ANKAIRU: The Boy Who Wanted to Live

Varma had spent most of his twenty years avoiding the world. In 2050, Keshvat is a city that never sleeps—towering megastructures, autonomous vehicles, delivery drones, holographic advertisements and virtual worlds that can keep a person indoors forever. Varma prefers it that way. A talented gamer and habitual shut-in, he spends most of his life inside his apartment, surrounded by screens and connected only to a small circle of friends he actually trusts. Then he dies. He wakes beneath an unfamiliar sky in a world called Ankairu—a place of swords, ancient cities, strange creatures and a power known as Astra. There is no internet. No electricity. No machines. No way home. But Ankairu has a secret. People here seem to know Varma. Ancient records carry his name. A woman named Mira remembers things about him that he cannot remember himself. And somewhere beneath the world lies a mechanism connected to lives he has never lived—or has lived too many times to count. As Varma searches for a way back to Keshvat, he discovers that his arrival is not an accident. He has been here before. Twenty-seven times. And every version of him left something behind.