The Anomaly's Path

The basement didn’t just smell like death, it smelled like the weight of it.

Mia sat on the damp stone floor of the cage, her arms wrapped tightly around children who were shaking so hard their teeth clattered. The darkness was thick, oily, and broken only by the distant, wet sounds of dripping water and the occasional muffled sob from the other kids huddled in the corner.

"Big sis Mia... are they going to eat us?" a small boy whispered, his voice small and cracking.

Mia felt a sob rising in her own throat, but she swallowed it down until it burned. She forced her face into a calm mask—the kind of smile Marta used to wear when the winter winds grew too cold.

"No, silly," she whispered, stroking his matted hair. "They just want to scare us. But we aren’t scared, right? We are Wayford kids. We’re tough."

"Big sis Mia... I want to go home," Lily whimpered, her small fingers digging into Mia’s tunic. "It’s too dark. I can’t see the stars anymore."

"I know, Lily. I know," Mia whispered, stroking the girl’s hair. "But look at me. As long as we’re together, the dark can’t hurt us."

Mia forced a smile onto her face. It took everything she had. Her lips wanted to tremble. Her eyes wanted to water. But she held it together.

"Big sis Mia is here," she said. "I will not let anything hurt you."

She pulled them closer, burying her face in their hair to hide the tears she couldn’t stop.

She started to hum a soft, low tune. It was the song Leo used to hum when he thought no one was listening. One by one, the children drifted toward her, pressing their small, cold bodies against hers. She was their only shield in a world that had gone mad.

Clang!

A sound broke the silence.

The heavy iron door at the end of the hall groaned open. The children shrieked, scrambling behind Mia’s back.

A man stepped into the faint light of a flickering torch.

He was thin and gaunt, with pale skin stretched tight over sharp bones. His hair was thin and greasy, plastered to his scalp. His eyes were sunken and dark, and they moved over the children like a wolf looking at a herd of sheep.

This was Doctor Voss.

He walked up to the bars, his boots clicking rhythmically. He didn’t look at the children as humans; he looked at them like jars on a shelf. Finally, his gaze settled on Mia.

A slow, dark smile spread across his face, revealing teeth that were jagged and stained.

"The Soul Weaver user," he hissed, his voice sounding like dry leaves skittering on a grave. "And not just any soul ability user. The daughter of Elias and Seraphina."

Mia froze. The air left her lungs. "Y-you... how do you know my parents?"

Voss let out a dry, rasping laugh. "Know them? My dear, we were a team once. We shared the same labs, the same dreams. We chased the secrets of the pulse together."

"You’re lying!" Mia shouted, her voice trembling. "My parents were healers! They were good people! The soldiers said they died in the war... they died heroes!"

Voss leaned his face against the cold bars, his eyes bulging. "The Empire is very good at telling stories to little girls. They aren’t dead, Mia. They’ve been with me this whole time."

The world felt like it was tilting. Mia’s heart raced, a drumbeat of pure terror in her ears. "Liar... you’re a liar! They’re dead! I saw the letters!"

"Would you like to see for yourself?" Voss asked, his voice dropping to a seductive, poisonous whisper. "I have kept them... safe. They are my greatest masterpieces."

He pulled a heavy key from his belt and unlocked the cage. The screech of the metal was deafening. The children wailed, clutching at Mia’s dress.

Voss sighed, looking bored. "Come with me, little girl. If you don’t, I’ll start with the boy with the braided hair. I wonder how long it takes for a soul to leak out when the skin is peeled back?"

Mia’s breath hitched. She looked at the children—their wide, terrified eyes full of a desperate hope that she would save them. She turned back to Voss, her face pale but determined.

"Don’t touch them," she whispered. "...I will go."

She turned to the kids, kneeling one last time. "Wait for me. I will be back soon. I promise."

Voss led her through a maze of dark corridors.

The hallway was a nightmare of shadows. The walls were stained with old, dark splashes that looked like rusted iron, and the air grew thicker with the scent of chemicals and rotting meat.

Voss stopped in front of a large door.

He pushed it open.

The room beyond was vast and dark. Shelves lined the walls, filled with jars and vials and tools that Mia did not want to look at. A large vat sat in the center of the room, bubbling and hissing, filling the air with a foul, chemical smell.

Voss walked to the vat and spread his arms.

Voss stopped in front of a massive glass vat filled with a glowing, murky green fluid. Tubes ran into the top and bottom, pulsing like veins.

"Here," Voss said, stepping aside with a grand gesture. "The Rayners. My old friends."

Mia stepped forward, her hand pressed against her mouth.

Inside the vat was a nightmare.

It was not a person. It was not a beast. It was a Mass—a fused, pulsing lump of flesh and limbs that had been sewn together and left to grow. Arms jutted out at wrong angles. Legs ended in hands. Faces pressed against the inside of the glass, their mouths open in silent, eternal shrieks. Their eyes rolled back in agony, seeing nothing, feeling everything.

...And among those faces, she saw them.

A man and a woman.

Their features were blurred and melted, the skin stretched and warped, but she recognized them.

"Mother... Father...?"

As if they heard her, the things in the vat began to twitch. Their mouths opened, bubbles of gas escaping their throats. They weren’t screaming—they couldn’t.

"Beautiful, isn’t it?" Voss whispered, standing right behind her. "They betrayed me. They tried to stop my research. They told the Knights I was ’insane.’ So, I decided to make them the foundation of my greatest work. I’ve kept them alive for years, Mia. Every nerve ending kept raw and screaming just so I could measure the output of their pain."

Mia turned, her eyes burning with a rage so hot it eclipsed her fear. "You monster! I’ll kill you! I’ll burn this place to the ground!"

Voss didn’t flinch. He moved with a speed that shouldn’t have been possible, his hand snapping around her throat. He lifted her off the ground, pinning her against a heavy wooden chair.

"You have their fire," he chuckled. "But... you lack the power."

He slammed her into the chair and pulled thick, blood-stained leather straps over her wrists and ankles. He tightened them until the leather bit deep into her flesh, making her cry out.

He walked over to a tray of instruments. He picked up a long, curved needle and a jagged saw. The metal glinted under the dim light, crusted with the dried remains of whoever had been in the chair before her.

"Do you know how long I’ve waited for a soul ability user’s blood?" Voss asked, his shadow looming over her. "Your parents gave me the body. But you... you will give me the soul."

He leaned in, the needle touching the skin of her arm.

"No one can hear you down here, Mia."

He pressed the needle in.

A scream tore through the basement, sharp and long, echoing off the stone walls. It didn’t stop. It just rose in pitch, blending with the bubbling of the vat, until the darkness itself seemed to vibrate with the sound of a soul being broken.

...And upstairs, the sun continued to rise over a world that didn’t care.

_

Splash!

I splashed cold water on my face, letting the chill shock my brain. I did it again and again until my brain cooled down. Then, I leaned over the stone basin, my hands gripping the edges, and stared at the water dripping from my chin.

The room was small and grey. A cracked mirror hung on the wall in front of me. A single candle burned on a wooden shelf, casting flickering shadows across the stone.

I looked up.

A face stared back at me.

I stared at the reflection for a long moment, then let out a long, ragged sigh. "It doesn’t make any sense..." I whispered. "How am I even alive?"

I tried to piece the memories together. I remembered the demons. I remembered the feeling of my arm being severed—the white-hot agony that had turned into a cold numbness. I remembered Mia leaning over me, her tears hitting my face, her mana seeping into my chest before they dragged her away.

I looked down at my arms. I flexed my fingers.

My right arm—the one I had seen fly through the air in the village—was back. It wasn’t just back; it was perfect. I checked my chest, my shoulders, my legs. There wasn’t a single scratch. No scars. No jagged marks from where the swords had pierced my skin.

My body had recovered completely, as if the massacre had never happened.

How could such a thing be possible?

I could still feel the phantom pain of the blades. I could still hear the sound of my own bones snapping.

But the mirror told a different story.

Then, I looked at my hair.

I reached up, my fingers trembling as I touched the strands near my temple. I had always had jet-black hair, but now, thick streaks of stark white ran through it.

"....When did this happen?" I muttered.

I had so many questions, and not a single soul to answer them.

I looked down at my hand, and as the thought of the demons crossed my mind, my palm began to itch.

A flicker of black flame ignited in my center.

It was small, barely larger than a candle flame, flickering in the dim light of the washroom. It gave no heat. It made no sound. It just existed, dark as the void between stars, dancing on my skin like it belonged there.

It rose from my skin, silent and dancing.

It wasn’t hot, and it wasn’t cold. It felt like... nothing.

An absence of heat. The more I stared into the flicker, the more I felt a strange chill in my spine. It felt as if the abyss itself was staring back at me through the fire.

I remembered fragments of this power.

I had touched it briefly while fighting Kael. But my body hadn’t been able to handle it then; the flames had extinguished the moment I collapsed. Now, they seemed to be a part of me, though I had no idea how to control them or what they truly were.

I sighed, closing my hand to snuff out the flame, and leaned back against the wall.

It had been two days since I woke up, and I had spent that time learning what I could. I was being held by the Imperial Knights. They had reached Wayford on the sixth day after the attack and found me on the seventh, half-buried in ash.

I also realized something that made my blood run cold.

The woman who had slapped me—the Captain—was Seraphina von Celestial. The name hit me like a lightning bolt.

Celestial.

She was of my bloodline. A distant ancestor from a time when my family still held the peak of the empire.

And the man behind her, the jolly one?

Cassian Valerion.

The soft blonde hair and those golden-blue eyes were the unmistakable traits of the Valerion family—the very lineage that served as the primary ancestors of the current empire’s ruling class.

I was surrounded by the living history of the world I had been reborn into.

I left the washroom and found a set of clean traveler’s clothes waiting for me. I dressed slowly, every movement deliberate. Once I was ready, I stepped out into the hallway.

A man was standing there, leaning against the stone wall. I heard they called him Ren.

The moment he saw me, he jumped to his feet, his hand instinctively twitching toward his sword. He looked like he was on edge, his eyes scanning me as if I might explode at any second.

Honestly?

He is very interesting. The women who came with two days ago told me, he thought I was a ghost at first. I looked at him and, despite the weight in my chest, a small, dark urge to tease him bubbled up.

"Still worried about the ghost, Ren?" I asked, my voice dry.

Ren jumped slightly, his face turning a light shade of pink. "I... I told you, I don’t believe in ghosts."

"Then why are you shaking?" I stepped closer, tilting my head. "I promise I won’t haunt you. At least, not today."

"You’re a strange one, Leo," Ren muttered, regaining his composure but still looking wary. "Most people would still be in bed after what you went through."

"I’ve slept enough," I said, my expression turning serious. "I want to meet the Captain. Both of them."

Ren nodded, though he looked like he’d rather be doing anything else. "Captain Seraphina and Captain Cassian are in the command office. They’re expecting you, actually."

"Lead the way," I said.

As I followed Ren through the winding corridors of the encampment, I felt the eyes of the other knights on me. They whispered as I passed, their voices filled with a mix of awe and fear. To them, I was the boy who shouldn’t be alive.

We stopped in front of a heavy oak door guarded by two armored sentries. Ren knocked twice.

"The boy is here, Captains," he announced.

A muffled voice from inside told them to enter.

Ren opened the door, and I stepped into the room, my heart hardening.

It was time to meet my ancestor.