The pain woke him first.
It wasn't sharp or sudden. It was dull, aching, like his entire body had been beaten from the inside out. Aether's eyes opened slowly, and the first thing he saw was stone. Dark stone, inches from his face.
He was lying on the floor of the chamber.
His head throbbed. His muscles screamed. Every breath felt like his ribs were broken, though when he finally pushed himself up on his elbows, he didn't feel any fractures. Just pain. Everywhere. All at once.
How long had he been unconscious?
Aether sat up slowly, his vision swimming. The chamber was still dark, lit only by the faint glow of the symbols on the walls. They pulsed weakly, like they were dying.
He looked down at his clothes. Blood. His clothes were soaked in blood. But when he checked his arms, his hands, his chest—there were no wounds. No cuts. No injuries at all.
His mind felt foggy, like he was trying to remember something from a dream. What happened? There was the ritual. There was light. There was pain. And then...
Then nothing.
But as he sat there, memories started coming back. Fragmented at first, then clearer. His parents being dragged away. The light consuming them. The screaming. The feeling of something breaking inside him.
Aether stood up on shaky legs.
The chamber was a disaster. The walls were cracked and broken. Metal frames lay twisted on the ground. The cages were shattered. And everywhere—scattered across the stone floor—were bodies. The robed figures. The cultists. All dead.
He had done that. Somehow, he had done that.
Aether walked through the chamber slowly, checking what was left. The corpses were real. The blood was real. The destruction was real. But he had no clear memory of it. Like his body had moved without his mind being there to witness it.
A sound echoed through the corridor.
A voice. Coming from deeper in the lab.
Aether froze. His first panicked thought: a survivor. Someone hiding. Coming to finish what the ritual had started.
He looked around for a weapon. There was a metal pipe lying on the ground, half-buried under rubble. He grabbed it, testing its weight. Heavy enough.
The voice got louder. It was speaking, but not to anyone in the chamber. It was like it was talking to someone far away.
"Hello? Can anyone hear me? We need a report on the ritual. Did it succeed or not?"
Communication. Someone was trying to communicate with the facility.
Aether moved quietly toward the voice, following the sound through the chamber and down a smaller corridor. The pipe was heavy in his hands, ready.
He found a small office carved into the stone. A desk. Papers scattered everywhere. And on the desk, a device—something that glowed with a soft blue light. The voice was coming from it.
"Come on, someone answer," the voice said again. It sounded frustrated. "Did the ritual work or not? If we don't get a report soon, the captain is going to be furious."
There was a pause. Then another voice, different from the first.
"They're not answering from the lab site. What do you think happened?"
"I don't know. Could be a communication problem. Could be something went wrong with the ritual. Either way, we need to send backup. Get a team ready. We need to confirm the situation."
Aether stared at the device. His heart was pounding. So there were more of them. More people working for Nexus Corp. This wasn't just a small operation in the middle of nowhere. There was an organization behind it.
He took a breath and reached for the device.
"Hello?" he said. "Can anyone hear me?"
There was a brief silence. Then the voice came back, sharp with surprise.
"What? Who is this? Where the hell were you? We've been trying to reach you for hours!"
Aether's mind raced. He needed to think fast. If he told them the truth, they would know something was wrong. But if he played along...
"I was... dealing with something," he said carefully. "What do you need?"
"What do I need? I need a report on the ritual! Did it succeed or not? Where is the vessel? Did he wake up?"
Aether swallowed hard. The vessel. They meant him. But they didn't know that he was the one who had survived. They thought he was one of the cultists.
"The ritual was successful," he said.
"What?! What did you say? The ritual was a success? Where is the vessel? Did he wake up? Stay there. We're coming to confirm the situation. Don't touch the vessel. And who is this person reporting anyway? We might get more information about the Overlaw from whoever served as the vessel. This could be important."
The voice on the other end sounded excited now. Hungry. Like they wanted something from him.
Aether didn't answer. He was thinking. Processing. If Nexus Corp was coming, he needed to leave. Now. But first, he needed to understand what he was dealing with.
He looked at the desk. Papers everywhere. Research. Documents. Information.
He started reading.
The first document was about something called "Dark Humans." People who worshipped demons. People who used black magic. People who committed crimes that went against everything normal society believed in. Nexus Corp was full of them.
The second document was about the Overlaw.
Aether's hands started shaking as he read.
The Overlaw were entities. Outer beings. They existed outside of the physical world, in a place that the documents called "The Beyond." They were incredibly powerful—more powerful than Gods, according to some notes—but they couldn't enter the physical world on their own.
They needed permission.
They needed a vessel. A human body to possess and inhabit. And they needed consent from both sides—the Overlaw had to agree to enter, and the human had to agree to be possessed.
That was why the ritual had been needed. That was why his parents had been killed. They had been fuel for the ritual, meant to open a door and let an Overlaw through.
And Aether was supposed to be the vessel.
He sat down heavily in the chair.
"Hello?" the voice came through the device again. "Are you still there? We're preparing a team. We'll be there in a few hours. Keep the vessel safe. If anything happens to him, you'll answer to the captain."
Aether reached over and turned off the device.
He sat in silence, trying to process everything he'd just read and heard. His parents were dead. Nexus Corp had killed them. And they'd done it to try to bring an Overlaw into the world through him.
But something had gone wrong with their plan. He had woken up instead of being possessed. He had killed everyone in the chamber. And now reinforcements were coming.
He couldn't stay here.
Aether grabbed as many documents as he could carry. He stuffed them into a bag he found under the desk. Then he stood up, looked around the small office one last time, and ran.
He ran through the corridors of the facility. He ran past the broken chamber with all its dead. He ran toward the entrance, where the massive iron gate hung open, letting in the fading light of day.
Outside, the cold air hit him like a slap. It was dark. Evening. He had been unconscious for an entire day.
Aether didn't stop running. The mountain path blurred beneath his feet as he sprinted down toward the city. Toward Froria. Toward home.
The cold air bit at his face. His lungs burned with effort. But he kept moving, kept pushing, because staying meant death.
His chest started burning.
Not like fire. More like electricity running beneath his skin, prickling and alive. There was pressure too—like a second heartbeat was forming in the center of his chest, pushing outward against his ribs. And under it all, a faint sound. A crackling. Like distant lightning trapped inside his own body.
He slowed down, confused. He looked down at his chest, but there was nothing there. No wound. No mark. Just that strange crackling sensation, that pressure, that electric prickling that wouldn't stop.
The intensity faded as he slowed down. But it didn't disappear. It was still there, like something was waking up inside him. Something that didn't belong to him yet.
Aether didn't understand what was happening to him. But he knew one thing for certain—he had to get away from this place. He had to disappear before Nexus Corp found him.
He started running again, toward the city in the distance.
Several Hours Later
The reinforcement team arrived at the facility to find nothing but death.
The chamber was destroyed. The ritual circle was broken. Every single cultist was dead. And the vessel was gone.
The captain of the reinforcement team stood in the middle of the destruction, his face getting darker with anger.
"Find him," he said to his soldiers. "Find the vessel. He can't have gone far. And when you find him, bring him back alive. The Overlaw will want to try the possession again."
But Aether was already long gone, running through the forest toward the city, the burning in his chest growing stronger with each passing hour.
At the Gates of Froria
Aether reached the city just as the sun was beginning to set. He was exhausted. His clothes were torn. He was covered in dirt and sweat and blood.
But he was alive.
He made his way through the busy streets toward the slums, toward the small house where he had lived his entire life. The place where his parents had promised they would return.
The neighbor was outside her house, sweeping her doorstep.
She looked up as Aether approached. Her eyes widened.
"Aether? Is that you? Your parents—where are they? Did something happen?"
Aether's mouth went dry. She was staring at the blood on his clothes. At the dirt. At his torn sleeves.
He tried to smile, but it felt wrong. Fake. "They... they had to work overtime," he said quietly. "At the facility. Nexus Corp said they'd pay extra if they stayed longer."
The neighbor's expression didn't change. If anything, it got sharper.
"They promised they'd be back days ago, Aether. You're sure they're alright? Why are you covered in blood?"
"I... I got hurt on the way back," he lied, looking away. "Nothing serious. They're just working. They said soon. They said they'd be back soon."
The neighbor didn't look convinced. But she didn't push. Maybe she didn't want to know the answer.
"Get cleaned up," she said finally. "And if they don't come back in a few days, come find me."
Aether nodded and hurried into his house before she could ask more questions.
Inside, everything was exactly as it had been when he left. The small table. The worn beds. The few possessions they'd managed to keep.
He sat down on his bed and allowed himself to cry for the first time since waking up in that chamber.
His parents were dead.
And the people who had killed them were coming to find him.