Governments are very good at hiding things: bodies, weapons, entire towns, and, occasionally, the truth.

I’ve spent almost seven years watching classified reports vanish, evidence get destroyed, and witnesses suddenly develop convenient memory problems. Paper can be confiscated. Servers can be wiped. So when I decided to record what we actually do, I knew better than to put it somewhere the government could reach.

Which brings me to Reddit.

Yes, Reddit. I know how ridiculous that sounds. That’s exactly why I chose it. If someone finds this account, they’ll probably assume it’s fiction written by some bored twenty-year-old with an unhealthy interest in military history and monsters.

Perfect. Let them.

Everything you’re reading is real.

My name is General Eleanor.

Well, no, it isn’t. It’s the name I’m using here. I’m not stupid enough to put my real name on Reddit and then document classified military operations.

What I can tell you is that I’m a four-star general in the military of a very large country that has a habit of involving itself where it probably shouldn’t. For the last two years, I’ve commanded a division that officially doesn’t exist.

Our actual job is simple.

We fight monsters.

Not terrorists. Not insurgents. Monsters.

Things that crawl out of oceans. Things that wear human faces. Things that have lived beneath our soil since before our country existed. Things the government has spent more than a century pretending aren’t real.

I’ve spent almost seven years making sure they don’t reach you.

And I’ve also spent seven years learning that our records are incomplete. Sometimes intentionally. Sometimes because the people writing them died. And sometimes because someone decided the truth was more dangerous than the thing we were fighting.

That’s why I’m writing this.

Every general who takes my position receives the same briefing: forty-seven rules across thirty pages.

I’ve read it nineteen times.

It’s wrong.

Not completely wrong, which would almost be easier. It’s wrong in exactly the ways that get people killed.

So I’m recording everything the official briefing leaves out: what these things look like, how they behave, what kills them, what doesn’t, what they want, and why. I’ll record our mistakes too.

Especially those.

Because after seven years, I’ve learned something important.

Monsters don’t kill most people.

Mistakes do.

I was fifteen when this started. At the time, I was more worried about passing algebra than supernatural creatures and military training.

Mostly algebra.

Now I’m twenty-two. The military has never had a four-star general this young before.

Then again, they’ve never had a monster extermination division before either.

So, future General, if you’re reading this someday, I’m sorry about your promotion.

You’re going to need this.

And if you’re reading it while I’m still alive?

Good.

You’re preparing early.

I like that.

The earlier you’re ready, the better.

Mission 578 — **********

Date: **************, 2026
Location: ************** National Forest
Threat Classification: Class II
Personnel Deployed: 52
Confirmed Casualties: 30
Current Status: Contained

Yesterday started like no other day.

Painfully normal.

That should have worried me.

Normal days encourage people to lower their guard, and lowered guards tend to result in paperwork.

At 0530, I woke up. At 0545, I ran five miles, and at 0617, I showered. By 0630, I was in my office reviewing overnight reports while eating breakfast when Major Denver walked in without knocking.

He was one of the few people allowed to do that.

"You're late," I said.

He checked his watch. "I'm three minutes early."

"Exactly."

He sighed and placed a folder on my desk.

Denver was thirty-eight, six feet tall, perpetually tired, and possessed the unfortunate habit of looking at me like I was a normal human being. Most people didn't. They either looked at me like I was a four-star general or like I was a twenty-two-year-old woman who had somehow been given enough authority to order entire battalions into places sane people avoided.

Denver did neither.

He simply looked tired.

I respected that.

"What is it?"

"Missing persons."

"That's not ours."

"Normally, no."

I opened the folder and found three photographs: a forest, a collapsed section of road, and a hole in the ground.

"How many?"

"Three missing."

"Children?"

"No."

"Military?"

"No."

"Government personnel?"

"No."

I looked up at him. "Then why are you wasting my morning?"

Denver leaned against the desk. "Because the hole is twelve feet wide."

I looked at the photograph again. "That's large."

"Too large for anything native to the area."

"Bear?"

"No."

"Moose?"

"No."

"Very ambitious raccoon?"

He didn't smile.

I closed the folder. "Fine. What did they find?"

"Tracks."

He opened another photograph. Four deep impressions marked the mud, each one ending in six distinct points.

"Size?"

"About sixteen inches."

"Weight estimate?"

"Three hundred kilograms."

"Direction?"

He pointed toward the trees.

"Toward the forest."

"From?"

"The mine."

I turned the page. "How many people live nearby?"

"About four hundred."

"Evacuate them."

"Already ordered."

"Good."

He didn't leave.

I looked at him. "What aren't you telling me?"

He was quiet for a moment.

Then he said, "We found one of the missing people."

"Alive?"

"No."

"Body?"

"No."

I waited.

"Half a body."

That got my attention.

"Explain."

"We found the lower half approximately two miles from the mine."

"And the rest?"

"Missing."

"Signs of predation?"

"Yes."

"Teeth?"

"None."

"Claws?"

"None."

“Fangs?”

“Too large”

"Anything else?"

Denver hesitated. "The victim was wearing a hiking backpack."

"Was?"

"We found the backpack too."

"And?"

"The straps had been cut."

"With what?"

He looked at me. "That's what we don't know."

I closed the folder. "Get Captain Bell."

"She's already waiting."

Of course she was.

Captain Bell had been waiting outside my office for approximately three minutes. She was twenty-nine, six months from promotion, and had the kind of face that suggested she'd never accepted an order without first deciding whether she agreed with it.

I liked her.

That didn't mean I trusted her. Trust was a luxury. Competence was useful.

"Captain."

"General."

"How many people do you need?"

"For what?"

"Whatever we're about to find."

She thought about it. "Forty."

"Fifty-two."

"General—"

"Fifty-two."

She stopped.

"Yes, ma'am."

Denver looked at me. "That's a lot."

"Yes."

"Why fifty-two?"

"Because forty-nine would probably be enough."

He stared at me.

"And?"

"I prefer having three extra people."

Bell smiled faintly. "That's reassuring."

"It shouldn't be."

I picked up the folder. "Four fire teams. Two containment specialists. Medical team. Dr. Ward."

Bell frowned. "Doctor Ward?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because if we're lucky, we're dealing with an insect."

"And if we are not?"

I handed her the photograph of the tracks. "Then I'd like someone present who can tell me what, exactly, decided to ruin my morning."

We reached the forest at 0917.

Dr. Ward spent most of the drive talking. He was a civilian scientist technically attached to the military, which meant he had all the confidence of a civilian and none of the survival instincts of a soldier. He was also one of the smartest people I'd ever met.

Unfortunately, intelligence and common sense don't always come together.

“General,” he said from the passenger seat, “if the tracks belong to an arachnid—”

“They don't. They're from an arthropod.”

“Arachnids are arthropods.”

“I know.”

“Then you haven't ruled out my hypothesis.”

“I've ruled out the arachnid part.”

He turned to look at me. “You really don't like scientists, do you?”

“I like scientists.”

“You don't sound like it.”

“I dislike scientists who talk while I'm trying to think.”

He smiled. “That's fair.”

“It wasn't a compliment.”

“I know.”

I still didn't know why I tolerated him.

Captain Bell was leading the convoy ahead of us, while Sergeant Cole's vehicle followed behind. Cole had been with my division for three years. He'd survived five Class II encounters, two Class III encounters, and one event that was officially classified as a weather incident.

He was also the closest thing our division had to a superstitious man.

Which was ironic.

He was the only person I'd ever met who had survived being swallowed by something and complained afterward that it had terrible breath.

When we arrived, Cole approached me, his eyes fixed on the tree line.

"General."

"Sergeant."

"You want my honest opinion?"

"No."

"It's bad."

"I'll survive," I said, still watching the forest.

Cole didn't answer.

He kept staring into the trees, one hand resting against the dog tags beneath his shirt.

For a few seconds, nothing happened.

No birds.

No insects.

Not even the sound of wind through the branches.

Then the ground moved.

It wasn't much. Just a faint tremor beneath our boots, barely enough to notice. But it was enough to wipe the earlier humor from Ward's face. Cole's hand immediately went to his rifle, while Bell raised one hand, silently signaling everyone to stop.

The entire unit froze.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then I realized something was wrong.

The forest had gone completely silent.

No birds or insects.

Not even the rustle of leaves.

Ward swallowed. "That's not normal."

I glanced at him.

"Thank you, Doctor, for that precious insight."

He opened his mouth, apparently ready to defend his observation, but I was already looking past him toward the tree line.

Something was in there.

I couldn't see it yet.

But that didn't mean it couldn't see us.

I looked at the soldiers behind me.

"Move."

We entered at 0926 and found the first body seventeen minutes later. Then the second. Then the third.

The bodies hadn't been eaten. They'd been torn apart.

That distinction mattered.

Whatever had killed them hadn't been hungry.

We followed the tracks deeper into the forest until they led us to the old mine. The entrance was supposed to have been sealed with concrete twenty-three years ago, but something had broken through from the inside. Hundreds of scratches covered the concrete around the opening.

Ward knelt beside one.

"These are old."

"How old?"

"Months."

I looked into the darkness beyond the entrance.

The tunnel descended for nearly a mile before opening into a chamber so large our lights couldn't reach the far wall.

Then we saw them.

Eggs.

Thousands of them.

Some were attached to the walls, others hung from the ceiling, and some were buried beneath dirt and stone. Several pulsed faintly beneath translucent membranes.

Ward stopped walking.

"General."

"What?"

He pointed.

One of the sacs moved.

Then another.

Then hundreds.

The entire chamber seemed to breathe.

Something stepped out from behind them.

It was twelve feet tall, with six limbs, black armor, and a head shaped like a nightmare version of an insect.

It looked at us.

I looked at it.

For several seconds, neither side moved.

Then Ward whispered, "General."

"Yes?"

"I don't think those are eggs."

I looked at him.

He pointed toward the walls.

Tiny things were moving between the sacs.

I raised my binoculars and saw six legs, black bodies, and clusters of reflective eyes.

My stomach tightened.

"Juveniles?"

Ward swallowed.

"Yes."

I looked back at the adult.

It wasn't looking at us anymore. It was looking at the soldiers behind me, then at the eggs, then back at us.

I understood.

It wasn't hunting.

It was protecting them.

I raised my hand. "Everyone back."

Captain Bell glanced at me. "But, General—"

"Back."

The creature screamed.

Every sac in the chamber convulsed.

I lowered my hand.

"We're leaving."

Bell stared at me. "We're not engaging?"

"No."

The creature screamed again, and dust shook loose from the ceiling.

I reached for my radio. "Air support."

Denver answered. "General?"

"Fire mission."

There was a pause. "You're sure?"

I looked at the nursery, then at the soldiers behind me.

"Yes."

Ward grabbed my arm. "General, if you destroy this chamber—"

"I know."

"There could be thousands."

"I know."

"Then why—"

“Because if we leave them here, thousands won't be the problem for long.”

I looked at Bell. "Get everyone out."

The first missile struck thirty seconds later.

The chamber vanished beneath fire and collapsing stone.

The mountain shook.

For approximately thirty-seven minutes, I believed we'd won.

Then the ground beneath us moved.

At first, I thought it was another aftershock.

Then the soil split open.

One creature climbed out.

Then five.

Then twenty.

Then hundreds.

They weren't spiders. Not exactly. But my brain didn't have a better word for them.

They were smaller than the adult, most only the size of large dogs, with six black legs, armored bodies, and heads covered in clusters of tiny reflective eyes.

And there were far too many.

Someone screamed. “Spiders!!!!”

I drew my rifle.

"Engage!"

The first one lunged, and I put two rounds through its head. The second came from my left, and I shot it before it reached me. The third jumped over the second's body.

I shot that one too.

Five died before I reached the center of the chamber.

I pulled a grenade from my vest, armed it, and threw it into the largest cluster.

The explosion tore through them. Black limbs and pieces of carapace went flying across the chamber.

"KEEP FIRING!"

The soldiers opened up.

Machine guns hammered into the swarm. Rifles flashed. Grenades disappeared into the mass and came back as explosions.

The creatures climbed over one another, crawling across walls, ceilings, and collapsed rubble.

One landed on a soldier's back.

He screamed.

Sergeant Cole shot it off him.

"You're welcome!"

Another grenade disappeared into the swarm.

I didn't wait for it to explode. I grabbed another, pulled the pin, and threw it.

Explosion.

Reload.

Fire.

Throw.

Explosion.

For ten minutes, that was all we did.

Kill. Reload. Kill. Throw. Explode.

Eventually, the swarm began to thin.

Not because we'd won.

Because we were running out of ammunition.

The remaining creatures retreated into the tunnels.

"Don't let them escape!" Bell shouted.

I raised my hand. "No."

She looked at me. "They're retreating."

"That's the problem."

I looked at the tunnels.

"We seal them."

We had killed most of the swarm in the chamber, but the ones underground were another matter. The adult had been guarding the nursery. Now it was dead, and nothing was keeping the juveniles underground.

"Get the demolition team."

Bell understood.

"Black Sun?"

"Yes."

Operation Black Sun was one of the less pleasant tools in my division's arsenal. Seal every known exit, place charges throughout the accessible tunnel network, and detonate them simultaneously. Bury everything underground: the creatures, the eggs, the tunnels, and anyone unfortunate enough to still be inside.

It was crude.

It was ugly.

It was effective.

Then a voice behind me said, "My brother is still inside."

I turned.

Private First Class Mill stood several feet away. He was twenty-three and covered in dirt and blood, although most of it wasn't his.

"Who?"

"My brother. Sergeant Cole's team."

I looked toward Cole. He was already checking his radio.

No response.

Mill stepped closer.

"You can't collapse it."

"We're going to."

"He could still be alive."

"I know."

"Then send someone."

I looked at him. "Twenty-six soldiers are unaccounted for."

His expression changed. He hadn't known the number.

"General—"

"We have no confirmation that any of them are alive."

"But they could be."

"Yes."

"Then we should go get them."

Behind him, engineers were unloading charges. The timer on my watch read seven minutes.

Mill looked at the equipment, then back at me.

"Please."

There it was.

The word commanders should never hear.

Not because it makes decisions difficult.

Because it makes them personal.

I looked at the mine. Twenty-six soldiers, possibly alive. Thousands of juveniles, definitely alive. If we sent another team inside, we would be giving those creatures time to reach another exit.

There were four hundred civilians within ten miles.

I thought about them.

Then I looked at Mill.

"I'm sorry."

His expression collapsed.

"General—"

Two soldiers moved toward him.

He backed away.

"No."

They grabbed his arms.

"Wait!"

He fought them.

"My brother is down there!"

I didn't look away.

"Please!"

They dragged him backward.

"GENERAL!"

His boots scraped against the dirt.

"PLEASE!"

The trees swallowed his voice.

I watched him disappear.

For a moment, I thought that was the end of it.

Then I saw his eyes.

Not grief.

Not fear.

Anger.

He looked at me like he had memorized my face.

I had seen that look before.

Angry soldiers were dangerous.

Not because they stopped following orders.

Because other soldiers started wondering why they should.

All it took was one man shouting the right words in the wrong place, and suddenly twenty soldiers became fifty, and fifty became a hundred.

A unit could turn into a mob faster than most commanders realized.

And Mill had just been given a reason to start one.

Bell stared at me.

"You could have given him a few minutes."

"No."

"He might have found them."

"He might have."

She looked toward the mine, then back at me.

"How many civilians?"

"Four hundred."

She went silent.

That was the end of the argument.

Or it should have been.

I checked my watch.

Six minutes.

"Start Black Sun."

Bell turned toward the engineers.

"Begin deployment."

The first demolition team entered the mine, and I watched them disappear into the darkness. Then my radio crackled.

"General."

"Go."

"Primary exit charges are in place."

"Secondary?"

"Working."

"How long?"

"Eight minutes."

"Seven."

"Yes, ma'am."

I looked at Bell. "Get the evacuation teams farther back."

"Already done."

Good.

I checked the watch again.

Five minutes.

Then four.

Then three.

At 10:41, the first charge detonated.

The mountain shook. A deep crack rolled through the forest as the first tunnel collapsed, followed by another and another. The explosions moved beneath us in a chain until the entire mountainside seemed to groan.

I watched the timer.

10:42.

Another section collapsed.

10:43.

Nothing came out.

10:44.

Still nothing.

"Status?"

Denver pressed his radio to his ear.

"All primary exits sealed."

"Secondary?"

"Being collapsed now."

"Good."

Captain Bell stood beside me.

"Do you think anything survived?"

"Probably."

She looked at me.

"Probably?"

"Something always survives."

She didn't like that answer.

Neither did I.

At 10:49, the final charge detonated.

The ground trembled one last time, sending a final shudder through the earth before everything went still.

For a few seconds, no one moved.

Then the forest slowly came back to life. Birds began calling from the trees, insects resumed their buzzing, and leaves rustled in the wind as if nothing had happened.

It was almost insulting.

After everything we'd just buried beneath that mountain, the world had the nerve to sound peaceful.

I looked toward the mountain and watched the last traces of dust drift from the collapsed tunnels.

"Send the sweep teams."

Bell frowned. "How many?"

"Ten."

"“Ten? General, there are twenty-six missing soldiers.” 

"I know."

"Then why?"

I looked at the mountain.

"Because this mission doesn't require any more personnel."

She didn't argue.

The ten soldiers prepared quickly, checking their armor, weapons, thermal equipment, and portable seismic scanners. Two medical teams accompanied them.

Before they entered, I gave them one order.

"If you encounter anything alive, you report it before you engage."

The team leaders nodded. "Yes, General."

"That wasn't a suggestion."

"No, ma'am."

They disappeared into the mine.

At 11:07, they entered.

At 11:19, they reported the first bodies. Juveniles. Dozens of them. Dead.

At 11:26, they reached the first collapsed tunnel.

At 11:31, they found the adult, or what was left of it. The thing had been crushed beneath several tons of rock.

"Confirm kill," I ordered.

"Confirmed."

"Continue."

At 11:42, the radio crackled.

"General."

"Go."

"We have movement."

I frowned.

"How many?"

A pause.

"Two."

Bell looked at me.

I raised my radio.

"Describe."

"Unknown. They're beneath the rubble. We're attempting to reach them."

"Proceed."

The soldiers began clearing debris.

Five minutes passed.

Then ten.

Finally, someone shouted.

"Contact!"

Gunfire erupted.

I reached for my sidearm.

"What happened?"

The radio crackled.

"Creature alive!"

A burst of automatic fire followed.

Then silence.

"Status?"

A soldier answered, breathing heavily.

"Creature down."

"How?"

"Headshot."

I glanced at Bell.

"Good."

Then another transmission came through.

"General."

The soldier sounded frightened.

"What?"

"We have another one."

"Where?"

"Behind us."

A scream erupted over the radio.

Gunfire.

"GET IT OFF ME!"

Static.

"FALL BACK!"

Then a voice:

"Mill!"

I froze.

Bell looked at me.

"What?"

I raised the radio.

"Repeat."

Nothing.

Then the transmission returned.

"Private Mill is inside."

Of course he was.

He hadn't been part of the sweep teams. Apparently, I'd underestimated how badly he wanted to find his brother, or how little he cared about my orders.

The radio came alive again.

"GENERAL!"

Mill.

His voice was panicked.

"It's here!"

Gunfire erupted.

I looked toward the eastern passage.

"Where are they?"

Bell checked the map.

"Two hundred meters from the eastern collapse."

"Open it."

She stared at me.

"General?"

"Open the passage."

Engineers moved.

The barrier gave way.

Smoke poured through.

Something moved inside it.

I raised my rifle.

The creature burst through.

Smaller than the adult.

Still enormous.

Black legs scraped against stone as it charged toward Mill.

I had a clear shot.

A perfect shot.

I aimed at its head.

Mill saw me.

"GENERAL!"

I fired.

The bullet struck the side of its head. The carapace cracked, but the creature barely slowed.

It lunged.

Mill screamed.

I fired again.

This time, I aimed lower.

The round punched through its abdomen.

The creature recoiled, shrieking. One of its legs buckled, and dark fluid spilled across the stone.

It wasn't dead.

It wouldn't be dead for several hours.

But it was badly wounded, badly enough that it couldn't kill Mill quickly.

I could have fired again.

I didn't.

The creature lunged once more.

Mill disappeared beneath it.

His scream echoed through the tunnel.

Then the creature dragged him into the darkness.

Silence.

Bell looked at me.

"You missed."

"No."

She stared.

I lowered my rifle.

"I was a second late."

She understood.

Her face changed.

"You deliberately shot it in the abdomen."

"Yes."

"You could have killed it."

"Yes."

"You could have saved him."

"Yes."

"Why?"

I looked at her.

"Because he disobeyed a direct order."

She stared at me as if she was seeing me for the first time.

Perhaps she was.

"General..."

I turned toward the engineers.

"Seal the passage."

Bell didn't move.

"Captain."

She swallowed.

"Yes, ma'am."

The engineers began sealing the tunnel.

Mill screamed once more.

Then nothing.

The sweep continued for another forty minutes.

We found twenty-six bodies.

None of them were alive, including Mill's brother.

We found no trace of Mill.

Not even his rifle.

By 1231, the mine was declared secure.

Twenty-six soldiers confirmed dead.

Three wounded.

One private missing and presumed dead.

Thirty confirmed military casualties from the operation.

Thousands of creatures buried beneath a mountain.

Four hundred civilians alive.

By military standards, the operation was a success.

I signed the report.

Then I sat alone in my vehicle for eleven minutes.

I didn't feel guilty. I didn't feel regret.

I didn't feel anything at all.

Mill was dead. His brother was dead. Twenty-six other soldiers were dead. Thirty casualties had been added to the report, and somehow, none of it stirred anything inside me.

That was the truth I had learned to live with.

It had been the truth for a long time.

I knew what people expected a commander to feel when one of her soldiers died. Grief. Guilt. Anger. Regret. Something.

I had none of it.

Maybe that's why I was good at this.

Or maybe it was why I had been given this job in the first place.

People will probably call that cruel.

They're welcome to.

Cruelty is irrelevant.

Command isn't about being liked. It's about making decisions everyone else is too emotionally compromised to make. Sometimes that means killing a monster. Sometimes it means letting one kill a soldier. And sometimes the difference between those two decisions is only one second.

I had deliberately missed.

I had deliberately chosen where the second bullet went.

I knew exactly what would happen.

And I'd do it again.

Not because Mill deserved to die.

He didn't.

Not because his brother wasn't worth saving.

He was.

But because the order mattered more than the man who broke it.

That's the part nobody tells you about command. Sometimes doing your job means making a decision you know you'll be hated for. Sometimes it means making one you know you'll never regret. And sometimes they're the same decision.

I don't expect anyone reading this to agree with me. Honestly, I hope you don't. Remember what I did. Remember Mill. Remember that I could have saved him. Then ask yourself what you would have done.

Because someday, you may be sitting behind this desk, making the same kind of decision. Maybe you'll make the right one. Maybe you'll make the wrong one. Maybe you'll be luckier than I was.

I doubt it.

There is one thing I know now that I didn't know when I was fifteen.

The monsters aren't always the things with claws. Sometimes they're the people making the decisions. And sometimes they're the person sitting behind the desk, knowing exactly what a bullet is going to do before she pulls the trigger. 

That's why I'm writing this down.

Not to justify myself.

I don't need justification.

I'm writing it because someone will eventually sit where I am sitting now, and I would rather they understand what happened than repeat it without knowing why.

The official briefing has forty-seven rules.

It doesn't contain this one.

It should.

General's Rule #48

If a soldier disobeys a direct order, deal with it immediately.

Not tomorrow. Not after the mission.

Immediately.

Because once one soldier learns that your orders can be ignored, others will learn it too. And the next time, you might not have the luxury of being only one second late.

As for Private Mill, there is nothing more to say.

He disobeyed a direct order.

So when the situation changed, I ignored his wish just as he had ignored mine.

Mill died.

The mission continued.

The civilians survived.

That was the equation.

I don't regret the decision. I don't feel guilty about it, and I don't expect either of those things to change.

Maybe that makes me a monster.

If it does, then at least I'm a monster who knows exactly what she is.

Governments are very good at hiding things: bodies, weapons, entire towns, and, occasionally, the truth.

I’ve spent almost seven years watching classified reports vanish, evidence get destroyed, and witnesses suddenly develop convenient memory problems. Paper can be confiscated. Servers can be wiped. So when I decided to record what we actually do, I knew better than to put it somewhere the government could reach.

Which brings me to Reddit.

Yes, Reddit. I know how ridiculous that sounds. That’s exactly why I chose it. If someone finds this account, they’ll probably assume it’s fiction written by some bored twenty-year-old with an unhealthy interest in military history and monsters.

Perfect. Let them.

Everything you’re reading is real.

My name is General Eleanor.

Well, no, it isn’t. It’s the name I’m using here. I’m not stupid enough to put my real name on Reddit and then document classified military operations.

What I can tell you is that I’m a four-star general in the military of a very large country that has a habit of involving itself where it probably shouldn’t. For the last two years, I’ve commanded a division that officially doesn’t exist.

Our actual job is simple.

We fight monsters.

Not terrorists. Not insurgents. Monsters.

Things that crawl out of oceans. Things that wear human faces. Things that have lived beneath our soil since before our country existed. Things the government has spent more than a century pretending aren’t real.

I’ve spent almost seven years making sure they don’t reach you.

And I’ve also spent seven years learning that our records are incomplete. Sometimes intentionally. Sometimes because the people writing them died. And sometimes because someone decided the truth was more dangerous than the thing we were fighting.

That’s why I’m writing this.

Every general who takes my position receives the same briefing: forty-seven rules across thirty pages.

I’ve read it nineteen times.

It’s wrong.

Not completely wrong, which would almost be easier. It’s wrong in exactly the ways that get people killed.

So I’m recording everything the official briefing leaves out: what these things look like, how they behave, what kills them, what doesn’t, what they want, and why. I’ll record our mistakes too.

Especially those.

Because after seven years, I’ve learned something important.

Monsters don’t kill most people.

Mistakes do.

I was fifteen when this started. At the time, I was more worried about passing algebra than supernatural creatures and military training.

Mostly algebra.

Now I’m twenty-two. The military has never had a four-star general this young before.

Then again, they’ve never had a monster extermination division before either.

So, future General, if you’re reading this someday, I’m sorry about your promotion.

You’re going to need this.

And if you’re reading it while I’m still alive?

Good.

You’re preparing early.

I like that.

The earlier you’re ready, the better.

Mission 578 — **********

Date: **************, 2026
Location: ************** National Forest
Threat Classification: Class II
Personnel Deployed: 52
Confirmed Casualties: 30
Current Status: Contained

Yesterday started like no other day.

Painfully normal.

That should have worried me.

Normal days encourage people to lower their guard, and lowered guards tend to result in paperwork.

At 0530, I woke up. At 0545, I ran five miles, and at 0617, I showered. By 0630, I was in my office reviewing overnight reports while eating breakfast when Major Denver walked in without knocking.

He was one of the few people allowed to do that.

"You're late," I said.

He checked his watch. "I'm three minutes early."

"Exactly."

He sighed and placed a folder on my desk.

Denver was thirty-eight, six feet tall, perpetually tired, and possessed the unfortunate habit of looking at me like I was a normal human being. Most people didn't. They either looked at me like I was a four-star general or like I was a twenty-two-year-old woman who had somehow been given enough authority to order entire battalions into places sane people avoided.

Denver did neither.

He simply looked tired.

I respected that.

"What is it?"

"Missing persons."

"That's not ours."

"Normally, no."

I opened the folder and found three photographs: a forest, a collapsed section of road, and a hole in the ground.

"How many?"

"Three missing."

"Children?"

"No."

"Military?"

"No."

"Government personnel?"

"No."

I looked up at him. "Then why are you wasting my morning?"

Denver leaned against the desk. "Because the hole is twelve feet wide."

I looked at the photograph again. "That's large."

"Too large for anything native to the area."

"Bear?"

"No."

"Moose?"

"No."

"Very ambitious raccoon?"

He didn't smile.

I closed the folder. "Fine. What did they find?"

"Tracks."

He opened another photograph. Four deep impressions marked the mud, each one ending in six distinct points.

"Size?"

"About sixteen inches."

"Weight estimate?"

"Three hundred kilograms."

"Direction?"

He pointed toward the trees.

"Toward the forest."

"From?"

"The mine."

I turned the page. "How many people live nearby?"

"About four hundred."

"Evacuate them."

"Already ordered."

"Good."

He didn't leave.

I looked at him. "What aren't you telling me?"

He was quiet for a moment.

Then he said, "We found one of the missing people."

"Alive?"

"No."

"Body?"

"No."

I waited.

"Half a body."

That got my attention.

"Explain."

"We found the lower half approximately two miles from the mine."

"And the rest?"

"Missing."

"Signs of predation?"

"Yes."

"Teeth?"

"None."

"Claws?"

"None."

“Fangs?”

“Too large”

"Anything else?"

Denver hesitated. "The victim was wearing a hiking backpack."

"Was?"

"We found the backpack too."

"And?"

"The straps had been cut."

"With what?"

He looked at me. "That's what we don't know."

I closed the folder. "Get Captain Bell."

"She's already waiting."

Of course she was.

Captain Bell had been waiting outside my office for approximately three minutes. She was twenty-nine, six months from promotion, and had the kind of face that suggested she'd never accepted an order without first deciding whether she agreed with it.

I liked her.

That didn't mean I trusted her. Trust was a luxury. Competence was useful.

"Captain."

"General."

"How many people do you need?"

"For what?"

"Whatever we're about to find."

She thought about it. "Forty."

"Fifty-two."

"General—"

"Fifty-two."

She stopped.

"Yes, ma'am."

Denver looked at me. "That's a lot."

"Yes."

"Why fifty-two?"

"Because forty-nine would probably be enough."

He stared at me.

"And?"

"I prefer having three extra people."

Bell smiled faintly. "That's reassuring."

"It shouldn't be."

I picked up the folder. "Four fire teams. Two containment specialists. Medical team. Dr. Ward."

Bell frowned. "Doctor Ward?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because if we're lucky, we're dealing with an insect."

"And if we are not?"

I handed her the photograph of the tracks. "Then I'd like someone present who can tell me what, exactly, decided to ruin my morning."

We reached the forest at 0917.

Dr. Ward spent most of the drive talking. He was a civilian scientist technically attached to the military, which meant he had all the confidence of a civilian and none of the survival instincts of a soldier. He was also one of the smartest people I'd ever met.

Unfortunately, intelligence and common sense don't always come together.

“General,” he said from the passenger seat, “if the tracks belong to an arachnid—”

“They don't. They're from an arthropod.”

“Arachnids are arthropods.”

“I know.”

“Then you haven't ruled out my hypothesis.”

“I've ruled out the arachnid part.”

He turned to look at me. “You really don't like scientists, do you?”

“I like scientists.”

“You don't sound like it.”

“I dislike scientists who talk while I'm trying to think.”

He smiled. “That's fair.”

“It wasn't a compliment.”

“I know.”

I still didn't know why I tolerated him.

Captain Bell was leading the convoy ahead of us, while Sergeant Cole's vehicle followed behind. Cole had been with my division for three years. He'd survived five Class II encounters, two Class III encounters, and one event that was officially classified as a weather incident.

He was also the closest thing our division had to a superstitious man.

Which was ironic.

He was the only person I'd ever met who had survived being swallowed by something and complained afterward that it had terrible breath.

When we arrived, Cole approached me, his eyes fixed on the tree line.

"General."

"Sergeant."

"You want my honest opinion?"

"No."

"It's bad."

"I'll survive," I said, still watching the forest.

Cole didn't answer.

He kept staring into the trees, one hand resting against the dog tags beneath his shirt.

For a few seconds, nothing happened.

No birds.

No insects.

Not even the sound of wind through the branches.

Then the ground moved.

It wasn't much. Just a faint tremor beneath our boots, barely enough to notice. But it was enough to wipe the earlier humor from Ward's face. Cole's hand immediately went to his rifle, while Bell raised one hand, silently signaling everyone to stop.

The entire unit froze.

For a moment, nothing happened.

Then I realized something was wrong.

The forest had gone completely silent.

No birds or insects.

Not even the rustle of leaves.

Ward swallowed. "That's not normal."

I glanced at him.

"Thank you, Doctor, for that precious insight."

He opened his mouth, apparently ready to defend his observation, but I was already looking past him toward the tree line.

Something was in there.

I couldn't see it yet.

But that didn't mean it couldn't see us.

I looked at the soldiers behind me.

"Move."

We entered at 0926 and found the first body seventeen minutes later. Then the second. Then the third.

The bodies hadn't been eaten. They'd been torn apart.

That distinction mattered.

Whatever had killed them hadn't been hungry.

We followed the tracks deeper into the forest until they led us to the old mine. The entrance was supposed to have been sealed with concrete twenty-three years ago, but something had broken through from the inside. Hundreds of scratches covered the concrete around the opening.

Ward knelt beside one.

"These are old."

"How old?"

"Months."

I looked into the darkness beyond the entrance.

The tunnel descended for nearly a mile before opening into a chamber so large our lights couldn't reach the far wall.

Then we saw them.

Eggs.

Thousands of them.

Some were attached to the walls, others hung from the ceiling, and some were buried beneath dirt and stone. Several pulsed faintly beneath translucent membranes.

Ward stopped walking.

"General."

"What?"

He pointed.

One of the sacs moved.

Then another.

Then hundreds.

The entire chamber seemed to breathe.

Something stepped out from behind them.

It was twelve feet tall, with six limbs, black armor, and a head shaped like a nightmare version of an insect.

It looked at us.

I looked at it.

For several seconds, neither side moved.

Then Ward whispered, "General."

"Yes?"

"I don't think those are eggs."

I looked at him.

He pointed toward the walls.

Tiny things were moving between the sacs.

I raised my binoculars and saw six legs, black bodies, and clusters of reflective eyes.

My stomach tightened.

"Juveniles?"

Ward swallowed.

"Yes."

I looked back at the adult.

It wasn't looking at us anymore. It was looking at the soldiers behind me, then at the eggs, then back at us.

I understood.

It wasn't hunting.

It was protecting them.

I raised my hand. "Everyone back."

Captain Bell glanced at me. "But, General—"

"Back."

The creature screamed.

Every sac in the chamber convulsed.

I lowered my hand.

"We're leaving."

Bell stared at me. "We're not engaging?"

"No."

The creature screamed again, and dust shook loose from the ceiling.

I reached for my radio. "Air support."

Denver answered. "General?"

"Fire mission."

There was a pause. "You're sure?"

I looked at the nursery, then at the soldiers behind me.

"Yes."

Ward grabbed my arm. "General, if you destroy this chamber—"

"I know."

"There could be thousands."

"I know."

"Then why—"

“Because if we leave them here, thousands won't be the problem for long.”

I looked at Bell. "Get everyone out."

The first missile struck thirty seconds later.

The chamber vanished beneath fire and collapsing stone.

The mountain shook.

For approximately thirty-seven minutes, I believed we'd won.

Then the ground beneath us moved.

At first, I thought it was another aftershock.

Then the soil split open.

One creature climbed out.

Then five.

Then twenty.

Then hundreds.

They weren't spiders. Not exactly. But my brain didn't have a better word for them.

They were smaller than the adult, most only the size of large dogs, with six black legs, armored bodies, and heads covered in clusters of tiny reflective eyes.

And there were far too many.

Someone screamed. “Spiders!!!!”

I drew my rifle.

"Engage!"

The first one lunged, and I put two rounds through its head. The second came from my left, and I shot it before it reached me. The third jumped over the second's body.

I shot that one too.

Five died before I reached the center of the chamber.

I pulled a grenade from my vest, armed it, and threw it into the largest cluster.

The explosion tore through them. Black limbs and pieces of carapace went flying across the chamber.

"KEEP FIRING!"

The soldiers opened up.

Machine guns hammered into the swarm. Rifles flashed. Grenades disappeared into the mass and came back as explosions.

The creatures climbed over one another, crawling across walls, ceilings, and collapsed rubble.

One landed on a soldier's back.

He screamed.

Sergeant Cole shot it off him.

"You're welcome!"

Another grenade disappeared into the swarm.

I didn't wait for it to explode. I grabbed another, pulled the pin, and threw it.

Explosion.

Reload.

Fire.

Throw.

Explosion.

For ten minutes, that was all we did.

Kill. Reload. Kill. Throw. Explode.

Eventually, the swarm began to thin.

Not because we'd won.

Because we were running out of ammunition.

The remaining creatures retreated into the tunnels.

"Don't let them escape!" Bell shouted.

I raised my hand. "No."

She looked at me. "They're retreating."

"That's the problem."

I looked at the tunnels.

"We seal them."

We had killed most of the swarm in the chamber, but the ones underground were another matter. The adult had been guarding the nursery. Now it was dead, and nothing was keeping the juveniles underground.

"Get the demolition team."

Bell understood.

"Black Sun?"

"Yes."

Operation Black Sun was one of the less pleasant tools in my division's arsenal. Seal every known exit, place charges throughout the accessible tunnel network, and detonate them simultaneously. Bury everything underground: the creatures, the eggs, the tunnels, and anyone unfortunate enough to still be inside.

It was crude.

It was ugly.

It was effective.

Then a voice behind me said, "My brother is still inside."

I turned.

Private First Class Mill stood several feet away. He was twenty-three and covered in dirt and blood, although most of it wasn't his.

"Who?"

"My brother. Sergeant Cole's team."

I looked toward Cole. He was already checking his radio.

No response.

Mill stepped closer.

"You can't collapse it."

"We're going to."

"He could still be alive."

"I know."

"Then send someone."

I looked at him. "Twenty-six soldiers are unaccounted for."

His expression changed. He hadn't known the number.

"General—"

"We have no confirmation that any of them are alive."

"But they could be."

"Yes."

"Then we should go get them."

Behind him, engineers were unloading charges. The timer on my watch read seven minutes.

Mill looked at the equipment, then back at me.

"Please."

There it was.

The word commanders should never hear.

Not because it makes decisions difficult.

Because it makes them personal.

I looked at the mine. Twenty-six soldiers, possibly alive. Thousands of juveniles, definitely alive. If we sent another team inside, we would be giving those creatures time to reach another exit.

There were four hundred civilians within ten miles.

I thought about them.

Then I looked at Mill.

"I'm sorry."

His expression collapsed.

"General—"

Two soldiers moved toward him.

He backed away.

"No."

They grabbed his arms.

"Wait!"

He fought them.

"My brother is down there!"

I didn't look away.

"Please!"

They dragged him backward.

"GENERAL!"

His boots scraped against the dirt.

"PLEASE!"

The trees swallowed his voice.

I watched him disappear.

For a moment, I thought that was the end of it.

Then I saw his eyes.

Not grief.

Not fear.

Anger.

He looked at me like he had memorized my face.

I had seen that look before.

Angry soldiers were dangerous.

Not because they stopped following orders.

Because other soldiers started wondering why they should.

All it took was one man shouting the right words in the wrong place, and suddenly twenty soldiers became fifty, and fifty became a hundred.

A unit could turn into a mob faster than most commanders realized.

And Mill had just been given a reason to start one.

Bell stared at me.

"You could have given him a few minutes."

"No."

"He might have found them."

"He might have."

She looked toward the mine, then back at me.

"How many civilians?"

"Four hundred."

She went silent.

That was the end of the argument.

Or it should have been.

I checked my watch.

Six minutes.

"Start Black Sun."

Bell turned toward the engineers.

"Begin deployment."

The first demolition team entered the mine, and I watched them disappear into the darkness. Then my radio crackled.

"General."

"Go."

"Primary exit charges are in place."

"Secondary?"

"Working."

"How long?"

"Eight minutes."

"Seven."

"Yes, ma'am."

I looked at Bell. "Get the evacuation teams farther back."

"Already done."

Good.

I checked the watch again.

Five minutes.

Then four.

Then three.

At 10:41, the first charge detonated.

The mountain shook. A deep crack rolled through the forest as the first tunnel collapsed, followed by another and another. The explosions moved beneath us in a chain until the entire mountainside seemed to groan.

I watched the timer.

10:42.

Another section collapsed.

10:43.

Nothing came out.

10:44.

Still nothing.

"Status?"

Denver pressed his radio to his ear.

"All primary exits sealed."

"Secondary?"

"Being collapsed now."

"Good."

Captain Bell stood beside me.

"Do you think anything survived?"

"Probably."

She looked at me.

"Probably?"

"Something always survives."

She didn't like that answer.

Neither did I.

At 10:49, the final charge detonated.

The ground trembled one last time, sending a final shudder through the earth before everything went still.

For a few seconds, no one moved.

Then the forest slowly came back to life. Birds began calling from the trees, insects resumed their buzzing, and leaves rustled in the wind as if nothing had happened.

It was almost insulting.

After everything we'd just buried beneath that mountain, the world had the nerve to sound peaceful.

I looked toward the mountain and watched the last traces of dust drift from the collapsed tunnels.

"Send the sweep teams."

Bell frowned. "How many?"

"Ten."

"“Ten? General, there are twenty-six missing soldiers.” 

"I know."

"Then why?"

I looked at the mountain.

"Because this mission doesn't require any more personnel."

She didn't argue.

The ten soldiers prepared quickly, checking their armor, weapons, thermal equipment, and portable seismic scanners. Two medical teams accompanied them.

Before they entered, I gave them one order.

"If you encounter anything alive, you report it before you engage."

The team leaders nodded. "Yes, General."

"That wasn't a suggestion."

"No, ma'am."

They disappeared into the mine.

At 11:07, they entered.

At 11:19, they reported the first bodies. Juveniles. Dozens of them. Dead.

At 11:26, they reached the first collapsed tunnel.

At 11:31, they found the adult, or what was left of it. The thing had been crushed beneath several tons of rock.

"Confirm kill," I ordered.

"Confirmed."

"Continue."

At 11:42, the radio crackled.

"General."

"Go."

"We have movement."

I frowned.

"How many?"

A pause.

"Two."

Bell looked at me.

I raised my radio.

"Describe."

"Unknown. They're beneath the rubble. We're attempting to reach them."

"Proceed."

The soldiers began clearing debris.

Five minutes passed.

Then ten.

Finally, someone shouted.

"Contact!"

Gunfire erupted.

I reached for my sidearm.

"What happened?"

The radio crackled.

"Creature alive!"

A burst of automatic fire followed.

Then silence.

"Status?"

A soldier answered, breathing heavily.

"Creature down."

"How?"

"Headshot."

I glanced at Bell.

"Good."

Then another transmission came through.

"General."

The soldier sounded frightened.

"What?"

"We have another one."

"Where?"

"Behind us."

A scream erupted over the radio.

Gunfire.

"GET IT OFF ME!"

Static.

"FALL BACK!"

Then a voice:

"Mill!"

I froze.

Bell looked at me.

"What?"

I raised the radio.

"Repeat."

Nothing.

Then the transmission returned.

"Private Mill is inside."

Of course he was.

He hadn't been part of the sweep teams. Apparently, I'd underestimated how badly he wanted to find his brother, or how little he cared about my orders.

The radio came alive again.

"GENERAL!"

Mill.

His voice was panicked.

"It's here!"

Gunfire erupted.

I looked toward the eastern passage.

"Where are they?"

Bell checked the map.

"Two hundred meters from the eastern collapse."

"Open it."

She stared at me.

"General?"

"Open the passage."

Engineers moved.

The barrier gave way.

Smoke poured through.

Something moved inside it.

I raised my rifle.

The creature burst through.

Smaller than the adult.

Still enormous.

Black legs scraped against stone as it charged toward Mill.

I had a clear shot.

A perfect shot.

I aimed at its head.

Mill saw me.

"GENERAL!"

I fired.

The bullet struck the side of its head. The carapace cracked, but the creature barely slowed.

It lunged.

Mill screamed.

I fired again.

This time, I aimed lower.

The round punched through its abdomen.

The creature recoiled, shrieking. One of its legs buckled, and dark fluid spilled across the stone.

It wasn't dead.

It wouldn't be dead for several hours.

But it was badly wounded, badly enough that it couldn't kill Mill quickly.

I could have fired again.

I didn't.

The creature lunged once more.

Mill disappeared beneath it.

His scream echoed through the tunnel.

Then the creature dragged him into the darkness.

Silence.

Bell looked at me.

"You missed."

"No."

She stared.

I lowered my rifle.

"I was a second late."

She understood.

Her face changed.

"You deliberately shot it in the abdomen."

"Yes."

"You could have killed it."

"Yes."

"You could have saved him."

"Yes."

"Why?"

I looked at her.

"Because he disobeyed a direct order."

She stared at me as if she was seeing me for the first time.

Perhaps she was.

"General..."

I turned toward the engineers.

"Seal the passage."

Bell didn't move.

"Captain."

She swallowed.

"Yes, ma'am."

The engineers began sealing the tunnel.

Mill screamed once more.

Then nothing.

The sweep continued for another forty minutes.

We found twenty-six bodies.

None of them were alive, including Mill's brother.

We found no trace of Mill.

Not even his rifle.

By 1231, the mine was declared secure.

Twenty-six soldiers confirmed dead.

Three wounded.

One private missing and presumed dead.

Thirty confirmed military casualties from the operation.

Thousands of creatures buried beneath a mountain.

Four hundred civilians alive.

By military standards, the operation was a success.

I signed the report.

Then I sat alone in my vehicle for eleven minutes.

I didn't feel guilty. I didn't feel regret.

I didn't feel anything at all.

Mill was dead. His brother was dead. Twenty-six other soldiers were dead. Thirty casualties had been added to the report, and somehow, none of it stirred anything inside me.

That was the truth I had learned to live with.

It had been the truth for a long time.

I knew what people expected a commander to feel when one of her soldiers died. Grief. Guilt. Anger. Regret. Something.

I had none of it.

Maybe that's why I was good at this.

Or maybe it was why I had been given this job in the first place.

People will probably call that cruel.

They're welcome to.

Cruelty is irrelevant.

Command isn't about being liked. It's about making decisions everyone else is too emotionally compromised to make. Sometimes that means killing a monster. Sometimes it means letting one kill a soldier. And sometimes the difference between those two decisions is only one second.

I had deliberately missed.

I had deliberately chosen where the second bullet went.

I knew exactly what would happen.

And I'd do it again.

Not because Mill deserved to die.

He didn't.

Not because his brother wasn't worth saving.

He was.

But because the order mattered more than the man who broke it.

That's the part nobody tells you about command. Sometimes doing your job means making a decision you know you'll be hated for. Sometimes it means making one you know you'll never regret. And sometimes they're the same decision.

I don't expect anyone reading this to agree with me. Honestly, I hope you don't. Remember what I did. Remember Mill. Remember that I could have saved him. Then ask yourself what you would have done.

Because someday, you may be sitting behind this desk, making the same kind of decision. Maybe you'll make the right one. Maybe you'll make the wrong one. Maybe you'll be luckier than I was.

I doubt it.

There is one thing I know now that I didn't know when I was fifteen.

The monsters aren't always the things with claws. Sometimes they're the people making the decisions. And sometimes they're the person sitting behind the desk, knowing exactly what a bullet is going to do before she pulls the trigger. 

That's why I'm writing this down.

Not to justify myself.

I don't need justification.

I'm writing it because someone will eventually sit where I am sitting now, and I would rather they understand what happened than repeat it without knowing why.

The official briefing has forty-seven rules.

It doesn't contain this one.

It should.

General's Rule #48

If a soldier disobeys a direct order, deal with it immediately.

Not tomorrow. Not after the mission.

Immediately.

Because once one soldier learns that your orders can be ignored, others will learn it too. And the next time, you might not have the luxury of being only one second late.

As for Private Mill, there is nothing more to say.

He disobeyed a direct order.

So when the situation changed, I ignored his wish just as he had ignored mine.

Mill died.

The mission continued.

The civilians survived.

That was the equation.

I don't regret the decision. I don't feel guilty about it, and I don't expect either of those things to change.

Maybe that makes me a monster.

If it does, then at least I'm a monster who knows exactly what she is.

Part 1: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. We Had to Make a Sacrifice This Time.

Part 2: I Went to Antarctica Looking for 10,000 Missing People. I Came Back With a New Boss.

Part 3: Apparently Using Assistants as Sacrifices Violates Company Policy

Part 4: I Work for an Organization That Hunts Gods. One of Them Warned Me About the Angel Following Me.

Part 5: My Boss Asked Me If I Thought He Was a Monster. Now I Know Why.

Part 6: The Most Powerful Being in the CSP Is Studying Humans. Unfortunately, I'm His Favorite Lab Rat.

Part 7: Someone Stole the Rifle Built to Kill Gods. Then They Pointed It at Me.

Part 8: I Thought Dating an Angel Was Bad. Something Wearing My Face Was Worse.

Part 9: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. The Feather Led Something to Us.

Part 10: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. Humanity Now Has a Single Point of Failure.

Part 11: CSP Sent a Team Into Hell. Nobody Came Back.

Part 12: The Thing That Terrified the Creator Is Now Holding My Hand

Part 13: I Was Prepared to Fight a Cult. Instead, I got a Family Reunion.

Part 14: The God Wasn't the Monster Everyone Feared. My Mother Was.

Part 15: I Became the Head of a New Division. My First Case Was a Place My Sister Never Escaped From.

“You look exactly like the memories.”

The old man stared at me with a smile that made my stomach turn. It made me angry, too. This place had stripped my sister of her memories; the one thing that made her my sister. My Remi.

I forced myself to keep my voice steady. “What do you want?”

It was obvious Evergrove had trapped us here on purpose. The place had suddenly appeared on C.S.P.'s radar a month ago, but Remi had encountered it years ago. That meant Evergrove hadn't suddenly awakened.

It had been here all along.

Watching.

Waiting.

And now, somehow, it had deliberately gotten our attention.

The old man’s smile widened. “You're just like your sister.” He paused, studying me. “Makes sense. She raised you.”

My stomach tightened. His gaze shifted past me toward Angelo and Elior before returning to me.

“I have business with you.” His smile disappeared. “Everyone else can leave.”

I looked around the store. For once, the old man wasn't threatening us. He was offering us an exit, and somehow, that scared me more.

If I let everyone leave, there was at least a chance they would survive. Evergrove had been destroyed once before. Remi had killed whatever was inside it, and yet somehow, the place had returned. Whatever Evergrove was, it was more than a god.

Maybe it was more than an entity.

I looked at Angelo. He was already looking at me.

“I won't leave.”

My jaw tightened. “Everyone else can.”

Jackson, my inexperienced new assistant,immediately stepped forward. “We can't leave you guys here.”

I closed my eyes. “Jackson.”

“But—”

“Stop talking.”

He fell silent. When I opened my eyes, I stared directly at him. “Please.”

That finally silenced him.

The old man watched the exchange with an amused expression before looking at me again. “Still protecting everyone around you.”

I said nothing.

He smiled. “Your father would have hated that.”

Everything inside me stopped.

I turned so fast my coat swung behind me. “Father?”

The word echoed through the empty store, but the old man didn't answer. Instead, I noticed his hands. They were trembling, barely enough to notice, and he tried to hide it by curling his fingers into his palms.

Then I saw his eyes.

The smile was still there, but his eyes weren't smiling. Something was buried underneath them.

Regret.

I knew that look. I'd seen it before—not in monsters, but in people who wanted to do something and couldn't.

My eyes narrowed.

The old man hadn't trapped us here because he wanted to.

He was being made to.

My gaze drifted toward the shoppers, and the story Remi had told me came rushing back. Years ago, she'd traded her memories to a spirit in exchange for a knife, a knife she used to kill the night manager. At the time, I'd assumed the spirit had made the bargain willingly.

But what if it hadn't?

My eyes moved from face to face: the cashier, the old woman, the father, the child, and all the other people who had been standing here before we'd even entered.

All of them were spirits.

And all of them were being controlled.

My blood ran cold.

“Get out.”

Nobody moved.

I raised my voice. “GET OUT NOW!”

The Retrieval teams moved first, running for the doors. Jacob remained, as did Elior. Jackson didn't move either.

I looked at Angelo. He leaned toward Jacob and whispered something too quiet for me to hear. Whatever he said, Jacob's expression changed. He grabbed Jackson by the arm.

“Come on.”

“I'm not leaving her.”

“You are.”

Jacob practically carried him toward the entrance while Elior followed. Jackson fought them the entire way, but they dragged him toward the doors anyway.

Then, just before they closed, he looked back.

Our eyes met.

I knew that expression.

He was going to transfer the moment we reached base.

I couldn't blame him.

The doors slammed shut, and silence swallowed the store again.

The old man turned toward Angelo, then back toward me.

“How do you know my father?”

A quiet laugh escaped him. Then his eyes changed.

For a moment, they didn't look human anymore.

His voice dropped into something deeper, older, something that seemed to vibrate through the walls.

“Let me tell you a story.”

He took a slow step forward.

“A very long time ago, there was an angel.”

Angelo's expression hardened.

“She created her first god.” The old man smiled. “The God of Obedience.”

I glanced at Angelo, but he didn't look away from the old man.

“She was tired of her siblings refusing to listen to her. And being the eldest, she believed she was entitled to become the one who created all of them.”

“Like The Creator?” I asked.

The old man chuckled. “Is that what you call the one who left?”

Angelo's eyes narrowed.

“She was quite irresponsible.”

“Mother wasn't irresponsible.”

Angelo's voice was cold enough to make the words feel like a warning.

The old man looked at him for a moment before laughing. “Your sister thought otherwise.”

Angelo said nothing.

The old man's smile slowly faded. “The God of Obedience was powerful. Too powerful.”

He looked around the store as though remembering something that had happened a very long time ago.

“At first, it commanded humans.”

He paused.

“Then lesser gods.”

Another pause.

“Then greater ones.”

The fluorescent lights above us flickered.

“And eventually…”

The old man's eyes settled on Angelo.

“It commanded…the angel who made it.”

Angelo's expression didn't change, but I saw something flicker in his eyes.

Pain.

“The Angel was afraid,” the old man continued. “For the first time in her existence, she was afraid of something she had created.”

He smiled faintly.

“So she destroyed it.”

His smile widened.

“She shattered it.”

He spread his hands as though he could still see the pieces falling.

“Pieces scattered across the world, never to meet again.”

I looked around the store—the silent shoppers, the smiling faces, the old man standing in front of us.

“And I am guessing Evergrove is one of them?”

The old man nodded as he looked at me again.

“Your sister, a mere human, destroyed this piece.”

My throat tightened.

“And yet you're still here.”

“Of course.”

He smiled.

“Just because you destroy a piece of a god.” His voice became almost playful. “Doesn’t mean you destroy the god itself”

Angelo stepped forward, placing himself between me and the old man.

The old man looked at him.

Then he smiled.

“So how is the angel? Did she succeed in becoming the creator?”

Angelo didn't hesitate.

“I killed her.”

For several seconds, the old man simply stared at Angelo. Then he laughed, but the sound changed halfway through. It no longer sounded like an old man. It sounded ancient, like something enormous was wearing his voice.

“Hahahaha.”

His shoulders shook as he laughed. “If only she had let me help her.”

He looked at Angelo with something approaching pity. “You angels are so incompetent.”

Angelo moved.

One instant, he was beside me. The next, he was halfway across the store.

“Stop.”

Angelo froze, his foot suspended above the floor. His body trembled as he strained against whatever had suddenly taken hold of him. Slowly, his foot lowered, and his knee buckled beneath him. He caught himself, then immediately tried to move again.

Nothing happened.

“Angelo?”

His breathing became uneven. “I can't move.”

The old man's smile returned. “If I could command your sister…” He took another step forward. “I can command you.”

Angelo's hands clenched as his entire body strained against something none of us could see, but it didn't matter. The strongest being in the room was being held in place by a single word.

The old man turned his attention back to me and clasped his hands behind his back.

“Now, where were we?”

His eyes met mine.

“Oh, yes.”

“Your father.”

My stomach dropped.

“After your sister killed me and disappeared…” He paused, watching my reaction. “Guess who came looking for her?”

I already knew.

“My father.”

The old man smiled.

I remembered those days. Remi had disappeared, but my father hadn't cried or broken down. He had searched for her night after night, but not like a father desperately trying to find his daughter. He searched like a businessman who had just lost something valuable: a crucial piece of a deal.

A daughter he had planned to marry off.

A future he'd already arranged.

And when Remi escaped, he lost control.

I remembered walking through the house back then: the silence, the doors closing, the sound of his footsteps echoing through the halls. Everyone had learned not to speak when he was angry, and for months, I'd spent my life walking on eggshells.

The old man watched the realization settle across my face.

“He found me.”

His smile widened.

“Or rather…”

“One piece of me.”

I swallowed. “What did you do to him?”

“Offered him a deal, of course.”

He glanced down at his trembling hands. “I was too weak to control him. Your sister truly did a number on me.”

There was almost admiration in his voice.

“What did you want from him?”

“Something to replace the piece I lost.”

He lifted his eyes to mine.

“A small portion of what made him human.”

I laughed bitterly.

Of course.

What a fate.

My mother had become a cult leader. My father had become a power-hungry god dealer. Apparently, my family had a talent for making terrible decisions.

“And what did my father want?”

The old man looked almost amused.

“What your father had always wanted.”

He stepped closer.

“Control.”

His smile became colder.

“He wanted children who would never disobey him.”

A pause.

“So I gave him exactly what he asked for.”

My blood ran cold.

“What do you mean?”

The old man's smile softened.

“I constructed you.”

I stared at him.

“From your sister’s memories.”

My breath caught. “What?”

“When your sister made her bargain, she gave me something far more valuable than memories.” He tilted his head. “She gave me pieces of you.”

My eyes narrowed.

“And I used them…”

His smile widened.

“To make you.”

The words had barely left his mouth before the room seemed to grow colder.

I stared at him, trying to understand, while he looked at me almost fondly.

“But there was one problem.”

His gaze settled on my face.

“The deal was for both of you.”

He paused.

“But I was only able to make you from her memories.”

My stomach tightened.

“I never had your memories of your sister.”

I didn't understand at first.

Then it clicked.

“You couldn't create her.”

The old man smiled.

“Exactly.”

He took another step toward me.

“I could reconstruct the you she remembered.”

He paused.

“But not the her you remember.”

I stopped breathing.

Something cold spread through my chest as I stared at him.

“You need me.”

His smile widened.

“Now you understand.”

I felt sick.

All those years. Everything I remembered about my sister: her voice, her face, the way she used to hold my hand, the nights she stayed awake when I was afraid, the way she raised me when our parents wouldn't. Every stupid argument, every laugh, every moment I thought I'd forgotten until something reminded me.

Everything that made Remi my Remi.

That was the price.

The old man had never wanted my life. He wanted the one thing I could never replace.

My memories of her.

And suddenly, Evergrove didn't feel like a prison anymore.

It felt like a laboratory.

And I was the final ingredient.

I looked at Angelo. He was still frozen, his body unmoving since the old man had commanded him to stop. Then I noticed something else.

The faint glow that usually surrounded him was gone.

His presence felt... smaller.

Wrong.

“What did you do to him?”

The old man smiled. “I stripped him of his angelic authority.”

My blood ran cold.

Angelo's eyes met mine. For once, there was nothing divine behind them. No power. No protection.

Just Angelo.

“You took his powers?”

“No.”

The old man shook his head. “Inside Evergrove, he can't be an angel.”

I frowned. “What?”

“That is how my power works.” He gestured toward the store. “Inside here, everyone is equal. Gods. Humans. Spirits. Angels.”

A smile slowly spread across his face.

“None of you have authority here.”

He took another step toward us.

“I am the only one with authority.”

His voice dropped.

“I am the only one who can command.”

Angelo's expression hardened, and the old man smiled at him.

“You may be an angel outside.” He lifted one finger. “But inside my domain?”

He pointed at Angelo.

“You are just another person who must obey.”

The words hit harder than they should have.

“The one you want is me,” I said.

It was true. The old man had never wanted Angelo. He had never wanted Elior, Jacob, or anyone else who had walked into Evergrove.

He wanted me.

More specifically, he wanted the memories I carried.

“So let Angelo go.”

I looked at him.

The old man shook his head as much as his frozen body allowed.

“Nayeri, don't.”

The old man's expression softened.

“If it makes you feel better…”

He stepped closer.

“I don't want all of your memories.”

I stared at him.

“Only the ones I'm missing.”

My chest tightened.

He extended his hand.

“Give me those, and I will release him.”

I looked at Angelo. For the first time since I'd known him, he couldn't protect me. He couldn't fight, couldn't heal, couldn't even move.

He was completely human.

And somehow, that made my decision easier.

“Deal.”

Angelo's eyes widened.

“Nayeri—”

The old man placed two fingers against my forehead.

“Then let us finish what your father started.”

The moment his fingers touched my skin, something pulled.

Not at my body.

Something deeper.

My memories.

They began flashing through my mind.

Remi laughing.

Remi holding my hand.

Remi teaching me how to lie to our parents.

Remi sitting beside my bed when I was afraid.

Remi stealing food from my plate.

Remi arguing with me over the stupidest things.

Remi promising she would always come back.

My chest tightened.

“No.”

The memories began slipping away.

Not fading.

Being taken.

I reached for them, but my hands couldn't hold onto something that existed only in my mind. I desperately clung to them, trying to hold on to every fragment, every image, every sound.

Then everything stopped.

Panic replaced the fear.

“No. Please…”

The old man said nothing. He simply watched.

And the last thing I saw before everything went black was Angelo.

No longer an angel.

No longer the being who could stand between me and anything in existence.

Just Angelo.

The man I loved.

Watching me disappear.

I woke up in my childhood home.

For a few seconds, I didn't move. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling and trying to understand why I recognized it. The faded wallpaper, the wooden floor, the photographs hanging crookedly along the hallway, everything was exactly as I remembered it.

Except for one thing.

It was peaceful.

Too peaceful.

There were no screams, no footsteps echoing through the halls, no doors slamming. There was no need to listen carefully for my father's footsteps before deciding whether it was safe to leave my room.

I slowly got to my feet and followed the sound of someone moving around in the kitchen.

Then I saw her.

A girl stood by the stove, her long hair falling all the way to her lower back. She turned toward me, and my breath caught.

She had my face.

My eyes.

My features.

Everything about her was unmistakably mine.

Except she smiled.

Not the smile I'd learned to use when I wanted someone to leave me alone. A genuine one.

She wore a simple sweater and jeans, with the front of her hair loosely tied behind her head. A wedding ring rested on her finger.

I stared at it.

“Where am I?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“No thank you?”

A small laugh escaped her. “This is still Evergrove.”

I looked around the kitchen. “I see.”

Then I looked back at her.

“Who are you?”

She held my gaze for a moment before answering.

“I’m the version of you he created.”

The words settled heavily between us, and suddenly, it made sense. She wasn't a copy of me in the way I'd first thought. She was the result of the deal; the obedient daughter my father had asked for, the me Evergrove had created from Remi's memories.

But if that was true—

I frowned. “Then why did you help me?”

Her expression softened.

“Because I pity you.”

I almost laughed. A copy of me was standing across from me, making tea and calmly telling me she felt sorry for me. There was something deeply insulting about that, but I had no idea how to respond, so I decided not to.

Instead, my eyes dropped to the wedding ring on her finger, then to the photograph sitting on the table behind her. It was her, standing in a white wedding dress with diamonds draped around her neck and her long hair falling down her back. She was smiling brightly.

I'd never seen myself smile like that.

I looked back at her.

“You're married?”

She looked at the ring and smiled. “Yeah.”

“How?”

She shrugged. “Father arranged it.”

She returned to whatever she was doing. “I think you'll like him. He isn't like Father.”

I stared at her.

She seemed so ordinary. So painfully ordinary.

She complained about her husband leaving his socks on the floor. She told me she'd burned dinner the night before. She even laughed when she realized she'd put salt in her tea instead of sugar. At one point, she bumped her knee against the table and immediately apologized to the table.

I couldn't help staring.

She noticed.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She smiled and went back to her tea. She even asked if I wanted some.

She was everything I wasn't.

Human.

Not weaker. Not less intelligent.

Just... human.

I looked around the kitchen again. The sunlight spilling through the windows, the warm cups sitting on the table, the wedding photographs, the little signs of a life that had somehow grown inside this nightmare.

And slowly, I understood what I was looking at.

This was the life I might have had if I'd never escaped this house. If I had stayed. If I'd learned to obey. If I'd let Father decide what my life was supposed to be.

And strangely, I wasn't jealous.

I was glad.

Because she seemed happy.

She had found something I never had.

But this future didn't feel like mine.

It felt like hers.

I looked back at her.

“You're his obedient daughter…”

She nodded. “I can't disobey him.”

“Then how are you helping me?”

She gave me a small smile. “Because telling you how to end this isn't disobedience.”

She winked at me as she poured tea into my cup.

Sitting across from her felt surreal, like I was watching a version of my life that had somehow happened to someone else.

She was me.

But she wasn't.

“So…”

I looked down at the tea.

“How do I end this?”

Her expression changed.

The smile disappeared.

My fingers tightened around the cup.

“Kill Father.”

She said it almost in a whisper, as if the walls might hear her.

“What?”

“Yes.”

She took a sip of her tea and looked toward the photographs hanging along the wall. I followed her gaze. There were pictures everywhere: her wedding, her husband, holidays, birthdays. A life.

But there wasn't a single picture of Remi.

Not one.

“How do I kill him?”

She looked back at me.

“He's still human.”

“Father?”

She nodded.

“He will remain human until Evergrove succeeds in making—”

She paused.

“Riva.”

My stomach dropped.

I hadn't heard that name in years.

“My sister's name is Remi now,” I said quietly, correcting her.

She looked at me for a moment.

“Remi.”

She said the name carefully, as if trying it for the first time.

“Is that why you saved my memories of her?”

“Yes.”

She lowered her cup.

“Because as long as Riv—” She paused, catching herself. “I mean, Remi isn't made in this world, the deal remains unfinished, and Father remains human.”

She glanced toward the hallway.

“And if Father dies in the real world, this place dies with him.”

“And you?”

She smiled.

“I'll finally be free.”

My throat tightened.

“Then why don't you kill him yourself?”

Her smile disappeared.

“I can't.”

She looked down at her hands.

“I'm his obedient daughter.”

The words came out strangely flat, rehearsed, like she'd said them so many times that she'd stopped thinking about what they meant. Like someone had programmed the answer into her.

Then she looked back at me.

“But you aren't.”

She stood from the table.

“You still have a choice.”

I didn't move.

For the first time since I came here, she looked genuinely sad.

“Goodbye, me.”

She reached out and placed her hand against my forehead.

“Wake up.”

The moment she said it, the world around me cracked.

The kitchen split apart like glass. The walls disappeared, and the house collapsed into darkness around me.

Then I fell.

Angelo's face was the first thing I saw.

His eyes were wide, as the old man stood in front of him.

“How dare you disobey meeeee.”

The old man's voice distorted, stretching into something that made the walls vibrate.

“SIRAAAAAAAAAA!”

My real name echoed through Evergrove.

Not Nayeri.

Sira.

My body went cold. 

But something about the way he said it felt wrong. 

He wasn’t talking to me. 

He was talking to her. 

The obedient Nayeri. Evergroove’s Nayeri. 

Sira. 

I barely had the time to process what that meant before the old man's body suddenly convulsed. 

His chest split down the middle, not like flesh being torn, but like something inside him was forcing its way out. His ribs bent backward as his skin peeled apart, revealing something black writhing beneath the opening.

Then the tendrils erupted.

Angelo couldn't move. He couldn't even raise his arms.

“Nayeri!”

I moved without thinking and threw myself between them.

The first tendril punched through my stomach.

For a second, I felt nothing.

Then the pain arrived.

A small gasp escaped me, and Angelo's eyes widened.

“Nayeri.”

Another tendril tore across my side, and my knees buckled. Angelo still couldn't move. He could only watch as I fell in front of him.

Then the lights went out.

Every fluorescent bulb in the store shattered at once, and darkness swallowed us. For a moment, there was nothing but silence, until something cracked. Not wood. Not glass. The building itself.

A deep fracture tore through the wall behind us, and the old man stopped. His head slowly turned toward the sound as footsteps came from the other side.

One.

Then another.

The cracks spread farther across the wall, and the old man's smile disappeared.

Then the wall exploded inward.

Light flooded the store, and someone stepped through the opening.

Elior.

Light poured from his body, illuminating the broken store as his eyes burned white. He looked at the old man, then at me, and his expression changed.

“I am sorry, Uncle.”

He raised his hand.

“For my delay.”

The light exploded outward, throwing the tendrils backward as cracks raced across the walls of Evergrove. The entire store shook beneath the force, and for the first time since we'd entered the store, the old man looked afraid.

Elior stepped forward.

And the fight began.

I barely heard it.

Angelo was holding me, and somehow, he'd finally broken free. His hands were covered in my blood as he looked down at them, then back at me.

He tried to summon his authority.

Nothing.

He tried to heal me.

Nothing.

His expression slowly changed.

“No.”

He tried again.

Nothing happened.

“No.”

His voice cracked as he stared at his hands as though they had betrayed him. For the first time since I'd met him, Angelo looked completely helpless.

Tears rolled down his face.

“I can't.”

I looked at him.

“You're crying.”

He didn't answer. Instead, he pressed his forehead against mine.

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't.”

I reached up and touched his cheek.

“You saved me enough times.”

He shook his head.

“No…”

I smiled.

“It's okay.”

He closed his eyes, and I pulled him closer before kissing him.

It wasn't passionate.

It wasn't dramatic.

It was gentle. Warm. Almost painfully normal.

When we pulled apart, I smiled.

“Hah.”

Angelo looked at me.

“I never expected my first kiss to be my last.”

His face crumpled.

“No.”

He shook his head.

“No, it's not.”

His voice trembled.

“You're going to be fine.”

He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than me.

I smiled.

I wanted to believe him.

I really did.

But my vision was already beginning to blur, and suddenly, all I could think about was everyone I loved.

Angelo.

The first time we met.

The strange way he learned how to care about people.

The way he always noticed when something was wrong with me, even when I didn't say anything.

Remi.

Her laugh. Her stupid jokes.

The way she was getting used to holding my hand.

Jacob.

All the arguments. All the times he'd annoyed me.

The only family I had after Remi left.

Elior.

The idiot who somehow managed to make Jacob blush without even realizing what he was doing.

The one I never got to see marry Jacob. The one who taught Angelo how to be more human every day, despite not being human himself.

And then Noah.

Mostly Noah.

I thought about his little voice.

Nay?

I remembered making his spicy eggs. He always complained that they were too spicy, then he'd eat the entire plate anyway.

I thought about cutting his hair while he complained that I was pulling it, and watching Baby Shark with him until I wanted to throw the television out the window.

I wondered who would make his spicy eggs now.

Who would cut his hair?

Who would watch Baby Shark with him?

My chest hurt.

Not because I was afraid to die.

Because I didn't want to leave them.

My vision darkened as Angelo continued holding me, his tears falling against my face. Somewhere behind us, Elior was screaming. The old man was screaming too, and Evergrove was coming apart around us.

And then I thought about another life.

A life without gods.

Without demons.

Without C.S.P.

Without monsters hiding behind human faces.

Maybe we'd have a tiny house in some boring little town.

Our neighbors would be Jacob and Elior. They'd run a little restaurant; Jacob used to tell me about his dream to be a chef.

It would be the kind of place where neighbors were like family. They'd complain when our grass got too long, and we'd complain when their dog barked at three in the morning.

Our biggest problem would be a power outage.

Angelo would complain about the heat.

I'd complain about his complaining.

And somehow, we'd be happy.

Maybe we'd get married.

No grand ceremony.

Nothing extravagant.

Just us.

And Noah could be the ring bearer.

I smiled at the thought.

Yeah.

That sounds nice.

My fingers slowly loosened around Angelo's hand.

Maybe in the next life.

My eyes closed.

Maybe we'll both live there.

Maybe we'll get to be boring.

Maybe we'll finally get to be human.

And then—

everything went dark.

Part 1: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. We Had to Make a Sacrifice This Time.

Part 2: I Went to Antarctica Looking for 10,000 Missing People. I Came Back With a New Boss.

Part 3: Apparently Using Assistants as Sacrifices Violates Company Policy

Part 4: I Work for an Organization That Hunts Gods. One of Them Warned Me About the Angel Following Me.

Part 5: My Boss Asked Me If I Thought He Was a Monster. Now I Know Why.

Part 6: The Most Powerful Being in the CSP Is Studying Humans. Unfortunately, I'm His Favorite Lab Rat.

Part 7: Someone Stole the Rifle Built to Kill Gods. Then They Pointed It at Me.

Part 8: I Thought Dating an Angel Was Bad. Something Wearing My Face Was Worse.

Part 9: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. The Feather Led Something to Us.

Part 10: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. Humanity Now Has a Single Point of Failure.

Part 11: CSP Sent a Team Into Hell. Nobody Came Back.

Part 12: The Thing That Terrified the Creator Is Now Holding My Hand

Part 13: I Was Prepared to Fight a Cult. Instead, I got a Family Reunion.

Part 14: The God Wasn't the Monster Everyone Feared. My Mother Was.

Part 15: I Became the Head of a New Division. My First Case Was a Place My Sister Never Escaped From.

“You look exactly like the memories.”

The old man stared at me with a smile that made my stomach turn. It made me angry, too. This place had stripped my sister of her memories; the one thing that made her my sister. My Remi.

I forced myself to keep my voice steady. “What do you want?”

It was obvious Evergrove had trapped us here on purpose. The place had suddenly appeared on C.S.P.'s radar a month ago, but Remi had encountered it years ago. That meant Evergrove hadn't suddenly awakened.

It had been here all along.

Watching.

Waiting.

And now, somehow, it had deliberately gotten our attention.

The old man’s smile widened. “You're just like your sister.” He paused, studying me. “Makes sense. She raised you.”

My stomach tightened. His gaze shifted past me toward Angelo and Elior before returning to me.

“I have business with you.” His smile disappeared. “Everyone else can leave.”

I looked around the store. For once, the old man wasn't threatening us. He was offering us an exit, and somehow, that scared me more.

If I let everyone leave, there was at least a chance they would survive. Evergrove had been destroyed once before. Remi had killed whatever was inside it, and yet somehow, the place had returned. Whatever Evergrove was, it was more than a god.

Maybe it was more than an entity.

I looked at Angelo. He was already looking at me.

“I won't leave.”

My jaw tightened. “Everyone else can.”

Jackson, my inexperienced new assistant,immediately stepped forward. “We can't leave you guys here.”

I closed my eyes. “Jackson.”

“But—”

“Stop talking.”

He fell silent. When I opened my eyes, I stared directly at him. “Please.”

That finally silenced him.

The old man watched the exchange with an amused expression before looking at me again. “Still protecting everyone around you.”

I said nothing.

He smiled. “Your father would have hated that.”

Everything inside me stopped.

I turned so fast my coat swung behind me. “Father?”

The word echoed through the empty store, but the old man didn't answer. Instead, I noticed his hands. They were trembling, barely enough to notice, and he tried to hide it by curling his fingers into his palms.

Then I saw his eyes.

The smile was still there, but his eyes weren't smiling. Something was buried underneath them.

Regret.

I knew that look. I'd seen it before—not in monsters, but in people who wanted to do something and couldn't.

My eyes narrowed.

The old man hadn't trapped us here because he wanted to.

He was being made to.

My gaze drifted toward the shoppers, and the story Remi had told me came rushing back. Years ago, she'd traded her memories to a spirit in exchange for a knife, a knife she used to kill the night manager. At the time, I'd assumed the spirit had made the bargain willingly.

But what if it hadn't?

My eyes moved from face to face: the cashier, the old woman, the father, the child, and all the other people who had been standing here before we'd even entered.

All of them were spirits.

And all of them were being controlled.

My blood ran cold.

“Get out.”

Nobody moved.

I raised my voice. “GET OUT NOW!”

The Retrieval teams moved first, running for the doors. Jacob remained, as did Elior. Jackson didn't move either.

I looked at Angelo. He leaned toward Jacob and whispered something too quiet for me to hear. Whatever he said, Jacob's expression changed. He grabbed Jackson by the arm.

“Come on.”

“I'm not leaving her.”

“You are.”

Jacob practically carried him toward the entrance while Elior followed. Jackson fought them the entire way, but they dragged him toward the doors anyway.

Then, just before they closed, he looked back.

Our eyes met.

I knew that expression.

He was going to transfer the moment we reached base.

I couldn't blame him.

The doors slammed shut, and silence swallowed the store again.

The old man turned toward Angelo, then back toward me.

“How do you know my father?”

A quiet laugh escaped him. Then his eyes changed.

For a moment, they didn't look human anymore.

His voice dropped into something deeper, older, something that seemed to vibrate through the walls.

“Let me tell you a story.”

He took a slow step forward.

“A very long time ago, there was an angel.”

Angelo's expression hardened.

“She created her first god.” The old man smiled. “The God of Obedience.”

I glanced at Angelo, but he didn't look away from the old man.

“She was tired of her siblings refusing to listen to her. And being the eldest, she believed she was entitled to become the one who created all of them.”

“Like The Creator?” I asked.

The old man chuckled. “Is that what you call the one who left?”

Angelo's eyes narrowed.

“She was quite irresponsible.”

“Mother wasn't irresponsible.”

Angelo's voice was cold enough to make the words feel like a warning.

The old man looked at him for a moment before laughing. “Your sister thought otherwise.”

Angelo said nothing.

The old man's smile slowly faded. “The God of Obedience was powerful. Too powerful.”

He looked around the store as though remembering something that had happened a very long time ago.

“At first, it commanded humans.”

He paused.

“Then lesser gods.”

Another pause.

“Then greater ones.”

The fluorescent lights above us flickered.

“And eventually…”

The old man's eyes settled on Angelo.

“It commanded…the angel who made it.”

Angelo's expression didn't change, but I saw something flicker in his eyes.

Pain.

“The Angel was afraid,” the old man continued. “For the first time in her existence, she was afraid of something she had created.”

He smiled faintly.

“So she destroyed it.”

His smile widened.

“She shattered it.”

He spread his hands as though he could still see the pieces falling.

“Pieces scattered across the world, never to meet again.”

I looked around the store—the silent shoppers, the smiling faces, the old man standing in front of us.

“And I am guessing Evergrove is one of them?”

The old man nodded as he looked at me again.

“Your sister, a mere human, destroyed this piece.”

My throat tightened.

“And yet you're still here.”

“Of course.”

He smiled.

“Just because you destroy a piece of a god.” His voice became almost playful. “Doesn’t mean you destroy the god itself”

Angelo stepped forward, placing himself between me and the old man.

The old man looked at him.

Then he smiled.

“So how is the angel? Did she succeed in becoming the creator?”

Angelo didn't hesitate.

“I killed her.”

For several seconds, the old man simply stared at Angelo. Then he laughed, but the sound changed halfway through. It no longer sounded like an old man. It sounded ancient, like something enormous was wearing his voice.

“Hahahaha.”

His shoulders shook as he laughed. “If only she had let me help her.”

He looked at Angelo with something approaching pity. “You angels are so incompetent.”

Angelo moved.

One instant, he was beside me. The next, he was halfway across the store.

“Stop.”

Angelo froze, his foot suspended above the floor. His body trembled as he strained against whatever had suddenly taken hold of him. Slowly, his foot lowered, and his knee buckled beneath him. He caught himself, then immediately tried to move again.

Nothing happened.

“Angelo?”

His breathing became uneven. “I can't move.”

The old man's smile returned. “If I could command your sister…” He took another step forward. “I can command you.”

Angelo's hands clenched as his entire body strained against something none of us could see, but it didn't matter. The strongest being in the room was being held in place by a single word.

The old man turned his attention back to me and clasped his hands behind his back.

“Now, where were we?”

His eyes met mine.

“Oh, yes.”

“Your father.”

My stomach dropped.

“After your sister killed me and disappeared…” He paused, watching my reaction. “Guess who came looking for her?”

I already knew.

“My father.”

The old man smiled.

I remembered those days. Remi had disappeared, but my father hadn't cried or broken down. He had searched for her night after night, but not like a father desperately trying to find his daughter. He searched like a businessman who had just lost something valuable: a crucial piece of a deal.

A daughter he had planned to marry off.

A future he'd already arranged.

And when Remi escaped, he lost control.

I remembered walking through the house back then: the silence, the doors closing, the sound of his footsteps echoing through the halls. Everyone had learned not to speak when he was angry, and for months, I'd spent my life walking on eggshells.

The old man watched the realization settle across my face.

“He found me.”

His smile widened.

“Or rather…”

“One piece of me.”

I swallowed. “What did you do to him?”

“Offered him a deal, of course.”

He glanced down at his trembling hands. “I was too weak to control him. Your sister truly did a number on me.”

There was almost admiration in his voice.

“What did you want from him?”

“Something to replace the piece I lost.”

He lifted his eyes to mine.

“A small portion of what made him human.”

I laughed bitterly.

Of course.

What a fate.

My mother had become a cult leader. My father had become a power-hungry god dealer. Apparently, my family had a talent for making terrible decisions.

“And what did my father want?”

The old man looked almost amused.

“What your father had always wanted.”

He stepped closer.

“Control.”

His smile became colder.

“He wanted children who would never disobey him.”

A pause.

“So I gave him exactly what he asked for.”

My blood ran cold.

“What do you mean?”

The old man's smile softened.

“I constructed you.”

I stared at him.

“From your sister’s memories.”

My breath caught. “What?”

“When your sister made her bargain, she gave me something far more valuable than memories.” He tilted his head. “She gave me pieces of you.”

My eyes narrowed.

“And I used them…”

His smile widened.

“To make you.”

The words had barely left his mouth before the room seemed to grow colder.

I stared at him, trying to understand, while he looked at me almost fondly.

“But there was one problem.”

His gaze settled on my face.

“The deal was for both of you.”

He paused.

“But I was only able to make you from her memories.”

My stomach tightened.

“I never had your memories of your sister.”

I didn't understand at first.

Then it clicked.

“You couldn't create her.”

The old man smiled.

“Exactly.”

He took another step toward me.

“I could reconstruct the you she remembered.”

He paused.

“But not the her you remember.”

I stopped breathing.

Something cold spread through my chest as I stared at him.

“You need me.”

His smile widened.

“Now you understand.”

I felt sick.

All those years. Everything I remembered about my sister: her voice, her face, the way she used to hold my hand, the nights she stayed awake when I was afraid, the way she raised me when our parents wouldn't. Every stupid argument, every laugh, every moment I thought I'd forgotten until something reminded me.

Everything that made Remi my Remi.

That was the price.

The old man had never wanted my life. He wanted the one thing I could never replace.

My memories of her.

And suddenly, Evergrove didn't feel like a prison anymore.

It felt like a laboratory.

And I was the final ingredient.

I looked at Angelo. He was still frozen, his body unmoving since the old man had commanded him to stop. Then I noticed something else.

The faint glow that usually surrounded him was gone.

His presence felt... smaller.

Wrong.

“What did you do to him?”

The old man smiled. “I stripped him of his angelic authority.”

My blood ran cold.

Angelo's eyes met mine. For once, there was nothing divine behind them. No power. No protection.

Just Angelo.

“You took his powers?”

“No.”

The old man shook his head. “Inside Evergrove, he can't be an angel.”

I frowned. “What?”

“That is how my power works.” He gestured toward the store. “Inside here, everyone is equal. Gods. Humans. Spirits. Angels.”

A smile slowly spread across his face.

“None of you have authority here.”

He took another step toward us.

“I am the only one with authority.”

His voice dropped.

“I am the only one who can command.”

Angelo's expression hardened, and the old man smiled at him.

“You may be an angel outside.” He lifted one finger. “But inside my domain?”

He pointed at Angelo.

“You are just another person who must obey.”

The words hit harder than they should have.

“The one you want is me,” I said.

It was true. The old man had never wanted Angelo. He had never wanted Elior, Jacob, or anyone else who had walked into Evergrove.

He wanted me.

More specifically, he wanted the memories I carried.

“So let Angelo go.”

I looked at him.

The old man shook his head as much as his frozen body allowed.

“Nayeri, don't.”

The old man's expression softened.

“If it makes you feel better…”

He stepped closer.

“I don't want all of your memories.”

I stared at him.

“Only the ones I'm missing.”

My chest tightened.

He extended his hand.

“Give me those, and I will release him.”

I looked at Angelo. For the first time since I'd known him, he couldn't protect me. He couldn't fight, couldn't heal, couldn't even move.

He was completely human.

And somehow, that made my decision easier.

“Deal.”

Angelo's eyes widened.

“Nayeri—”

The old man placed two fingers against my forehead.

“Then let us finish what your father started.”

The moment his fingers touched my skin, something pulled.

Not at my body.

Something deeper.

My memories.

They began flashing through my mind.

Remi laughing.

Remi holding my hand.

Remi teaching me how to lie to our parents.

Remi sitting beside my bed when I was afraid.

Remi stealing food from my plate.

Remi arguing with me over the stupidest things.

Remi promising she would always come back.

My chest tightened.

“No.”

The memories began slipping away.

Not fading.

Being taken.

I reached for them, but my hands couldn't hold onto something that existed only in my mind. I desperately clung to them, trying to hold on to every fragment, every image, every sound.

Then everything stopped.

Panic replaced the fear.

“No. Please…”

The old man said nothing. He simply watched.

And the last thing I saw before everything went black was Angelo.

No longer an angel.

No longer the being who could stand between me and anything in existence.

Just Angelo.

The man I loved.

Watching me disappear.

I woke up in my childhood home.

For a few seconds, I didn't move. I just lay there, staring at the ceiling and trying to understand why I recognized it. The faded wallpaper, the wooden floor, the photographs hanging crookedly along the hallway, everything was exactly as I remembered it.

Except for one thing.

It was peaceful.

Too peaceful.

There were no screams, no footsteps echoing through the halls, no doors slamming. There was no need to listen carefully for my father's footsteps before deciding whether it was safe to leave my room.

I slowly got to my feet and followed the sound of someone moving around in the kitchen.

Then I saw her.

A girl stood by the stove, her long hair falling all the way to her lower back. She turned toward me, and my breath caught.

She had my face.

My eyes.

My features.

Everything about her was unmistakably mine.

Except she smiled.

Not the smile I'd learned to use when I wanted someone to leave me alone. A genuine one.

She wore a simple sweater and jeans, with the front of her hair loosely tied behind her head. A wedding ring rested on her finger.

I stared at it.

“Where am I?”

She raised an eyebrow.

“No thank you?”

A small laugh escaped her. “This is still Evergrove.”

I looked around the kitchen. “I see.”

Then I looked back at her.

“Who are you?”

She held my gaze for a moment before answering.

“I’m the version of you he created.”

The words settled heavily between us, and suddenly, it made sense. She wasn't a copy of me in the way I'd first thought. She was the result of the deal; the obedient daughter my father had asked for, the me Evergrove had created from Remi's memories.

But if that was true—

I frowned. “Then why did you help me?”

Her expression softened.

“Because I pity you.”

I almost laughed. A copy of me was standing across from me, making tea and calmly telling me she felt sorry for me. There was something deeply insulting about that, but I had no idea how to respond, so I decided not to.

Instead, my eyes dropped to the wedding ring on her finger, then to the photograph sitting on the table behind her. It was her, standing in a white wedding dress with diamonds draped around her neck and her long hair falling down her back. She was smiling brightly.

I'd never seen myself smile like that.

I looked back at her.

“You're married?”

She looked at the ring and smiled. “Yeah.”

“How?”

She shrugged. “Father arranged it.”

She returned to whatever she was doing. “I think you'll like him. He isn't like Father.”

I stared at her.

She seemed so ordinary. So painfully ordinary.

She complained about her husband leaving his socks on the floor. She told me she'd burned dinner the night before. She even laughed when she realized she'd put salt in her tea instead of sugar. At one point, she bumped her knee against the table and immediately apologized to the table.

I couldn't help staring.

She noticed.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She smiled and went back to her tea. She even asked if I wanted some.

She was everything I wasn't.

Human.

Not weaker. Not less intelligent.

Just... human.

I looked around the kitchen again. The sunlight spilling through the windows, the warm cups sitting on the table, the wedding photographs, the little signs of a life that had somehow grown inside this nightmare.

And slowly, I understood what I was looking at.

This was the life I might have had if I'd never escaped this house. If I had stayed. If I'd learned to obey. If I'd let Father decide what my life was supposed to be.

And strangely, I wasn't jealous.

I was glad.

Because she seemed happy.

She had found something I never had.

But this future didn't feel like mine.

It felt like hers.

I looked back at her.

“You're his obedient daughter…”

She nodded. “I can't disobey him.”

“Then how are you helping me?”

She gave me a small smile. “Because telling you how to end this isn't disobedience.”

She winked at me as she poured tea into my cup.

Sitting across from her felt surreal, like I was watching a version of my life that had somehow happened to someone else.

She was me.

But she wasn't.

“So…”

I looked down at the tea.

“How do I end this?”

Her expression changed.

The smile disappeared.

My fingers tightened around the cup.

“Kill Father.”

She said it almost in a whisper, as if the walls might hear her.

“What?”

“Yes.”

She took a sip of her tea and looked toward the photographs hanging along the wall. I followed her gaze. There were pictures everywhere: her wedding, her husband, holidays, birthdays. A life.

But there wasn't a single picture of Remi.

Not one.

“How do I kill him?”

She looked back at me.

“He's still human.”

“Father?”

She nodded.

“He will remain human until Evergrove succeeds in making—”

She paused.

“Riva.”

My stomach dropped.

I hadn't heard that name in years.

“My sister's name is Remi now,” I said quietly, correcting her.

She looked at me for a moment.

“Remi.”

She said the name carefully, as if trying it for the first time.

“Is that why you saved my memories of her?”

“Yes.”

She lowered her cup.

“Because as long as Riv—” She paused, catching herself. “I mean, Remi isn't made in this world, the deal remains unfinished, and Father remains human.”

She glanced toward the hallway.

“And if Father dies in the real world, this place dies with him.”

“And you?”

She smiled.

“I'll finally be free.”

My throat tightened.

“Then why don't you kill him yourself?”

Her smile disappeared.

“I can't.”

She looked down at her hands.

“I'm his obedient daughter.”

The words came out strangely flat, rehearsed, like she'd said them so many times that she'd stopped thinking about what they meant. Like someone had programmed the answer into her.

Then she looked back at me.

“But you aren't.”

She stood from the table.

“You still have a choice.”

I didn't move.

For the first time since I came here, she looked genuinely sad.

“Goodbye, me.”

She reached out and placed her hand against my forehead.

“Wake up.”

The moment she said it, the world around me cracked.

The kitchen split apart like glass. The walls disappeared, and the house collapsed into darkness around me.

Then I fell.

Angelo's face was the first thing I saw.

His eyes were wide, as the old man stood in front of him.

“How dare you disobey meeeee.”

The old man's voice distorted, stretching into something that made the walls vibrate.

“SIRAAAAAAAAAA!”

My real name echoed through Evergrove.

Not Nayeri.

Sira.

My body went cold. 

But something about the way he said it felt wrong. 

He wasn’t talking to me. 

He was talking to her. 

The obedient Nayeri. Evergroove’s Nayeri. 

Sira. 

I barely had the time to process what that meant before the old man's body suddenly convulsed. 

His chest split down the middle, not like flesh being torn, but like something inside him was forcing its way out. His ribs bent backward as his skin peeled apart, revealing something black writhing beneath the opening.

Then the tendrils erupted.

Angelo couldn't move. He couldn't even raise his arms.

“Nayeri!”

I moved without thinking and threw myself between them.

The first tendril punched through my stomach.

For a second, I felt nothing.

Then the pain arrived.

A small gasp escaped me, and Angelo's eyes widened.

“Nayeri.”

Another tendril tore across my side, and my knees buckled. Angelo still couldn't move. He could only watch as I fell in front of him.

Then the lights went out.

Every fluorescent bulb in the store shattered at once, and darkness swallowed us. For a moment, there was nothing but silence, until something cracked. Not wood. Not glass. The building itself.

A deep fracture tore through the wall behind us, and the old man stopped. His head slowly turned toward the sound as footsteps came from the other side.

One.

Then another.

The cracks spread farther across the wall, and the old man's smile disappeared.

Then the wall exploded inward.

Light flooded the store, and someone stepped through the opening.

Elior.

Light poured from his body, illuminating the broken store as his eyes burned white. He looked at the old man, then at me, and his expression changed.

“I am sorry, Uncle.”

He raised his hand.

“For my delay.”

The light exploded outward, throwing the tendrils backward as cracks raced across the walls of Evergrove. The entire store shook beneath the force, and for the first time since we'd entered the store, the old man looked afraid.

Elior stepped forward.

And the fight began.

I barely heard it.

Angelo was holding me, and somehow, he'd finally broken free. His hands were covered in my blood as he looked down at them, then back at me.

He tried to summon his authority.

Nothing.

He tried to heal me.

Nothing.

His expression slowly changed.

“No.”

He tried again.

Nothing happened.

“No.”

His voice cracked as he stared at his hands as though they had betrayed him. For the first time since I'd met him, Angelo looked completely helpless.

Tears rolled down his face.

“I can't.”

I looked at him.

“You're crying.”

He didn't answer. Instead, he pressed his forehead against mine.

“I'm sorry.”

“Don't.”

I reached up and touched his cheek.

“You saved me enough times.”

He shook his head.

“No…”

I smiled.

“It's okay.”

He closed his eyes, and I pulled him closer before kissing him.

It wasn't passionate.

It wasn't dramatic.

It was gentle. Warm. Almost painfully normal.

When we pulled apart, I smiled.

“Hah.”

Angelo looked at me.

“I never expected my first kiss to be my last.”

His face crumpled.

“No.”

He shook his head.

“No, it's not.”

His voice trembled.

“You're going to be fine.”

He sounded like he was trying to convince himself more than me.

I smiled.

I wanted to believe him.

I really did.

But my vision was already beginning to blur, and suddenly, all I could think about was everyone I loved.

Angelo.

The first time we met.

The strange way he learned how to care about people.

The way he always noticed when something was wrong with me, even when I didn't say anything.

Remi.

Her laugh. Her stupid jokes.

The way she was getting used to holding my hand.

Jacob.

All the arguments. All the times he'd annoyed me.

The only family I had after Remi left.

Elior.

The idiot who somehow managed to make Jacob blush without even realizing what he was doing.

The one I never got to see marry Jacob. The one who taught Angelo how to be more human every day, despite not being human himself.

And then Noah.

Mostly Noah.

I thought about his little voice.

Nay?

I remembered making his spicy eggs. He always complained that they were too spicy, then he'd eat the entire plate anyway.

I thought about cutting his hair while he complained that I was pulling it, and watching Baby Shark with him until I wanted to throw the television out the window.

I wondered who would make his spicy eggs now.

Who would cut his hair?

Who would watch Baby Shark with him?

My chest hurt.

Not because I was afraid to die.

Because I didn't want to leave them.

My vision darkened as Angelo continued holding me, his tears falling against my face. Somewhere behind us, Elior was screaming. The old man was screaming too, and Evergrove was coming apart around us.

And then I thought about another life.

A life without gods.

Without demons.

Without C.S.P.

Without monsters hiding behind human faces.

Maybe we'd have a tiny house in some boring little town.

Our neighbors would be Jacob and Elior. They'd run a little restaurant; Jacob used to tell me about his dream to be a chef.

It would be the kind of place where neighbors were like family. They'd complain when our grass got too long, and we'd complain when their dog barked at three in the morning.

Our biggest problem would be a power outage.

Angelo would complain about the heat.

I'd complain about his complaining.

And somehow, we'd be happy.

Maybe we'd get married.

No grand ceremony.

Nothing extravagant.

Just us.

And Noah could be the ring bearer.

I smiled at the thought.

Yeah.

That sounds nice.

My fingers slowly loosened around Angelo's hand.

Maybe in the next life.

My eyes closed.

Maybe we'll both live there.

Maybe we'll get to be boring.

Maybe we'll finally get to be human.

And then—

everything went dark.

Part 14: The God Wasn't the Monster Everyone Feared. My Mother Was.

Three weeks ago, my mother died.

That sounds like the kind of sentence that's supposed to be followed by some profound realization about grief, acceptance, or discovering the true meaning of family.

Unfortunately, I didn't have one of those.

Instead, I was taking it better than everyone expected.

Not because I'd healed. I hadn't. The grief was still there. It had just... changed.

Everyone expected me to fall apart after the funeral. Sleepless nights. Panic attacks. Crying in empty hallways.

Instead, I went back to work three days later.

The strangest part wasn't that I wasn't grieving.

It was the silence.

For most of my life, every mistake I'd made, every hesitation, every moment where I wasn't good enough had been accompanied by my mother's voice somewhere in the back of my mind.

You could've done better.

Why are you wasting your potential?

You're still not enough.

It had been there for so long that I'd stopped questioning it. I just assumed that was what having a conscience felt like.

Except now...

It was gone.

No criticism.

No impossible standards.

No voice reminding me that I was falling short.

Just silence.

I'd spent so many years trying to escape that voice that I'd never stopped to wonder what would happen if it actually disappeared.

I wasn't happy.

I wasn't okay.

But for the first time in my life, the thoughts inside my head actually sounded like my own.

Somehow...

That was even harder to get used to.

Remi called every day.

Neither of us pretended things could simply go back to the way they were. She couldn't transfer from E.S.R. to C.S.P. now that she was leading E.S.R.; and I couldn't exactly abandon my own responsibilities either. So instead, we settled for phone calls.

It was... nice.

Awkward.

But nice.

She laughed more now. Not forced laughter, either. Real laughter.

Director Morozov had actually stopped me in the hallway two days ago just to thank me.

"I haven't seen her this happy in years," he'd said.

He loved the Remi standing in front of him.

But sometimes I caught the way his expression lingered for just a second too long, and I wondered if part of him still missed the woman he'd first met years ago...

The one who'd existed before she lost her memories.

Noah was starting third grade soon.

That was still a sentence I never thought I'd say.

Teaching the fragment of the Great Shadow how to function as a normal child turned out to be a surprisingly collaborative effort. Researchers handled science, actual teachers handled, well... teaching, and Angelo periodically wandered in to explain concepts from the perspective of an immortal being older than reality itself.

Sometimes that helped.

Sometimes it raised significantly more questions than it answered.

Yesterday I'd been helping Noah with multiplication.

It was strangely comforting to discover that an entity theoretically capable of ending civilizations still thought math was unfair.

Some things, apparently, were universal.

Like work.

Work hadn't slowed down in the slightest.

Mostly because C.S.P. had decided to "promote" me.

I use the word promote very loosely.

Promotions at C.S.P. weren't based on competence.

They were based on survival.

Someone above you died.

Congratulations, you're management now.

That was basically how my entire career had worked.

This promotion, however, was a little different.

Technically, I was now the Chief Executive of the Angel Division.

Which sounded incredibly prestigious until you learned one small detail.

The Angel Division hadn't existed three weeks ago.

Angelo became a Director.

Angelo decided Directors should each have their own divisions.

Angelo decided he wanted one.

The Executive Board apparently agreed because arguing with an ancient celestial entity older than reality itself had consistently resulted in poor employee retention.

So they created an entirely new division.

Then Angelo looked at me and calmly announced,

"Nayeri will supervise it."

Nobody objected.

Mostly because nobody wanted to.

Which was how I became the Chief Executive of a department that was younger than some of the milk cartons in the cafeteria.

Our staffing situation was... unconventional.

Nearly half of Research Division had been reassigned to us after Angelo developed an unfortunate habit of wandering into laboratories and asking questions like,

"Can consciousness be folded?"

Or,

"If I remove fatigue from a scientist, would productivity increase?"

After the seventh ethics investigation in two weeks, someone higher up concluded it would be significantly easier to transfer the researchers than continue filing paperwork.

Elior transferred over as well.

That one actually made sense.

According to Angelo, while he'd spent thousands of years buried beneath Antarctic ice maintaining reality, Elior had spent those same millennia searching the world for him.

It meant Elior understood humanity far better than his uncle ever would.

It also helped that he happened to be one of the smartest researchers in the entire organization.

Jacob, meanwhile, had somehow started spending more time in the Angel Division than he did in Retrieval, despite officially remaining on Retrieval's roster.

According to Jacob, it was because Retrieval and the Angel Division would be coordinating all future operations together.

Which was technically true.

I made my way to my new office, which was exactly one floor higher than my old one. That was apparently what counted as a promotion here: more responsibility, one extra floor, and still no pay increase.

Waiting on my desk was a stack of paperwork. A very large stack. The pile was taller than my coffee mug.

Actually, it was taller than my last assistant.

Which wasn't saying much.

He wasn't particularly tall.

He also wasn't particularly alive anymore.

I sighed and picked up the first report.

INCIDENT 1: DESTRUCTION OF HISTORICAL SITE

"I didn't destroy it," I muttered. "The giant monster did."

I wrote exactly that in the explanation box, then immediately crossed it out. "Giant monster" was technically not considered professional terminology.

I replaced it with hostile reality-altering entity.

Much better.

The second report came from Accounting. Someone wanted an explanation for why six military helicopters, three transport aircraft, fourteen armored vehicles, and one satellite had all been listed as mission-related losses.

I wasn't even aware we'd lost a satellite.

I made a mental note to ask someone.

That's when the door opened.

Jacob walked in carrying another stack of folders. I looked at the folders, then looked at him.

"No."

"They're yours."

"No."

"They literally have your name on them."

"I think that's a coincidence."

"Nayeri."

"I've never seen those folders before in my life."

Jacob dropped them onto my desk anyway, and the impact nearly knocked over my coffee.

"You're the worst manager in this building."

"I was promoted, so statistically that can't be true anymore."

"They promoted you because of Angelo."

"All I'm hearing is jealousy."

Jacob pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I have some news."

"Have I finally been approved?"

He frowned. "...Approved for what?"

"A vacation."

He stared at me.

"...No."

"Damn."

"You've been assigned a new assistant."

I blinked. "What? With my track record? That's incredibly irresponsible."

Jacob nodded. "It really is."

"Please take care of this one."

"It wasn't my fault the last ones died."

Jacob looked at me for several long seconds.

"Okay," I admitted. "Some of them were my fault. But if they keep giving me completely untrained interns, what exactly are they expecting?"

Jacob sighed. "Nayeri... I'm serious."

"So am I."

"I think you should reject the assignment."

I gestured around my office. The paperwork had somehow multiplied since I last looked at it.

"Jacob, I need an assistant."

"No, you don't."

"Look around."

He did.

"I either get an assistant..." I pointed at the mountain of paperwork. "...or these reports are going to kill me before I accidentally kill my new assistant."

Jacob's expression immediately fell.

Sean.

I sighed.

"...Sorry."

Neither of us said anything after that. The silence lingered for several seconds, heavy and uncomfortable.

Luckily for me, it didn't last.

The office door slid open again, and Elior walked in carrying another stack of folders.

"Jacob," he said, looking around the room. "I've been looking for you."

Jacob straightened so quickly he nearly knocked over his chair.

"H-Hey, Eli."

Eli?

I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing.

Elior smiled. "I was wondering if you'd help me organize the laboratory later."

"Sure."

"Wonderful."

His smile somehow grew even warmer.

"I'll see you then."

He gave Jacob one last smile before turning and walking back into the hallway.

The office fell silent.

I looked at Jacob.

Jacob continued staring at the doorway like Elior might come back.

"You realize he's flirting with you."

Jacob frowned. "No, he's not."

"Jacob."

"He's being polite."

"He only smiles like that at you."

"He's friendly."

"He brought you coffee this morning."

"He's considerate."

"He called you handsome yesterday."

Jacob froze.

"...Professionally."

I stared at him.

"...Professionally?"

"He was complimenting my... work ethic."

"He literally said, 'You're handsome.'"

"...Maybe he appreciates symmetry."

I leaned back in my chair.

"You're actually hopeless."

Jacob opened his mouth to defend himself.

The office door slid open again.

Angelo walked in just as Jacob reached for the handle to leave. He stopped, looked at Jacob, and tilted his head slightly.

"Why is your heart rate twenty-two percent above its resting average?"

Jacob went completely still.

I smiled. "Elior was just in here."

"Oh."

Angelo nodded, then looked through the open doorway. Elior was still walking down the hallway with his folders tucked under one arm.

Angelo looked back at Jacob. "I wish you both the best of luck."

Jacob blinked.

Angelo continued with complete sincerity. "Please take good care of my nephew."

Silence.

Jacob's ears slowly turned bright red.

I completely lost it. I laughed so hard I had to hold onto the edge of my desk.

Jacob muttered something under his breath, shoved past Angelo, and hurried into the hallway after Elior without looking at either of us.

Angelo watched him leave, then looked back at me.

"...Did I say something humorous?"

That only made me laugh harder.

"Jacob's just shy," I said between laughs.

"I see."

Angelo nodded thoughtfully. "That appears to be a common human response to romantic attraction."

"It is."

Angelo glanced at the stack of paperwork covering my desk.

"You appear busy."

I followed his gaze and sighed. "I've been Chief Executive for less than three weeks, and I'm already considering setting the paperwork on fire."

"I would advise against that."

"I know."

"...It would create more paperwork."

I stared at him.

"...I hate that you're right."

Angelo looked at me for another moment before asking, "Would you like to join us for breakfast?"

I blinked.

"You haven't eaten yet?"

"No."

"Noah wished to wait for you."

A smile found its way onto my face before I could stop it.

"Really?"

"He said, 'Nay eats with us.'"

I looked away for a second, pretending that sentence hadn't affected me.

"...Sure."

I stood up. "I can't wait to see him."

Noah was getting cuter every day.

It felt strange admitting that.

I'd never been a kid person. Growing up with my mother had made sure of that. Children were loud, messy, and unpredictable. I usually preferred monsters.

Monsters, at least, came with instruction manuals.

Children just... existed.

Then Noah showed up.

Maybe the exception was simply cute children.

Or maybe it was just him.

When I'd mentioned that to Remi during one of our nightly phone calls, she'd laughed.

"You know," she'd said, "you were really cute too."

"I was?"

"You still are."

I'd immediately changed the subject.

Remi, meanwhile, had started referring to Noah as her nephew.

Technically...

I wasn't even sure she was wrong.

By C.S.P. standards, family trees had become less like diagrams and more like conspiracy boards.

We made our way back to my apartment. As soon as I opened the door, I spotted Noah sitting at the dining table. I'd bought him a high chair the week before so he could actually eat with us instead of sitting on a stack of cushions.

He looked up the moment he heard us.

His entire face lit up.

"Hi, Nay!"

I smiled before I could stop myself.

"Hi, Noah."

Then he looked past me.

"Hello, Father."

Angelo gave a small nod.

"Good morning, Noah."

He was still getting used to being called Father. At first, he'd tried correcting Noah, but after several failed attempts, he'd simply accepted it.

I took the seat beside Noah and unfolded the small handkerchief I'd bought for him, tying it gently around his neck before placing his breakfast in front of him.

He didn't complain.

He simply waited.

Another thing Angelo had somehow taught him.

Patience.

Breakfast was surprisingly peaceful. Noah spent most of it asking Angelo questions.

"Why do birds fly?"

"Because their anatomy allows them to generate sufficient lift."

"Oh."

A few seconds later, he asked, "Why can't penguins fly?"

"Because evolution prioritized efficient swimming over aerial locomotion."

"Oh."

Then he turned to me.

"Nay?"

"Yeah?"

"Why do I have to learn multiplication?"

I looked at him.

Then at Angelo.

Then back at Noah.

"...Honestly?"

He nodded.

"I have absolutely no idea."

Noah looked relieved.

"I don't like multiplication."

"I don't either."

Angelo looked at both of us.

"Mathematics remains objectively useful."

Neither of us responded.

He sighed.

"I appear to be outnumbered."

After breakfast, I walked with Noah to what everyone insisted on calling school.

In reality, it was an entire wing of the Research Division that had slowly transformed into the strangest elementary classroom on Earth.

His teachers included researchers, linguists, psychologists, and occasionally Angelo whenever the lesson somehow became about the history of reality.

Watching Noah wave goodbye before disappearing inside still made me smile.

When I returned to the apartment, Angelo had already cleaned the kitchen. Every dish had been washed, the table had been wiped down, and even Noah's tiny cup had been put away. I leaned against the doorway for a moment.

"You didn't have to do all that."

"I wished to contribute."

"I know."

It was... weird.

My father had never washed a dish in his life. Growing up, I didn't think I'd ever seen my parents sit down for breakfast together. I'd certainly never seen someone clean up simply because they wanted to make someone else's day easier.

Having a functional family, even one assembled from an ancient angel, the fragment of the Great Shadow, and me, was still something I hadn't quite learned how to believe in.

I must have been staring longer than I realized because Angelo noticed.

"Is something wrong?"

I looked over at him.

"No."

Normally, that answer would have been enough for most people.

Not Angelo.

He didn't argue. He didn't ask again. He didn't try to pull the truth out of me. He simply walked over to the couch and sat down. After a moment, he placed a hand on the empty space beside him.

An invitation.

Not a command.

Not an expectation.

Just an invitation.

I stood there for several seconds, looking at him. At any other point in my life, I probably would have smiled, said I was fine, and walked away.

But I knew Angelo.

He wouldn't chase after me. He wouldn't force me to explain something I wasn't ready to say.

He would just sit there.

And somehow, that made it harder to leave.

So I walked over and sat beside him.

Neither of us spoke.

The silence between us wasn't uncomfortable. It wasn't the kind of silence I grew up with, where everyone was waiting for someone else to break first and every quiet moment felt like a punishment.

This was different.

Angelo was simply there.

Waiting.

Not demanding anything from me.

I stared at the floor for a while before finally speaking.

"...I was thinking about my dad."

Angelo didn't move. He didn't need to. I knew he was listening.

"You know..." I let out a quiet laugh. "Seeing you with Noah makes me jealous of him."

The words sounded ridiculous the moment they left my mouth.

"I mean..." I shook my head. "Isn't that weird? I'm jealous of an eight-year-old because he has a father who actually wants to be around him."

Angelo looked at me.

"I do not believe that is jealousy."

"No?"

"No."

He folded his hands together.

"I believe you are grieving something you never received."

I looked away.

Because somehow...

That hurt more.

"You are not jealous of Noah," Angelo continued. He glanced toward the dining room, where Noah's toys were scattered across the floor. "If you were jealous, you would be angry at Noah."

I stayed quiet.

"But you are not. You are happy that he has that relationship."

A pause followed.

"I have never had a father."

The honesty of the statement caught me off guard. Angelo rarely admitted things about himself.

"So I cannot fully understand what that absence feels like," he said. "But I know what it is like to have someone who chooses to protect you."

His expression changed slightly.

"My mother was both."

I looked at him.

"A good parent. A caring mother. She was flawed. She made mistakes. But she loved me."

He paused.

"And I believe that is the difference."

The words hit harder because they were true. Because I didn't have anyone like that. Both of my parents were flawed, just in completely different ways.

"My father wasn't..." I stopped, trying to figure out how to explain him to Angelo. Because he wasn't a monster. That would have been easier.

"He wasn't like my mother."

Angelo waited.

"They fought constantly," I said quietly. "Not because they hated each other."

A bitter smile crossed my face. "Because they never loved each other."

"My parents weren't a love story. They were an arrangement. Two powerful families deciding that combining their names would create something more valuable. My mother was a bargaining chip. My father was the one making the deal."

I swallowed.

"And I was the result they expected."

Angelo remained silent.

"My father didn't care about happiness. He cared about results. His children were investments, and as long as we succeeded, he considered himself a good father."

I laughed quietly.

"Grades. Achievements. Reputation. Those were the things that mattered. Not whether we were happy. Not whether we were scared. Not whether we needed him."

I looked toward the empty chair across from us.

"He never hit me. He never screamed at me. He never did anything that would leave a mark."

I paused.

"Not physically, anyway."

I looked down at my hands.

"He was always working. And when he was home..." I sighed. "He and my mother would argue."

"About everything. Money. Status. Power. The future. Who sacrificed more. Who deserved more."

I rubbed my thumb against my palm.

"He threw things sometimes. Chairs. Plates. Anything close enough to grab when the arguments got bad."

My voice grew quieter.

"But none of them ever touched us."

I hesitated before continuing.

"And maybe that's what made it harder to explain. Because from the outside, it didn't look like abuse. There were no bruises. No hospital visits. No obvious proof that something was wrong."

I swallowed.

"But living in a house where you were always waiting for something to break..."

I looked away.

"That did something too."

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then I said something I had never really admitted out loud.

"He never hugged me either."

The sentence felt strange the moment it left my mouth. Almost embarrassing.

"I was never hugged by my own father."

Angelo's expression remained calm, but something in his eyes changed slightly.

"I used to think that was normal," I admitted. "I thought fathers were just... providers. People who paid for things. People who existed somewhere nearby. People whose approval you spent your entire life trying to earn."

I looked toward the hallway where Noah had disappeared earlier.

"Then I see you with Noah."

A small, sad smile crossed my face.

"And it's strange. Because he doesn't have to earn your attention. He doesn't have to prove he's worth loving. He doesn't have to accomplish something before you care about him."

I looked back at Angelo.

"He just exists."

My voice softened.

"And you love him."

I paused.

"He's going to grow up thinking that's normal. That his dad answers every question. That his dad eats breakfast with him. That his dad listens when he talks about something ridiculous. That his dad tells him he's loved."

I let out a quiet laugh.

"That's such a simple thing."

I looked down.

"But I don't think I ever had it."

The room went quiet.

After a moment, Angelo spoke.

"There is a human expression I heard recently."

I looked at him. "You heard?"

"Yes." He paused. "Elior told me."

I almost smiled. Of course he did. Angelo had spent thousands of years separated from humanity, while Elior had spent those same years among humans, learning their habits, their emotions, and all the strange little phrases they created to describe them.

"He and I were discussing my brother," Angelo said, his eyes moving toward the dining room. "His father."

I stayed quiet.

"He told me something humans often say. 'The best parents give their children what they themselves never received'."

For once, Angelo didn't say it like information he had memorized. He said it like something he was still trying to understand, something he had turned over in his mind and was still deciding what it meant.

"I believe..." He paused. "...that applies to you."

I frowned. "Me?"

"Yes."

He looked toward Noah's empty chair. "You give Noah patience. You answer his questions. You teach him without making him feel unintelligent. You allow him to make mistakes without fear. You comfort him when he is frightened. You celebrate his accomplishments. You make him feel safe."

His eyes returned to mine.

"These are things you did not receive."

My throat tightened.

"Those are things you deserved." 

I didn’t know what to say to that. I looked away because a part of me had spent years wondering if maybe my mother had been right. And sometimes I wondered if I had been born in her place. Given her life. Given her pain. Given her choices. Would I have become her? Would I have hurt people just to avoid feeling powerless? Would I have turned everyone around me into tools because I was afraid of being one myself?

The thought scared me.

Because I didn't know the answer.

Angelo spoke quietly.

"You are different from her."

I looked at him.

He knew.

Somehow, he knew exactly what I was thinking.

"You do not know that."

"I do."

"How?"

He was silent for a moment, then looked toward Noah's toys scattered across the floor.

"Because you told me you did not want children."

I froze.

Angelo looked back at me. "You told me you never planned on becoming a mother."

I said nothing.

"And yet..." His gaze moved toward the bedroom where Noah slept with us every night. "You treat Noah as if he is your own child. You protect him. You teach him. You worry about him. You love him."

My chest tightened.

"That is how I know you are different."

I looked down.

Angelo's voice remained calm, but there was something different in it. Something almost like certainty.

"You told me your mother was a bargaining chip. You told me you were an investment. A child created because two powerful families believed you would serve a purpose."

He paused.

"Even if your mother did not want children, she still had you."

The words hurt because they were true.

"And now..." He looked toward me. "You are in a similar position."

I looked at him.

"Not because Noah is an investment. Not because he serves a purpose. Not because he was created to fulfill an expectation."

His expression softened slightly.

"But because you had a life you did not expect."

"You never planned for him. You never prepared for him. And yet when he came into your life..." His eyes met mine. "You chose to love him."

The room was quiet.

"You had the opportunity to become what your mother was. You could have looked at Noah and seen a burden. Something that limited you. Something that existed because of circumstances outside your control."

"But you did not."

Angelo glanced toward the toys again.

"You saw a child who needed someone."

A small pause followed.

"And you became that person."

My eyes burned slightly.

"That is the difference."

Angelo continued, his voice steady. "People who become cruel rarely question whether they are capable of cruelty. They rarely worry that they might hurt someone. They rarely fear becoming the person who hurt them."

He looked back at me.

"You are afraid because you understand what cruelty does. You know what it feels like. And you refuse to give that feeling to someone else."

The apartment became quiet.

But this silence felt different.

Because for the first time, I wasn't wondering whether I was destined to become my mother.

I was wondering if maybe I had already proven I wasn't.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then Angelo moved.

It surprised me.

He was always careful. Painfully careful. He waited for permission before touching someone, before asking questions, before getting close.

But this time...

He hugged me.

I froze, not because I didn't want it, but because I wasn't used to it. Usually, I was the one who hugged Angelo. I was the one reminding him that affection wasn't something he had to calculate, that sometimes people didn't need a reason or a logical explanation to show they cared.

But now he was the one holding me.

And I realized something.

All those times I wished someone would notice I was hurting...

Angelo had.

He just didn't always know how to show it.

Until now.

After a moment, he spoke.

"Your heart rate has increased by fifteen percent."

I laughed.

Of course that was his way of comforting me.

"Angelo, most people don't analyze someone's heartbeat while comforting them."

"I am aware."

"Then why say it?"

There was a brief pause.

"Because it was the first thing I noticed."

I shook my head, smiling. Dry humor has always been how I survived. If I could joke about something, maybe it couldn't hurt me. It was easier to laugh than to admit something had actually affected me.

But this time, I wasn't laughing because I was pretending.

I was laughing because I actually felt okay.

For the first time in a long time, I wasn't carrying everything alone.

Then I realized something.

I thanked God for giving me someone like Angelo.

Then I stopped.

Wait.

Was I thanking his mother?

The person who created someone who spent thousands of years struggling to understand emotions and somehow became one of the most compassionate people I knew?

Maybe people weren't defined by where they came from.

Maybe they were defined by what they chose to become.

And Angelo had chosen.

The hug ended a few seconds later. It didn't fix everything. My mother was still gone, my childhood was still gone, and my father was still someone who treated love like a transaction.

But for once, I wasn't looking backward.

I was looking at the person beside me.

Someone who was never taught love normally and still learned how to give it.

Maybe that was why Angelo understood me.

Because both of us were given imperfect examples of love, and both of us chose not to repeat them.

Then my phone rang.

Of course it did.

Because apparently even emotional breakthroughs had a time limit.

And somehow, Jacob always knew exactly when to ruin a moment.

I looked at the screen.

His name.

I sighed.

Angelo tilted his head.

"Is something wrong?"

"No."

There was a pause.

"Jacob?"

I looked at him.

"How did you know?"

"Your expression changed from sadness to irritation."

I stared at him.

"That's actually impressive."

"I have been studying human behavior."

"Right."

I answered the phone.

"Jacob."

"Nayeri."

The tone of his voice immediately told me this was either important or something that was about to become my problem.

"What happened now?"

"We have a meeting in five minutes."

I closed my eyes.

"Of course we do."

Angelo looked at me.

I sighed.

"What happened?"

"Madam Leni has called for the angel division," Jacob said.

And that was how my peaceful morning ended.

Five minutes later, Angelo and I entered the boardroom.

Madam Leni and Director Stonehill were already waiting. Both of them looked at us, then at each other.

"This is the first mission for the Angel Division," Stonehill said.

I sat down.

"Already?"

Madam Leni nodded.

"An entity has been located in a small town."

I frowned.

"Has it taken followers?"

"No."

I looked between them.

"Then shouldn't this fall under ESR?"

Stonehill shook his head.

"Normally, yes."

Madam Leni continued.

E.S.R. existed for incidents that occurred in public spaces or populated areas. Their priority was preventing mass exposure and handling situations where civilians were already involved.

C.S.P. operated differently. We handled threats that were isolated, usually in remote locations where entities could be contained before the public ever became aware they existed.

I leaned back. "So why are we involved?"

Madam Leni looked down at the report. "The town has fewer than two thousand residents."

I understood immediately. It was too small for E.S.R. and too public for C.S.P.'s usual operations. A dangerous middle ground where neither division was designed to respond properly.

"E.S.R. won't deploy for a population that small," I said. "And C.S.P. usually doesn't intervene unless the threat is isolated enough to avoid public awareness."

Stonehill folded his hands. "This town is remote enough for C.S.P., but the entity is not behaving like a typical containment situation."

Madam Leni looked toward Angelo. "Which makes this the perfect first mission for the Angel Division."

I looked down at the file in front of me.

Our first official assignment.

Not a god attacking a city. Not a world-ending event. Just an entity in a forgotten town.

And somehow, that was unsettling.

Because this was exactly why the Angel Division existed: to deal with the things that didn't fit anywhere else, the things nobody else knew what to do with.

Before I could think about it any longer, Stonehill glanced toward the conference room door.

"It appears your final staffing issue has been resolved."

The door opened, and a young man stepped inside.

"There he is," Stonehill said. "Your new assistant."

He looked at me.

"And after this, you're not getting another one."

...What?

I frowned. "That's incredibly unfair."

"Considering your history with assistants," Stonehill replied, "it's remarkably generous."

"Hello, everyone!"

The newcomer waved enthusiastically.

He was far too cheerful for C.S.P.

He had blond hair, bright green eyes, and was about Jacob's height. He couldn't have been older than twenty. Honestly, he looked young enough to still pass for a high school student.

Where did C.S.P. kidnap this kid from?

He walked over and offered me his hand.

"The name's Jackson."

Jackson was a good fake name.

Simple. Common. Easy to remember.

Exactly the kind of name someone would choose if they didn't want anyone knowing their real one.

I shook it. "Nayeri."

"It's really nice to meet you."

"...We'll see."

Jackson laughed, apparently assuming I was joking.

He went around introducing himself to everyone else. Jacob gave him a polite nod, Elior smiled warmly, and Angelo studied him for several seconds before simply saying, "Welcome."

Jackson smiled even wider.

"This is awesome."

No.

No, it wasn't.

Nobody who willingly described working at C.S.P. as awesome had any idea what they were signing up for.

I learned that was true about ten minutes later when I showed him around the Angel Division.

His first impression was surprisingly normal. Angelo was sitting in the corner reading six books at once, Noah was coloring on what I hoped were outdated research papers, Jacob was pretending not to stare at Elior while Elior organized laboratory reports, and I was buried beneath enough paperwork to qualify as a containment hazard.

Jackson looked around.

"This is actually a pretty nice office."

I stared at him.

"Don't say that."

"Why?"

"Because every time someone says something in C.S.P. is nice, something horrible happens."

The door opened.

Stonehill walked in.

"Your deployment begins in fifteen minutes."

Jackson slowly turned toward him.

"...Deployment?"

I sighed.

"See?"

An hour later, we were aboard a transport aircraft.

The Angel Division's first official mission consisted of thirty researchers, forty Retrieval Division operators, Jacob, Elior, Angelo, Jackson, and me.

By C.S.P. standards, it was a relatively small deployment. There were no tanks, no fighter jets, and no emergency evacuations. Just enough personnel to identify the anomaly, determine the threat level, and contain it before anyone outside the town realized something was wrong.

If everything went according to plan, the residents would never know we'd been there.

Of course, nothing at C.S.P. had ever gone according to plan.

I knew something was wrong the moment we arrived.

Not because I saw the entity.

Because I didn't.

I stared at the building in front of us.

"...It's a department store."

The words escaped before I could stop them.

It looked painfully ordinary. A faded sign. Shopping carts neatly lined up outside. Sale posters taped across the windows. Parents walking in with children. People leaving with shopping bags and coffee.

If someone had dropped me here without any context, I would have assumed we were stopping to buy groceries.

Around us, the Retrieval Division melted into the crowd. Forty soldiers disguised themselves as ordinary shoppers, their bulletproof vests hidden beneath hoodies and jackets. Researchers spread throughout the parking lot, pretending to browse their phones, load groceries, or wait for rides.

Jacob somehow looked like he'd just finished a normal nine-to-five office job. Elior looked effortlessly elegant despite wearing nothing more than jeans and a T-shirt. Angelo, somehow, looked like he could wear sweatpants and still resemble a Renaissance painting.

Jackson leaned closer.

"So..."

He lowered his voice.

"What's the entity?"

I shrugged.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

Jacob stepped beside us.

"No confirmed attacks. No worshippers. No disappearances connected closely enough to establish a pattern."

I frowned.

"Then why are we here?"

"Because something isn't right."

That was not remotely reassuring.

Two Retrieval teams entered through the main entrance ahead of us, while another circled toward the loading docks. Researchers established a temporary command post outside.

The five of us stepped through the automatic doors.

Nothing happened.

No crushing pressure. No whispers. No distortion in reality.

Just fluorescent lights, shopping carts, discount signs, and customers filling their carts.

It felt...

Normal.

Too normal.

An uncomfortable sense of déjà vu settled over me, though I couldn't explain why.

Then my radio crackled.

"Nayeri."

One of the researchers.

"We've finished reviewing local police reports."

"Go ahead."

"There have been twenty disappearances connected to this department store over the last year."

I stopped walking.

"...Twenty?"

"They occurred months apart. No consistent witnesses. No identifiable pattern. Which is why local authorities never connected them."

My stomach tightened.

I slowly looked around.

A father pushed a shopping cart while his son laughed inside it. A cashier smiled as she scanned groceries. An elderly couple argued over cereal.

Everything looked perfectly ordinary.

Then I realized what was bothering me.

There was no sound.

Their mouths moved. I could see conversations happening, but I couldn't hear them.

No children laughing.

No shopping carts rattling.

No cash registers.

No music.

Just silence.

I accidentally brushed against the father.

"I'm sorr—"

He stopped.

Slowly, he turned toward me.

Still smiling.

Then the cashier stopped.

The elderly couple stopped.

Every employee.

Every customer.

One after another, they all turned toward us.

Still smiling.

Nobody blinked.

Nobody spoke.

They simply watched.

"Jacob..."

"I know."

The automatic doors slammed shut behind us.

I spun around.

The parking lot was gone. The command post was gone. The researchers outside had vanished.

Beyond the glass, there was only darkness.

I counted instinctively.

Me.

Angelo.

Jacob.

Elior.

Jackson.

The two Retrieval teams that had entered ahead of us.

Nobody else.

"Damn it."

We hadn't entered the building.

We had entered the anomaly.

I grabbed my radio.

"Command, do you copy?"

Static.

Then...

A clap.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Another.

And another.

The sound echoed through the silent department store.

An old man stepped out from behind one of the aisles. He smiled as though he had been expecting us.

Then he looked directly at me.

"Welcome..."

His smile widened.

"...to Evergrove."

Everything inside me froze.

The department store.

The old man.

That smile.

The impossible silence.

No.

No...

I knew this place.

Not because I had been here.

Because I had heard the story.

Late-night phone calls.

Conversations with Remi.

The place where she had worked.

The place where she had almost died.

The place where a god had stolen her memories.

I stared at the old man. 

"...You've got to be kidding me."

Jackson looked between me and the old man. "...Do you know him?"

I didn't take my eyes off the smiling figure.

"It's..."

I let out a slow breath. 

"It's a long story."

The old man chuckled. "I do hope your sister has spoken fondly of me."

The words hit me like a punch.

He knew exactly who I was.

We hadn't found the entity.

The entity had invited us.

And we had walked straight into its trap.

Part 14: The God Wasn't the Monster Everyone Feared. My Mother Was.

Three weeks ago, my mother died.

That sounds like the kind of sentence that's supposed to be followed by some profound realization about grief, acceptance, or discovering the true meaning of family.

Unfortunately, I didn't have one of those.

Instead, I was taking it better than everyone expected.

Not because I'd healed. I hadn't. The grief was still there. It had just... changed.

Everyone expected me to fall apart after the funeral. Sleepless nights. Panic attacks. Crying in empty hallways.

Instead, I went back to work three days later.

The strangest part wasn't that I wasn't grieving.

It was the silence.

For most of my life, every mistake I'd made, every hesitation, every moment where I wasn't good enough had been accompanied by my mother's voice somewhere in the back of my mind.

You could've done better.

Why are you wasting your potential?

You're still not enough.

It had been there for so long that I'd stopped questioning it. I just assumed that was what having a conscience felt like.

Except now...

It was gone.

No criticism.

No impossible standards.

No voice reminding me that I was falling short.

Just silence.

I'd spent so many years trying to escape that voice that I'd never stopped to wonder what would happen if it actually disappeared.

I wasn't happy.

I wasn't okay.

But for the first time in my life, the thoughts inside my head actually sounded like my own.

Somehow...

That was even harder to get used to.

Remi called every day.

Neither of us pretended things could simply go back to the way they were. She couldn't transfer from E.S.R. to C.S.P. now that she was leading E.S.R.; and I couldn't exactly abandon my own responsibilities either. So instead, we settled for phone calls.

It was... nice.

Awkward.

But nice.

She laughed more now. Not forced laughter, either. Real laughter.

Director Morozov had actually stopped me in the hallway two days ago just to thank me.

"I haven't seen her this happy in years," he'd said.

He loved the Remi standing in front of him.

But sometimes I caught the way his expression lingered for just a second too long, and I wondered if part of him still missed the woman he'd first met years ago...

The one who'd existed before she lost her memories.

Noah was starting third grade soon.

That was still a sentence I never thought I'd say.

Teaching the fragment of the Great Shadow how to function as a normal child turned out to be a surprisingly collaborative effort. Researchers handled science, actual teachers handled, well... teaching, and Angelo periodically wandered in to explain concepts from the perspective of an immortal being older than reality itself.

Sometimes that helped.

Sometimes it raised significantly more questions than it answered.

Yesterday I'd been helping Noah with multiplication.

It was strangely comforting to discover that an entity theoretically capable of ending civilizations still thought math was unfair.

Some things, apparently, were universal.

Like work.

Work hadn't slowed down in the slightest.

Mostly because C.S.P. had decided to "promote" me.

I use the word promote very loosely.

Promotions at C.S.P. weren't based on competence.

They were based on survival.

Someone above you died.

Congratulations, you're management now.

That was basically how my entire career had worked.

This promotion, however, was a little different.

Technically, I was now the Chief Executive of the Angel Division.

Which sounded incredibly prestigious until you learned one small detail.

The Angel Division hadn't existed three weeks ago.

Angelo became a Director.

Angelo decided Directors should each have their own divisions.

Angelo decided he wanted one.

The Executive Board apparently agreed because arguing with an ancient celestial entity older than reality itself had consistently resulted in poor employee retention.

So they created an entirely new division.

Then Angelo looked at me and calmly announced,

"Nayeri will supervise it."

Nobody objected.

Mostly because nobody wanted to.

Which was how I became the Chief Executive of a department that was younger than some of the milk cartons in the cafeteria.

Our staffing situation was... unconventional.

Nearly half of Research Division had been reassigned to us after Angelo developed an unfortunate habit of wandering into laboratories and asking questions like,

"Can consciousness be folded?"

Or,

"If I remove fatigue from a scientist, would productivity increase?"

After the seventh ethics investigation in two weeks, someone higher up concluded it would be significantly easier to transfer the researchers than continue filing paperwork.

Elior transferred over as well.

That one actually made sense.

According to Angelo, while he'd spent thousands of years buried beneath Antarctic ice maintaining reality, Elior had spent those same millennia searching the world for him.

It meant Elior understood humanity far better than his uncle ever would.

It also helped that he happened to be one of the smartest researchers in the entire organization.

Jacob, meanwhile, had somehow started spending more time in the Angel Division than he did in Retrieval, despite officially remaining on Retrieval's roster.

According to Jacob, it was because Retrieval and the Angel Division would be coordinating all future operations together.

Which was technically true.

I made my way to my new office, which was exactly one floor higher than my old one. That was apparently what counted as a promotion here: more responsibility, one extra floor, and still no pay increase.

Waiting on my desk was a stack of paperwork. A very large stack. The pile was taller than my coffee mug.

Actually, it was taller than my last assistant.

Which wasn't saying much.

He wasn't particularly tall.

He also wasn't particularly alive anymore.

I sighed and picked up the first report.

INCIDENT 1: DESTRUCTION OF HISTORICAL SITE

"I didn't destroy it," I muttered. "The giant monster did."

I wrote exactly that in the explanation box, then immediately crossed it out. "Giant monster" was technically not considered professional terminology.

I replaced it with hostile reality-altering entity.

Much better.

The second report came from Accounting. Someone wanted an explanation for why six military helicopters, three transport aircraft, fourteen armored vehicles, and one satellite had all been listed as mission-related losses.

I wasn't even aware we'd lost a satellite.

I made a mental note to ask someone.

That's when the door opened.

Jacob walked in carrying another stack of folders. I looked at the folders, then looked at him.

"No."

"They're yours."

"No."

"They literally have your name on them."

"I think that's a coincidence."

"Nayeri."

"I've never seen those folders before in my life."

Jacob dropped them onto my desk anyway, and the impact nearly knocked over my coffee.

"You're the worst manager in this building."

"I was promoted, so statistically that can't be true anymore."

"They promoted you because of Angelo."

"All I'm hearing is jealousy."

Jacob pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I have some news."

"Have I finally been approved?"

He frowned. "...Approved for what?"

"A vacation."

He stared at me.

"...No."

"Damn."

"You've been assigned a new assistant."

I blinked. "What? With my track record? That's incredibly irresponsible."

Jacob nodded. "It really is."

"Please take care of this one."

"It wasn't my fault the last ones died."

Jacob looked at me for several long seconds.

"Okay," I admitted. "Some of them were my fault. But if they keep giving me completely untrained interns, what exactly are they expecting?"

Jacob sighed. "Nayeri... I'm serious."

"So am I."

"I think you should reject the assignment."

I gestured around my office. The paperwork had somehow multiplied since I last looked at it.

"Jacob, I need an assistant."

"No, you don't."

"Look around."

He did.

"I either get an assistant..." I pointed at the mountain of paperwork. "...or these reports are going to kill me before I accidentally kill my new assistant."

Jacob's expression immediately fell.

Sean.

I sighed.

"...Sorry."

Neither of us said anything after that. The silence lingered for several seconds, heavy and uncomfortable.

Luckily for me, it didn't last.

The office door slid open again, and Elior walked in carrying another stack of folders.

"Jacob," he said, looking around the room. "I've been looking for you."

Jacob straightened so quickly he nearly knocked over his chair.

"H-Hey, Eli."

Eli?

I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing.

Elior smiled. "I was wondering if you'd help me organize the laboratory later."

"Sure."

"Wonderful."

His smile somehow grew even warmer.

"I'll see you then."

He gave Jacob one last smile before turning and walking back into the hallway.

The office fell silent.

I looked at Jacob.

Jacob continued staring at the doorway like Elior might come back.

"You realize he's flirting with you."

Jacob frowned. "No, he's not."

"Jacob."

"He's being polite."

"He only smiles like that at you."

"He's friendly."

"He brought you coffee this morning."

"He's considerate."

"He called you handsome yesterday."

Jacob froze.

"...Professionally."

I stared at him.

"...Professionally?"

"He was complimenting my... work ethic."

"He literally said, 'You're handsome.'"

"...Maybe he appreciates symmetry."

I leaned back in my chair.

"You're actually hopeless."

Jacob opened his mouth to defend himself.

The office door slid open again.

Angelo walked in just as Jacob reached for the handle to leave. He stopped, looked at Jacob, and tilted his head slightly.

"Why is your heart rate twenty-two percent above its resting average?"

Jacob went completely still.

I smiled. "Elior was just in here."

"Oh."

Angelo nodded, then looked through the open doorway. Elior was still walking down the hallway with his folders tucked under one arm.

Angelo looked back at Jacob. "I wish you both the best of luck."

Jacob blinked.

Angelo continued with complete sincerity. "Please take good care of my nephew."

Silence.

Jacob's ears slowly turned bright red.

I completely lost it. I laughed so hard I had to hold onto the edge of my desk.

Jacob muttered something under his breath, shoved past Angelo, and hurried into the hallway after Elior without looking at either of us.

Angelo watched him leave, then looked back at me.

"...Did I say something humorous?"

That only made me laugh harder.

"Jacob's just shy," I said between laughs.

"I see."

Angelo nodded thoughtfully. "That appears to be a common human response to romantic attraction."

"It is."

Angelo glanced at the stack of paperwork covering my desk.

"You appear busy."

I followed his gaze and sighed. "I've been Chief Executive for less than three weeks, and I'm already considering setting the paperwork on fire."

"I would advise against that."

"I know."

"...It would create more paperwork."

I stared at him.

"...I hate that you're right."

Angelo looked at me for another moment before asking, "Would you like to join us for breakfast?"

I blinked.

"You haven't eaten yet?"

"No."

"Noah wished to wait for you."

A smile found its way onto my face before I could stop it.

"Really?"

"He said, 'Nay eats with us.'"

I looked away for a second, pretending that sentence hadn't affected me.

"...Sure."

I stood up. "I can't wait to see him."

Noah was getting cuter every day.

It felt strange admitting that.

I'd never been a kid person. Growing up with my mother had made sure of that. Children were loud, messy, and unpredictable. I usually preferred monsters.

Monsters, at least, came with instruction manuals.

Children just... existed.

Then Noah showed up.

Maybe the exception was simply cute children.

Or maybe it was just him.

When I'd mentioned that to Remi during one of our nightly phone calls, she'd laughed.

"You know," she'd said, "you were really cute too."

"I was?"

"You still are."

I'd immediately changed the subject.

Remi, meanwhile, had started referring to Noah as her nephew.

Technically...

I wasn't even sure she was wrong.

By C.S.P. standards, family trees had become less like diagrams and more like conspiracy boards.

We made our way back to my apartment. As soon as I opened the door, I spotted Noah sitting at the dining table. I'd bought him a high chair the week before so he could actually eat with us instead of sitting on a stack of cushions.

He looked up the moment he heard us.

His entire face lit up.

"Hi, Nay!"

I smiled before I could stop myself.

"Hi, Noah."

Then he looked past me.

"Hello, Father."

Angelo gave a small nod.

"Good morning, Noah."

He was still getting used to being called Father. At first, he'd tried correcting Noah, but after several failed attempts, he'd simply accepted it.

I took the seat beside Noah and unfolded the small handkerchief I'd bought for him, tying it gently around his neck before placing his breakfast in front of him.

He didn't complain.

He simply waited.

Another thing Angelo had somehow taught him.

Patience.

Breakfast was surprisingly peaceful. Noah spent most of it asking Angelo questions.

"Why do birds fly?"

"Because their anatomy allows them to generate sufficient lift."

"Oh."

A few seconds later, he asked, "Why can't penguins fly?"

"Because evolution prioritized efficient swimming over aerial locomotion."

"Oh."

Then he turned to me.

"Nay?"

"Yeah?"

"Why do I have to learn multiplication?"

I looked at him.

Then at Angelo.

Then back at Noah.

"...Honestly?"

He nodded.

"I have absolutely no idea."

Noah looked relieved.

"I don't like multiplication."

"I don't either."

Angelo looked at both of us.

"Mathematics remains objectively useful."

Neither of us responded.

He sighed.

"I appear to be outnumbered."

After breakfast, I walked with Noah to what everyone insisted on calling school.

In reality, it was an entire wing of the Research Division that had slowly transformed into the strangest elementary classroom on Earth.

His teachers included researchers, linguists, psychologists, and occasionally Angelo whenever the lesson somehow became about the history of reality.

Watching Noah wave goodbye before disappearing inside still made me smile.

When I returned to the apartment, Angelo had already cleaned the kitchen. Every dish had been washed, the table had been wiped down, and even Noah's tiny cup had been put away. I leaned against the doorway for a moment.

"You didn't have to do all that."

"I wished to contribute."

"I know."

It was... weird.

My father had never washed a dish in his life. Growing up, I didn't think I'd ever seen my parents sit down for breakfast together. I'd certainly never seen someone clean up simply because they wanted to make someone else's day easier.

Having a functional family, even one assembled from an ancient angel, the fragment of the Great Shadow, and me, was still something I hadn't quite learned how to believe in.

I must have been staring longer than I realized because Angelo noticed.

"Is something wrong?"

I looked over at him.

"No."

Normally, that answer would have been enough for most people.

Not Angelo.

He didn't argue. He didn't ask again. He didn't try to pull the truth out of me. He simply walked over to the couch and sat down. After a moment, he placed a hand on the empty space beside him.

An invitation.

Not a command.

Not an expectation.

Just an invitation.

I stood there for several seconds, looking at him. At any other point in my life, I probably would have smiled, said I was fine, and walked away.

But I knew Angelo.

He wouldn't chase after me. He wouldn't force me to explain something I wasn't ready to say.

He would just sit there.

And somehow, that made it harder to leave.

So I walked over and sat beside him.

Neither of us spoke.

The silence between us wasn't uncomfortable. It wasn't the kind of silence I grew up with, where everyone was waiting for someone else to break first and every quiet moment felt like a punishment.

This was different.

Angelo was simply there.

Waiting.

Not demanding anything from me.

I stared at the floor for a while before finally speaking.

"...I was thinking about my dad."

Angelo didn't move. He didn't need to. I knew he was listening.

"You know..." I let out a quiet laugh. "Seeing you with Noah makes me jealous of him."

The words sounded ridiculous the moment they left my mouth.

"I mean..." I shook my head. "Isn't that weird? I'm jealous of an eight-year-old because he has a father who actually wants to be around him."

Angelo looked at me.

"I do not believe that is jealousy."

"No?"

"No."

He folded his hands together.

"I believe you are grieving something you never received."

I looked away.

Because somehow...

That hurt more.

"You are not jealous of Noah," Angelo continued. He glanced toward the dining room, where Noah's toys were scattered across the floor. "If you were jealous, you would be angry at Noah."

I stayed quiet.

"But you are not. You are happy that he has that relationship."

A pause followed.

"I have never had a father."

The honesty of the statement caught me off guard. Angelo rarely admitted things about himself.

"So I cannot fully understand what that absence feels like," he said. "But I know what it is like to have someone who chooses to protect you."

His expression changed slightly.

"My mother was both."

I looked at him.

"A good parent. A caring mother. She was flawed. She made mistakes. But she loved me."

He paused.

"And I believe that is the difference."

The words hit harder because they were true. Because I didn't have anyone like that. Both of my parents were flawed, just in completely different ways.

"My father wasn't..." I stopped, trying to figure out how to explain him to Angelo. Because he wasn't a monster. That would have been easier.

"He wasn't like my mother."

Angelo waited.

"They fought constantly," I said quietly. "Not because they hated each other."

A bitter smile crossed my face. "Because they never loved each other."

"My parents weren't a love story. They were an arrangement. Two powerful families deciding that combining their names would create something more valuable. My mother was a bargaining chip. My father was the one making the deal."

I swallowed.

"And I was the result they expected."

Angelo remained silent.

"My father didn't care about happiness. He cared about results. His children were investments, and as long as we succeeded, he considered himself a good father."

I laughed quietly.

"Grades. Achievements. Reputation. Those were the things that mattered. Not whether we were happy. Not whether we were scared. Not whether we needed him."

I looked toward the empty chair across from us.

"He never hit me. He never screamed at me. He never did anything that would leave a mark."

I paused.

"Not physically, anyway."

I looked down at my hands.

"He was always working. And when he was home..." I sighed. "He and my mother would argue."

"About everything. Money. Status. Power. The future. Who sacrificed more. Who deserved more."

I rubbed my thumb against my palm.

"He threw things sometimes. Chairs. Plates. Anything close enough to grab when the arguments got bad."

My voice grew quieter.

"But none of them ever touched us."

I hesitated before continuing.

"And maybe that's what made it harder to explain. Because from the outside, it didn't look like abuse. There were no bruises. No hospital visits. No obvious proof that something was wrong."

I swallowed.

"But living in a house where you were always waiting for something to break..."

I looked away.

"That did something too."

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then I said something I had never really admitted out loud.

"He never hugged me either."

The sentence felt strange the moment it left my mouth. Almost embarrassing.

"I was never hugged by my own father."

Angelo's expression remained calm, but something in his eyes changed slightly.

"I used to think that was normal," I admitted. "I thought fathers were just... providers. People who paid for things. People who existed somewhere nearby. People whose approval you spent your entire life trying to earn."

I looked toward the hallway where Noah had disappeared earlier.

"Then I see you with Noah."

A small, sad smile crossed my face.

"And it's strange. Because he doesn't have to earn your attention. He doesn't have to prove he's worth loving. He doesn't have to accomplish something before you care about him."

I looked back at Angelo.

"He just exists."

My voice softened.

"And you love him."

I paused.

"He's going to grow up thinking that's normal. That his dad answers every question. That his dad eats breakfast with him. That his dad listens when he talks about something ridiculous. That his dad tells him he's loved."

I let out a quiet laugh.

"That's such a simple thing."

I looked down.

"But I don't think I ever had it."

The room went quiet.

After a moment, Angelo spoke.

"There is a human expression I heard recently."

I looked at him. "You heard?"

"Yes." He paused. "Elior told me."

I almost smiled. Of course he did. Angelo had spent thousands of years separated from humanity, while Elior had spent those same years among humans, learning their habits, their emotions, and all the strange little phrases they created to describe them.

"He and I were discussing my brother," Angelo said, his eyes moving toward the dining room. "His father."

I stayed quiet.

"He told me something humans often say. 'The best parents give their children what they themselves never received'."

For once, Angelo didn't say it like information he had memorized. He said it like something he was still trying to understand, something he had turned over in his mind and was still deciding what it meant.

"I believe..." He paused. "...that applies to you."

I frowned. "Me?"

"Yes."

He looked toward Noah's empty chair. "You give Noah patience. You answer his questions. You teach him without making him feel unintelligent. You allow him to make mistakes without fear. You comfort him when he is frightened. You celebrate his accomplishments. You make him feel safe."

His eyes returned to mine.

"These are things you did not receive."

My throat tightened.

"Those are things you deserved." 

I didn’t know what to say to that. I looked away because a part of me had spent years wondering if maybe my mother had been right. And sometimes I wondered if I had been born in her place. Given her life. Given her pain. Given her choices. Would I have become her? Would I have hurt people just to avoid feeling powerless? Would I have turned everyone around me into tools because I was afraid of being one myself?

The thought scared me.

Because I didn't know the answer.

Angelo spoke quietly.

"You are different from her."

I looked at him.

He knew.

Somehow, he knew exactly what I was thinking.

"You do not know that."

"I do."

"How?"

He was silent for a moment, then looked toward Noah's toys scattered across the floor.

"Because you told me you did not want children."

I froze.

Angelo looked back at me. "You told me you never planned on becoming a mother."

I said nothing.

"And yet..." His gaze moved toward the bedroom where Noah slept with us every night. "You treat Noah as if he is your own child. You protect him. You teach him. You worry about him. You love him."

My chest tightened.

"That is how I know you are different."

I looked down.

Angelo's voice remained calm, but there was something different in it. Something almost like certainty.

"You told me your mother was a bargaining chip. You told me you were an investment. A child created because two powerful families believed you would serve a purpose."

He paused.

"Even if your mother did not want children, she still had you."

The words hurt because they were true.

"And now..." He looked toward me. "You are in a similar position."

I looked at him.

"Not because Noah is an investment. Not because he serves a purpose. Not because he was created to fulfill an expectation."

His expression softened slightly.

"But because you had a life you did not expect."

"You never planned for him. You never prepared for him. And yet when he came into your life..." His eyes met mine. "You chose to love him."

The room was quiet.

"You had the opportunity to become what your mother was. You could have looked at Noah and seen a burden. Something that limited you. Something that existed because of circumstances outside your control."

"But you did not."

Angelo glanced toward the toys again.

"You saw a child who needed someone."

A small pause followed.

"And you became that person."

My eyes burned slightly.

"That is the difference."

Angelo continued, his voice steady. "People who become cruel rarely question whether they are capable of cruelty. They rarely worry that they might hurt someone. They rarely fear becoming the person who hurt them."

He looked back at me.

"You are afraid because you understand what cruelty does. You know what it feels like. And you refuse to give that feeling to someone else."

The apartment became quiet.

But this silence felt different.

Because for the first time, I wasn't wondering whether I was destined to become my mother.

I was wondering if maybe I had already proven I wasn't.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then Angelo moved.

It surprised me.

He was always careful. Painfully careful. He waited for permission before touching someone, before asking questions, before getting close.

But this time...

He hugged me.

I froze, not because I didn't want it, but because I wasn't used to it. Usually, I was the one who hugged Angelo. I was the one reminding him that affection wasn't something he had to calculate, that sometimes people didn't need a reason or a logical explanation to show they cared.

But now he was the one holding me.

And I realized something.

All those times I wished someone would notice I was hurting...

Angelo had.

He just didn't always know how to show it.

Until now.

After a moment, he spoke.

"Your heart rate has increased by fifteen percent."

I laughed.

Of course that was his way of comforting me.

"Angelo, most people don't analyze someone's heartbeat while comforting them."

"I am aware."

"Then why say it?"

There was a brief pause.

"Because it was the first thing I noticed."

I shook my head, smiling. Dry humor has always been how I survived. If I could joke about something, maybe it couldn't hurt me. It was easier to laugh than to admit something had actually affected me.

But this time, I wasn't laughing because I was pretending.

I was laughing because I actually felt okay.

For the first time in a long time, I wasn't carrying everything alone.

Then I realized something.

I thanked God for giving me someone like Angelo.

Then I stopped.

Wait.

Was I thanking his mother?

The person who created someone who spent thousands of years struggling to understand emotions and somehow became one of the most compassionate people I knew?

Maybe people weren't defined by where they came from.

Maybe they were defined by what they chose to become.

And Angelo had chosen.

The hug ended a few seconds later. It didn't fix everything. My mother was still gone, my childhood was still gone, and my father was still someone who treated love like a transaction.

But for once, I wasn't looking backward.

I was looking at the person beside me.

Someone who was never taught love normally and still learned how to give it.

Maybe that was why Angelo understood me.

Because both of us were given imperfect examples of love, and both of us chose not to repeat them.

Then my phone rang.

Of course it did.

Because apparently even emotional breakthroughs had a time limit.

And somehow, Jacob always knew exactly when to ruin a moment.

I looked at the screen.

His name.

I sighed.

Angelo tilted his head.

"Is something wrong?"

"No."

There was a pause.

"Jacob?"

I looked at him.

"How did you know?"

"Your expression changed from sadness to irritation."

I stared at him.

"That's actually impressive."

"I have been studying human behavior."

"Right."

I answered the phone.

"Jacob."

"Nayeri."

The tone of his voice immediately told me this was either important or something that was about to become my problem.

"What happened now?"

"We have a meeting in five minutes."

I closed my eyes.

"Of course we do."

Angelo looked at me.

I sighed.

"What happened?"

"Madam Leni has called for the angel division," Jacob said.

And that was how my peaceful morning ended.

Five minutes later, Angelo and I entered the boardroom.

Madam Leni and Director Stonehill were already waiting. Both of them looked at us, then at each other.

"This is the first mission for the Angel Division," Stonehill said.

I sat down.

"Already?"

Madam Leni nodded.

"An entity has been located in a small town."

I frowned.

"Has it taken followers?"

"No."

I looked between them.

"Then shouldn't this fall under ESR?"

Stonehill shook his head.

"Normally, yes."

Madam Leni continued.

E.S.R. existed for incidents that occurred in public spaces or populated areas. Their priority was preventing mass exposure and handling situations where civilians were already involved.

C.S.P. operated differently. We handled threats that were isolated, usually in remote locations where entities could be contained before the public ever became aware they existed.

I leaned back. "So why are we involved?"

Madam Leni looked down at the report. "The town has fewer than two thousand residents."

I understood immediately. It was too small for E.S.R. and too public for C.S.P.'s usual operations. A dangerous middle ground where neither division was designed to respond properly.

"E.S.R. won't deploy for a population that small," I said. "And C.S.P. usually doesn't intervene unless the threat is isolated enough to avoid public awareness."

Stonehill folded his hands. "This town is remote enough for C.S.P., but the entity is not behaving like a typical containment situation."

Madam Leni looked toward Angelo. "Which makes this the perfect first mission for the Angel Division."

I looked down at the file in front of me.

Our first official assignment.

Not a god attacking a city. Not a world-ending event. Just an entity in a forgotten town.

And somehow, that was unsettling.

Because this was exactly why the Angel Division existed: to deal with the things that didn't fit anywhere else, the things nobody else knew what to do with.

Before I could think about it any longer, Stonehill glanced toward the conference room door.

"It appears your final staffing issue has been resolved."

The door opened, and a young man stepped inside.

"There he is," Stonehill said. "Your new assistant."

He looked at me.

"And after this, you're not getting another one."

...What?

I frowned. "That's incredibly unfair."

"Considering your history with assistants," Stonehill replied, "it's remarkably generous."

"Hello, everyone!"

The newcomer waved enthusiastically.

He was far too cheerful for C.S.P.

He had blond hair, bright green eyes, and was about Jacob's height. He couldn't have been older than twenty. Honestly, he looked young enough to still pass for a high school student.

Where did C.S.P. kidnap this kid from?

He walked over and offered me his hand.

"The name's Jackson."

Jackson was a good fake name.

Simple. Common. Easy to remember.

Exactly the kind of name someone would choose if they didn't want anyone knowing their real one.

I shook it. "Nayeri."

"It's really nice to meet you."

"...We'll see."

Jackson laughed, apparently assuming I was joking.

He went around introducing himself to everyone else. Jacob gave him a polite nod, Elior smiled warmly, and Angelo studied him for several seconds before simply saying, "Welcome."

Jackson smiled even wider.

"This is awesome."

No.

No, it wasn't.

Nobody who willingly described working at C.S.P. as awesome had any idea what they were signing up for.

I learned that was true about ten minutes later when I showed him around the Angel Division.

His first impression was surprisingly normal. Angelo was sitting in the corner reading six books at once, Noah was coloring on what I hoped were outdated research papers, Jacob was pretending not to stare at Elior while Elior organized laboratory reports, and I was buried beneath enough paperwork to qualify as a containment hazard.

Jackson looked around.

"This is actually a pretty nice office."

I stared at him.

"Don't say that."

"Why?"

"Because every time someone says something in C.S.P. is nice, something horrible happens."

The door opened.

Stonehill walked in.

"Your deployment begins in fifteen minutes."

Jackson slowly turned toward him.

"...Deployment?"

I sighed.

"See?"

An hour later, we were aboard a transport aircraft.

The Angel Division's first official mission consisted of thirty researchers, forty Retrieval Division operators, Jacob, Elior, Angelo, Jackson, and me.

By C.S.P. standards, it was a relatively small deployment. There were no tanks, no fighter jets, and no emergency evacuations. Just enough personnel to identify the anomaly, determine the threat level, and contain it before anyone outside the town realized something was wrong.

If everything went according to plan, the residents would never know we'd been there.

Of course, nothing at C.S.P. had ever gone according to plan.

I knew something was wrong the moment we arrived.

Not because I saw the entity.

Because I didn't.

I stared at the building in front of us.

"...It's a department store."

The words escaped before I could stop them.

It looked painfully ordinary. A faded sign. Shopping carts neatly lined up outside. Sale posters taped across the windows. Parents walking in with children. People leaving with shopping bags and coffee.

If someone had dropped me here without any context, I would have assumed we were stopping to buy groceries.

Around us, the Retrieval Division melted into the crowd. Forty soldiers disguised themselves as ordinary shoppers, their bulletproof vests hidden beneath hoodies and jackets. Researchers spread throughout the parking lot, pretending to browse their phones, load groceries, or wait for rides.

Jacob somehow looked like he'd just finished a normal nine-to-five office job. Elior looked effortlessly elegant despite wearing nothing more than jeans and a T-shirt. Angelo, somehow, looked like he could wear sweatpants and still resemble a Renaissance painting.

Jackson leaned closer.

"So..."

He lowered his voice.

"What's the entity?"

I shrugged.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

Jacob stepped beside us.

"No confirmed attacks. No worshippers. No disappearances connected closely enough to establish a pattern."

I frowned.

"Then why are we here?"

"Because something isn't right."

That was not remotely reassuring.

Two Retrieval teams entered through the main entrance ahead of us, while another circled toward the loading docks. Researchers established a temporary command post outside.

The five of us stepped through the automatic doors.

Nothing happened.

No crushing pressure. No whispers. No distortion in reality.

Just fluorescent lights, shopping carts, discount signs, and customers filling their carts.

It felt...

Normal.

Too normal.

An uncomfortable sense of déjà vu settled over me, though I couldn't explain why.

Then my radio crackled.

"Nayeri."

One of the researchers.

"We've finished reviewing local police reports."

"Go ahead."

"There have been twenty disappearances connected to this department store over the last year."

I stopped walking.

"...Twenty?"

"They occurred months apart. No consistent witnesses. No identifiable pattern. Which is why local authorities never connected them."

My stomach tightened.

I slowly looked around.

A father pushed a shopping cart while his son laughed inside it. A cashier smiled as she scanned groceries. An elderly couple argued over cereal.

Everything looked perfectly ordinary.

Then I realized what was bothering me.

There was no sound.

Their mouths moved. I could see conversations happening, but I couldn't hear them.

No children laughing.

No shopping carts rattling.

No cash registers.

No music.

Just silence.

I accidentally brushed against the father.

"I'm sorr—"

He stopped.

Slowly, he turned toward me.

Still smiling.

Then the cashier stopped.

The elderly couple stopped.

Every employee.

Every customer.

One after another, they all turned toward us.

Still smiling.

Nobody blinked.

Nobody spoke.

They simply watched.

"Jacob..."

"I know."

The automatic doors slammed shut behind us.

I spun around.

The parking lot was gone. The command post was gone. The researchers outside had vanished.

Beyond the glass, there was only darkness.

I counted instinctively.

Me.

Angelo.

Jacob.

Elior.

Jackson.

The two Retrieval teams that had entered ahead of us.

Nobody else.

"Damn it."

We hadn't entered the building.

We had entered the anomaly.

I grabbed my radio.

"Command, do you copy?"

Static.

Then...

A clap.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Another.

And another.

The sound echoed through the silent department store.

An old man stepped out from behind one of the aisles. He smiled as though he had been expecting us.

Then he looked directly at me.

"Welcome..."

His smile widened.

"...to Evergrove."

Everything inside me froze.

The department store.

The old man.

That smile.

The impossible silence.

No.

No...

I knew this place.

Not because I had been here.

Because I had heard the story.

Late-night phone calls.

Conversations with Remi.

The place where she had worked.

The place where she had almost died.

The place where a god had stolen her memories.

I stared at the old man. 

"...You've got to be kidding me."

Jackson looked between me and the old man. "...Do you know him?"

I didn't take my eyes off the smiling figure.

"It's..."

I let out a slow breath. 

"It's a long story."

The old man chuckled. "I do hope your sister has spoken fondly of me."

The words hit me like a punch.

He knew exactly who I was.

We hadn't found the entity.

The entity had invited us.

And we had walked straight into its trap.

Part 14: The God Wasn't the Monster Everyone Feared. My Mother Was.

Three weeks ago, my mother died.

That sounds like the kind of sentence that's supposed to be followed by some profound realization about grief, acceptance, or discovering the true meaning of family.

Unfortunately, I didn't have one of those.

Instead, I was taking it better than everyone expected.

Not because I'd healed. I hadn't. The grief was still there. It had just... changed.

Everyone expected me to fall apart after the funeral. Sleepless nights. Panic attacks. Crying in empty hallways.

Instead, I went back to work three days later.

The strangest part wasn't that I wasn't grieving.

It was the silence.

For most of my life, every mistake I'd made, every hesitation, every moment where I wasn't good enough had been accompanied by my mother's voice somewhere in the back of my mind.

You could've done better.

Why are you wasting your potential?

You're still not enough.

It had been there for so long that I'd stopped questioning it. I just assumed that was what having a conscience felt like.

Except now...

It was gone.

No criticism.

No impossible standards.

No voice reminding me that I was falling short.

Just silence.

I'd spent so many years trying to escape that voice that I'd never stopped to wonder what would happen if it actually disappeared.

I wasn't happy.

I wasn't okay.

But for the first time in my life, the thoughts inside my head actually sounded like my own.

Somehow...

That was even harder to get used to.

Remi called every day.

Neither of us pretended things could simply go back to the way they were. She couldn't transfer from E.S.R. to C.S.P. now that she was leading E.S.R.; and I couldn't exactly abandon my own responsibilities either. So instead, we settled for phone calls.

It was... nice.

Awkward.

But nice.

She laughed more now. Not forced laughter, either. Real laughter.

Director Morozov had actually stopped me in the hallway two days ago just to thank me.

"I haven't seen her this happy in years," he'd said.

He loved the Remi standing in front of him.

But sometimes I caught the way his expression lingered for just a second too long, and I wondered if part of him still missed the woman he'd first met years ago...

The one who'd existed before she lost her memories.

Noah was starting third grade soon.

That was still a sentence I never thought I'd say.

Teaching the fragment of the Great Shadow how to function as a normal child turned out to be a surprisingly collaborative effort. Researchers handled science, actual teachers handled, well... teaching, and Angelo periodically wandered in to explain concepts from the perspective of an immortal being older than reality itself.

Sometimes that helped.

Sometimes it raised significantly more questions than it answered.

Yesterday I'd been helping Noah with multiplication.

It was strangely comforting to discover that an entity theoretically capable of ending civilizations still thought math was unfair.

Some things, apparently, were universal.

Like work.

Work hadn't slowed down in the slightest.

Mostly because C.S.P. had decided to "promote" me.

I use the word promote very loosely.

Promotions at C.S.P. weren't based on competence.

They were based on survival.

Someone above you died.

Congratulations, you're management now.

That was basically how my entire career had worked.

This promotion, however, was a little different.

Technically, I was now the Chief Executive of the Angel Division.

Which sounded incredibly prestigious until you learned one small detail.

The Angel Division hadn't existed three weeks ago.

Angelo became a Director.

Angelo decided Directors should each have their own divisions.

Angelo decided he wanted one.

The Executive Board apparently agreed because arguing with an ancient celestial entity older than reality itself had consistently resulted in poor employee retention.

So they created an entirely new division.

Then Angelo looked at me and calmly announced,

"Nayeri will supervise it."

Nobody objected.

Mostly because nobody wanted to.

Which was how I became the Chief Executive of a department that was younger than some of the milk cartons in the cafeteria.

Our staffing situation was... unconventional.

Nearly half of Research Division had been reassigned to us after Angelo developed an unfortunate habit of wandering into laboratories and asking questions like,

"Can consciousness be folded?"

Or,

"If I remove fatigue from a scientist, would productivity increase?"

After the seventh ethics investigation in two weeks, someone higher up concluded it would be significantly easier to transfer the researchers than continue filing paperwork.

Elior transferred over as well.

That one actually made sense.

According to Angelo, while he'd spent thousands of years buried beneath Antarctic ice maintaining reality, Elior had spent those same millennia searching the world for him.

It meant Elior understood humanity far better than his uncle ever would.

It also helped that he happened to be one of the smartest researchers in the entire organization.

Jacob, meanwhile, had somehow started spending more time in the Angel Division than he did in Retrieval, despite officially remaining on Retrieval's roster.

According to Jacob, it was because Retrieval and the Angel Division would be coordinating all future operations together.

Which was technically true.

I made my way to my new office, which was exactly one floor higher than my old one. That was apparently what counted as a promotion here: more responsibility, one extra floor, and still no pay increase.

Waiting on my desk was a stack of paperwork. A very large stack. The pile was taller than my coffee mug.

Actually, it was taller than my last assistant.

Which wasn't saying much.

He wasn't particularly tall.

He also wasn't particularly alive anymore.

I sighed and picked up the first report.

INCIDENT 1: DESTRUCTION OF HISTORICAL SITE

"I didn't destroy it," I muttered. "The giant monster did."

I wrote exactly that in the explanation box, then immediately crossed it out. "Giant monster" was technically not considered professional terminology.

I replaced it with hostile reality-altering entity.

Much better.

The second report came from Accounting. Someone wanted an explanation for why six military helicopters, three transport aircraft, fourteen armored vehicles, and one satellite had all been listed as mission-related losses.

I wasn't even aware we'd lost a satellite.

I made a mental note to ask someone.

That's when the door opened.

Jacob walked in carrying another stack of folders. I looked at the folders, then looked at him.

"No."

"They're yours."

"No."

"They literally have your name on them."

"I think that's a coincidence."

"Nayeri."

"I've never seen those folders before in my life."

Jacob dropped them onto my desk anyway, and the impact nearly knocked over my coffee.

"You're the worst manager in this building."

"I was promoted, so statistically that can't be true anymore."

"They promoted you because of Angelo."

"All I'm hearing is jealousy."

Jacob pinched the bridge of his nose.

"I have some news."

"Have I finally been approved?"

He frowned. "...Approved for what?"

"A vacation."

He stared at me.

"...No."

"Damn."

"You've been assigned a new assistant."

I blinked. "What? With my track record? That's incredibly irresponsible."

Jacob nodded. "It really is."

"Please take care of this one."

"It wasn't my fault the last ones died."

Jacob looked at me for several long seconds.

"Okay," I admitted. "Some of them were my fault. But if they keep giving me completely untrained interns, what exactly are they expecting?"

Jacob sighed. "Nayeri... I'm serious."

"So am I."

"I think you should reject the assignment."

I gestured around my office. The paperwork had somehow multiplied since I last looked at it.

"Jacob, I need an assistant."

"No, you don't."

"Look around."

He did.

"I either get an assistant..." I pointed at the mountain of paperwork. "...or these reports are going to kill me before I accidentally kill my new assistant."

Jacob's expression immediately fell.

Sean.

I sighed.

"...Sorry."

Neither of us said anything after that. The silence lingered for several seconds, heavy and uncomfortable.

Luckily for me, it didn't last.

The office door slid open again, and Elior walked in carrying another stack of folders.

"Jacob," he said, looking around the room. "I've been looking for you."

Jacob straightened so quickly he nearly knocked over his chair.

"H-Hey, Eli."

Eli?

I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from laughing.

Elior smiled. "I was wondering if you'd help me organize the laboratory later."

"Sure."

"Wonderful."

His smile somehow grew even warmer.

"I'll see you then."

He gave Jacob one last smile before turning and walking back into the hallway.

The office fell silent.

I looked at Jacob.

Jacob continued staring at the doorway like Elior might come back.

"You realize he's flirting with you."

Jacob frowned. "No, he's not."

"Jacob."

"He's being polite."

"He only smiles like that at you."

"He's friendly."

"He brought you coffee this morning."

"He's considerate."

"He called you handsome yesterday."

Jacob froze.

"...Professionally."

I stared at him.

"...Professionally?"

"He was complimenting my... work ethic."

"He literally said, 'You're handsome.'"

"...Maybe he appreciates symmetry."

I leaned back in my chair.

"You're actually hopeless."

Jacob opened his mouth to defend himself.

The office door slid open again.

Angelo walked in just as Jacob reached for the handle to leave. He stopped, looked at Jacob, and tilted his head slightly.

"Why is your heart rate twenty-two percent above its resting average?"

Jacob went completely still.

I smiled. "Elior was just in here."

"Oh."

Angelo nodded, then looked through the open doorway. Elior was still walking down the hallway with his folders tucked under one arm.

Angelo looked back at Jacob. "I wish you both the best of luck."

Jacob blinked.

Angelo continued with complete sincerity. "Please take good care of my nephew."

Silence.

Jacob's ears slowly turned bright red.

I completely lost it. I laughed so hard I had to hold onto the edge of my desk.

Jacob muttered something under his breath, shoved past Angelo, and hurried into the hallway after Elior without looking at either of us.

Angelo watched him leave, then looked back at me.

"...Did I say something humorous?"

That only made me laugh harder.

"Jacob's just shy," I said between laughs.

"I see."

Angelo nodded thoughtfully. "That appears to be a common human response to romantic attraction."

"It is."

Angelo glanced at the stack of paperwork covering my desk.

"You appear busy."

I followed his gaze and sighed. "I've been Chief Executive for less than three weeks, and I'm already considering setting the paperwork on fire."

"I would advise against that."

"I know."

"...It would create more paperwork."

I stared at him.

"...I hate that you're right."

Angelo looked at me for another moment before asking, "Would you like to join us for breakfast?"

I blinked.

"You haven't eaten yet?"

"No."

"Noah wished to wait for you."

A smile found its way onto my face before I could stop it.

"Really?"

"He said, 'Nay eats with us.'"

I looked away for a second, pretending that sentence hadn't affected me.

"...Sure."

I stood up. "I can't wait to see him."

Noah was getting cuter every day.

It felt strange admitting that.

I'd never been a kid person. Growing up with my mother had made sure of that. Children were loud, messy, and unpredictable. I usually preferred monsters.

Monsters, at least, came with instruction manuals.

Children just... existed.

Then Noah showed up.

Maybe the exception was simply cute children.

Or maybe it was just him.

When I'd mentioned that to Remi during one of our nightly phone calls, she'd laughed.

"You know," she'd said, "you were really cute too."

"I was?"

"You still are."

I'd immediately changed the subject.

Remi, meanwhile, had started referring to Noah as her nephew.

Technically...

I wasn't even sure she was wrong.

By C.S.P. standards, family trees had become less like diagrams and more like conspiracy boards.

We made our way back to my apartment. As soon as I opened the door, I spotted Noah sitting at the dining table. I'd bought him a high chair the week before so he could actually eat with us instead of sitting on a stack of cushions.

He looked up the moment he heard us.

His entire face lit up.

"Hi, Nay!"

I smiled before I could stop myself.

"Hi, Noah."

Then he looked past me.

"Hello, Father."

Angelo gave a small nod.

"Good morning, Noah."

He was still getting used to being called Father. At first, he'd tried correcting Noah, but after several failed attempts, he'd simply accepted it.

I took the seat beside Noah and unfolded the small handkerchief I'd bought for him, tying it gently around his neck before placing his breakfast in front of him.

He didn't complain.

He simply waited.

Another thing Angelo had somehow taught him.

Patience.

Breakfast was surprisingly peaceful. Noah spent most of it asking Angelo questions.

"Why do birds fly?"

"Because their anatomy allows them to generate sufficient lift."

"Oh."

A few seconds later, he asked, "Why can't penguins fly?"

"Because evolution prioritized efficient swimming over aerial locomotion."

"Oh."

Then he turned to me.

"Nay?"

"Yeah?"

"Why do I have to learn multiplication?"

I looked at him.

Then at Angelo.

Then back at Noah.

"...Honestly?"

He nodded.

"I have absolutely no idea."

Noah looked relieved.

"I don't like multiplication."

"I don't either."

Angelo looked at both of us.

"Mathematics remains objectively useful."

Neither of us responded.

He sighed.

"I appear to be outnumbered."

After breakfast, I walked with Noah to what everyone insisted on calling school.

In reality, it was an entire wing of the Research Division that had slowly transformed into the strangest elementary classroom on Earth.

His teachers included researchers, linguists, psychologists, and occasionally Angelo whenever the lesson somehow became about the history of reality.

Watching Noah wave goodbye before disappearing inside still made me smile.

When I returned to the apartment, Angelo had already cleaned the kitchen. Every dish had been washed, the table had been wiped down, and even Noah's tiny cup had been put away. I leaned against the doorway for a moment.

"You didn't have to do all that."

"I wished to contribute."

"I know."

It was... weird.

My father had never washed a dish in his life. Growing up, I didn't think I'd ever seen my parents sit down for breakfast together. I'd certainly never seen someone clean up simply because they wanted to make someone else's day easier.

Having a functional family, even one assembled from an ancient angel, the fragment of the Great Shadow, and me, was still something I hadn't quite learned how to believe in.

I must have been staring longer than I realized because Angelo noticed.

"Is something wrong?"

I looked over at him.

"No."

Normally, that answer would have been enough for most people.

Not Angelo.

He didn't argue. He didn't ask again. He didn't try to pull the truth out of me. He simply walked over to the couch and sat down. After a moment, he placed a hand on the empty space beside him.

An invitation.

Not a command.

Not an expectation.

Just an invitation.

I stood there for several seconds, looking at him. At any other point in my life, I probably would have smiled, said I was fine, and walked away.

But I knew Angelo.

He wouldn't chase after me. He wouldn't force me to explain something I wasn't ready to say.

He would just sit there.

And somehow, that made it harder to leave.

So I walked over and sat beside him.

Neither of us spoke.

The silence between us wasn't uncomfortable. It wasn't the kind of silence I grew up with, where everyone was waiting for someone else to break first and every quiet moment felt like a punishment.

This was different.

Angelo was simply there.

Waiting.

Not demanding anything from me.

I stared at the floor for a while before finally speaking.

"...I was thinking about my dad."

Angelo didn't move. He didn't need to. I knew he was listening.

"You know..." I let out a quiet laugh. "Seeing you with Noah makes me jealous of him."

The words sounded ridiculous the moment they left my mouth.

"I mean..." I shook my head. "Isn't that weird? I'm jealous of an eight-year-old because he has a father who actually wants to be around him."

Angelo looked at me.

"I do not believe that is jealousy."

"No?"

"No."

He folded his hands together.

"I believe you are grieving something you never received."

I looked away.

Because somehow...

That hurt more.

"You are not jealous of Noah," Angelo continued. He glanced toward the dining room, where Noah's toys were scattered across the floor. "If you were jealous, you would be angry at Noah."

I stayed quiet.

"But you are not. You are happy that he has that relationship."

A pause followed.

"I have never had a father."

The honesty of the statement caught me off guard. Angelo rarely admitted things about himself.

"So I cannot fully understand what that absence feels like," he said. "But I know what it is like to have someone who chooses to protect you."

His expression changed slightly.

"My mother was both."

I looked at him.

"A good parent. A caring mother. She was flawed. She made mistakes. But she loved me."

He paused.

"And I believe that is the difference."

The words hit harder because they were true. Because I didn't have anyone like that. Both of my parents were flawed, just in completely different ways.

"My father wasn't..." I stopped, trying to figure out how to explain him to Angelo. Because he wasn't a monster. That would have been easier.

"He wasn't like my mother."

Angelo waited.

"They fought constantly," I said quietly. "Not because they hated each other."

A bitter smile crossed my face. "Because they never loved each other."

"My parents weren't a love story. They were an arrangement. Two powerful families deciding that combining their names would create something more valuable. My mother was a bargaining chip. My father was the one making the deal."

I swallowed.

"And I was the result they expected."

Angelo remained silent.

"My father didn't care about happiness. He cared about results. His children were investments, and as long as we succeeded, he considered himself a good father."

I laughed quietly.

"Grades. Achievements. Reputation. Those were the things that mattered. Not whether we were happy. Not whether we were scared. Not whether we needed him."

I looked toward the empty chair across from us.

"He never hit me. He never screamed at me. He never did anything that would leave a mark."

I paused.

"Not physically, anyway."

I looked down at my hands.

"He was always working. And when he was home..." I sighed. "He and my mother would argue."

"About everything. Money. Status. Power. The future. Who sacrificed more. Who deserved more."

I rubbed my thumb against my palm.

"He threw things sometimes. Chairs. Plates. Anything close enough to grab when the arguments got bad."

My voice grew quieter.

"But none of them ever touched us."

I hesitated before continuing.

"And maybe that's what made it harder to explain. Because from the outside, it didn't look like abuse. There were no bruises. No hospital visits. No obvious proof that something was wrong."

I swallowed.

"But living in a house where you were always waiting for something to break..."

I looked away.

"That did something too."

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then I said something I had never really admitted out loud.

"He never hugged me either."

The sentence felt strange the moment it left my mouth. Almost embarrassing.

"I was never hugged by my own father."

Angelo's expression remained calm, but something in his eyes changed slightly.

"I used to think that was normal," I admitted. "I thought fathers were just... providers. People who paid for things. People who existed somewhere nearby. People whose approval you spent your entire life trying to earn."

I looked toward the hallway where Noah had disappeared earlier.

"Then I see you with Noah."

A small, sad smile crossed my face.

"And it's strange. Because he doesn't have to earn your attention. He doesn't have to prove he's worth loving. He doesn't have to accomplish something before you care about him."

I looked back at Angelo.

"He just exists."

My voice softened.

"And you love him."

I paused.

"He's going to grow up thinking that's normal. That his dad answers every question. That his dad eats breakfast with him. That his dad listens when he talks about something ridiculous. That his dad tells him he's loved."

I let out a quiet laugh.

"That's such a simple thing."

I looked down.

"But I don't think I ever had it."

The room went quiet.

After a moment, Angelo spoke.

"There is a human expression I heard recently."

I looked at him. "You heard?"

"Yes." He paused. "Elior told me."

I almost smiled. Of course he did. Angelo had spent thousands of years separated from humanity, while Elior had spent those same years among humans, learning their habits, their emotions, and all the strange little phrases they created to describe them.

"He and I were discussing my brother," Angelo said, his eyes moving toward the dining room. "His father."

I stayed quiet.

"He told me something humans often say. 'The best parents give their children what they themselves never received'."

For once, Angelo didn't say it like information he had memorized. He said it like something he was still trying to understand, something he had turned over in his mind and was still deciding what it meant.

"I believe..." He paused. "...that applies to you."

I frowned. "Me?"

"Yes."

He looked toward Noah's empty chair. "You give Noah patience. You answer his questions. You teach him without making him feel unintelligent. You allow him to make mistakes without fear. You comfort him when he is frightened. You celebrate his accomplishments. You make him feel safe."

His eyes returned to mine.

"These are things you did not receive."

My throat tightened.

"Those are things you deserved." 

I didn’t know what to say to that. I looked away because a part of me had spent years wondering if maybe my mother had been right. And sometimes I wondered if I had been born in her place. Given her life. Given her pain. Given her choices. Would I have become her? Would I have hurt people just to avoid feeling powerless? Would I have turned everyone around me into tools because I was afraid of being one myself?

The thought scared me.

Because I didn't know the answer.

Angelo spoke quietly.

"You are different from her."

I looked at him.

He knew.

Somehow, he knew exactly what I was thinking.

"You do not know that."

"I do."

"How?"

He was silent for a moment, then looked toward Noah's toys scattered across the floor.

"Because you told me you did not want children."

I froze.

Angelo looked back at me. "You told me you never planned on becoming a mother."

I said nothing.

"And yet..." His gaze moved toward the bedroom where Noah slept with us every night. "You treat Noah as if he is your own child. You protect him. You teach him. You worry about him. You love him."

My chest tightened.

"That is how I know you are different."

I looked down.

Angelo's voice remained calm, but there was something different in it. Something almost like certainty.

"You told me your mother was a bargaining chip. You told me you were an investment. A child created because two powerful families believed you would serve a purpose."

He paused.

"Even if your mother did not want children, she still had you."

The words hurt because they were true.

"And now..." He looked toward me. "You are in a similar position."

I looked at him.

"Not because Noah is an investment. Not because he serves a purpose. Not because he was created to fulfill an expectation."

His expression softened slightly.

"But because you had a life you did not expect."

"You never planned for him. You never prepared for him. And yet when he came into your life..." His eyes met mine. "You chose to love him."

The room was quiet.

"You had the opportunity to become what your mother was. You could have looked at Noah and seen a burden. Something that limited you. Something that existed because of circumstances outside your control."

"But you did not."

Angelo glanced toward the toys again.

"You saw a child who needed someone."

A small pause followed.

"And you became that person."

My eyes burned slightly.

"That is the difference."

Angelo continued, his voice steady. "People who become cruel rarely question whether they are capable of cruelty. They rarely worry that they might hurt someone. They rarely fear becoming the person who hurt them."

He looked back at me.

"You are afraid because you understand what cruelty does. You know what it feels like. And you refuse to give that feeling to someone else."

The apartment became quiet.

But this silence felt different.

Because for the first time, I wasn't wondering whether I was destined to become my mother.

I was wondering if maybe I had already proven I wasn't.

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then Angelo moved.

It surprised me.

He was always careful. Painfully careful. He waited for permission before touching someone, before asking questions, before getting close.

But this time...

He hugged me.

I froze, not because I didn't want it, but because I wasn't used to it. Usually, I was the one who hugged Angelo. I was the one reminding him that affection wasn't something he had to calculate, that sometimes people didn't need a reason or a logical explanation to show they cared.

But now he was the one holding me.

And I realized something.

All those times I wished someone would notice I was hurting...

Angelo had.

He just didn't always know how to show it.

Until now.

After a moment, he spoke.

"Your heart rate has increased by fifteen percent."

I laughed.

Of course that was his way of comforting me.

"Angelo, most people don't analyze someone's heartbeat while comforting them."

"I am aware."

"Then why say it?"

There was a brief pause.

"Because it was the first thing I noticed."

I shook my head, smiling. Dry humor has always been how I survived. If I could joke about something, maybe it couldn't hurt me. It was easier to laugh than to admit something had actually affected me.

But this time, I wasn't laughing because I was pretending.

I was laughing because I actually felt okay.

For the first time in a long time, I wasn't carrying everything alone.

Then I realized something.

I thanked God for giving me someone like Angelo.

Then I stopped.

Wait.

Was I thanking his mother?

The person who created someone who spent thousands of years struggling to understand emotions and somehow became one of the most compassionate people I knew?

Maybe people weren't defined by where they came from.

Maybe they were defined by what they chose to become.

And Angelo had chosen.

The hug ended a few seconds later. It didn't fix everything. My mother was still gone, my childhood was still gone, and my father was still someone who treated love like a transaction.

But for once, I wasn't looking backward.

I was looking at the person beside me.

Someone who was never taught love normally and still learned how to give it.

Maybe that was why Angelo understood me.

Because both of us were given imperfect examples of love, and both of us chose not to repeat them.

Then my phone rang.

Of course it did.

Because apparently even emotional breakthroughs had a time limit.

And somehow, Jacob always knew exactly when to ruin a moment.

I looked at the screen.

His name.

I sighed.

Angelo tilted his head.

"Is something wrong?"

"No."

There was a pause.

"Jacob?"

I looked at him.

"How did you know?"

"Your expression changed from sadness to irritation."

I stared at him.

"That's actually impressive."

"I have been studying human behavior."

"Right."

I answered the phone.

"Jacob."

"Nayeri."

The tone of his voice immediately told me this was either important or something that was about to become my problem.

"What happened now?"

"We have a meeting in five minutes."

I closed my eyes.

"Of course we do."

Angelo looked at me.

I sighed.

"What happened?"

"Madam Leni has called for the angel division," Jacob said.

And that was how my peaceful morning ended.

Five minutes later, Angelo and I entered the boardroom.

Madam Leni and Director Stonehill were already waiting. Both of them looked at us, then at each other.

"This is the first mission for the Angel Division," Stonehill said.

I sat down.

"Already?"

Madam Leni nodded.

"An entity has been located in a small town."

I frowned.

"Has it taken followers?"

"No."

I looked between them.

"Then shouldn't this fall under ESR?"

Stonehill shook his head.

"Normally, yes."

Madam Leni continued.

E.S.R. existed for incidents that occurred in public spaces or populated areas. Their priority was preventing mass exposure and handling situations where civilians were already involved.

C.S.P. operated differently. We handled threats that were isolated, usually in remote locations where entities could be contained before the public ever became aware they existed.

I leaned back. "So why are we involved?"

Madam Leni looked down at the report. "The town has fewer than two thousand residents."

I understood immediately. It was too small for E.S.R. and too public for C.S.P.'s usual operations. A dangerous middle ground where neither division was designed to respond properly.

"E.S.R. won't deploy for a population that small," I said. "And C.S.P. usually doesn't intervene unless the threat is isolated enough to avoid public awareness."

Stonehill folded his hands. "This town is remote enough for C.S.P., but the entity is not behaving like a typical containment situation."

Madam Leni looked toward Angelo. "Which makes this the perfect first mission for the Angel Division."

I looked down at the file in front of me.

Our first official assignment.

Not a god attacking a city. Not a world-ending event. Just an entity in a forgotten town.

And somehow, that was unsettling.

Because this was exactly why the Angel Division existed: to deal with the things that didn't fit anywhere else, the things nobody else knew what to do with.

Before I could think about it any longer, Stonehill glanced toward the conference room door.

"It appears your final staffing issue has been resolved."

The door opened, and a young man stepped inside.

"There he is," Stonehill said. "Your new assistant."

He looked at me.

"And after this, you're not getting another one."

...What?

I frowned. "That's incredibly unfair."

"Considering your history with assistants," Stonehill replied, "it's remarkably generous."

"Hello, everyone!"

The newcomer waved enthusiastically.

He was far too cheerful for C.S.P.

He had blond hair, bright green eyes, and was about Jacob's height. He couldn't have been older than twenty. Honestly, he looked young enough to still pass for a high school student.

Where did C.S.P. kidnap this kid from?

He walked over and offered me his hand.

"The name's Jackson."

Jackson was a good fake name.

Simple. Common. Easy to remember.

Exactly the kind of name someone would choose if they didn't want anyone knowing their real one.

I shook it. "Nayeri."

"It's really nice to meet you."

"...We'll see."

Jackson laughed, apparently assuming I was joking.

He went around introducing himself to everyone else. Jacob gave him a polite nod, Elior smiled warmly, and Angelo studied him for several seconds before simply saying, "Welcome."

Jackson smiled even wider.

"This is awesome."

No.

No, it wasn't.

Nobody who willingly described working at C.S.P. as awesome had any idea what they were signing up for.

I learned that was true about ten minutes later when I showed him around the Angel Division.

His first impression was surprisingly normal. Angelo was sitting in the corner reading six books at once, Noah was coloring on what I hoped were outdated research papers, Jacob was pretending not to stare at Elior while Elior organized laboratory reports, and I was buried beneath enough paperwork to qualify as a containment hazard.

Jackson looked around.

"This is actually a pretty nice office."

I stared at him.

"Don't say that."

"Why?"

"Because every time someone says something in C.S.P. is nice, something horrible happens."

The door opened.

Stonehill walked in.

"Your deployment begins in fifteen minutes."

Jackson slowly turned toward him.

"...Deployment?"

I sighed.

"See?"

An hour later, we were aboard a transport aircraft.

The Angel Division's first official mission consisted of thirty researchers, forty Retrieval Division operators, Jacob, Elior, Angelo, Jackson, and me.

By C.S.P. standards, it was a relatively small deployment. There were no tanks, no fighter jets, and no emergency evacuations. Just enough personnel to identify the anomaly, determine the threat level, and contain it before anyone outside the town realized something was wrong.

If everything went according to plan, the residents would never know we'd been there.

Of course, nothing at C.S.P. had ever gone according to plan.

I knew something was wrong the moment we arrived.

Not because I saw the entity.

Because I didn't.

I stared at the building in front of us.

"...It's a department store."

The words escaped before I could stop them.

It looked painfully ordinary. A faded sign. Shopping carts neatly lined up outside. Sale posters taped across the windows. Parents walking in with children. People leaving with shopping bags and coffee.

If someone had dropped me here without any context, I would have assumed we were stopping to buy groceries.

Around us, the Retrieval Division melted into the crowd. Forty soldiers disguised themselves as ordinary shoppers, their bulletproof vests hidden beneath hoodies and jackets. Researchers spread throughout the parking lot, pretending to browse their phones, load groceries, or wait for rides.

Jacob somehow looked like he'd just finished a normal nine-to-five office job. Elior looked effortlessly elegant despite wearing nothing more than jeans and a T-shirt. Angelo, somehow, looked like he could wear sweatpants and still resemble a Renaissance painting.

Jackson leaned closer.

"So..."

He lowered his voice.

"What's the entity?"

I shrugged.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

Jacob stepped beside us.

"No confirmed attacks. No worshippers. No disappearances connected closely enough to establish a pattern."

I frowned.

"Then why are we here?"

"Because something isn't right."

That was not remotely reassuring.

Two Retrieval teams entered through the main entrance ahead of us, while another circled toward the loading docks. Researchers established a temporary command post outside.

The five of us stepped through the automatic doors.

Nothing happened.

No crushing pressure. No whispers. No distortion in reality.

Just fluorescent lights, shopping carts, discount signs, and customers filling their carts.

It felt...

Normal.

Too normal.

An uncomfortable sense of déjà vu settled over me, though I couldn't explain why.

Then my radio crackled.

"Nayeri."

One of the researchers.

"We've finished reviewing local police reports."

"Go ahead."

"There have been twenty disappearances connected to this department store over the last year."

I stopped walking.

"...Twenty?"

"They occurred months apart. No consistent witnesses. No identifiable pattern. Which is why local authorities never connected them."

My stomach tightened.

I slowly looked around.

A father pushed a shopping cart while his son laughed inside it. A cashier smiled as she scanned groceries. An elderly couple argued over cereal.

Everything looked perfectly ordinary.

Then I realized what was bothering me.

There was no sound.

Their mouths moved. I could see conversations happening, but I couldn't hear them.

No children laughing.

No shopping carts rattling.

No cash registers.

No music.

Just silence.

I accidentally brushed against the father.

"I'm sorr—"

He stopped.

Slowly, he turned toward me.

Still smiling.

Then the cashier stopped.

The elderly couple stopped.

Every employee.

Every customer.

One after another, they all turned toward us.

Still smiling.

Nobody blinked.

Nobody spoke.

They simply watched.

"Jacob..."

"I know."

The automatic doors slammed shut behind us.

I spun around.

The parking lot was gone. The command post was gone. The researchers outside had vanished.

Beyond the glass, there was only darkness.

I counted instinctively.

Me.

Angelo.

Jacob.

Elior.

Jackson.

The two Retrieval teams that had entered ahead of us.

Nobody else.

"Damn it."

We hadn't entered the building.

We had entered the anomaly.

I grabbed my radio.

"Command, do you copy?"

Static.

Then...

A clap.

Slow.

Deliberate.

Another.

And another.

The sound echoed through the silent department store.

An old man stepped out from behind one of the aisles. He smiled as though he had been expecting us.

Then he looked directly at me.

"Welcome..."

His smile widened.

"...to Evergrove."

Everything inside me froze.

The department store.

The old man.

That smile.

The impossible silence.

No.

No...

I knew this place.

Not because I had been here.

Because I had heard the story.

Late-night phone calls.

Conversations with Remi.

The place where she had worked.

The place where she had almost died.

The place where a god had stolen her memories.

I stared at the old man. 

"...You've got to be kidding me."

Jackson looked between me and the old man. "...Do you know him?"

I didn't take my eyes off the smiling figure.

"It's..."

I let out a slow breath. 

"It's a long story."

The old man chuckled. "I do hope your sister has spoken fondly of me."

The words hit me like a punch.

He knew exactly who I was.

We hadn't found the entity.

The entity had invited us.

And we had walked straight into its trap.

Every morning, I walked into the most dangerous government facility in the world.

And every morning, the first thing that tried to kill me was the coffee machine.

Before you ask, no, I am not joking.

The coffee machine in the employee lounge had been responsible for three injuries, one minor fire, and a formal complaint from a vampire who claimed it "had malicious intent." Personally, I thought that was dramatic. The machine didn't hate vampires. It just hated everyone equally.

That was one of the first things you learned working at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs.

The monsters weren't always the problem;

Sometimes, it was the equipment.

Sometimes, it was the situation.

And sometimes…

It was the people who were supposed to protect you.

I swiped my ID at the first security checkpoint.

ACCESS GRANTED.

The second scanner checked my fingerprints.

IDENTITY CONFIRMED.

The third scanner paused.

That one always made new employees nervous because the third checkpoint wasn't checking who you were.

It was checking what you were.

A small green light swept over my body before a computerized voice spoke.

"Biological Status: Common Human."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Wow. Common? How rude..."

The security officer behind the desk looked up from his paperwork.

"You know the machine isn't insulting you, right?"

"That's exactly what an insulting machine would say."

The officer sighed.

His name was Carl. He'd been working security for eight years. He was also a werewolf, which sounded intimidating until you realized he spent most of his shift arguing with the scanner because it refused to recognize ghosts.

It wasn't really the scanner's fault. Most of its identification systems relied on things like body temperature, fingerprints, retinal scans, and heartbeats…all the little details that came with having a physical body.

Ghosts, unfortunately, had a habit of not possessing any of those.

So every morning, Carl had to manually verify that the ghost floating through the checkpoint was, in fact, the same ghost who had floated through yesterday.

According to him, spectral identification was still "an unsolved pain in my ass," and ghosts should stop wasting everyone's time by using the checkpoint and just pass through walls like they were supposed to.

On the other hand, Margaret, our oldest ghost custodian, called that “species discrimination.” According to her, going through walls felt like “swimming through wet cement.”

I stayed out of that argument. Mostly because I had no idea how to mediate a workplace dispute between a werewolf and a centuries old ghost about proper ghost etiquette.

Once Carl finally waved me through, I headed toward the elevators.

The Bureau was a lot bigger than people imagined.

Actually, scratch that.

People didn't imagine it at all.

Officially, the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs didn't exist. If you asked the government, this building was a geological research center, which was hilarious considering it was built six hundred feet underground.

Apparently, we researched geology by avoiding it.

The Bureau had been around for almost a millennia, long enough that nobody really remembered what it had been called before.

Our job was pretty simple: find the things that shouldn't exist, figure out what they were, and keep them from ending the world.

Contrary to what Hollywood thought, we didn't hunt monsters for sport. Most of the creatures here were never dangerous to begin with. A vampire who just wanted a stable blood supply wasn't exactly plotting world domination. Neither was the ghost who'd spent the last thirty years complaining that people kept walking through her while she was mopping.

Sure, we had the occasional nightmare-fueled entity locked several floors below us, the kind  that could level cities or rewrite someone's memories just by making eye contact.

But those weren't the majority.

Most of our work was research, medicine, diplomacy, and containment.

Turns out the best way to stop most supernatural incidents was by talking before shooting.

Who would've guessed?

The Bureau was divided into six divisions.

Containment kept things locked up. Research tried to understand them. Field Operations found new anomalies. Medical kept everyone alive. Administration fought paperwork.

Then there was Behavioral Analysis.

My department. 

Whenever an entity refused to cooperate, whenever negotiations broke down, whenever researchers wrote “Subject displaying unexplained aggression” in a report...

They called us.

Usually me.

Because more often than not, the subject wasn't aggressive.

It was scared.

Or grieving.

Or lonely.

Those were very different problems.

Unfortunately, most people didn't notice the difference until someone got hurt.

I don’t have the sharp senses of a werewolf. I don’t know ancient magic like the witches, and I certainly don’t have centuries of experience like the vampires.

The only thing I am unusually good at...

Is understanding people.

Even when the "people" in question have stopped being human a very long time ago.

As I rounded the corner, I spotted my supervisor leaning against the observation room window with his arms crossed.

Director Mercer.

Common Human.

Mid-fifties.

Always looked like he hadn't slept in a week.

He glanced up as I approached.

"Morning."

"You only say 'morning' like that when my schedule's about to get ruined."

He handed me a tablet.

"I had plans, you know."

Mercer raised an eyebrow.

"You don't have plans."

"I was planning on pretending to work until lunch."

He ignored me.

"Containment requested a behavioral assessment."

I skimmed the report.

SUBJECT: F-214 H-class
STATUS: Non-compliant.
INCIDENT: Refusing food for seventy-two hours. Displays escalating aggression toward personnel.

I sighed.

"They already tried tranquilizers, didn't they?"

Mercer didn't answer.

That was answer enough.

"They did?"

"They're scientists."

"They're impatient scientists."

I handed the tablet back.

"Give me five minutes."

The observation room overlooked a containment chamber built to withstand far worse than whatever was inside. About a dozen researchers stood behind the reinforced glass, arguing over graphs and medical readouts.

The subject sat motionless in the corner.

It resembled a deer.

If deer happened to be eight feet tall, covered in black feathers instead of fur, and had antlers that seemed to bend in directions, antlers probably shouldn't.

No one said anything.

They were waiting for my opinion.

I watched the creature.

It never looked at the food.

It never looked at the door.

It watched the people.

And every single time someone moved, its feathers tightened against its body.

One researcher cleared his throat.

"Well?"

I looked at him.

"How many people have gone into that room today?"

He frowned.

"...Six."

I nodded toward the creature.

"That's your problem."

There were confused looks all around.

"It’s an H-class, obviously it thinks you're predators."

One of the researchers frowned.

"It attacked Technician Morales yesterday."

"No."

I shook my head.

"It panicked."

"There's a difference."

The researcher looked ready to argue, but Mercer cut him off.

"Do what he says."

The room emptied until only I remained.

I picked up the food tray, opened the containment door, and walked inside.

Behind the glass, every researcher tensed.

That reaction was normal.

Most people who worked at the Bureau respected the things in containment. They studied them. They documented them. They tried to understand them.

But respect and fear were separated by a very thin line.

The funny thing was...

I wasn't afraid of the creature. 

I was afraid of proving everyone right about it.

I sat down.

Not across from it.

Not close enough to intimidate it.

Just close enough that it knew I was there.

The creature watched me.

I watched it.

Five minutes passed.

Nothing.

Ten minutes.

Still nothing.

Then behind the glass, I heard the researchers getting impatient.

"Is he seriously just sitting there?"

"That's the strategy?"

"Apparently."

I ignored them.

People hated silence. They always wanted to fill it with questions, commands, or threats. 

The creature didn't need someone trying to control it. It needed someone to stop treating it like a problem.

Slowly, its eyes moved toward me. For a second, I thought it was finally going to approach.

Instead, it lowered its head.

Interesting.

I looked closer, not at its face, but at everything else. The researchers had focused on the obvious: the claws, the teeth, the size, the things that made it look dangerous. They missed the details.

I didn't.

One of its antlers had a crack running along the base. Not broken. Cracked. Like something had hit it hard enough to damage the bone. Its left wing hung lower than the other, and every few seconds it shifted its weight away from one side.

I frowned.

"You're hurt."

The creature froze.

Behind the glass, someone reached toward the alarm. I lifted a hand.

Don't.

Not yet.

Slowly, the creature raised its head.

I pushed the food tray across the floor. Not directly toward it. Just closer.

"Nobody noticed, did they?"

The creature stared.

"You weren't refusing to eat."

A pause.

"You were in too much pain."

For the first time since I entered, the creature moved. Slowly. Carefully. It approached the tray.

And ate.

Behind the glass, the room erupted.

"He's eating."

"Get Research down there."

"How did he know?"

I didn't celebrate.

Because this wasn't a victory.

A victory meant something had gone right. This wasn't that.

This was everyone realizing they had spent three days punishing an injured creature because they were too busy looking for a threat.

I stepped out of containment a few minutes later. Mercer was waiting.

"So?"

I looked at him.

"Call Dr. Lyra."

Dr. Lyra arrived ten minutes later, already looking annoyed.

That was normal for Lyra.

Being a dryad meant she had spent centuries understanding nature. Her healing sap made her an exceptional doctor, far beyond human standards. Ironically, humans were still the one species she struggled to understand.

"What happened?"

I pointed toward the creature.

"Broken antler. Damaged wing."

She looked at me.

"And you figured that out how?"

"Observation."

She stared for a long moment before shaking her head.

Then she looked at Mercer and sighed.

"You're wasting your life here."

I smiled.

"Good morning to you too."

"I'm serious."

That made me stop.

Lyra crossed her arms.

"Mercer is always using you for dangerous operations"

I looked away.

"He needs someone who can do this."

"No." Her voice softened. "He needs someone who feels responsible enough to do something no one else wants to…"

I didn't answer.

Because she wasn't wrong.

And I hated that.

"You think this ability is your purpose."

"It's useful."

"That's not what I said."

I looked through the glass at the creature eating while the researchers rushed around it.

"This is the one thing I'm good at."

The words came out quieter than I intended.

Lyra's expression changed.

There it was.

The thing I always tried to hide.

Not fear.

Not sadness.

Something worse.

The belief that without this ability, I wasn't worth much.

"You were halfway through a psychology degree," she said. "You should be helping people through their problems, not drowning in your own."

"I already dropped out."

Lyra sighed.

"You don't have to keep punishing yourself because of what happened."

"I'm not."

She gave me that look. The one people always gave me. The one where they thought they understood me.

The worst part was...

They didn't.

They just felt sorry for me.

Before I could answer, Mercer stepped back into the room.

"Field Operations needs Behavioral support."

Lyra immediately turned.

"No."

Mercer looked at her.

"Excuse me?"

"He just spent the last hour calming an injured anomaly because your researchers couldn't recognize basic distress signals."

Mercer didn't react.

"Which is exactly why he's needed."

Lyra stepped forward.

"He's a person, Mercer."

"So are the civilians we're protecting."

"And if you keep sending him into situations like this, eventually you're going to push him too far."

Mercer looked at me.

"We aren't asking him to fight." He paused. "We're asking him to do what he does best."

Understand.

I hated that he knew exactly what to say.

Because the worst part was...

I wanted to go.

Two hours later, I was sitting on a transport plane heading toward Operation Black Birch.

An abandoned town.

Forty-seven miles from the nearest populated area.

Intelligence suggested a shapeshifting entity had infiltrated a civilian evacuation shelter.

The problem?

Nobody knew which person it was.

Eighty-six civilians.

One monster hiding among them.

The person sitting across from me was an intern named Rachel. She had been staring at me for almost ten minutes before she finally spoke.

"Sorry."

I looked up. "For what?"

"I just... I've heard about you."

I laughed. "That sounds worse than you probably meant it."

"No, I mean your work." She smiled. "No wonder Behavioral Analysis hired you."

I looked away.

"I didn't exactly apply."

She tilted her head. "No?"

I shook my head.

"I was halfway through my degree when they found me."

Before Rachel could ask another question, someone farther down the aircraft looked up from a folder.

Christian, an elf. Pointed ears. Silver hair tied neatly behind his head. Reading glasses balanced on the end of his nose.

He blinked.

"Wait."

The cabin fell quiet.

He looked at Rachel. "You seriously don't recognize him?"

Rachel frowned.

"Should I?"

The elf looked genuinely surprised.

"That's him." He pointed at me. "The sole survivor of the Vesper University massacre."

Silence settled over the cabin.

Then someone near the back muttered, "The boy who lived."

A few awkward laughs echoed through the aircraft.

I didn't join in.

Rachel's smile faded. She looked at me the same way Lyra had.

The same way almost everyone eventually did.

Pity.

I hated pity.

Fear was honest. Pity made people think they understood you.

They never did.

I wasn't brave. I wasn't special. I was just the person who happened to survive.

It was a Thursday night when it happened. An ordinary Thursday. No storms, no power outages, no warning that something terrible was about to happen.

I had spent the evening cramming for a literature exam I wasn't prepared for while my roommates argued over what movie to watch.

Just a normal night.

The kind you never think you'll remember.

Until you can't forget it.

The screaming started sometime after midnight.

At first, I thought my roommates were fighting again. That wasn't unusual. They argued about everything.

Then I heard another scream.

Then another.

I opened my door expecting to find another stupid argument.

Instead, I found him.

A man standing at the end of the hallway.

Not a monster. Not some ancient creature hiding behind a human face.

A man.

He was dressed entirely in black, and a pale mask covered his face. I couldn't see any emotion, any expression, anything that told me who he was.

Only two empty eyeholes staring back at me.

The knife in his hand looked black under the emergency lights. Not because of the blade itself. But because it was covered in blood.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

I was too terrified to do anything. I couldn't run. I couldn't scream. I could only stand there and wait for what I thought was going to happen.

Then he looked at me.

Not past me.

Not at the hallway behind me.

At me.

I still don't know how long we stood there.

A few seconds.

Maybe longer.

Then he lowered the knife, turned around.

And walked away.

He spared me.

Not because I fought him. Not because I escaped. Not because I did anything to deserve it.

He simply chose not to kill me.

By the time the police arrived, all seven of my roommates were dead.

The university called it an isolated tragedy. The media called it one of the worst mass murders in the town's history.

My psychologists called it the beginning of my condition.

Hyper-empathy.

They believed surviving something that traumatic changed the way my brain processed emotions. It wasn't immediate. It didn't happen overnight.

At first, I was just a survivor dealing with trauma.

Then, slowly, I started noticing things other people didn't.

Fear hidden behind anger.

Pain disguised as frustration.

Grief buried beneath silence.

To them, it was a trauma response.

To the Bureau, it was an ability.

To me, it was something I never wanted. 

The Bureau quickly classified the massacre as a suspected supernatural incident. They believed whatever happened that night wasn't entirely human.

Maybe they were right.

Maybe they weren't.

I never cared about their theories.

Because I knew what I saw.

I didn't see a monster.

I saw a man.

A man who looked me in the eyes after killing seven people...

And decided I should live.

Rachel's voice pulled me back.

"I'm... I'm sorry."

I forced a smile.

"It's fine."

It wasn't.

It never had been.

The cabin fell silent again.

No one knew what to say after that. 

But the silence didn't last long.

The pilot's voice crackled over the intercom.

"Approaching the operation zone. Five minutes."

The transport began its descent.

Mercer stood from his seat at the front of the cabin, and every conversation stopped. He tapped the holographic projector mounted to the wall.

A three-dimensional map of a small town appeared.

Rows of abandoned houses.

A church.

An elementary school.

An evacuation shelter highlighted in red.

"Eighty-six civilians were evacuated here six hours ago," Mercer said. "Field Operations intercepted evidence that a Level 3, C-class shapeshifter entered the shelter before lockdown."

The hologram zoomed in.

"Eighty-six civilians."

One red dot flashed.

"One of them isn't human."

Rachel frowned.

"Can't we screen them individually?"

"We already have," Mercer said without looking at her. "Blood tests. Thermal imaging. Silver exposure. Psychological profiling."

Nothing.

"The entity has defeated every identification method available."

An uncomfortable silence settled over the cabin.

Mercer continued.

"If it escapes the quarantine zone, projected civilian casualties exceed forty thousand within the first seventy-two hours."

Someone quietly swore.

Mercer looked at my side of the plane..

"Behavioral Analysis."

I nodded.

"We'll interview them."

"Good."

The aircraft touched down. The rear ramp lowered, and cold air rushed inside.

Outside, dozens of armored personnel surrounded the shelter. Snipers occupied nearby rooftops. Containment vehicles blocked every road leading out of town.

It looked less like a rescue operation...

And more like the beginning of a war.

The shelter had once been a high school gymnasium, but now it was packed wall to wall with frightened civilians. Children slept on cots while parents whispered to each other, and volunteers moved through the crowd handing out bottled water.

The moment I stepped inside, I felt it.

Fear.

Not one person's fear.

Everyone's.

It pressed against my chest like a weight.

Rachel looked around nervously. "I hate this."

"So do they."

She glanced at me. "What?"

I nodded toward the room. "They're terrified."

"I mean... obviously."

"No." I shook my head. "They're not afraid of the monster."

She frowned.

"They're afraid of us."

Her eyes drifted toward the soldiers lining the walls, rifles raised, faces hidden behind helmets. I couldn't blame the civilians. If armed soldiers burst into my shelter and refused to explain why, I'd be terrified too.

Mercer entered behind us.

"Report."

I looked around the room one more time before turning back to him. "I need time."

"How much?"

"A few hours."

Mercer's expression didn't change.

"You have thirty minutes."

"Thirty isn't enough."

"It's what you have."

He turned and walked away.

Rachel watched him leave.

"Does he always do that?"

"Ignore the people who know what they're talking about?"

She nodded.

"Yeah."

I smiled weakly.

"Pretty much."

Twenty-three minutes later, we still hadn't found anything.

My team had spoken to teachers, children, paramedics, and parents, but there wasn't a single inconsistency, not a single lie, and not a single emotional response that felt wrong.

Everything I sensed was exactly what I expected.

Confusion.

Exhaustion.

Fear.

Grief.

I rubbed my temples.

Something wasn't adding up.

Mercer's radio crackled.

"Director."

"Report."

"Research Division just updated their assessment. The shapeshifter has entered a secondary adaptation phase."

The shelter fell silent.

"Meaning?" Mercer asked.

"Current estimates suggest we have less than ten minutes before it fully adapts to its host. After that, it will remain hidden indefinitely."

Mercer turned to me.

"Behavioral?"

I looked around the shelter.

Eighty-six frightened civilians.

Eighty-six chances to miss one lie.

"I need more time."

"How long?"

"At least an hour."

"You have ten minutes."

"That's not enough."

"It's all we have."

Mercer looked toward the soldiers.

"Field Operations. Prepare Protocol Ash."

My stomach dropped.

"You can't do this." My voice echoed through the shelter. "They're people. They're innocent."

Mercer met my eyes without the slightest hint of anger.

"If the entity escapes," he said quietly, "forty thousand people die in the nearby city"

I stepped toward him.

"Then let me keep looking."

"You have ten minutes."

"That's not enough!"

"No." He held my gaze. "It isn't."

A long silence settled between us.

Then he said the words I'll never forget.

"People are going to die today."

Another pause.

"I'm trying to make sure only eighty-six do." 

Mercer gave a small nod.

The soldiers moved.

I lunged for him.

Hands like iron clamped around my arms before I got two steps.

"No!" I shouted, thrashing against their grip. "Please!"

I threw everything I had into breaking free.

The soldier werewolves barely had to try.

To them, I wasn't a threat. I was just another human to restrain.

I couldn't reach Mercer.

I couldn't reach the eighty-six innocent people staring at us in terror.

And suddenly...

I wasn't standing in a shelter anymore.

I was back in my dorm hallway.

Frozen.

Helpless.

Watching someone else decide who lived...

...and who died.

Then it hit me.

The crying.

The screaming.

The prayers.

Eighty-six terrified people, all convinced they were about to die.

Their fear crashed into me all at once.

My chest tightened.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't tell where my emotions ended and theirs began.

"Stop..." My voice cracked. "Please..."

Nobody moved.

Rachel was shouting my name, but she sounded impossibly far away.

My vision blurred.

Tears streamed down my face.

Not because I wanted to.

Because they did.

My stomach lurched.

Then I doubled over and vomited onto the gym floor.

The soldiers immediately let go of me.

"Ethan!"

Rachel caught me before I hit the ground.

I was shaking so hard my teeth chattered. Every emotion: terror, grief, panic, hopelessness….bled together until I couldn't tell which ones belonged to me anymore.

The last thing I saw was Rachel's face.

She wasn't looking at the soldiers.

She wasn't looking at Mercer.

She was looking at me...

...like she was watching someone come apart.

Then everything went black.

When I woke up, the ceiling wasn't the shelter. It was the medical wing.

Again.

"You're awake."

I turned my head and saw Lyra sitting beside the bed with her arms crossed. She looked exhausted.

"I told you this job is taking a toll on you."

I reached for the water sitting on the table beside me and drank.

"No."

Lyra stared at me.

"No?"

"I'm fine."

A long silence followed before she sighed.

"Ethan."

I froze.

She used my name.

That meant she was actually angry.

"You have already blacked out twice this week."

"It's fine."

Her expression hardened.

"You always say that."

I looked away because she was right. I always said that. But what else was I supposed to say? That sometimes I couldn't tell where my emotions ended and everyone else's began? That every disaster felt like I was experiencing it myself? That every person I failed stayed with me?

I put the cup down.

"I have work."

"Ethan—"

I stood up before she could continue and left.

I didn't get far.

The same elf from the aircraft stepped into my path, his hair now loose over his shoulders.

"I have good news."

I stared at Christian.

"That usually means there's bad news."

He smiled slightly.

"You're learning."

I waited.

"Director Mercer is in deep trouble."

I stopped.

"What?"

"He is being investigated."

I frowned.

"Why?"

The elf looked surprised.

"You haven't heard?"

"No."

He adjusted his glasses.

"The operation report came in."

My stomach tightened.

"The shelter?"

He nodded.

"Mercer ordered Protocol Ash."

"I know."

His expression became serious.

"The eighty-six civilians he killed..."

He paused.

"None of them were the entity."

I felt cold.

"What?"

"The imposter was never inside the shelter."

My mind went blank.

"Then where was it?"

The elf looked at me.

"It had already changed into a guard."

Silence.

"He was standing outside the shelter the entire time."

I couldn't speak.

All those emotions. All those people. All that fear.

Mercer hadn't saved them.

He had killed them.

The elf continued.

"The creature is contained now. Research Division believes it's a rare hybrid."

"Of what?"

He looked at me.

"A wendigo."

A pause.

"And a skinwalker."

The hallway felt colder.

"Highly dangerous."

I looked toward the Director's offices, toward where Mercer would be.

The man who had chosen numbers over names. The man who had looked at eighty-six people and seen a calculation.

And for the first time...

I wished he would have died instead.

The thought stayed with me because it wasn't just anger. It wasn't just grief. It was something darker.

A part of me genuinely wanted him gone.

And that scared me.

Because I had spent my entire life feeling too much. Other people's pain. Other people's fear. Other people's suffering.

Hyper-empathy was supposed to make me understand people.

But in that moment...

All it did was make me understand exactly why I hated him.

I found out later what happened to Mercer.

The Bureau didn't call it “prison”. They called it "removal". But everyone understood what that meant.

You couldn't simply leave this organization after learning the things we knew….the existence of anomalies, the creatures hiding among humanity, the things that lived outside reality itself. Information like that wasn't something you carried into retirement.

Mercer wasn't fired.

Not really.

He was contained.

The same way we contained everything else dangerous.

The irony wasn't lost on anyone. A man who had spent years deciding what was an acceptable loss had finally become one himself.

Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to celebrate because within an hour of Mercer's removal, we had a new problem.

A new Director.

Which was why I was standing inside the Board Room, the place where the highest decisions in the Bureau were made.

Lyra sat across from me, looking more tired than usual. And somehow, after everything I had seen, she was still the person who looked the most human in the room.

The others...

Were not.

Six seats surrounded the table.

Six department heads.

Six people responsible for keeping the Bureau alive.

The head of Containment was a giant.

Literally.

A stone-skinned being that looked like it had been carved from a mountain. The Bureau had discovered him centuries ago.

They were supposed to contain him.

Instead, they hired him.

Research belonged to Dr. Evelyn.

An elf whose knowledge of magical biology and supernatural history was considered unmatched.

Field Operations was led by Commander Voss.

A werewolf.

The kind of person soldiers followed without hesitation. Every combat agent, every extraction team, every person sent into places humans weren't meant to survive answered to him. He was also the reason every soldier in the organization was a werewolf.

Medical was Lyra.

A dryad.

A creature connected to life itself, now responsible for keeping both humans and monsters alive.

Administration was the strangest.

Director Adrian.

Half-human.

Half something the Bureau had never officially classified.

He was proof of what the world had spent centuries ignoring.

Monsters and humans weren't separate anymore.

They had been living together for generations.

Some used magic.

Some used technology.

Some used both.

Elves who didn't want their ears recognized used spells or even human cosmetic procedures to alter their appearance. Vampires changed identities every few decades. Werewolves learned to control their transformations and lived ordinary lives.

The supernatural world hadn't replaced humanity.

It had blended into it.

And after centuries of coexistence, the hardest thing wasn't finding the monsters.

It was knowing who was one.

Then there was Behavioral Analysis.

My department.

The seat Mercer had left behind.

Then the door opened.

Every conversation died instantly as a man walked in.

At first glance, he looked completely ordinary.

Early thirties. Dark hair. Perfectly tailored suit. Calm expression.

Then you looked closer.

And remembered he wasn't human.

The newly appointed….

Director Lucien.

A vampire.

Three hundred years old.

And yes...

The stories were true.

Every vampire was beautiful.

Not because they were trying to be.

Because evolution had made them that way.

Predators weren't supposed to look dangerous.

They were supposed to make you lower your guard.

Lucien had the kind of appearance that made people trust him before they even realized they were doing it. If he wasn't running Behavioral Analysis, he probably would have been on the cover of a luxury watch advertisement, standing in an expensive suit, looking mysterious while millions of people convinced themselves they could look like him.

But Lucien wasn't famous only because of his appearance.

He was also famous because he understood monsters.

Before becoming Director, he was one of the Bureau's greatest researchers. He had negotiated with creatures that had killed entire teams. He had convinced hostile entities to cooperate without a single weapon being drawn.

People joked that Lucien could walk into a room with a monster and leave with both sides signing a peace treaty.

The strange part was how he did it.

He never raised his voice.

Never lost control.

Never looked afraid.

At first, I thought it was confidence.

Then I watched him closer.

Lucien wasn't experiencing emotions.

He was copying them.

The slight concern in his eyes when someone spoke.

The small smile at the exact moment someone needed reassurance.

The carefully measured pauses before answering.

Everything was perfect.

Too perfect.

Most people saw empathy.

I saw a performance.

Not a fake one.

A practiced one.

Three hundred years of watching humans had taught Lucien exactly what they expected to see.

Fear.

Compassion.

Concern.

He could imitate all of them flawlessly.

And somehow...

That was more unsettling than if he couldn't understand emotions at all.

Everyone else in this room saw a man who understood them.

I saw someone who understood emotions so well...

he didn't need to feel them.

And for the first time since I joined the Bureau...

I reconsidered Behavioral Analysis.

Not because of Mercer.

Not because of the job.

Because of him.

Mr. Lucien…

Maybe Lyra had been right.

Maybe I should have listened when she told me to think carefully about this department.

Because Mercer had been easy to understand.

He was cold.

He was ruthless.

But Lucien...

Lucien was something else entirely.

After talking to the other directors he started surveilling the room.

Then his eyes landed on me.

And for a moment...

Neither of us spoke.

Then he smiled.

Not warmly.

Not coldly.

Just perfectly.

Precisely.

"Agent Ethan."

I felt something I couldn't explain.

Not fear.

Not discomfort.

Something closer to uncertainty.

Because for the first time in my life...

I was standing across from someone who can look at a person’s fear, sadness and love and understand exactly what they meant without ever feeling them.

Meanwhile I was drowning in everyone else’s emotions, never knowing where they ended and I began.

He was a man who could understand humanity without being human.

I was a man who felt humanity so deeply that I was losing myself. 

And somehow….That was more terrifying than Mercer ever was.

Every morning, I walked into the most dangerous government facility in the world.

And every morning, the first thing that tried to kill me was the coffee machine.

Before you ask, no, I am not joking.

The coffee machine in the employee lounge had been responsible for three injuries, one minor fire, and a formal complaint from a vampire who claimed it "had malicious intent." Personally, I thought that was dramatic. The machine didn't hate vampires. It just hated everyone equally.

That was one of the first things you learned working at the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs.

The monsters weren't always the problem;

Sometimes, it was the equipment.

Sometimes, it was the situation.

And sometimes…

It was the people who were supposed to protect you.

I swiped my ID at the first security checkpoint.

ACCESS GRANTED.

The second scanner checked my fingerprints.

IDENTITY CONFIRMED.

The third scanner paused.

That one always made new employees nervous because the third checkpoint wasn't checking who you were.

It was checking what you were.

A small green light swept over my body before a computerized voice spoke.

"Biological Status: Common Human."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Wow. Common? How rude..."

The security officer behind the desk looked up from his paperwork.

"You know the machine isn't insulting you, right?"

"That's exactly what an insulting machine would say."

The officer sighed.

His name was Carl. He'd been working security for eight years. He was also a werewolf, which sounded intimidating until you realized he spent most of his shift arguing with the scanner because it refused to recognize ghosts.

It wasn't really the scanner's fault. Most of its identification systems relied on things like body temperature, fingerprints, retinal scans, and heartbeats…all the little details that came with having a physical body.

Ghosts, unfortunately, had a habit of not possessing any of those.

So every morning, Carl had to manually verify that the ghost floating through the checkpoint was, in fact, the same ghost who had floated through yesterday.

According to him, spectral identification was still "an unsolved pain in my ass," and ghosts should stop wasting everyone's time by using the checkpoint and just pass through walls like they were supposed to.

On the other hand, Margaret, our oldest ghost custodian, called that “species discrimination.” According to her, going through walls felt like “swimming through wet cement.”

I stayed out of that argument. Mostly because I had no idea how to mediate a workplace dispute between a werewolf and a centuries old ghost about proper ghost etiquette.

Once Carl finally waved me through, I headed toward the elevators.

The Bureau was a lot bigger than people imagined.

Actually, scratch that.

People didn't imagine it at all.

Officially, the Bureau of Supernatural Affairs didn't exist. If you asked the government, this building was a geological research center, which was hilarious considering it was built six hundred feet underground.

Apparently, we researched geology by avoiding it.

The Bureau had been around for almost a millennia, long enough that nobody really remembered what it had been called before.

Our job was pretty simple: find the things that shouldn't exist, figure out what they were, and keep them from ending the world.

Contrary to what Hollywood thought, we didn't hunt monsters for sport. Most of the creatures here were never dangerous to begin with. A vampire who just wanted a stable blood supply wasn't exactly plotting world domination. Neither was the ghost who'd spent the last thirty years complaining that people kept walking through her while she was mopping.

Sure, we had the occasional nightmare-fueled entity locked several floors below us, the kind  that could level cities or rewrite someone's memories just by making eye contact.

But those weren't the majority.

Most of our work was research, medicine, diplomacy, and containment.

Turns out the best way to stop most supernatural incidents was by talking before shooting.

Who would've guessed?

The Bureau was divided into six divisions.

Containment kept things locked up. Research tried to understand them. Field Operations found new anomalies. Medical kept everyone alive. Administration fought paperwork.

Then there was Behavioral Analysis.

My department. 

Whenever an entity refused to cooperate, whenever negotiations broke down, whenever researchers wrote “Subject displaying unexplained aggression” in a report...

They called us.

Usually me.

Because more often than not, the subject wasn't aggressive.

It was scared.

Or grieving.

Or lonely.

Those were very different problems.

Unfortunately, most people didn't notice the difference until someone got hurt.

I don’t have the sharp senses of a werewolf. I don’t know ancient magic like the witches, and I certainly don’t have centuries of experience like the vampires.

The only thing I am unusually good at...

Is understanding people.

Even when the "people" in question have stopped being human a very long time ago.

As I rounded the corner, I spotted my supervisor leaning against the observation room window with his arms crossed.

Director Mercer.

Common Human.

Mid-fifties.

Always looked like he hadn't slept in a week.

He glanced up as I approached.

"Morning."

"You only say 'morning' like that when my schedule's about to get ruined."

He handed me a tablet.

"I had plans, you know."

Mercer raised an eyebrow.

"You don't have plans."

"I was planning on pretending to work until lunch."

He ignored me.

"Containment requested a behavioral assessment."

I skimmed the report.

SUBJECT: F-214 H-class
STATUS: Non-compliant.
INCIDENT: Refusing food for seventy-two hours. Displays escalating aggression toward personnel.

I sighed.

"They already tried tranquilizers, didn't they?"

Mercer didn't answer.

That was answer enough.

"They did?"

"They're scientists."

"They're impatient scientists."

I handed the tablet back.

"Give me five minutes."

The observation room overlooked a containment chamber built to withstand far worse than whatever was inside. About a dozen researchers stood behind the reinforced glass, arguing over graphs and medical readouts.

The subject sat motionless in the corner.

It resembled a deer.

If deer happened to be eight feet tall, covered in black feathers instead of fur, and had antlers that seemed to bend in directions, antlers probably shouldn't.

No one said anything.

They were waiting for my opinion.

I watched the creature.

It never looked at the food.

It never looked at the door.

It watched the people.

And every single time someone moved, its feathers tightened against its body.

One researcher cleared his throat.

"Well?"

I looked at him.

"How many people have gone into that room today?"

He frowned.

"...Six."

I nodded toward the creature.

"That's your problem."

There were confused looks all around.

"It’s an H-class, obviously it thinks you're predators."

One of the researchers frowned.

"It attacked Technician Morales yesterday."

"No."

I shook my head.

"It panicked."

"There's a difference."

The researcher looked ready to argue, but Mercer cut him off.

"Do what he says."

The room emptied until only I remained.

I picked up the food tray, opened the containment door, and walked inside.

Behind the glass, every researcher tensed.

That reaction was normal.

Most people who worked at the Bureau respected the things in containment. They studied them. They documented them. They tried to understand them.

But respect and fear were separated by a very thin line.

The funny thing was...

I wasn't afraid of the creature. 

I was afraid of proving everyone right about it.

I sat down.

Not across from it.

Not close enough to intimidate it.

Just close enough that it knew I was there.

The creature watched me.

I watched it.

Five minutes passed.

Nothing.

Ten minutes.

Still nothing.

Then behind the glass, I heard the researchers getting impatient.

"Is he seriously just sitting there?"

"That's the strategy?"

"Apparently."

I ignored them.

People hated silence. They always wanted to fill it with questions, commands, or threats. 

The creature didn't need someone trying to control it. It needed someone to stop treating it like a problem.

Slowly, its eyes moved toward me. For a second, I thought it was finally going to approach.

Instead, it lowered its head.

Interesting.

I looked closer, not at its face, but at everything else. The researchers had focused on the obvious: the claws, the teeth, the size, the things that made it look dangerous. They missed the details.

I didn't.

One of its antlers had a crack running along the base. Not broken. Cracked. Like something had hit it hard enough to damage the bone. Its left wing hung lower than the other, and every few seconds it shifted its weight away from one side.

I frowned.

"You're hurt."

The creature froze.

Behind the glass, someone reached toward the alarm. I lifted a hand.

Don't.

Not yet.

Slowly, the creature raised its head.

I pushed the food tray across the floor. Not directly toward it. Just closer.

"Nobody noticed, did they?"

The creature stared.

"You weren't refusing to eat."

A pause.

"You were in too much pain."

For the first time since I entered, the creature moved. Slowly. Carefully. It approached the tray.

And ate.

Behind the glass, the room erupted.

"He's eating."

"Get Research down there."

"How did he know?"

I didn't celebrate.

Because this wasn't a victory.

A victory meant something had gone right. This wasn't that.

This was everyone realizing they had spent three days punishing an injured creature because they were too busy looking for a threat.

I stepped out of containment a few minutes later. Mercer was waiting.

"So?"

I looked at him.

"Call Dr. Lyra."

Dr. Lyra arrived ten minutes later, already looking annoyed.

That was normal for Lyra.

Being a dryad meant she had spent centuries understanding nature. Her healing sap made her an exceptional doctor, far beyond human standards. Ironically, humans were still the one species she struggled to understand.

"What happened?"

I pointed toward the creature.

"Broken antler. Damaged wing."

She looked at me.

"And you figured that out how?"

"Observation."

She stared for a long moment before shaking her head.

Then she looked at Mercer and sighed.

"You're wasting your life here."

I smiled.

"Good morning to you too."

"I'm serious."

That made me stop.

Lyra crossed her arms.

"Mercer is always using you for dangerous operations"

I looked away.

"He needs someone who can do this."

"No." Her voice softened. "He needs someone who feels responsible enough to do something no one else wants to…"

I didn't answer.

Because she wasn't wrong.

And I hated that.

"You think this ability is your purpose."

"It's useful."

"That's not what I said."

I looked through the glass at the creature eating while the researchers rushed around it.

"This is the one thing I'm good at."

The words came out quieter than I intended.

Lyra's expression changed.

There it was.

The thing I always tried to hide.

Not fear.

Not sadness.

Something worse.

The belief that without this ability, I wasn't worth much.

"You were halfway through a psychology degree," she said. "You should be helping people through their problems, not drowning in your own."

"I already dropped out."

Lyra sighed.

"You don't have to keep punishing yourself because of what happened."

"I'm not."

She gave me that look. The one people always gave me. The one where they thought they understood me.

The worst part was...

They didn't.

They just felt sorry for me.

Before I could answer, Mercer stepped back into the room.

"Field Operations needs Behavioral support."

Lyra immediately turned.

"No."

Mercer looked at her.

"Excuse me?"

"He just spent the last hour calming an injured anomaly because your researchers couldn't recognize basic distress signals."

Mercer didn't react.

"Which is exactly why he's needed."

Lyra stepped forward.

"He's a person, Mercer."

"So are the civilians we're protecting."

"And if you keep sending him into situations like this, eventually you're going to push him too far."

Mercer looked at me.

"We aren't asking him to fight." He paused. "We're asking him to do what he does best."

Understand.

I hated that he knew exactly what to say.

Because the worst part was...

I wanted to go.

Two hours later, I was sitting on a transport plane heading toward Operation Black Birch.

An abandoned town.

Forty-seven miles from the nearest populated area.

Intelligence suggested a shapeshifting entity had infiltrated a civilian evacuation shelter.

The problem?

Nobody knew which person it was.

Eighty-six civilians.

One monster hiding among them.

The person sitting across from me was an intern named Rachel. She had been staring at me for almost ten minutes before she finally spoke.

"Sorry."

I looked up. "For what?"

"I just... I've heard about you."

I laughed. "That sounds worse than you probably meant it."

"No, I mean your work." She smiled. "No wonder Behavioral Analysis hired you."

I looked away.

"I didn't exactly apply."

She tilted her head. "No?"

I shook my head.

"I was halfway through my degree when they found me."

Before Rachel could ask another question, someone farther down the aircraft looked up from a folder.

Christian, an elf. Pointed ears. Silver hair tied neatly behind his head. Reading glasses balanced on the end of his nose.

He blinked.

"Wait."

The cabin fell quiet.

He looked at Rachel. "You seriously don't recognize him?"

Rachel frowned.

"Should I?"

The elf looked genuinely surprised.

"That's him." He pointed at me. "The sole survivor of the Vesper University massacre."

Silence settled over the cabin.

Then someone near the back muttered, "The boy who lived."

A few awkward laughs echoed through the aircraft.

I didn't join in.

Rachel's smile faded. She looked at me the same way Lyra had.

The same way almost everyone eventually did.

Pity.

I hated pity.

Fear was honest. Pity made people think they understood you.

They never did.

I wasn't brave. I wasn't special. I was just the person who happened to survive.

It was a Thursday night when it happened. An ordinary Thursday. No storms, no power outages, no warning that something terrible was about to happen.

I had spent the evening cramming for a literature exam I wasn't prepared for while my roommates argued over what movie to watch.

Just a normal night.

The kind you never think you'll remember.

Until you can't forget it.

The screaming started sometime after midnight.

At first, I thought my roommates were fighting again. That wasn't unusual. They argued about everything.

Then I heard another scream.

Then another.

I opened my door expecting to find another stupid argument.

Instead, I found him.

A man standing at the end of the hallway.

Not a monster. Not some ancient creature hiding behind a human face.

A man.

He was dressed entirely in black, and a pale mask covered his face. I couldn't see any emotion, any expression, anything that told me who he was.

Only two empty eyeholes staring back at me.

The knife in his hand looked black under the emergency lights. Not because of the blade itself. But because it was covered in blood.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

I was too terrified to do anything. I couldn't run. I couldn't scream. I could only stand there and wait for what I thought was going to happen.

Then he looked at me.

Not past me.

Not at the hallway behind me.

At me.

I still don't know how long we stood there.

A few seconds.

Maybe longer.

Then he lowered the knife, turned around.

And walked away.

He spared me.

Not because I fought him. Not because I escaped. Not because I did anything to deserve it.

He simply chose not to kill me.

By the time the police arrived, all seven of my roommates were dead.

The university called it an isolated tragedy. The media called it one of the worst mass murders in the town's history.

My psychologists called it the beginning of my condition.

Hyper-empathy.

They believed surviving something that traumatic changed the way my brain processed emotions. It wasn't immediate. It didn't happen overnight.

At first, I was just a survivor dealing with trauma.

Then, slowly, I started noticing things other people didn't.

Fear hidden behind anger.

Pain disguised as frustration.

Grief buried beneath silence.

To them, it was a trauma response.

To the Bureau, it was an ability.

To me, it was something I never wanted. 

The Bureau quickly classified the massacre as a suspected supernatural incident. They believed whatever happened that night wasn't entirely human.

Maybe they were right.

Maybe they weren't.

I never cared about their theories.

Because I knew what I saw.

I didn't see a monster.

I saw a man.

A man who looked me in the eyes after killing seven people...

And decided I should live.

Rachel's voice pulled me back.

"I'm... I'm sorry."

I forced a smile.

"It's fine."

It wasn't.

It never had been.

The cabin fell silent again.

No one knew what to say after that. 

But the silence didn't last long.

The pilot's voice crackled over the intercom.

"Approaching the operation zone. Five minutes."

The transport began its descent.

Mercer stood from his seat at the front of the cabin, and every conversation stopped. He tapped the holographic projector mounted to the wall.

A three-dimensional map of a small town appeared.

Rows of abandoned houses.

A church.

An elementary school.

An evacuation shelter highlighted in red.

"Eighty-six civilians were evacuated here six hours ago," Mercer said. "Field Operations intercepted evidence that a Level 3, C-class shapeshifter entered the shelter before lockdown."

The hologram zoomed in.

"Eighty-six civilians."

One red dot flashed.

"One of them isn't human."

Rachel frowned.

"Can't we screen them individually?"

"We already have," Mercer said without looking at her. "Blood tests. Thermal imaging. Silver exposure. Psychological profiling."

Nothing.

"The entity has defeated every identification method available."

An uncomfortable silence settled over the cabin.

Mercer continued.

"If it escapes the quarantine zone, projected civilian casualties exceed forty thousand within the first seventy-two hours."

Someone quietly swore.

Mercer looked at my side of the plane..

"Behavioral Analysis."

I nodded.

"We'll interview them."

"Good."

The aircraft touched down. The rear ramp lowered, and cold air rushed inside.

Outside, dozens of armored personnel surrounded the shelter. Snipers occupied nearby rooftops. Containment vehicles blocked every road leading out of town.

It looked less like a rescue operation...

And more like the beginning of a war.

The shelter had once been a high school gymnasium, but now it was packed wall to wall with frightened civilians. Children slept on cots while parents whispered to each other, and volunteers moved through the crowd handing out bottled water.

The moment I stepped inside, I felt it.

Fear.

Not one person's fear.

Everyone's.

It pressed against my chest like a weight.

Rachel looked around nervously. "I hate this."

"So do they."

She glanced at me. "What?"

I nodded toward the room. "They're terrified."

"I mean... obviously."

"No." I shook my head. "They're not afraid of the monster."

She frowned.

"They're afraid of us."

Her eyes drifted toward the soldiers lining the walls, rifles raised, faces hidden behind helmets. I couldn't blame the civilians. If armed soldiers burst into my shelter and refused to explain why, I'd be terrified too.

Mercer entered behind us.

"Report."

I looked around the room one more time before turning back to him. "I need time."

"How much?"

"A few hours."

Mercer's expression didn't change.

"You have thirty minutes."

"Thirty isn't enough."

"It's what you have."

He turned and walked away.

Rachel watched him leave.

"Does he always do that?"

"Ignore the people who know what they're talking about?"

She nodded.

"Yeah."

I smiled weakly.

"Pretty much."

Twenty-three minutes later, we still hadn't found anything.

My team had spoken to teachers, children, paramedics, and parents, but there wasn't a single inconsistency, not a single lie, and not a single emotional response that felt wrong.

Everything I sensed was exactly what I expected.

Confusion.

Exhaustion.

Fear.

Grief.

I rubbed my temples.

Something wasn't adding up.

Mercer's radio crackled.

"Director."

"Report."

"Research Division just updated their assessment. The shapeshifter has entered a secondary adaptation phase."

The shelter fell silent.

"Meaning?" Mercer asked.

"Current estimates suggest we have less than ten minutes before it fully adapts to its host. After that, it will remain hidden indefinitely."

Mercer turned to me.

"Behavioral?"

I looked around the shelter.

Eighty-six frightened civilians.

Eighty-six chances to miss one lie.

"I need more time."

"How long?"

"At least an hour."

"You have ten minutes."

"That's not enough."

"It's all we have."

Mercer looked toward the soldiers.

"Field Operations. Prepare Protocol Ash."

My stomach dropped.

"You can't do this." My voice echoed through the shelter. "They're people. They're innocent."

Mercer met my eyes without the slightest hint of anger.

"If the entity escapes," he said quietly, "forty thousand people die in the nearby city"

I stepped toward him.

"Then let me keep looking."

"You have ten minutes."

"That's not enough!"

"No." He held my gaze. "It isn't."

A long silence settled between us.

Then he said the words I'll never forget.

"People are going to die today."

Another pause.

"I'm trying to make sure only eighty-six do." 

Mercer gave a small nod.

The soldiers moved.

I lunged for him.

Hands like iron clamped around my arms before I got two steps.

"No!" I shouted, thrashing against their grip. "Please!"

I threw everything I had into breaking free.

The soldier werewolves barely had to try.

To them, I wasn't a threat. I was just another human to restrain.

I couldn't reach Mercer.

I couldn't reach the eighty-six innocent people staring at us in terror.

And suddenly...

I wasn't standing in a shelter anymore.

I was back in my dorm hallway.

Frozen.

Helpless.

Watching someone else decide who lived...

...and who died.

Then it hit me.

The crying.

The screaming.

The prayers.

Eighty-six terrified people, all convinced they were about to die.

Their fear crashed into me all at once.

My chest tightened.

I couldn't breathe.

I couldn't tell where my emotions ended and theirs began.

"Stop..." My voice cracked. "Please..."

Nobody moved.

Rachel was shouting my name, but she sounded impossibly far away.

My vision blurred.

Tears streamed down my face.

Not because I wanted to.

Because they did.

My stomach lurched.

Then I doubled over and vomited onto the gym floor.

The soldiers immediately let go of me.

"Ethan!"

Rachel caught me before I hit the ground.

I was shaking so hard my teeth chattered. Every emotion: terror, grief, panic, hopelessness….bled together until I couldn't tell which ones belonged to me anymore.

The last thing I saw was Rachel's face.

She wasn't looking at the soldiers.

She wasn't looking at Mercer.

She was looking at me...

...like she was watching someone come apart.

Then everything went black.

When I woke up, the ceiling wasn't the shelter. It was the medical wing.

Again.

"You're awake."

I turned my head and saw Lyra sitting beside the bed with her arms crossed. She looked exhausted.

"I told you this job is taking a toll on you."

I reached for the water sitting on the table beside me and drank.

"No."

Lyra stared at me.

"No?"

"I'm fine."

A long silence followed before she sighed.

"Ethan."

I froze.

She used my name.

That meant she was actually angry.

"You have already blacked out twice this week."

"It's fine."

Her expression hardened.

"You always say that."

I looked away because she was right. I always said that. But what else was I supposed to say? That sometimes I couldn't tell where my emotions ended and everyone else's began? That every disaster felt like I was experiencing it myself? That every person I failed stayed with me?

I put the cup down.

"I have work."

"Ethan—"

I stood up before she could continue and left.

I didn't get far.

The same elf from the aircraft stepped into my path, his hair now loose over his shoulders.

"I have good news."

I stared at Christian.

"That usually means there's bad news."

He smiled slightly.

"You're learning."

I waited.

"Director Mercer is in deep trouble."

I stopped.

"What?"

"He is being investigated."

I frowned.

"Why?"

The elf looked surprised.

"You haven't heard?"

"No."

He adjusted his glasses.

"The operation report came in."

My stomach tightened.

"The shelter?"

He nodded.

"Mercer ordered Protocol Ash."

"I know."

His expression became serious.

"The eighty-six civilians he killed..."

He paused.

"None of them were the entity."

I felt cold.

"What?"

"The imposter was never inside the shelter."

My mind went blank.

"Then where was it?"

The elf looked at me.

"It had already changed into a guard."

Silence.

"He was standing outside the shelter the entire time."

I couldn't speak.

All those emotions. All those people. All that fear.

Mercer hadn't saved them.

He had killed them.

The elf continued.

"The creature is contained now. Research Division believes it's a rare hybrid."

"Of what?"

He looked at me.

"A wendigo."

A pause.

"And a skinwalker."

The hallway felt colder.

"Highly dangerous."

I looked toward the Director's offices, toward where Mercer would be.

The man who had chosen numbers over names. The man who had looked at eighty-six people and seen a calculation.

And for the first time...

I wished he would have died instead.

The thought stayed with me because it wasn't just anger. It wasn't just grief. It was something darker.

A part of me genuinely wanted him gone.

And that scared me.

Because I had spent my entire life feeling too much. Other people's pain. Other people's fear. Other people's suffering.

Hyper-empathy was supposed to make me understand people.

But in that moment...

All it did was make me understand exactly why I hated him.

I found out later what happened to Mercer.

The Bureau didn't call it “prison”. They called it "removal". But everyone understood what that meant.

You couldn't simply leave this organization after learning the things we knew….the existence of anomalies, the creatures hiding among humanity, the things that lived outside reality itself. Information like that wasn't something you carried into retirement.

Mercer wasn't fired.

Not really.

He was contained.

The same way we contained everything else dangerous.

The irony wasn't lost on anyone. A man who had spent years deciding what was an acceptable loss had finally become one himself.

Unfortunately, we didn't have much time to celebrate because within an hour of Mercer's removal, we had a new problem.

A new Director.

Which was why I was standing inside the Board Room, the place where the highest decisions in the Bureau were made.

Lyra sat across from me, looking more tired than usual. And somehow, after everything I had seen, she was still the person who looked the most human in the room.

The others...

Were not.

Six seats surrounded the table.

Six department heads.

Six people responsible for keeping the Bureau alive.

The head of Containment was a giant.

Literally.

A stone-skinned being that looked like it had been carved from a mountain. The Bureau had discovered him centuries ago.

They were supposed to contain him.

Instead, they hired him.

Research belonged to Dr. Evelyn.

An elf whose knowledge of magical biology and supernatural history was considered unmatched.

Field Operations was led by Commander Voss.

A werewolf.

The kind of person soldiers followed without hesitation. Every combat agent, every extraction team, every person sent into places humans weren't meant to survive answered to him. He was also the reason every soldier in the organization was a werewolf.

Medical was Lyra.

A dryad.

A creature connected to life itself, now responsible for keeping both humans and monsters alive.

Administration was the strangest.

Director Adrian.

Half-human.

Half something the Bureau had never officially classified.

He was proof of what the world had spent centuries ignoring.

Monsters and humans weren't separate anymore.

They had been living together for generations.

Some used magic.

Some used technology.

Some used both.

Elves who didn't want their ears recognized used spells or even human cosmetic procedures to alter their appearance. Vampires changed identities every few decades. Werewolves learned to control their transformations and lived ordinary lives.

The supernatural world hadn't replaced humanity.

It had blended into it.

And after centuries of coexistence, the hardest thing wasn't finding the monsters.

It was knowing who was one.

Then there was Behavioral Analysis.

My department.

The seat Mercer had left behind.

Then the door opened.

Every conversation died instantly as a man walked in.

At first glance, he looked completely ordinary.

Early thirties. Dark hair. Perfectly tailored suit. Calm expression.

Then you looked closer.

And remembered he wasn't human.

The newly appointed….

Director Lucien.

A vampire.

Three hundred years old.

And yes...

The stories were true.

Every vampire was beautiful.

Not because they were trying to be.

Because evolution had made them that way.

Predators weren't supposed to look dangerous.

They were supposed to make you lower your guard.

Lucien had the kind of appearance that made people trust him before they even realized they were doing it. If he wasn't running Behavioral Analysis, he probably would have been on the cover of a luxury watch advertisement, standing in an expensive suit, looking mysterious while millions of people convinced themselves they could look like him.

But Lucien wasn't famous only because of his appearance.

He was also famous because he understood monsters.

Before becoming Director, he was one of the Bureau's greatest researchers. He had negotiated with creatures that had killed entire teams. He had convinced hostile entities to cooperate without a single weapon being drawn.

People joked that Lucien could walk into a room with a monster and leave with both sides signing a peace treaty.

The strange part was how he did it.

He never raised his voice.

Never lost control.

Never looked afraid.

At first, I thought it was confidence.

Then I watched him closer.

Lucien wasn't experiencing emotions.

He was copying them.

The slight concern in his eyes when someone spoke.

The small smile at the exact moment someone needed reassurance.

The carefully measured pauses before answering.

Everything was perfect.

Too perfect.

Most people saw empathy.

I saw a performance.

Not a fake one.

A practiced one.

Three hundred years of watching humans had taught Lucien exactly what they expected to see.

Fear.

Compassion.

Concern.

He could imitate all of them flawlessly.

And somehow...

That was more unsettling than if he couldn't understand emotions at all.

Everyone else in this room saw a man who understood them.

I saw someone who understood emotions so well...

he didn't need to feel them.

And for the first time since I joined the Bureau...

I reconsidered Behavioral Analysis.

Not because of Mercer.

Not because of the job.

Because of him.

Mr. Lucien…

Maybe Lyra had been right.

Maybe I should have listened when she told me to think carefully about this department.

Because Mercer had been easy to understand.

He was cold.

He was ruthless.

But Lucien...

Lucien was something else entirely.

After talking to the other directors he started surveilling the room.

Then his eyes landed on me.

And for a moment...

Neither of us spoke.

Then he smiled.

Not warmly.

Not coldly.

Just perfectly.

Precisely.

"Agent Ethan."

I felt something I couldn't explain.

Not fear.

Not discomfort.

Something closer to uncertainty.

Because for the first time in my life...

I was standing across from someone who can look at a person’s fear, sadness and love and understand exactly what they meant without ever feeling them.

Meanwhile I was drowning in everyone else’s emotions, never knowing where they ended and I began.

He was a man who could understand humanity without being human.

I was a man who felt humanity so deeply that I was losing myself. 

And somehow….
That was more terrifying than Mercer ever was.

Part 1: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. We Had to Make a Sacrifice This Time.

Part 2: I Went to Antarctica Looking for 10,000 Missing People. I Came Back With a New Boss.

Part 3: Apparently Using Assistants as Sacrifices Violates Company Policy

Part 4: I Work for an Organization That Hunts Gods. One of Them Warned Me About the Angel Following Me.

Part 5: My Boss Asked Me If I Thought He Was a Monster. Now I Know Why.

Part 6: The Most Powerful Being in the CSP Is Studying Humans. Unfortunately, I'm His Favorite Lab Rat.

Part 7: Someone Stole the Rifle Built to Kill Gods. Then They Pointed It at Me.

Part 8: I Thought Dating an Angel Was Bad. Something Wearing My Face Was Worse.

Part 9: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. The Feather Led Something to Us.

Part 10: I Work for an Organization That Contains Gods. Humanity Now Has a Single Point of Failure.

Part 11: CSP Sent a Team Into Hell. Nobody Came Back.

Part 12: The Thing That Terrified the Creator Is Now Holding My Hand

Part 13: I Was Prepared to Fight a Cult. Instead, I got a Family Reunion.

My blood froze as footsteps echoed through the chamber.

"My baby has come to visit me."

She emerged from the darkness as if she had simply been taking a quiet walk. White robes brushed against the stone floor, and her dark hair rested neatly over her shoulders.

I knew those eyes immediately.

They were the same eyes that watched every exam I brought home, every mistake I made, every moment where I wasn't enough.

My mother smiled.

Not like a fanatic.

Not like a monster.

Like a mother welcoming her children home.

"Oh..."

Her gaze settled on Remi first.

"How I've missed you."

She walked past Angelo without hesitation and placed a hand against one of the black chains wrapped around the giant's arm.

Immediately, every chain went still.

The giant lowered its head, not in defeat, but in obedience.

Mother smiled.

"As long as I possess his covenant, even a god has no choice but to obey me."

The chamber fell silent.

She wasn't overpowering him. She wasn't forcing him.

She simply possessed the authority he had willingly given her.

And somehow, that made everything worse.

I stayed behind Jacob, keeping myself hidden.

Mother hadn't noticed me yet.

Remi stepped forward before anyone else could react, raising her weapon and aiming it directly at our mother's head.

"You still look at me with the same eyes."

Mother only smiled.

"I left that house years ago."

The words came from Remi quietly, almost like a confession.

Mother stared at her.

"You did."

The answer was so simple that it hurt more than denial.

"I will not let you manipulate me again."

Mother ignored the weapon completely.

Instead, she looked at Remi the same way she used to look at us when we were children, like a disappointed parent watching a child make a mistake.

Then she laughed softly.

In amusement.

"Oh?"

She tilted her head.

"You still believe leaving accomplished something?"

Remi's grip tightened around her weapon.

"Yes."

There was a pause before she continued.

"I escaped you."

Mother studied Remi carefully.

"You've changed."

Her smile softened.

"You used to stand exactly like this. Always putting yourself between me and your sister."

Then her eyes shifted.

Toward me.

My stomach dropped.

She had noticed.

For a moment, she only stared.

The same expression from my childhood returned.

Disappointment.

"And you..."

Her voice softened.

Not with kindness.

With accusation.

"Why did you leave me too?"

The chamber went silent as every eye turned toward me.

"Just like your older sister."

The words struck exactly where she wanted them to.

That was how she always controlled us.

She never asked what happened. She never cared why.

She only made us feel responsible for the pain she caused.

Before anyone could stop me, I stepped past Jacob.

My hands shook, and my breathing became uneven, but I kept walking.

"No."

My voice cracked.

"You don't get to stand there and pretend you're the victim."

Mother didn't move.

"I left because you were insane."

The words echoed through the chamber.

"Not because I hated you. Not because I abandoned you. Because I finally realized nothing I did would ever be enough."

I pointed at her, unable to hide the anger that had been building for years.

Then I looked at Remi.

"And you..."

My anger shifted.

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

Remi froze.

The words felt heavier than I expected as they left my mouth.

"You walked out of that house... and I stayed."

My throat tightened as I looked back at Mother.

"She kept me there. She controlled everything. She made me believe nobody was coming back."

My vision blurred as memories I had buried for years forced their way back.

"I told myself you were making a plan. That you were getting stronger. That there had to be a reason."

I swallowed.

"But you never came."

Remi didn't answer.

A quiet laugh escaped me, but there was no humor behind it.

"Do you know how stupid I felt?"

My voice shook as I looked directly at her.

"Everyone told me you abandoned me, but I told them they were wrong."

The chamber remained silent.

"I told them that my sister would never do that."

I looked down.

"I believed in you."

For the first time since I met Director Remi, her control finally broke.

"I..."

Her hand slowly rose to her temple as she struggled to understand something she had spent years trying to ignore.

"I remember leaving."

Nobody moved.

"I remember making a bargain."

Her breathing became uneven.

"Eight years ago, when I fought Evergrove, I was dying. I needed a way to survive."

She closed her eyes.

"And a spirit offered me one."

Her fingers tightened.

"But nothing involving a god is ever given freely."

The room became silent.

"What did you give up?" I asked.

Remi opened her eyes, and for the first time since I had known her, I saw fear.

"I….I didn't give up my strength or my life."

Her voice trembled.

"I gave up a memory."

A chill ran through me.

She looked at me, and that was when I understood.

"The memory of who I promised to return to."

Nobody spoke.

"I remember making the promise. I remember knowing there was someone waiting for me."

Her voice cracked.

"I remember wanting to come back."

She looked down.

"But I don't remember you."

The words hurt more than anything else she could have said because I could see the truth in her expression.

She genuinely didn't remember me.

"After I survived, ESR found me."

Her expression hardened.

"I spent years searching for Mother. Every rumor. Every trace. Every lead."

She looked around the chamber.

"Because I knew something was missing."

A pause followed.

"I just didn't know what."

Her eyes returned to Mother.

"But now I understand."

The silence stretched.

"She wasn't hiding from me."

Mother said nothing.

"She was building this."

For a moment, Mother remained completely still.

Then she looked directly at me as she laughed softly, almost gently, like she was watching something entertaining.

"You spent years waiting for someone who couldn't remember you."

Her gaze shifted toward Remi.

"And you spent years forgetting the only person who was waiting for you."

Nobody spoke because that was what made her dangerous.

She wasn't completely lying.

She had always known exactly how to twist the truth until it became something cruel.

She never needed to force us to hate each other.

She only needed to make us believe we were the reason the other one suffered.

Her smile widened.

"So tell me..."

Her voice softened.

"...which one of you suffered more?"

Remi didn't answer.

She stood there, clutching her temples, fighting against something buried deep inside her own mind.

A wall she couldn't break through.

A memory she couldn't reach.

Me.

I looked back at Mother.

For years, she had made us fight over who suffered more, as if pain was something that needed to be measured.

"Suffered more?"

Mother's smile faded slightly.

I stared directly at her.

"How about why we suffered at all?"

The chamber went silent.

For the first time, her expression changed.

Only slightly.

But I saw it.

She hadn't expected that answer.

If she wanted to play games, then fine.

I would play.

But not by her rules.

My eyes shifted toward Remi.

"She left because of you. She made that bargain because of you. I spent years believing she abandoned me because that's exactly what you wanted.”

The chamber remained silent.

Mother didn't respond.

"And I left because of you."

My voice tightened.

A pause.

"I left because I was trying to escape you."

My voice grew colder.

"And where did I end up?"

I looked around the chamber.

"CSP."

A bitter laugh escaped me.

"An organization where people disappear every day. Where teams enter places they never return from. Where every mission could be the one that kills you."

I looked directly at her.

"Because I thought there was nothing left for me."

Silence filled the chamber.

"But I was wrong about that too."

My eyes moved toward Remi.

"Because she was still trying to come back."

Mothers gaze flickered towards Remi.

"You make us blame each other for our suffering"

My voice lowered.

"But you are the reason."

I looked at Remi.

"She didn't abandon me."

Then back at Mother.

"You did."

The words echoed through the chamber.

For the first time, Mother didn't immediately answer.

There was no mocking smile.

No clever response.

No attempt to twist my words into something else.

Nothing.

And that was when I realized something.

She wasn't angry because I had insulted her.

She was angry because I had taken away the one thing she always had.

Control.

For years, she had decided what we believed.

Who we blamed.

Who we hated.

But standing there, in that chamber, she wasn't the one telling the story anymore.

I was.

"So tell me..."

I stared at her.

"If you want to know who suffered more..."

I took another step forward.

"Why don't you answer something else first?"

The chamber held its breath.

"Why did we suffer at all?"

Nobody spoke.

Because there was no answer that could make what she did acceptable.

Not a god.

Not a covenant.

Not a reason.

Nothing.

Mother looked at me for a long moment.

Then...

she smiled.

"There it is."

Her voice wasn't angry.

It was almost proud.

"You finally learned to stand up to me."

I frowned.

"What?"

She gestured toward us.

"Look at yourselves."

She looked between Remi and me.

"You both survived horrors that would have shattered most people, and you still found the courage to stand here."

She spread her arms slightly.

"Do you honestly believe that happened despite me?"

Nobody answered.

Mother looked at me with something that almost resembled pity.

"Your father..." she said with a quiet sigh. "He was a violent man."

Nobody argued because we all knew it was true.

"He hit me. He hit you. He screamed until the walls shook."

She looked around the chamber, letting the silence settle before continuing.

"Do you know what happened after every fight?"

Her eyes settled on me.

"Wasnt I still there for you?"

The words hung in the air.

"He was weak. Violence was all he understood." A faint smile crossed her face. "I…I gave your suffering a purpose."

Mother laughed softly, as if she was explaining something obvious.

"Children are not forged through comfort. Steel is tempered by fire."

She stepped closer, her expression almost gentle.

"Every sacrifice, every lesson, every tear you cursed me for made you into the people standing before me today."

My stomach twisted.

"You call it abuse."

She shook her head.

"I call it love."

The words echoed through the chamber.

"A mother does not raise children for the world they wish existed. She raises them for the world that does."

Her eyes shifted toward the chained god beside her.

"If I had held you, protected you, and given you the happy childhood you wanted..."

She smiled sadly.

"You would both be dead."

Silence followed.

Her smile returned.

"And yet you stand here condemning the person who made that possible."

She tilted her head.

"Tell me... shouldn't you be thanking me?"

For a moment, nobody answered.

Then I laughed.

It wasn't bitter. It wasn't angry.

It was the laugh of someone who had finally heard something so impossible to believe that there was nothing else left to do.

"You're wrong."

Mother's expression shifted slightly.

I stared directly at her.

"You're so wrong."

My voice grew steadier.

"You keep looking at who I am now and pretending that's who I became because of you."

I took a step forward.

"Do you know where CSP found me?"

She didn't answer.

"Not on a battlefield. Not fighting monsters. Not saving lives."

My throat tightened.

"They found me in a psychiatric hospital."

The chamber fell completely silent.

"Because I had failed to kill myself."

Nobody moved.

My voice cracked.

"I wasn’t strong…. I was broken."

I looked at her, remembering every word I had spent years believing.

"I spent years believing everything you told me. That I wasn't enough. That nobody would ever love me. That Remi abandoned me. That Father never cared."

I swallowed.

"By the time CSP found me, I believed the world would be better without me."

My eyes never left hers.

"So don't you dare stand there and tell me you made me strong."

My voice rose.

"You didn't make me strong."

"You made me want to die."

The silence afterward felt heavier than anything else.

I took another step as I pressed a hand against my chest.

"I lived because of me. I survived because I refused to die believing I was worthless, like you always told me I was."

A tear slipped down my face.

"But I didn't become strong because of you."

I looked at the people standing beside me.

"I became strong despite you."

My gaze moved toward Jacob.

"Then I found people who became a better family than you could ever be."

A small smile appeared despite everything.

My eyes moved toward Remi.

"She came back for me."

Then finally, I looked at Angelo.

"And some people even taught me how to love."

I turned back toward Mother.

"So don't stand there and ask me to thank you."

My voice became cold.

"The only thing you ever gave me was a reason to never become anything like you."

For the first time, Mother looked annoyed.

"Anything like me?"

She let out a quiet laugh.

"You wish you could be."

Her eyes moved across the chamber, toward the chains wrapped around the god and the impossible power she controlled.

"You stand there pretending you've won because you've learned to hate me, but you still don't understand."

Her smile slowly returned.

"I have accomplished what every civilization in history has dreamed of."

She looked directly at me.

"They worshipped gods. I mastered one.”

“And now…I’M BECOMING ONE." 

The words remained hanging in the air as she turned toward the chained god. 

The moment her hand touched the chains, cracks spread across the floor. Stone split beneath our feet as the entire chamber began to collapse.

Then Angelo moved.

Not slowly.

Not cautiously.

He ran straight toward me.

"Move!"

I barely had time to react.

"What?"

Before I could understand, massive wings erupted from his back, sending dust and debris flying through the chamber. The force of it shook the ground beneath us.

"Angelo—"

But he was already grabbing me.

A deafening roar shook the room.

"Remi!"

I turned just in time to see a massive hand burst through the floor and shoot toward her.

She fired every weapon she had.

It didn't matter.

The hand closed around her before anyone could reach her.

For one horrifying second, I thought she was gone.

Then the fingers snapped.

Three enormous fingers crashed onto the stone floor as Remi tore herself free.

She didn't stop to look back.

She ran.

"Run!"

The floor collapsed behind her.

More hands began forcing their way through the cracks.

The god wasn't a god anymore. Its body twisted into something older than worship, something built only for destruction. .

What stood beneath us was no longer a being of worship.

It was something ancient.

Something monstrous.

Something created for destruction.

Mother stood on its back, watching everything unfold with a smile.

The woman who had spent her entire life trying to become something greater than human had finally succeeded.

Her smiling face looked less like a god and more…

Like a mother who had finally gotten everything she wanted.

Angelo lifted me into the air as the chamber collapsed beneath us. Wind tore against my face as his wings carried us upward, while stone fell around us and the walls cracked apart.

Cold air rushed through the ruins as we escaped the underground chamber.

For the first time in what felt like forever, I felt the outside world again.

But we weren't safe.

Behind us, Mother emerged from the collapsing ruins, riding the creature that had once been a god.

And she was coming for us.

The moment we reached the surface, the entire structure collapsed in on itself. Jacob landed beside us, his face pale as he stared back toward the destroyed entrance.

"What..."

He struggled to find the words.

"What is that?"

Angelo's expression changed.

Not anger.

Not hatred.

Something far worse.

Recognition.

"That is impossible."

Mother tilted her head.

"Is it?"

The creature beneath her shifted, its body stretching upward as it reshaped itself with every movement. A thousand different forms appeared and vanished within seconds.

A dragon.

A giant.

Something with too many limbs.

Something that looked almost human.

Almost.

Jacob took a step back.

"Angelo..."

The angel didn't answer.

His eyes never left Mother.

"You angels have spent millennia trying to understand what separates humans from gods."

Mother smiled.

"And you spent millennia believing the answer was that humans were beneath them."

Her hand rested against the creature's surface.

The ground cracked beneath us as a wave of pressure rolled across the battlefield.

Angelo looked at me.

Not at Mother.

Not at the creature.

At me.

The wind tore through the battlefield as pieces of the ruined structure collapsed behind us. His wings remained spread, and his expression stayed calm, but I knew him well enough by now.

Something was different.

"Nayeri."

My name sounded different coming from him.

Almost careful.

Almost gentle.

"Do I have permission..."

He paused.

His eyes returned to Mother.

"...to kill your mother?"

Everything went silent.

Even Jacob looked at him.

Because Angelo didn't ask for permission.

Not from anyone.

Not from the Board.

Not from gods.

Not from humanity itself.

But he was asking me.

I stared at him.

For years, I had imagined this moment.

Standing in front of her.

Facing the person who had destroyed our lives.

I imagined anger.

I imagined wanting revenge.

But now that she was standing there, now that the woman who had controlled every part of my childhood was finally vulnerable, I felt something else.

Exhaustion.

Mother watched us.

And somehow...

she smiled.

"How touching."

Her voice carried across the battlefield.

"The angel needs your approval."

Angelo ignored her.

His eyes never left mine.

Because this wasn't about her.

It was about me.

About whether I was still the child who waited for her.

Or the person I had become.

I looked at Mother.

At the creature beneath her.

At the woman who had spent years convincing us that our pain was love.

That breaking us was the only way to build us.

Then I looked back at Angelo.

My voice was barely above a whisper.

"Angelo..."

He waited.

I swallowed.

"I don't know if I can forgive her."

Mother's smile widened slightly.

"But..."

I looked directly at her.

"I don't want to become her."

For the first time, Angelo's expression softened.

Only slightly.

"I understand."

The ground shook again.

Mother laughed.

"Still clinging to morality?"

She raised her hand, and the creature behind her moved.

"You angels always were obsessed with rules."

Angelo stepped forward.

"No."

His voice changed.

The warmth disappeared.

"The difference between us..."

His wings expanded behind him.

"...is that I follow them because I choose to."

A heavy silence followed.

Mother's smile faded.

Angelo looked at me one last time.

"Then tell me."

The battlefield seemed to hold its breath.

"Will you be alright if I stop holding back?"

I looked at her.

The woman who had spent years trying to convince me that everything I became belonged to her.

And finally, I understood.

She had spent my entire life trying to control my choices, my emotions, and my future.

But this choice...

This one belonged to me.

I stepped forward.

"Angelo."

He waited.

My voice steadied.

"Don't kill her because of what she did to me."

Mother's smile returned.

For a moment, she thought she had won.

Until I finished.

"Kill her because of what she is about to do to everyone else."

The smile disappeared.

Angelo closed his eyes.

For a brief moment, he looked almost sad.

Then he opened them.

And the battlefield changed.

"Permission granted."

The air itself seemed to freeze.

Mother stared at him.

"You would really destroy a human?"

Angelo's wings spread wider.

"No."

A pause.

"I would stop a monster."

And for the first time...

Mother looked afraid.

She stared at him, and the amusement that had been present moments ago was gone.

She no longer looked like someone in control.

She looked uncertain.

"You think you can stop me?"

Behind her, the creature roared.

The sound tore through the sky as the ground split apart. Mountains of flesh and distorted reality rose above us as the thing that had once been a god continued to lose any sense of a true form.

Its body shifted constantly, every second becoming something new.

Something larger.

Something more impossible.

It wasn't searching for a shape anymore.

It was searching for one capable of killing us.

Mother raised her hand.

The creature obeyed.

"Look at what I have achieved."

Her voice echoed across the battlefield.

"A human who surpassed gods."

Angelo stared at her.

For a moment, I thought he would speak.

A warning.

A final chance.

Some reminder that there was still a line she shouldn't cross.

He didn't.

He simply moved.

I didn't see him disappear.

One moment, he was standing beside me.

The next, he was standing directly in front of Mother.

The impact came afterward.

A shockwave erupted across the battlefield as the air itself bent around them.

The creature froze.

Not because it had been injured.

Because it had realized something.

It was afraid.

Mother's expression changed.

"What..."

Angelo stood there with one hand raised, holding back the creature's attack.

A being that had shattered mountains.

A creature that had forced reality itself to change around it.

Stopped.

By one hand.

Mother slowly stepped backward.

"No."

Her voice became quieter.

"You were holding back."

Angelo said nothing.

Because she had finally understood.

The realization spread across her face.

All those years.

All those plans.

All those sacrifices.

She had believed she had created something beyond humanity.

Something capable of challenging angels.

But she had never understood the difference between them.

The creature had power.

Angelo had authority. 

The god attacked again.

Thousands of limbs erupted from its body, each one carrying enough force to destroy anything standing in its path.

Angelo sighed.

Not in anger.

Not in frustration.

Almost in disappointment.

"You misunderstood something."

He reached forward and grabbed one of the limbs.

The entire creature stopped.

"Power is not what makes something a god."

The limb began cracking in his hand.

"It is responsibility."

The creature screamed.

Angelo tightened his grip.

"And you gave neither to yourself..."

A pause.

"...nor to it."

The limb shattered.

The sound echoed across the battlefield.

The creature recoiled.

Mother stared in disbelief.

"No..."

Angelo looked at her.

"You were never a threat."

The words struck harder than any attack could have.

Not because they were meant to insult her.

Because they revealed the truth.

"I was just trying to be careful."

Silence followed.

Mother froze.

Angelo's expression hardened.

"Because you were her mother."

My breath caught.

He continued.

"Because I knew what killing you would do to Nayeri."

Mother looked at me.

For the first time...

there was uncertainty in her eyes.

"You..."

Angelo stepped forward.

His wings slowly expanded behind him as the battlefield went silent. Mother's expression twisted.

"You were afraid."

Angelo looked at her.

"No."

There was a pause.

"I was respecting her."

His eyes shifted toward me.

"That was the only reason you survived this long."

Mother went still because she finally understood.

She thought she had found a way to surpass an angel.

But the truth was much simpler.

He could have ended this whenever he wanted.

He just refused to take away my choice.

The creature charged, and the ground disappeared beneath its weight as reality twisted around it. But Angelo didn't move. Not until the last possible second.

Then he raised his hand.

A single feather of light appeared between his fingers.

The entire battlefield went silent because everyone recognized it. The same authority that had erased gods. The same power that had forced ancient beings to kneel.

The creature stopped.

Angelo looked at it, and for the first time, he looked sad.

"You were never a god."

The feather touched its chest.

"You were a victim."

Light spread across the creature's body. Then the creature simply stopped.

The countless forms it had taken began disappearing as its impossible body collapsed inward. The being that had threatened reality itself vanished.

Mother stood alone.

Human.

For the first time.

Her eyes widened.

"No..."

Angelo walked toward her slowly.

"You wanted to become something greater than human."

He stopped in front of her.

"But you forgot something."

His voice remained calm.

"Being human was never the weakness."

Mother looked at me almost desperately.

"Little bug..."

I didn't answer because for once, I didn't need to.

Angelo looked back at her, and then I understood.

This wasn't revenge.

It wasn't hatred.

It wasn't anger.

It was something far colder.

Justice.

"I am not doing this because I hate you."

His voice was quiet.

"I am doing this because you were given every opportunity to stop."

Mother opened her mouth, but no words came out.

For once, she had nothing to manipulate, nothing to twist, and nothing to take from us.

Angelo raised his hand, and the woman who spent her entire life trying to become a god finally met something far older than gods.

A guardian.

A judge.

An angel.

The light consumed her.

And then there was nothing.

No scream.

No final words.

No miracle.

Just silence.

I stood there, staring at the empty battlefield. Because after everything, after all the years I spent imagining defeating her, I realized something.

Angelo never needed permission to win.

He needed permission to stop holding back.

The plane was quiet.

For once, there were no alarms, no gods, and no impossible creatures trying to destroy reality.

Just the sound of the engines.

I sat by the window, staring out at the clouds below us while Angelo was lying back beside me with his eyes closed, pretending to be asleep.

I knew he was pretending because Angelo didn't need sleep. Not really. He could probably spend a thousand years awake and act like it was nothing.

Across from us, Jacob had been staring at me for the last twenty minutes.

"Nayeri."

I sighed.

"Jacob."

"Are you okay?"

I looked at him.

"I'm fine."

He nodded, but a few seconds later he spoke again.

"Nayeri."

"What?"

"Are you sure you're okay?"

I closed my eyes.

"Jacob."

"I'm just asking."

"You've asked me that about ten billion times."

He looked genuinely concerned.

"Okay, but have you considered that maybe the tenth billion time is the one where you actually answer honestly?"

I stared at him, then looked away.

I couldn't even argue with that.

Jacob had always been like that.

He never understood the idea of leaving people alone when they were hurting. Probably because he grew up with something I never had.

A mother who loved him.

Someone who made him feel safe.

Someone who never made him question whether he deserved to be cared about.

I looked toward him, and despite everything, I was grateful he was there.

Remi sat beside me quietly. For most of the flight, she hadn't said much.

She didn't need to.

We had already talked.

Really talked.

She told me everything about Evergrove, about the god that had taken humans and forced them to become The Manager, about the nightmare she survived, and about how ESR eventually found her.

The organization that gave her somewhere to go when she had nothing left.

The same organization that helped her rebuild her life.

And eventually made her its leader.

For years, I thought she had forgotten me.

But the truth was somehow both better and worse.

She never stopped searching.

She just couldn't remember what she was searching for.

A strange silence settled between us before I finally looked at her.

"So..."

She glanced over.

"Hm?"

I smiled slightly.

"You married, huh?"

For a second, she looked confused. Then her expression softened.

"Yeah."

She paused, then raised an eyebrow.

"Wait. How did you know?"

I gave her a look.

"You're married to our director, Morozov. Obviously I knew."

Her eyes widened.

"Morozov?"

I nodded.

She stared before slowly realizing.

"Oh."

She laughed quietly.

"Yeah, I forgot."

I blinked.

"You forgot?"

She looked embarrassed.

"That's the name he uses in CSP."

I frowned.

"What?"

She gave me a sheepish smile.

"He goes by Dante in ESR."

I stared at her.

"Dante?"

A pause.

"Wait... Dante as in the Dante from the evergrove story you told me a few minutes ago?"

She nodded.

"Yeah."

I looked at her.

"I married him."

I just stared.

"Why does he have two names?"

"Privacy reasons."

She shrugged.

"I go by different names in different organizations too. The only exceptions are ESR and CSP."

She laughed.

"This name change always creates confusion."

I couldn't help but smile.

It was strange seeing that expression on her face. That small, embarrassed smile.

It reminded me of when we were younger.

Before everything happened.

Before Mother.

Before we became people who only knew how to survive.

"So why him?"

The question came out more honestly than I expected.

Remi looked at me.

"You mean why did I marry him?"

I nodded.

She thought for a moment.

Then answered simply.

"Because he saved me."

I stayed quiet.

"He saved me from Evergrove. He was the one who brought ESR to me. He helped me rebuild it. Helped me become the person I am today."

She smiled slightly.

"So when you ask why him..."

She looked at me.

"I think the answer is pretty obvious."

I looked toward Angelo.

"Yeah..."

A small smile formed.

"I guess some things are just meant to be."

Remi followed my gaze.

Then she smiled.

"I figured."

I looked at her.

"Huh?"

She pointed slightly toward Angelo.

"You and the angel."

I froze.

A grin slowly appeared on her face.

"I have to admit..."

She leaned closer.

"My brother-in-law is kind of a looker."

My entire face turned red, and I immediately looked away.

"We aren't married..."

Remi blinked.

"Really?"

Before I could answer, Angelo spoke.

"We are getting married in 10 months."

I turned.

My eyes widened.

"Angelo!"

He opened one eye.

"What?"

"You can't just say that!"

He looked genuinely confused.

"I have been made aware that one stays in a relationship for a year before marriage."

There was complete silence.

Then Remi started laughing.

Not a small laugh.

A real laugh.

The kind I hadn't heard from her in years.

Meanwhile, I just wanted to disappear.

Jacob looked between us, then smiled.

He had that expression.

The one that said he had just found a new source of entertainment.

I pointed at Angelo.

"You are impossible."

"I have been told that."

Remi was still laughing when, as if she had suddenly remembered something, she looked back at me.

"Dante is going to lose his mind when I tell him you're my sister."

I smirked.

"Why?"

She chuckled.

"Did he tell you something about me?"

"Only a couple things."

I raised an eyebrow.

"Such as?"

She smiled.

"That you are a hard-headed, stubborn agent."

I stared at her.

"Seriously?"

She nodded.

"Those were his exact words."

I looked away.

"Screw him."

Remi laughed.

"Well, you can tell him I don't want Mr. Iceman as my brother-in-law either."

That made her laugh even harder.

A quiet moment passed before Jacob finally spoke.

"Okay."

We both looked at him.

He had the expression of someone who had just received the most confusing information of his entire life.

"So let me get this straight."

He pointed between us.

"Your sister is married to Director Morozov."

I nodded.

"And Director Morozov is actually Dante from ESR."

Remi nodded.

"And Dante saved Director Remi from a god-controlling department store."

She nodded again.

Jacob looked at me.

"And Nayeri and Angelo are getting married in 10 months?"

Remi looked at me with the biggest grin imaginable.

Jacob looked at me for a moment before giving me a look I recognized immediately.

The same look I gave him whenever I teased him about Elior.

I sighed.

"I hate all of you."

Nobody believed me.

Especially not Angelo.

Because there was the smallest hint of amusement on his face.

I found myself smiling back.

And for the first time in a long while, it felt like the world wasn't ending.

There was no mission.

No god.

No apocalypse.

Just us.

A very strange, very complicated family.

And somehow... that was enough.

Part 12: [The Thing That Terrified the Creator Is Now Holding My Hand](https://www.reddit.com/r/Nonsleep/comments/1v5028d/the\_thing\_that\_terrified\_the\_creator\_is\_now/)

If there was one thing I had learned about the Executive Board, it was that no meeting ever meant anything good.

The room was unusually quiet. Director Stonehill stood at the head of the table, reviewing a stack of reports while Director Morozov silently read through another file projected in front of him. Madam Leni sat beside him, patiently waiting for the meeting to begin.

Nobody spoke.

I wasn't really paying attention.

My thoughts were still back in the apartment.

Noah had refused to let go of Angelo's hand even in his sleep. Eventually, Angelo had managed to carefully slide his hand free without waking him, although it had taken far longer than either of us expected. The moment Noah frowned in his sleep, Elior had quietly walked over and sat beside the bed.

***"I will remain with him."***

Angelo had looked at his nephew.

*"You are certain?"*

***"Yes."***

Elior's gaze had shifted toward the sleeping child.

***"I believe he should wake to someone familiar."***

A few moments later, Noah had shifted in his sleep and grabbed onto Elior's sleeve without even opening his eyes.

Elior hadn't moved after that.

Not once.

When I left the apartment, he was still sitting exactly where he had been, reading one of the children's books Research had somehow managed to deliver within thirty minutes of Noah existing.

"Agent Nayeri."

Stonehill's voice pulled me back into reality.

I straightened in my chair.

"Sorry, Director."

Stonehill didn't comment. Instead, he touched the holographic display in front of him, causing a map to appear above the table.

A chain of islands appeared in the middle of the ocean, thousands of miles away from the nearest major civilization.

"Our latest intelligence concerns an isolated settlement on Jan Mayen Island."

The room immediately became more focused.

"The island has remained largely abandoned for decades," Jacob continued. "Three months ago, satellite imagery detected construction that should not exist."

The image changed.

Dozens of buildings surrounded a mountain that had never appeared on previous surveys.

Another image followed.

People.

Hundreds of them.

All dressed in identical clothing, standing perfectly still, the figures in the photograph looked less like a group of people and more like a single organism waiting for a command.

"CSP has confirmed the existence of an organized religious movement," Jacob said.

Madam Leni folded her hands. "A cult?"

Jacob nodded. "They refer to themselves as The Children of the First Light."

Stonehill continued, his expression unreadable. "Over the last eighteen months, more than four hundred missing persons have been connected to the island."

Nobody interrupted because everyone already understood what that meant.

"They are performing ritual sacrifices to a god."

The words settled over the room, heavier than anyone wanted to acknowledge.

General Hayes was the first to respond.

"Who is the leader?"

Stonehill looked toward Morozov.

"We don't have a confirmed identity yet," he said. "Our intelligence suggests they operate from the central structure, but whoever is in control has avoided all surveillance attempts."

Morozov tapped the display, causing a new image to appear above the table.

The photograph showed the largest building within the settlement.

Unlike the surrounding structures, it appeared older, almost as if it had been carved directly into the mountain itself. No windows. No visible entrances. No signs of ordinary activity.

Just a massive structure standing in the center of the complex.

"All known activity originates from here," Morozov explained. "The individuals inside have not been identified."

Stonehill studied the image for a moment before continuing.

"Whatever is happening on Jan Mayen Island, the person responsible has remained hidden."

He tapped the screen again, causing a new symbol to appear beside the CSP logo.

A symbol I recognized immediately.

"Eidolon Systems Research."

Jacob leaned slightly toward me.

"That's the sister organization, right?"

I nodded.

Unlike CSP, which usually operated away from the public eye in isolated locations, ESR specialized in dealing with threats hidden within civilization.

Their missions weren't ancient temples, abandoned facilities, or places nobody would notice.

They went into cities.

They handled entities that had been living among humanity for years without anyone realizing.

Most of their work involved gods, especially ones that had managed to blend into the human world.

"When CSP can't contain something, ESR is sent to eliminate it."

"Sometimes permanently," Madam Leni added.

The room became quiet because everyone understood what that meant.

ESR wasn't brought in for things that could simply be locked away.

They were brought in when something had already crossed the line.

Stonehill continued.

"The head of ESR has personally requested to accompany this mission."

That caught my attention.

"The head?"

Morozov nodded.

"Yes."

Jacob frowned.

"Why?"

Morozov looked toward the screen.

"Because the leader has yet to be identified."

He paused.

"Sending CSP alone into an unknown situation involving an A-class entity and an unidentified organization would be an unnecessary risk."

His eyes shifted toward the group.

"ESR's involvement provides additional support if the situation exceeds CSP's containment capabilities."

A moment of silence followed.

"Which is why I approved the request."

General Hayes raised an eyebrow. "Director Morozov, are you certain that was the only factor involved?"

The room became slightly quieter.

Morozov slowly turned toward him. "What are you implying?"

Before Hayes could answer, Madam Leni calmly interrupted.

"I am certain Director Morozov is capable of separating his personal and professional responsibilities."

She glanced toward him.

"His wife being the head of ESR has nothing to do with his approval of this request."

The room went silent.

I blinked.

Wait.

His wife?

I looked toward Morozov, then back toward Madam Leni, then toward Morozov again.

Director Morozov...

The same man who looked like he had never experienced a positive emotion in his entire existence...

was married?

Someone had actually looked at this cold, terrifying man and thought:

Yes. That's the person I want to spend my life with.

I was still trying to process that information when I heard a quiet sound from the other side of the room.

A snicker.

I slowly turned.

Jacob cleared his throat. "I apologize."

He failed to sound even remotely apologetic.

Madam Leni continued as if nothing had happened.

"The head of ESR will meet you on-site."

She looked toward me.

"Agent Nayeri."

Then toward Jacob.

"Agent Jacob."

There was a brief pause.

"Good luck."

Something about the way she said those words made them sound less like a farewell and more like a warning.

Instinctively, I looked toward Angelo.

He noticed immediately.

*"You appear concerned."*

I sighed.

"CSP has dealt with a lot of impossible things. But ESR is different. They don't get involved unless something has already gone beyond what we can handle."

A pause.

"And now they're sending their director."

He considered my words for a moment.

*"Yes, I would also be concerned."*

Somehow, that was both comforting and terrifying.

The next hour was spent in the preparation room. Armor, weapons, briefings, emergency procedures. Everything CSP did before walking into a situation where reality itself might decide to stop cooperating.

The only difference this time was that something about this mission felt wrong.

I couldn't explain it.

Maybe it was the cult. Maybe it was the A-class entity waiting for us.

Or maybe it was just instinct.

And my instincts were telling me this wasn't going to end well.

When we finally boarded the transport, I found myself sitting silently beside Angelo. He didn't ask if I was okay because he already knew I wasn't.

Instead, he just sat beside me.

And somehow, that was enough.

Two hours later, we reached Jan Mayen Island.

The moment the aircraft doors opened, the cold hit us immediately.

The landscape stretched endlessly in every direction, covered in snow and surrounded by mountains that disappeared into the clouds. There was almost nothing here, nothing except the settlement waiting in the distance.

Forty-five CSP agents stepped onto the ground with me.

Two hundred soldiers followed behind them.

Two hundred and forty-five people.

That was only CSP.

ESR had brought another one hundred and thirty soldiers, bringing the total number of armed personnel to three hundred and seventy-five.

Three hundred and seventy-five people sent to confront a cult.

Some would call that excessive.

Honestly, I called it reassuring.

When we finally reached the site, the first thing I noticed was that it wasn't a settlement.

At least, not anymore.

The structure stood in the middle of the frozen landscape like something that had been carved directly into the mountain itself, ancient and unmoving against the endless snow. But it wasn't alone.

Five additional structures surrounded it in a perfect circle, each one positioned at an equal distance from the central building. From above, the entire complex looked less like a village and more like some kind of ritual symbol.

The central structure was the largest. The five surrounding buildings were smaller, but somehow they were more unsettling.

Each one had a different design.

One was covered in strange markings carved deep into the stone. Another had hundreds of small windows that appeared completely black from the outside. A third looked almost like a temple, while the fourth appeared industrial, built from metal and reinforced materials that didn't match the rest of the complex.

And the fifth...

I couldn't explain what was wrong with the fifth one.

It looked normal.

That was the problem.

Everything else looked ancient and unnatural. That building looked like someone had tried to recreate a normal home.

A fake imitation of something familiar.

The snow around the complex reached my ankles, forcing every step to feel heavier than it should have. The wind moved through the mountains, carrying a silence that felt unnatural.

Forty-five CSP agents moved carefully around the perimeter while the two hundred soldiers established positions behind us. ESR's forces remained nearby, waiting for our arrival.

Nobody spoke louder than necessary.

Nobody wanted to disturb whatever was waiting inside.

I noticed one person who seemed completely unaffected by the environment.

Angelo.

He stood beside me wearing his usual attire.

No coat.

No armor.

No protection from the freezing temperature.

His suit didn't even appear bothered by the snow or wind.

*"Your temperature is slowly decreasing."*

I looked over and found Angelo walking beside me.

I stared at him.

"...You are aware you're saying that while standing outside in freezing weather wearing only a suit?"

*"Yes."*

"And somehow you're worried about me?"

He looked genuinely confused.

*"Yes."*

I sighed.

"Of course you are."

For a moment, neither of us spoke.

Then his eyes shifted toward the snow covered mountains ahead.

*"This reminds me of the day we first met."*

I immediately looked at him.

"The day we met?"

*"Yes."*

A faint blush appeared before I could stop it.

Because of course he would choose now to bring that up.

While I was standing outside the cult headquarters with every instinct in my body telling me to turn around and run, Angelo was remembering the first time we met. 

"You realize I was terrified of you, right?"

*"Yes."*

"And you're bringing that up as a good memory?"

He looked at me.

*"It became one."*

That caught me off guard.

For someone who struggled to understand emotions, Angelo had become strangely good at finding the exact words that made me forget how afraid I was.

I wasn't sure whether to be annoyed or grateful.

The answer was probably both.

Behind us, Jacob walked over.

"Nayeri."

I turned.

"What?"

"Do you think Noah will be okay?"

I stared at him.

"...Jacob."

"What?"

"You have asked me that twelve times already"

"I know."

"Why?"

"Because I am checking."

He looked completely serious.

Somehow, Jacob had transformed into a worried mother who had left his husband and child at home for the first time.

Except the child was a former fragment of the Great Shadow, and the husband was an ancient being who carried both divine and angelic power. 

"Jacob, Noah is fine."

"But Elior?"

I smiled.

"Oh, so you're worried about your 'Eli'?"

His face immediately changed as he looked away.

“....No”

"Really?"

"Yes."

Jacob opened his mouth, then closed it.

Unfortunately for him, he had no argument.

I looked back toward the complex.

"I'm pretty sure Elior is taking care of him."

Jacob was quiet for a moment.

Then, softer:

"...Good."

For someone who claimed he wasn't becoming friends with an angel, he was surprisingly bad at hiding how much he cared.

Then, almost like he realized he had lost that argument, he quickly changed the subject.

"Aren't you nervous to meet the head?"

The question caught me off guard.

"The head of ESR?"

Jacob nodded.

"Yeah."

For a moment, I forgot about everything else.

The mission.

The cult.

Because honestly, meeting the head of Eidolon Systems Research was something I had been curious about long before today.

"Not nervous," I said.

Jacob gave me a look.

"You hesitated."

I ignored him.

The truth was, I had heard the rumors.

Everyone in CSP had.

The official records were limited, but stories spread quickly among recruits. Nobody knew exactly what she was. Not who she was, but what she was.

Some claimed she wasn't human. Others claimed she never had been. The only confirmed fact was that ESR hadn't recruited her.

They had found her.

Because she had done something no ordinary human should have been capable of.

She had killed a god alone.

The story was almost impossible to believe. A C-class entity had hidden among humanity for years, disguised as a normal store. People entered and disappeared, trapped inside the entity's domain.

According to reports, she went in alone, and when ESR arrived, the god was already dead.

I never knew how much of the story had been exaggerated. Every organization had its legends, and every recruit had a habit of making impossible things sound even more impossible.

But one fact remained.

The woman who now led ESR had eliminated a C-class god by herself.

I still remembered hearing about her during my first year as a recruit. Back then, she had only recently become the head of ESR, and everyone was talking about her.

At the time, I thought she was incredible.

"I always thought she was cool," I admitted.

Jacob looked surprised.

"You?"

I looked at him. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know. I just expected you to say something like, 'She's probably terrifying, and I don't trust her.'"

I frowned. "That sounds more like you."

"Fair."

I looked back toward the complex.

"She became the head of ESR almost three years ago. Since then, the organization has remained under her leadership."

Jacob nodded slowly.

"So basically, she's like the Angelo of ESR."

I immediately looked at him.

"That is probably the worst possible comparison."

"Why?"

"Because now I'm imagining two people who can kill gods having a meeting."

Jacob thought about that for a moment.

"...Okay, that does sound terrifying."

Before I could answer, a voice came through my communication channel.

"Agent Nayeri."

I touched my earpiece.

"Yes?"

"ESR has arrived."

The message paused briefly.

"Director Remi is requesting your presence."

Jacob looked at me.

"Well."

He adjusted his weapon.

"Guess we're meeting the person who killed a god in a department store."

I sighed.

"That sentence should not be normal."

Jacob smiled slightly.

"Yet somehow, it is."

I looked toward Angelo. He was already watching the entrance of the complex, his expression unreadable as usual. But when he noticed me looking at him, something in his expression softened slightly.

That was when I noticed movement behind us.

A group was approaching through the snow.

At first, I assumed it was another security team arriving at the perimeter. Then I realized how many people were actually moving toward us.

More than a hundred soldiers marched forward in perfect formation behind a single person, their footsteps sinking into the snow as they advanced through the freezing wind.

And at the front of the formation was a woman.

She wasn't wearing heavy armor.

She wasn't carrying any visible weapon.

She simply walked through the freezing wind as if the cold had no authority over her.

There was something different about her presence.

It wasn't the overwhelming pressure that came from beings like Angelo or Elior. They carried the weight of something ancient, something beyond human understanding.

She didn't.

Her presence was quieter.

Controlled.

Like someone who had spent years learning exactly how much of herself she was allowed to show the world.

The soldiers stopped several meters away, creating a clear path through the snow.

The woman continued forward alone.

I watched her carefully, trying to match the person in front of me with the stories I had heard since my first year as a recruit.

The head of Eidolon Systems Research.

Director Remi.

She was still too far away for me to see her clearly. The distance, the snow, and the harsh wind blurred her features enough that I couldn't make out the details of her face.

Maybe that was better.

Maybe some part of me needed those extra few seconds before I saw the truth.

She stopped in front of Director Stonehill and gave a respectful nod.

"Director Stonehill."

"Director Remi."

Their exchange was brief.

Professional.

Exactly what I expected from two people who had spent years operating in a world where emotions were often a liability.

Then her attention shifted.

Her eyes moved across the gathered agents.

Over Jacob.

Over the soldiers.

Over Angelo.

And finally...

they stopped on me.

For a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

Because even through the distance, even after all these years, there was something I recognized.

Not the uniform.

Not the title.

Not the reputation.

Her.

The person standing in front of me wasn't a stranger.

She was someone whose existence had shaped my childhood.

Someone whose words had stayed with me long after she was gone.

My sister.

Remi.

But she didn't react.

No widening of her eyes. No hesitation. No sign that she recognized me. Nothing.

Her expression remained calm and professional. Like I was nothing more than another agent standing in front of her.

And somehow, that hurt more than I expected.

"Agent Nayeri," she said.

Her voice was polite.

Neutral.

Like we had never met.

Like I had never existed.

I forced myself to respond.

"Director Remi."

The words felt strange coming out of my mouth because everyone around us saw the head of ESR.

A legendary agent.

Someone who had killed a god.

But I saw something else.

I saw the girl who used to hold my hand when I was afraid. The person who promised she would always come back.

And the person I spent years believing chose not to.

Remi studied me briefly before looking away.

Then she turned toward the structure.

"I assume everyone has been briefed."

Stonehill nodded.

"Yes."

"Then we should begin."

Her voice remained calm and focused, like this was just another mission.

Fine.

If she wanted to look at me like I was a stranger, then I could do the same. I could pretend we'd never met. Pretend she hadn't been the person I'd spent years searching for.

The entrance to the complex was colder than I expected. 

Not because of the temperature.

Because of what waited beyond it.

The massive doors had been carved directly into the side of the mountain, covered in symbols none of the researchers had been able to identify. They weren't written in any known language, yet every linguist who examined them agreed on one thing.

They were instructions.

Not warnings.

Instructions.

Whatever had been built here wasn't designed to keep something out.

It was designed to invite something in.

The teams moved forward slowly. CSP agents took the lead, ESR followed behind them, and soldiers secured the perimeter.

And in the middle of it all walked Director Remi.

My sister.

The thought still felt impossible.

I kept expecting her to turn around. To realize something.

Anything.

But she didn't.

She treated me exactly like everyone else.

An agent.

A stranger.

Nothing more.

And somehow, that hurt worse than anger would have.

If she hated me, at least that meant she remembered me.

But there was nothing. No resentment. No sadness. No guilt.

Just nothing.

We entered the first chamber.

The inside of the structure was even stranger than the outside. The walls were covered in carvings depicting people standing beneath something enormous.

Not worshipping it.

Offering themselves to it.

The researchers moved carefully through the chamber, taking photographs and scanning the area. Nobody spoke unless necessary.

Except Jacob.

Because apparently silence was something he considered a personal enemy.

"So..."

I looked at him.

"What?"

He glanced toward Remi.

"She always this serious?"

I frowned.

"You've known her for five minutes."

"Exactly. That's enough time to judge someone's personality."

"That explains a lot about your decision making."

Jacob ignored that.

Before I could respond, a sudden wave of dust moved through the corridor.

I covered my mouth.

Then sneezed.

"Bless you, little bug."

I froze.

The words weren't loud or dramatic, but I heard them.

Everyone around us probably heard them.

Slowly, I looked up.

Remi was standing a few feet away.

Her expression had changed.

Not the calm, professional expression she had worn since arriving.

Something else.

Something almost like surprise.

Like she hadn't realized what she had said.

Her eyes met mine.

For a moment, neither of us moved.

Then her expression shifted.

"I'm sorry."

The apology came immediately.

"I don't know why I said that."

My chest tightened.

Because somehow, that was worse.

I stared at her.

She looked genuinely confused.

Genuinely apologetic.

And all I could feel was anger.

Because to me, it sounded like she was mocking me. Like she had walked back into my life pretending not to know me, and then somehow found the one thing that could hurt me most.

The nickname only she used.

The one she had called me when I was little.

"Right."

My voice came out colder than I intended.

"Of course."

Remi frowned slightly.

"Agent Nayeri—"

"No."

I looked away.

"Don't."

She stopped.

And for the first time, I saw something flicker across her face.

Confusion.

Not anger.

Not offense.

Confusion.

That somehow made me even more frustrated because she didn't even understand why I was hurt.

I turned and continued walking, but my breathing had already started changing.

My chest felt tight.

The walls felt closer.

Not again.

Not here.

Not now.

*"Nayeri."*

Angelo's voice immediately caught my attention.

I looked over.

He was watching me carefully.

*"Come with me."*

"I am fine."

*"No."*

His answer was immediate.

*"You are not."*

I wanted to argue, but I couldn't.

Because Angelo knew me too well.

He gently placed a hand on my shoulder and guided me a few steps away from the group.

Jacob followed.

Once we were far enough away, he looked between us.

*"Okay."*

He lowered his voice.

*"Am I missing something?"*

I didn't answer.

Jacob looked at me then back toward Remi.

My jaw tightened.

"I don't know her."

Jacob blinked.

"She literally just called you little bug."

"That doesn't mean anything."

"Nayeri."

I looked away.

"She is pretending."

The words came out quieter than I expected.

Both of them went silent.

Angelo's expression changed slightly.

Not understanding.

Concern.

*"What do you mean?"*

I swallowed and looked back toward the woman standing with the ESR agents.

The woman everyone else saw as a legend.

The woman I saw as my family.

"She is pretending not to know who I am."

Jacob frowned.

"Nayeri....who is she?"

I closed my eyes.

A pause.

"She's my sister."

For once, Jacob had no joke.

No sarcastic comment.

Nothing.

Angelo remained completely still.

"My older sister."

The words felt heavier when I finally said them aloud.

"Remi."

I looked toward her again.

"She was the person who raised me."

Jacob looked back at Remi, then at me.

A silence followed.

Angelo looked at me carefully.

Then his expression changed.

Not shock.

Not disbelief.

Understanding.

*"Now it makes sense."*

I looked at him.

"What?"

My voice came out louder than I intended.

Angelo didn't look away from Remi.

*"Her soul."*

The words made both Jacob and me go quiet.

"What about it?" Jacob asked.

Angelo stared at her from across the chamber.

*"It is missing a piece."*

Jacob frowned.

"What do you mean?"

Angelo was silent for a moment, as if trying to explain something that was obvious to him but impossible for humans to understand.

*"Humans are not made of one thing."*

Angelo's eyes shifted back toward me. *"The body is only one part. The mind is another."* He looked toward Remi again, his expression becoming distant. *"And the soul... the soul is where the pieces that define someone are connected."*

I swallowed as he continued.

*"When I first encountered humanity, I did not understand why you changed so easily. Why memories altered you. Why could loss reshape you."* His voice softened slightly. *"Then I learned."*

He looked at Jacob.

*“A soul is not a container holding memories. It is the reason those memories matter.* A*nd when enough of those pieces are removed..."* His eyes met mine. *"...the person remains, but something feels wrong."*

Jacob looked toward Remi. "So you're saying..."

Angelo nodded slowly. *"She is still herself."*

A pause followed.

*"But she is incomplete."*

My chest tightened because suddenly the anger became harder to hold onto. If Angelo was right, then Remi wasn't pretending. She wasn't cruel. She wasn't choosing to forget me.

Something was missing.

Something that used to be there.

And somehow...

I was the missing piece.

Nobody spoke after Angelo's explanation because before any of us could begin to process what he had said, the radio on General Hayes' shoulder crackled to life.

"Perimeter Team Three to command."

Static filled the corridor.

Then a voice came through.

"...Movement."

Every rifle in the chamber rose immediately.

The silence that followed felt unnatural. Even the wind outside seemed to disappear.

Stonehill raised a hand. "Advance."

The formation tightened instantly. CSP agents moved to the front while ESR spread along the sides of the corridor with practiced precision. Soldiers followed behind us, rifles aimed toward the darkness ahead.

Our footsteps echoed against the stone as we moved deeper into the complex. One step after another, the sound followed us through the corridor until finally, the passage opened into an enormous circular chamber.

I stopped.

There were people.

Hundreds of them.

Men, women, and children all dressed in identical white robes stood perfectly still in concentric circles surrounding a massive stone altar carved into the center of the room.

Not one of them looked frightened.

Not one of them tried to run.

They were simply waiting.

There were no whispers. No prayers. No movement.

Only hundreds of eyes staring directly at us.

The silence made my skin crawl.

General Hayes raised his rifle.

"CSP!"

His voice echoed throughout the chamber.

"This area is under containment authority. Step away from the altar and place your hands where we can see them."

Nobody moved.

Not one person.

Then, without warning, every single cultist smiled.

The exact same smile appeared across hundreds of faces at the same time.

A cold shiver ran down my spine.

An elderly woman standing closest to the altar tilted her head.

"We've been expecting you."

Her voice wasn't loud, but somehow every person in the chamber repeated the words.

"We've been expecting you."

Hundreds of voices spoke as one, the sound echoing through the mountain.

Jacob whispered beside me, "...I officially hate this place."

Then every cultist slowly knelt.

Not out of fear.

Out of devotion.

They lowered their heads toward the altar.

"We welcome the servants of the false light."

Nobody understood what that meant.

Not until every cultist looked up at the same time.

Their eyes were completely black.

"OPEN FIRE!"

Hayes didn't hesitate.

The chamber erupted.

Three hundred rifles roared simultaneously, muzzle flashes illuminating the darkness as thousands of rounds tore through the front ranks of cultists. Bodies collapsed across the stone floor, and the smell of gunpowder quickly filled the chamber.

For a moment, silence returned.

Then one of the bodies stood.

The hole through its chest remained. Blood covered its robes. Yet somehow, it pushed itself back onto its feet.

Then another.

Then another.

Within seconds, every cultist who had fallen slowly rose again.

Some were missing arms. Some had half their faces destroyed. One woman calmly reached down, picked up her own severed hand, and carried it with her as she continued walking toward us.

"They're still moving!" someone shouted.

The chamber exploded into chaos.

The first cultist reached the front line before anyone could react.

He didn't throw a punch.

He didn't attack.

He embraced the soldier.

"Thank you."

The man's body immediately began glowing.

"GET HIM OFF!"

It was already too late.

The cultist smiled.

Then he detonated.

The explosion launched three soldiers backward, sending fragments of stone raining across the chamber.

"They're sacrificing themselves!" Jacob yelled.

Another wave charged forward.

This time, they weren't trying to survive.

Every single one of them was trying to die as close to us as possible.

"Fall back!"

"No!"

Remi's voice cut through the chaos.

"If they reach the formation, they'll collapse the corridor."

She stepped forward before anyone could stop her.

The first cultist lunged.

She caught his wrist and twisted, the sound of bone breaking echoing through the chamber. With one impossibly fluid movement, she drove him into the ground before he could ignite, shattering the stone beneath him.

The second rushed her.

She sidestepped.

One strike.

The cultist dropped instantly.

Another attacker came from behind, but Remi moved before he even reached her. Every movement was controlled, efficient, and precise.

The woman who had once sung me to sleep whenever I was afraid was now standing in front of a god-worshipping army, fighting like someone who had spent her entire life preparing for this exact moment.

"...Holy—"

Jacob never finished the sentence.

None of us had ever seen someone fight like that. Not even CSP's best instructors. She wasn't stronger than everyone else. She was simply better. Every movement had a purpose, every strike landed exactly where it needed to, and she never wasted a single motion. She didn't overpower her opponents. She dismantled them.

One cultist managed to slip past her and reached toward a wounded soldier lying on the ground. Before anyone else could move, a blur of black crossed the chamber.

Angelo.

He caught the cultist by the head before he could reach the soldier.

"You have surrendered your ability to choose."

There was no anger in his voice. Only sadness.

He gently placed a hand over the cultist's forehead, and golden light spread through the man's body. For one brief moment, the blackness vanished from his eyes. He looked around in confusion, like someone waking from a nightmare they couldn't remember entering.

Then tears rolled down his face.

"...Thank..."

His voice never finished the word.

His body dissolved into light before he could say anything else.

Angelo stood motionless.

He hadn't killed him.

He had freed him.

But there was no time to think about that because more cultists poured into the chamber. Hundreds of them emerged from every corridor, every staircase, every doorway, moving forward with the same empty devotion.

They weren't defending the temple.

They were feeding it.

The blood from the fallen began flowing through grooves carved into the stone floor, moving toward the altar at the center of the chamber. The symbols covering the walls and floor ignited one after another, filling the room with an unnatural glow.

The mountain trembled.

Then something beneath the altar moved.

Every surviving cultist smiled.

"Our God..."

Hundreds of voices echoed together.

"...is waking."

The altar cracked once.

Then again.

The fractures spread slowly across the ancient stone, and black light leaked through them like veins beneath skin. It wasn't an explosion. It sounded more like a long, exhausted breath, as though something buried beneath the mountain had finally accepted that it was time to wake.

The chamber fell silent.

Even the surviving cultists stopped moving.

Black mist poured from the opening beneath the altar, spilling across the floor before rising into the shape of a towering figure.

He stood nearly twenty feet tall.

Ancient chains made of black stone wrapped around every part of his body. They weren't restraints forged around him after his capture. They had become part of him.

Some disappeared into the floor beneath the altar. Others stretched backward into the darkness behind him, extending impossibly deep into the mountain itself. Every link pulsed with the same rhythm as the symbols carved across his skin.

His head remained lowered.

Motionless.

Patient.

Like he had forgotten what freedom felt like.

One by one, the surviving cultists fell to their knees.

"Our God..."

"Our Shepherd..."

"Our Salvation..."

The figure slowly raised his head.

There was no rage waiting in his eyes. No hunger. No hatred.

Only exhaustion.

An exhaustion so profound it almost looked painful.

The researchers reacted immediately.

"A-Class entity confirmed!"

General Hayes didn't hesitate.

"All units, engage!"

The order had barely left his mouth before the figure vanished.

The crack of the sound barrier splitting the chamber was deafening.

Half the front line disappeared beneath a single swing of his arm. Concrete erupted into the air as armored soldiers were launched through solid stone walls as if they weighed nothing. The shockwave alone knocked dozens more from their feet.

"RETURN FIRE!"

Hundreds of rifles answered.

The chamber became a storm of muzzle flashes as thousands of rounds slammed into the giant's body.

None penetrated.

They didn't ricochet.

They didn't flatten.

They simply ceased to exist.

It was as if the space occupied by his body rejected the very idea of being struck.

Then Remi moved.

She crossed the chamber so quickly I barely saw her leave the ground. Her fist collided with the giant's arm with enough force to fracture the stone beneath the giant’s feet.

For the first time...

he staggered.

Jacob's eyes widened.

"...She actually moved him."

The giant looked down at her.

Something changed.

His expression softened slightly.

"...Forgive me."

His voice was barely louder than a whisper.

Then every chain wrapped around his body tightened at once. The sound of grinding stone echoed through the chamber as the symbols carved into his skin ignited.

And for the first time since he awakened, the exhausted expression disappeared.

Something ancient looked back at us.

Something that had been waiting.

Agony twisted across his face as his arm rose against his will. Remi never had the chance to react before Angelo appeared between them. The giant's fist collided with him instead, and the impact shook the entire mountain. A wall behind us collapsed as the shockwave ripped through the chamber, throwing soldiers across the floor and shattering every remaining window in the surrounding structures.

Angelo didn't move.

Not even a step.

The giant stared at him, his eyes widening. "...You..."

Angelo remained silent. The giant's breathing became uneven as another chain wrapped tighter around his throat. He collapsed onto one knee, clawing desperately at the black links cutting into his flesh.

"...Run..."

Blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.

"I..."

The chains glowed brighter.

His body convulsed violently as every muscle fought against an invisible command. He looked back at Angelo, not with hostility, but with desperation.

"I am..."

His voice broke.

"...not acting..."

The chains tightened again.

"...of..."

Every word sounded as though it was being torn from him.

"...my..."

He screamed.

Not in anger.

In pain.

"...free..."

The chamber shook.

"...will."

Silence followed.

The chains constricted one final time, and the symbols covering his body erupted with black light. When he looked up again, the exhaustion was gone. The desperation was gone. Whatever person had been fighting for control only moments earlier had disappeared.

Only the weapon remained.

Angelo stepped forward.

"You are bound."

The giant stared at him.

"...Yes."

The answer came without emotion.

"By whom?"

For several seconds, nothing happened. Then every chain wrapped around the giant's body suddenly pulled tight.

Not downward.

Forward.

The giant's head slowly turned toward the passage beyond the shattered altar.

Someone was pulling him.

Nobody moved.

Nobody spoke.

Then a voice drifted through the darkness.

Soft. Warm. Almost amused. 

Mocking, even. 

A voice I knew.

A voice I had spent years trying to forget.

A voice that had followed me into my nightmares.

The same voice that had spent my childhood reminding me that I was never enough.

Never good enough.

Never worthy of being loved.

**"I didn't know we were having a family reunion today."**