The silence was misleading at first. Superficial. Deceptive. As if everything had already come to an end. But inside the control room... the end was still breathing.
In a shattered corner, amidst the remains of scorched monitors and security devices that had long ceased their shrieking, a body stirred—a body barely worthy of being called alive.
Reis.
He opened his eyes slowly, as if his eyelids had turned to iron. No clarity. Just flickering red lights trembling across the horizon, and a faint ringing echoing from the depths of his skull.
It wasn't adrenaline that awakened him. Not even a primal will to survive. It was pain. Pure. Wordless. Pointless—except to remind him he was still trapped in this hell.
He tried moving his hand.
It trembled.
Then the other.
His limbs felt like smoldering coal beneath his skin. Every joint groaned. Every nerve writhed. He raised his body on his arms, his shoulders straining as though he were trying to lift a mountain off his chest.
He whispered to himself, voice brittle and nearly voiceless:
"Damn it… Not much left... I… I hate myself for this."
He bled.
First from his eyes.
Then his nose.
Thick, burning droplets slid down his face and splashed onto the discolored metal floor. He tried wiping them away, but his fingers refused to obey. As if his entire body had decided to say: Stop.
But he didn't.
He stood—or tried to. Shoulders hunched. His knee screamed with every ounce of weight he placed on it. His right hand shook uncontrollably, the left gripping the wall for balance.
His eyes were bloodshot—not just from tears, but something else… something inside him was melting.
He exhaled. A broken breath, as though his chest had forgotten how to let go of air.
Then he looked around.
The light pulsed from the screens in front of him. Some showed unreadable data, others displayed chaotic scenes from the upper floors of the lab. On one screen… the main gate was partially open, framed by fleeing shadows and swirling madness.
The blaring of systems cut through his thoughts. Alarms overlapped like hammers smashing against his skull. Everything was screaming.
But he wasn't listening.
He was simply… present.
He reached for the door handle. Pressed it. It didn't budge. He pressed again—this time with his shoulder—and it gave way.
Outside the control room, the chaos had evolved into a collective nightmare.
The hallways overflowed with people. Doctors shouting orders no one heard. Guards shoving others aside. Low-ranked Awakened racing with weapons, though no target was in sight. Some of the experimental children still sat stunned inside their isolation pods.
The ground trembled.
Ceilings cracked. Lights crashed. Some portions of the floor had already collapsed, and from the depths surged black fire and thick smoke—as if Hell itself had opened its mouth beneath them.
Reis didn't run.
He didn't scream.
He crawled.
With his right hand and his one good knee, he dragged his punctured body toward the gray light leaking through a fissured ceiling.
He looked up.
He saw a slit in the concrete—barely visible—but through it, he saw the sky.
Gray. Overcast. Silent. Yet different. It wasn't an exit—it was a promise. A promise of something else. Higher. Farther. Greater.
Suddenly, something yanked him back.
A rough hand clutched his hair and slammed his face into the hard tiles. His chin cracked against the floor, his nose burst again, more blood spilling.
A voice—gruff, panting:
"You… Who the hell do you think you are? Just a worthless freak! You'll die here like the rest of the scum!"
Reis raised his eyes slowly and saw a man's face—a doctor—etched with fear and stress, though something shifted in his expression when he looked closer.
"You… you're one of Professor Valeris's specimens, aren't you?" the doctor gasped, realization widening his eyes.
"Oh… you're that one. The rare sample… the one they refused to terminate… How long has it been? Five months? Six? A year?"
He turned to the guards wrestling with panicked staff near the gate and shouted wildly:
"Catch him! Don't let him escape! He's one of the Professor's experiments! This is a black-class specimen! We need him alive before the ceiling collapses on us!"
But Reis didn't reply.
He didn't feel anything.
It was as if he could see only one thing.
The sky.
A faint light seeped down, bathing his dirt- and blood-smeared face. Slowly, he raised his hand—not in plea, not in greeting—but as if to touch something no one else could see.
A moment of reverence amid ruin.
Then…
A shadow.
Heavy steps approached. A dark military boot stepping over glass and blood. A guard. His eyes emotionless. Gun drawn. Expression hollow with cold precision.
He drew closer.
And closer still.
Reis's hand remained raised toward the sky.
And then… the scene froze.
Between an ascent that couldn't be stopped… and a shadow ready to drag him back down.
The guard closed in, not running, not hesitating. His steps were measured, mechanical, like he was executing a routine. His gaze fixed on that raised hand, on the single finger pointing skyward—toward that sliver of gray.
He bent down.
Grabbed Reis's wrist—and without hesitation, forced it down. A soft crunch accompanied the motion.
Then he pressed his knee onto Reis's back, flipping him face down, pinning him. He reached for the other arm to bind it.
"Move, bastard…" the guard muttered, not even raising his voice as he pulled handcuffs from his belt, gripping Reis's bloody wrist to lock it in place.
But something felt wrong.
Reis's heart… stuttered.
Then again.
Then—it erupted.
A scream tore from his chest. Not just pain. Not merely defiance. It was a rupture. As if his heart was being ripped from its place, his chest bursting open to release something ancient, something buried… and now clawing its way out.
He screamed again.
His face mashed into the metal floor. His forehead slammed it repeatedly. His teeth rattled. But the sound didn't stop. It wasn't just a human voice—it was a wave. It shook the floor beneath him and echoed across the lab walls.
His eyes… turned completely black.
Even the eyelids lost their natural tone—darkened like charcoal, as if mana itself had flooded his pupils and consumed every glimmer of light.
Then the field expanded.
He hadn't meant to.
He hadn't commanded it.
But the field moved—like a living creature responding to its master's wrath. Mana coiled around Reis, seeping from the ground, the walls, the ceilings. From every crack in the facility, it slithered forth and stretched—twisting, coiling—as if it had waited for this moment to awaken.
Reis lifted his head slightly.
He looked around… but didn't see people.
He saw them as mana-shapes—faceless, flickering figures. Living particles—glowing, dissolving, burning.
Everything felt light… blurry… spinning.
He hated it.
Hated the sensation. Hated seeing the world like a ghost. Like nothing was real. Tangible. Like he belonged nowhere.
And then—without thinking...
He unleashed it.
The field didn't just stretch this time.
It erupted.
A pulse blasted outward from his core—not fire, not sound—but a wave of air tainted with mana. It expanded in all directions, launching everyone around him.
The guard above him flew like a rag doll, slammed into a steel column—his body split open.
Doctors in the nearby corridor were hurled like leaves—some smacked against walls, others flung through the broken gate, tumbling from the shattered ceiling.
Screams mingled with explosions. Security systems failed. Fires ignited where none had burned before.
Too many bodies. Some never moved again.
At the center of it all… was Reis.
Standing.
Or nearly so.
His body twisted like a shadow, bones straining to hold together. His back arched, like a skeletal frame refusing collapse. He breathed sharply—each inhale a blade against the air.
Then came the dark mana.
It poured from the ground, the walls, the very atmosphere.
It surged toward him.
Drawn like a curse, as if his heart had become a magnet for the underworld.
It wrapped around him.
Spinning.
Gathering on his feet, his arms, his chest. As if weaving him new skin. Or a shroud.
But he didn't care.
His eyes—still black—remained fixed on the sky.
His hand—still bleeding—remained raised.
And from his back…
Tentacles emerged.
Two long, incomplete appendages—black, leathery, malformed—like the broken wings of a bat. They twitched in the air… then flapped.
Once—they lifted him slightly.
Twice—he rose higher.
His feet left the ground.
He no longer belonged below.
He ascended.
Slowly… but surely.
He reached the gate.
Passed through it… never looking back.
The sky awaited.
Gray.
Silent.
Endless.
And there—consciousness gave way.
His head fell against his chest, his hand still reaching upward. He wasn't awake… but he continued to rise.
His burned, fractured, bloodied body drifted as if weightless—suspended in some unseen stream, rising as if no longer tethered to this world.
And then…
The second floor trembled.
The earth burst, as though it refused to let him go.
And from that black void, something emerged—something that never should have been born.
Tentacles.
Black, sticky, oozing thick smoke—as if exhaled from the lungs of an eternal beast. They weren't just limbs. They were beings—howling inside the minds of those who saw them, freezing the soul with a chill no fire could warm.
But one saw more.
Through the smoke, a figure appeared.
The lab's master… was no longer human.
His body unraveled into a web of tangled veins. His arms stretched into hundreds of spider-like limbs. From his back, countless eyes opened—pupil-less, black, blinking in all directions at once. His jaw split into two. From his chest emerged a cavity pulsing with corrupted mana.
He was the one who launched the tentacles.
The one who cursed the earth to drag Reis from the sky.
The tendrils thrashed, tracking a scent—drawn to the taste of betrayal—thirsting for a soul not yet complete.
In an instant—
One pierced his ankle.
A silent scream tore from Reis's chest.
Another buried itself in his left shoulder—pulsing inside, as if a second heart had been born against his will.
Then came the dozens more.
They coiled around his waist, slipped through his ribs, bored into his spine—as if trying to tear the light from within before it could fully ignite.
And his body… began to descend.
Not falling.
But being dragged.
The sky above remained open… and the abyss beneath boiled.
Every tendril yanked him down—while his lone hand stayed raised, trembling against every pull, every scream, every agony.
Then—
He screamed.
Or rather, something inside him screamed—a storm unleashed.
It wasn't a voice from his mouth.
It was the voice of a core.
The voice of something not yet understood.
Something not meant to be heard.
A sound that erupted from every crack in his flesh, every nerve that shook, every drop of blood spilled in his path.
And the field trembled.
Mana particles around him quaked.
Light fractured.
Earth split.
And the sound's echo…
Traveled.
Far.
Far away.
---
On a distant hill beyond the lab, where only the wind's moan could be heard, an old hunter paused while preparing his bow.
He lifted his head.
The sun dimmed for a heartbeat.
Then he heard it.
A sound tearing through the wind—like the mountains were groaning. Like the earth confessing an ancient sin.
"What… was that?" the man muttered, collapsing to his knees without knowing why.
---
In a hidden city, deep within an underground station, a young scientist reviewed her data when her desk shook.
All the screens froze.
Then the scream echoed.
Her hand trembled—the pen fell from her grasp.
"That's no earthquake… That's something alive…"
---
And on a remote island, beneath a century-old mana tree, a blind monk meditated.
He smiled… and wept.
"He has opened his eye," he whispered. "He is being born."
---
Back in the lab… silence returned for a moment.
The tendrils kept pulling Reis downward.
But his body… began to resist.
It shook.
It shuddered.
Then—from his back—tentacles emerged as well.
Not like the black ones pulling him.
These were fractured. Translucent. Silken. Black with a sheen of light. Incomplete… but alive.
One fluttered, then the other—like they were trying to remember how to fly.
Wings not yet grown.
Ascent still dreaming.
And despite the pain…
Despite his torn chest, his blood-filled mouth, his burning eyes…
He still reached upward.
He still wanted the sky.
He still craved the light he had never seen.
And just when all believed he would be pulled down forever—
Light erupted.
The field expanded in a soundless blast.
And everything around him—moved away.
Guards, doctors, tendrils, walls—even the air.
As if the world refused to touch him.
As if his body declared that no one… would ever touch him again.
He continued to rise. And with him—his second scream.
A scream that, this time… was the beginning of something irreversible.