings that reshaped skylines. Structures that won awards. Designs that made lesser architects weep with envy. The Merchant Tower that had defined the eastern quarter. The Council Hall that everyone said couldn't be built. The residential complex that had won him recognition across three districts.

His glow had been steady. Constant. A beacon that said: I matter. I exist. I am worth something.

Now it flickered.

He watched the light pulse. Bright for a moment, then dim. Then bright again. Then dimmer. The pattern irregular. Uncertain. Like his hands couldn't decide whether to shine or surrender.

How long did he have? Weeks? Days? The decline varied by person. Some people's glow died slowly over months, giving them time to achieve one more thing, to prove their worth one more time, to delay the inevitable. Others burned out in days, their light extinguishing so fast they barely had time to understand what was happening before they were shipped to the Outer Districts.

Elian lowered his hands and turned from the window. His apartment spread before him, a monument to success. Twentieth floor of the Silver Needle, one of the most exclusive buildings in The Glittering. Prime location. Views of the city in every direction. Every surface designed by him or for him. Minimalist elegance that whispered wealth without shouting it. Art that cost more than most people earned in a year. Furniture that looked uncomfortable because comfort suggested you needed rest, and rest suggested you weren't working hard enough to maintain your glow.

The space should have felt like achievement. It felt like a tomb.

Marble floors reflected his face as he walked to the kitchen. Sleek lines. Hidden appliances. Everything designed to appear effortless while requiring enormous effort to maintain. Just like his life. Just like his glow. Just like everything in The Glittering.

His phone glowed on the counter, not with hand-light but with the artificial luminescence of technology. Sixteen messages. All from colleagues. All about tomorrow's Cathedral Commission presentation. The project that would define his legacy. The structure that would make his name permanent in The Glittering's history. The achievement that should have made his hands burn brighter than ever.

Instead, they flickered.

He scrolled through the messages without reading them. Marcus asking about the revised drawings. Jennifer confirming the meeting time. David offering to help with the presentation materials. All of them assuming his hands would glow steadily during the pitch. All of them unaware that his light was dying. That by tomorrow, his flicker might be visible even to them. That within days or weeks, he'd be dark and discarded, sent to the Outer Districts where the failed went to rot.

He set the phone down and walked to the bathroom. The mirror was unforgiving. Thirty-six years old. Still young by Glittering standards. Sharp features that had served him well in client meetings. Expensive haircut that looked careless but required monthly maintenance. Clothes tailored to suggest effortless success while hiding the effort required to afford them.

But his eyes held something the mirror couldn't disguise. Emptiness. The kind that comes from achieving everything you thought you wanted and discovering it wasn't what you actually needed. The kind that hollows you from inside while maintaining the shell. The kind that makes you question whether anything you've built actually matters.

His phone buzzed. He walked back to the kitchen and looked at the screen.

Desire.

His girlfriend. Though "girlfriend" felt like a generous term for what they had. They were two successful people who attended events together and maintained the appearance of coupledom because being alone suggested failure, and failure meant your glow was dying, and a dying glow meant you were worthless.

* * *

Can't make dinner. Client emergency. Rain check?

He stared at the message. Felt nothing. Just the familiar emptiness where feeling should have been. She wouldn't actually be with a client. She'd be with someone whose hands glowed brighter than his. Someone whose achievement hadn't started to flicker. Someone who could still maintain the illusion that success meant satisfaction.

He typed back: No problem. Good luck with the client.

Polite. Professional. Emotionally blank. The way most of their communication had been for months. They weren't together because they loved each other. They were together because being together suggested success, and success meant worth, and worth meant your glow stayed bright.

But his glow was flickering. And soon she'd notice. And when she noticed, she'd leave. Find someone brighter. Someone more successful. Someone whose light wasn't dying.

That was how The Glittering worked. You were valuable when you glowed. You were worthless when you didn't. Relationships, friendships, professional connections, all of it depended on the light in your hands. Dim too much and people stopped returning your calls. Flicker too long and you were disinvited from events. Go dark and you disappeared entirely, as if you'd never existed.

He set the phone down and returned to the living room. The sun was setting, turning The Glittering's towers into columns of fire. From this height, the city looked beautiful. Romantic. A metropolis of light in the wilderness. But up close, it was exhausting. The constant measurement. The endless comparison. The performance that never stopped. The need to be brilliant or be nothing.

When had this started? The emptiness. The sense that everything he'd built was sand castle against tide. The growing suspicion that The Glittering's measurement system was fundamentally broken.

Three months ago? Six? He couldn't pinpoint the moment. Just knew that one day he'd woken up and looked at his hands and thought: Is this all there is?

The thought had terrified him. Because in The Glittering, questioning the system was first step toward losing your glow. Doubt was disease. Uncertainty was infection. You were supposed to believe. Supposed to trust that achievement equaled worth. Supposed to measure yourself by the light in your hands and find that measurement sufficient.

But it wasn't sufficient. Not anymore. Maybe never had been.

He'd built the Merchant Tower. So what? It was beautiful, functional, exactly what the clients wanted. But it hadn't filled the void. He'd designed the Council Hall. So what? It won awards, got written about in architectural journals, made his reputation. But it hadn't made him feel less empty. He'd created the residential complex. So what? People lived in it, his name was on the cornerstone, his glow had burned bright for weeks after completion. But the brightness had faded, and the emptiness had returned, and none of it had actually mattered.

The Cathedral Commission was supposed to be different. The project of a lifetime. A structure that would define The Glittering's skyline for generations. His magnum opus. His proof that he mattered. His final, definitive achievement.

But his hands were flickering. And tomorrow he'd stand before the Commission with dying light and try to convince them he was worth the contract. And even if he succeeded, even if they chose his design, even if he spent the next two years building the greatest structure of his career, what then? Would it fill the void? Would it make him feel less empty? Would it actually mean anything beyond more glow that would eventually flicker and die?

He knew the answer. Had known it for months. The achievement wouldn't satisfy. Never did. Just postponed the question for a while. Made you think you were building toward something when you were really just running from something. From the emptiness. From the void. From the knowledge that glow measured everything except what actually mattered.

But what actually mattered? That was the question he couldn't answer. That was the question that kept him awake at night, staring at the ceiling, feeling his hands flicker in the darkness.

His phone buzzed again. He ignored it. Walked to the window. Pressed his forehead against the glass. The cool surface helped. Grounded him. Reminded him he was real even if he felt increasingly like ghost haunting his own life.

The Glittering spread below him. Millions of hands glowing in the darkness. Some bright. Some dim. All measuring. All competing. All desperately trying to prove they mattered by the radiance of their palms.

How many of them were empty like him? How many were flickering? How many were questioning the system while maintaining the performance? How many had achieved everything they thought they wanted only to discover it wasn't enough?

He couldn't be the only one. Couldn't be the only person who'd climbed the ladder and found nothing at the top. Couldn't be the only one who'd glowed bright and felt dark inside.

But no one talked about it. Couldn't talk about it. Because talking about emptiness meant admitting your glow was dying, and admitting your glow was dying meant you were worthless, and worthless people got sent to the Outer Districts.

So everyone performed. Everyone pretended. Everyone measured and compared and competed and glowed as bright as they could for as long as they could, hoping that maybe if they achieved enough, the achievement would eventually mean something.

It never did. Elian knew that now. Had probably always known it but hadn't wanted to admit it. Achievement was addiction. Every success required a bigger one. Every glow required a brighter one. Every structure required a more impressive one. There was no peak. No point where you could stop and say, "Enough. I've achieved enough. I matter enough. I can rest now."

There was only climbing. And flickering. And eventually going dark.

His breath fogged the window. And in that fog, something appeared.

Words.

Formed from condensation. Or written by invisible hand. Or conjured by his desperate mind. He couldn't tell which.

He jerked back, breath catching. Stared at the words. They glowed faintly against the glass. Not with hand-light. With something else. Something that didn't flicker.

Godchaser. The word was strange. Foreign. What did that even mean? Was he supposed to chase God? Was God chasing him? Was this some kind of religious thing? He'd never been religious. Had never seen the point. Religion was just another system that measured worth, just with different metrics.

But the words wouldn't fade. Wouldn't disappear. Just remained. Glowing steadily against the glass. Waiting.

You were supposed to be Mine.

The claim was terrifying. And compelling. And impossible to ignore. Someone, something, was claiming him. Saying he belonged somewhere else. Somewhere beyond The Glittering. Somewhere beyond achievement and glow and endless measurement.

He reached out and touched the glass. The words remained under his fingers. Not condensation then. Or if they were, they were condensation that refused to behave normally. That refused to disappear when touched. That insisted on being seen. Being read. Being considered.

The Godchaser begins here.

Begins what? A journey? A transformation? A chase? And who was chasing whom? Was he supposed to chase this Godchaser? Or was the Godchaser chasing him? The grammar was ambiguous. Deliberately so, perhaps. Leaving the question open. Leaving him to wonder.

He wiped the window with his sleeve. The fog disappeared. The words didn't. Not entirely. They'd written themselves somewhere deeper. Somewhere he couldn't erase with motion or logic or pretending he hadn't seen them.

He stood there for a long time. Watching the words. Watching the city. Watching his hands flicker in the window's reflection. Three things that shouldn't be connected somehow connecting anyway. The dying glow. The claim of belonging. The suggestion that something was beginning.

Or maybe he was losing his mind. That was possible. Probable, even. Stress did strange things to people. Approaching failure did stranger things. Maybe the words were just hallucination. Maybe his mind was breaking under the weight of emptiness and creating visions to cope. Maybe this Godchaser thing was just his subconscious trying to tell him something he already knew: that he needed to change. To escape. To find something beyond achievement and glow and endless performance.

But the words felt real. More real than his apartment. More real than his awards. More real than anything he'd built in The Glittering. They had weight. Substance. Authority. As if they'd been waiting to speak until he was desperate enough to hear them.

You were supposed to be Mine.

Whose? Who was speaking? Who was claiming him? God? The universe? His own conscience? Some force beyond The Glittering that measured worth differently? Measured worth at all?

He didn't know. Couldn't know. But something in him responded to the words anyway. Something deeper than logic. Deeper than reason. Something that recognized the claim even if his mind couldn't comprehend it.

He'd been achieving for The Glittering. Building for The Glittering. Glowing for The Glittering. Measuring his worth by The Glittering's standards. But what if The Glittering's standards were wrong? What if he was supposed to belong somewhere else? What if this emptiness wasn't failure but recognition? Not breakdown but awakening? Not losing his mind but finding it?

The thought was dangerous. Revolutionary. The kind of thing that got people sent to the Outer Districts. But once thought, it couldn't be unthought. Once seen, the words couldn't be unseen. Once heard, the claim couldn't be unheard.

The Godchaser begins here.

Maybe it did. Maybe this was the beginning. Not of failure. Of something else. Something beyond glow. Something beyond achievement. Something beyond The Glittering's measurement system.

Maybe.

He turned from the window and walked to the couch. Sat. Stared at his hands. Watched them flicker. Thought about tomorrow's presentation. About the Cathedral Commission. About the colleagues waiting for him to be brilliant. About Desire pretending she'd return his calls. About the apartment that felt like tomb. About the life he'd built that felt like death.

He thought about the words on the window. About being claimed. About belonging somewhere else. About something beginning.

And he made a decision. Not consciously. Not deliberately. Just knew, somewhere between watching his hands flicker and reading the words again in his memory, that he was done. Done performing. Done measuring. Done pretending the glow meant anything. Done with The Glittering.

He didn't sleep that night. Just lay on the couch staring at the ceiling, feeling his hands pulse with dying light, knowing that tomorrow everything would change. That he'd walk away from the life he'd built. That he'd step into unknown. That he'd chase, or be chased by, something he didn't understand.

The Godchaser begins here.

Maybe the chase had already begun. Maybe he'd been running and didn't know it. Maybe he'd been chased and was only now learning to recognize pursuit. He didn't know. Didn't understand. Just knew that whatever came next had to be different from what had been. Had to be more than achievement. More than glow. More than endless performance in service of worth that was never enough.

* * *

As grey light began to seep through the windows, he stood. Made coffee. Showered. Dressed. Did all the normal morning rituals while knowing nothing was normal anymore. While knowing he'd seen words that shouldn't exist and felt a claim that shouldn't matter and decided to follow both into whatever came next.

At 6 AM he sent three messages.

To his firm: I resign the Cathedral Commission. Effective immediately. Use whatever designs you want. I'm done.

To Desire: We're not working. You know it. I know it. Let's stop pretending.

To his landlord: Terminating my lease. Keep the deposit. Keep everything. I won't be needing it.

Send. Send. Send. Three messages that ended a life. That burned bridges. That made the decision irreversible.

His phone exploded with responses. Calls. Texts. Voicemails. Everyone wanting to know what was happening. Was he okay? Was this a breakdown? Did he need help? What about the Commission? What about the firm? What about everything he'd built?

He turned the phone off. Set it on the counter. Walked away.

By 7 AM he'd packed a bag. Not much. Couldn't carry much where he was going. Wherever that was. Just clothes. Water. Some food. Money he'd withdrawn from ATMs over the past weeks, feeling the flickering start, preparing unconsciously for this moment even before he'd known this moment was coming.

By 8 AM he was standing at his door, looking back at the apartment one last time. At the marble floors. At the expensive art. At the furniture that suggested success. At the life he'd built. At the tomb dressed as triumph.

He didn't feel sad. Felt relieved. Felt like someone who'd been holding their breath for a decade and finally remembered how to exhale.

He closed the door behind him. Took the elevator down. Walked out into The Glittering's morning light.

People passed him. Glowing. Measuring. Competing. Performing. Playing the game he'd just quit. They didn't notice him. Didn't see the decision written on his face. Didn't see that his hands were flickering toward darkness and he wasn't fighting it anymore. Didn't see that he'd been claimed by something beyond their measurement system.

He walked toward the edge. Toward the boundary. Toward the gates that separated The Glittering from whatever lay beyond. The journey took two hours. Through districts he'd designed buildings in. Past structures he'd created. By people he'd worked with. All of it familiar. All of it suddenly distant. As if he was already ghost. Already gone. Already belonging somewhere else.

Most people avoided the gates. Feared them. Saw them as line between civilization and chaos. Between measured worth and meaningless void. Between light and darkness. The gates were ancient. Older than The Glittering itself. Carved with symbols no one could read anymore. Massive. Imposing. A threshold between worlds.

People said those who left never returned. Said the wilderness consumed them. Said only fools walked away from The Glittering's light. Said the Outer Districts were bad enough, but beyond the gates? That was death. Certain death. Nothing out there but wild and darkness and things that would kill you before you understood what was happening.

But Elian walked toward them anyway. Like someone walking toward something they'd been searching for without knowing they were searching. Like someone being called by a Voice they couldn't quite hear but couldn't quite ignore. Like someone who'd seen words in fog and couldn't unsee them. Like someone who'd been claimed and was walking toward the claimer even without knowing who the claimer was.

The Godchaser begins here.

The gates rose ahead. Massive. Ancient. Carved with words he couldn't read. Between the city and the wild. Between the known and the unknown. Between who he'd been and who he might become.

At the threshold, he paused. Looked back one more time.

The Glittering spread behind him. Beautiful from distance. Brutal up close. A city of light that measured everyone and found most wanting. That promised satisfaction through achievement and delivered emptiness instead. That made you glow bright while feeling dark inside.

He'd given it ten years. It had given him nothing that lasted. Nothing that mattered. Nothing that filled the void opening wider with each passing day.

Ahead was wilderness. Dark. Unmeasured. Unknown. People said those who entered never returned. Said the wild consumed them. Said only fools walked away from The Glittering's light.

But his hands were dying anyway. And the words had claimed him. And something in him recognized the claim even if his mind couldn't comprehend it. And maybe death in wilderness was better than slow death in The Glittering. Maybe being consumed by wild was better than being consumed by emptiness. Maybe the unknown was better than the known when the known was hollow.

You were supposed to be Mine.

He stepped through the gates.

And didn't look back again.