Unholy Player Chapter 1: Prison Planet Theory

This is the prologue. While it is optional, I suggest you read it. It is an interesting introduction and will only take a moment of your time.

---

The "Earth Prison Theory."

In essence, this hypothesis suggests that our planet is nothing more than a celestial jail—a realm where humanity is confined within a perpetual cycle of rebirth.

According to this view, when a person passes away, their memories are scrubbed clean before they are forced back into this world, condemned to lead lives devoid of any real significance or higher objective.

Most members of the scientific community dismissed such an idea with a laugh, never giving it a second thought. However, one particular researcher chose to investigate it deeply, truly earning the "mad scientist" title bestowed upon him by both the public and his peers.

Driven by an obsession to find whatever grains of truth might be hidden within the theory, he began his quest.

His outlook was always unconventional.

While others turned their gazes toward the stars, wondering what lay in the distance, he traversed the land, searching for evidence concealed beneath the vast blue firmament.

As they constructed rockets to reach far-off worlds, he poured over ancient scrolls, seeking the lost knowledge of civilizations that spoke of realms beyond our own.

While machines and modern science were used to map the galaxy, he wandered through crumbling ruins and listened to the echoes of antiquity, convinced that the solutions were closer than anyone suspected.

Finally, after years of grueling labor, the exhaustion of his wealth, and the sacrifice of his entire life, he discovered the object of his search.

Whether it should be called an invention or a discovery mattered little in the end.

The significance lay in the fact that he had located a tiny tear in the fabric of reality—a fracture in the very walls of the prison.

It was a gateway leading to the other side of existence.

Having spent the majority of his life hunting for this rift, he was now resolute in spending his remaining years investigating whatever existed on the other side.

Yet, before he could proceed, two vital questions demanded answers, regardless of the price.

Unfortunately, he was never granted the opportunity to find those answers, as events took a sudden and drastic turn.

No one, not even the mad scientist himself, could comprehend the timing or the cause, but the transformation occurred in a heartbeat.

One moment, the sky was streaked with countless bolts of light, darting across the heavens like falling stars and leaving radiant paths in their wake.

The next, those glowing trails slammed into the earth, vanishing in blinding flashes just before the ground was torn apart by massive explosions.

The moment had arrived.

A global conflict was unfolding.

This time, however, the battle was not fought with blades, but with the most catastrophic armaments humanity had ever conceived.

Nuclear warheads.

Until that day, the devastating power of a single nuclear missile was never in doubt.

No one questioned the level of ruin that the detonation of thousands of such weapons would bring to the world.

And yet,

They were forced to endure this nightmare as their new reality, a brutal confirmation of what they already feared.

In the span of a single night, grand cities were leveled into piles of debris, and homes were transformed into graves for those inside.

Lakes and rivers evaporated, replaced by nothing but scorched craters.

Great forests became infernos, incinerating every living thing within them.

The event itself was a living hell, and what followed was equally merciless.

Nations fractured, governments collapsed, and the social order was utterly annihilated. While many died in the initial blasts, a countless number perished in the following years, falling to starvation, exposure, and the horrific plagues spawned by the radiation and chemical toxins that poisoned the soil.

Humanity had orchestrated its own demise. However, by some stroke of luck, the flame of hope was not entirely snuffed out.

Humans have always been a race that learns from failure, matures through hardship, and rises once more from the wreckage.

This era was no exception.

After many years had passed, survivors began to leave their underground sanctuaries. Among them, twelve individuals emerged as leaders. They possessed more than just the foresight to build bunkers and survive the apocalypse; they also held the influence, resources, and command necessary to begin the reconstruction of civilization.

In a world defined by scars and dwindling resources, each of these twelve claimed their own territory. Utilizing every tool at their disposal, they built massive shelter cities, reinstating order and creating environments where human society could once again flourish.

As decades rolled by under the guidance of these figures—who would eventually be titled the City Managers—life on the planet slowly returned to a state of normalcy, even if it was a shadow of the world that came before.

Monuments were erected everywhere, and daily lectures were held to remind the populace of past errors and the solemn oath to never repeat them.

But there was a detail that had long since faded from memory.

The once-renowned mad scientist had been erased from the public consciousness, vanishing just as he had during the explosions of that cataclysmic day.

No one truly understood the nature of his discovery, and no one had the chance to address the two questions he had posed to himself:

Is Earth truly a penitentiary designed to hold humanity captive for all eternity?

And,

If Earth is indeed a prison for our souls, what crimes or choices led to our incarceration here?

Until...