"Prepare yourselves for what's coming," Elin said slyly, as Reis slowly regained consciousness, unable to control himself.
But they didn't wait for his return. Instead, they dragged him toward another fate, into a phase he was not ready for.
He woke up or thought he did on the cold touch of the floor, not the warmth of a bed.
A sharp chill sliced into his skin.
Only one sound pierced the complete silence:
Drip.
A drop of water.
"Drip…"
An echo without end. As if each repetition burrowed deeper into his mind.
He tried to get up, but couldn't see his hands. No light. No shadow. Nothing.
Just a thick darkness… one that swallowed every possibility of life.
He tried to move, but didn't know where.
He didn't know the size of the room, or if there were even walls at all.
But he knew one thing: that drop was in the same place, the same rhythm,
the same spot in his mind.
Time passed… or vanished.
No one came in. No one spoke to him.
No food. No sound except water.
And the thirst… rose like a living thing crawling inside him.
On the third day or so it felt he started hearing voices.
But they weren't from outside.
They came from within.
"It's over."
"They didn't bring you here to become something. They brought you to erase everything."
He screamed, but his voice no longer belonged to him.
A hollow echo, as if his throat spoke from within a sealed grave.
On the fifth day, he tried something new.
He sat and focused on the source of the drip.
He imagined a rock… or a metal plate blocking the spout.
He willed his illusion to stop it.
In the darkness… the drop hesitated, then stopped.
For two seconds only.
Then drip.
But he felt it… his illusion had moved.
He sensed it.
So he tried again.
But every attempt left a mark inside him.
Pain behind his eyes, bleeding from his nose, an erratic pulse in his heart.
As if he were digging into his skull with his bare hands.
On the seventh day, he began scratching the floor with his fingers, digging hard, looking for something to carve into.
Not to escape but to punish himself.
As if he hated his existence, hated his hope, hated the fact that he ever believed them.
Then the door opened.
Footsteps. Metal masks. A dim light stabbing into his blindness.
Reis was dragged from the ground, his body dangling like a soaked rag doll.
No one spoke.
They laid him on a metal bed, restrained him, then the monitors lit up.
A robotic voice:
"The Organization is not your enemy. the Organization is truth. the Organization protects Scavengers and Awakened.
You are part of the purpose."
Once.
Then again.
Then a third time, slower, like a cold prayer being carved into his soul.
Then came the images.
Children… familiar faces, ones who had stood with him in the yard once.
Smiling, learning, receiving food.
But Reis didn't believe his eyes.
He couldn't tell if the footage was real… or altered.
Or perhaps taken after their minds had been wiped.
Then, he was returned to the room.
And for the first time, Reis sat in the corner, hugging his knees, as if he longed to return to his mother's womb, to that lost warmth. But even she had abandoned him.
There was no warmth here.
Only drip.
Drip… drip… drip…
He crafted a new illusion.
A tree, shade, warm mud, the sound of flowing water instead of drops.
Just an image, an internal refuge, a small sanctuary.
He would escape there whenever madness crept close.
But it wasn't enough.
They woke him in the middle of the night.
Threw him into concrete arenas, and made him watch.
Children being experimented on.
Screams. Blood.
Distorted mana injected into small bodies some exploded, some went mad, some disappeared from the room and never came back.
Then, they made him fight.
Not only monsters, but children like him.
Each one broken in a different way.
There were no winners.
And one day, when he returned to the black room, he didn't go to the sanctuary.
He sat motionless.
His body trembled, but his eyes were wide open.
Pitch black.
As if he had no irises, as if his pupils had expanded to fill the void.
Even the skin around his eyes darkened, turned to a dense ash, as if the darkness wasn't entering him… but leaking out.
He could see…
No, he saw what could not be seen.
Mana.
Light.
Air.
Every particle… appeared before him as shifting geometric forms.
As if his mind had become a supernatural microscope.
He could interact with them… some even trembled when he looked at them.
Some were drawn to him, others fled like glowing insects.
He tried to shape them.
A ball. A bird. Anything.
He failed.
But every attempt left a trace.
Outside, the observers didn't notice what had happened to his eyes.
But on the screen:
[Mana Core Analysis — Status: Glowing]
[Color: Pure White]
[Rating: ★★★★★]
[Stability: Unconfirmed]
[Type: Unclassified]
[Activity: 157% of permitted level]
The doctor froze.
"Is… is that a five-star Core?" he whispered.
"No… not just five stars," another replied, staring at the screen, mouth agape.
"It's an unclassified Core. Not registered in any database. this… is a living Core."
As for Elin, when the report reached her, she stared at it for a long time.
Then smiled just a little. A different smile.
Not a smile of triumph.
But the smile of someone who, finally, saw the monster they had long awaited open its eyes.
But the monster… was not yet Awake.
And because they knew that, the other part of the experiment began.
The breaking.
Reis was returned to the same black room, but something had changed.
It wasn't only darkness that surrounded him, but the smell of old blood, and metallic steam rising from unseen walls.
This time, the drop was not the torment.
It was the voices.
Voices only he could hear.
Whispers. Footsteps. Panting breaths by his ear—then silence.
They weren't hallucinations… or maybe they were, but he no longer knew the difference.
His illusion had begun to merge with his reality, and the world inside his mind was cracking.
He saw a boy dragged along the floor and submerged in gray fluid, then left to shiver to death.
He saw a girl scream as she was injected with an unstable Core, her face warping before his eyes.
Then… he saw himself.
Not his body, but his reflection.
Younger. Weaker. Begging a faceless hand for another chance.
"You were a joke," the voice in his head said.
"You thought they chose you. You thought what you had was a gift."
Then the program resumed.
They sat him before a blank screen again.
A programmed, emotionless voice whispered:
"You're a failure."
"You're just a broken experiment."
"No one is coming to save you."
Repeat… repeat… repeat…
Until his mind began to repeat the phrases without awareness.
They wanted him fragile.
Rebuildable from the foundation.
And between sessions, they threw him into ice-cold pools.
His body trembled, his teeth chattered, but he didn't scream.
He no longer cried.
He felt like he had lost the ability to feel pain the way a person should.
But inside… he was collapsing.
In one moment, he looked down at the floor and saw it breathe.
Yes, breathe.
He saw the mana particles within it, the air around him, the fire moving like snakes between wires.
Everything in this place pulsed… even the walls.
He saw what they could not see.
But that sight was not a gift… it was a curse.
The more he saw, the more he felt he didn't belong anywhere.
Not among humans.
Not among the Awakened.
And the voice in his mind kept whispering:
"You are an illusion, Reis. Just an idea… never completed."
One night, he sat in the same corner, his blackened eyes watching the air move.
He reached out, tried to pull the light, to shape it into something… anything.
But the light scattered.
So he closed his eyes, and said to himself:
"I am nothing. no one will help me.no one cares."
His face darkened more, and blood streamed from his eyes.
Either he was crying blood… or he shattered from within.
At that moment, he realized he had to die inside, in order to be reborn.
—
The next day, they brought him to the arena.
Elin said in a cold voice:
"We don't want strength alone.
We want obedience.
Will you obey, Reis?"
He didn't answer.
She pointed to a glass wall… behind it, a little girl, no older than eight.
Blue eyes. Pale skin. Frightened.
"Fight her. One of you will live," she said.
The door opened, and she was thrown in front of him.
The girl said nothing… just raised her hand.
She had mana… but it was unstable.
Her body screamed before she even attacked.
But Reis didn't move.
He looked at the mana in the air, at her steps, her terror.
Then he raised a finger… and suddenly, everything stopped.
Time itself seemed to compress for a moment.
Every particle trembled.
Elin's eyes widened.
Then the girl collapsed, untouched.
Unconscious.
"What did he do?" one of the scientists murmured.
But Reis didn't explain.
He simply turned and said:
"I'm not a tool. and I won't be a dog."
Then he collapsed.
His body trembled.
He was taken again. This time, not for torture… but for study.
But they didn't understand.
They didn't understand that he no longer sought survival.
He sought liberation from everything.
Even if it meant setting the world on fire.