He floated high above the city, weightless, the sky a canvas of fading gold and bruised purple as dusk settled over New York. Below, the streets pulsed with life, tiny figures moving like ants between buildings. Cars gleamed. Lights blinked. Somewhere, distant music floated up through the warm air.
He looked down at himself.
A suit — black as ink, threaded with red. Elegant. The fabric moved like liquid shadow across his skin. White gloves. A mask: smooth, featureless, reflecting the last rays of sunlight.
This is how it should be.
People on rooftops pointed up at him — not in fear. In awe. Their faces lit up as he passed overhead, a quiet, graceful sentinel gliding between clouds.
A child stood on a nearby rooftop, arm raised, waving. He tilted his head—
And then he was there.
Boots touched down soundlessly beside her.
She blinked up at him, wide-eyed. "You're flying."
He crouched, bringing himself to her level. The mask shimmered, became translucent for a heartbeat — just long enough for her to see the soft smile beneath.
"Not flying," he said. "Falling. Just... very, very slowly."
She laughed.
And for a moment — for a brief, impossible moment —
He believed it.
The dream was already fading — gold becoming gray, warmth becoming pain.
But the anger?
That stayed.
Like a second heartbeat.
Like a promise.
Then the sky flickered.
Like a faulty lightbulb.
"This is how it should've been," he thought. "This is what I deserved."
Then—
His hands trembled.
He looked down.
They were strapped to a table.
"No," he whispered. "Not again…"
Crack.
A static pulse.
The city twisted.
The crowd froze mid-cheer, faces blurring into eyeless shadows.
The gold melted off his skin, dripping like wax. The sky burned white.
His mask reformed—metallic, monstrous.
The girl on the rooftop looked up at him again, but this time—
She screamed.
And then—
He woke up.
He woke to the sting of cold air on raw skin. A sterile ceiling. Needles in his arms. Leather restraints biting into wrists, ankles, neck.
Tristin was back in hell.
Subject 016. Codename: Oracle. Status: Non-combatant. Mutation Class: Undefined — Physically Nonviable. X-Gene Presence: None. Potential Secondary Ability: ???
The sedatives were wearing off. His vision swam. Machines clicked and hummed. The air smelled like bleach and copper.
The hiss of the reinforced doors echoed through the lab.
Boots marched in — slow, deliberate, each step heavier than the last. The white coats fell silent. Even the machines seemed to pause their beeping.
General William Stryker.
His mere presence drained the room of warmth. Clad in military black, sharp creases, cold eyes. He walked like he was used to stepping over bodies.
The lead scientist, Dr. Monroe, stood up straighter. "General—"
Stryker didn't even look at him. "Four years, Doctor."
Monroe swallowed. "We've learned much. His mutation is unlike anything we've—"
"Four. Years." Stryker stepped closer to the reinforced table where Tristin lay strapped down, unable to move — not even his neck. "And still no results. No control. No replication. Not even confirmation of what he is."
Monroe tried again. "His mind is… damaged. Or too advanced. He might be linked to—"
"Enough excuses." Stryker turned to the rest of the lab. "Sometimes these things need a push."
He snapped his fingers.
A side door opened. Two soldiers dragged in a woman — disheveled, bruised, sedated. She looked eerily like Tristin's mother. Soft eyes. Dark hair. Kindness in her expression — even in fear. But it wasn't her. She was just… close enough.
Tristin's eyes widened.
No. No no no. His heart pounded against his chest like it wanted to burst out.
He tried to scream but all he managed was a gurgle. The drugs still numbed his body, his tongue, his mind.
Stryker leaned in beside him. "You say you know the future, 'Oracle.'" His voice was mock-gentle. "So tell me… what happens now?"
A gun cocked.
A heartbeat passed.
BANG.
The sound shattered the room.
The woman collapsed. A crimson flower bloomed across her chest.
It wasn't light. It wasn't peace. It was absence.
A vast, echoing expanse stretched in every direction — a void so pure it hummed, not with sound, but memory. Tristin floated. Weightless. Disoriented.
His breathing slowed. There was no pain. No alarms. No blood or claws or fire.
Just silence.
Then—
Color.
A flicker of red broke the pale. Dozens of spider lilies bloomed silently from the void, their petals curling like delicate flames. They swayed in a wind that didn't exist, too vivid to belong in this nothingness.
And beneath them…
A boy.
Pale. Barefoot. Slender limbs wrapped in a hospital gown too big for his frame. His hair stuck to his forehead in damp curls. Eyes wide — haunted, hollow.
No older than twelve.
The real owner of the body.
He didn't speak at first. Just stared, as though memorizing Tristin's face.
Then, quietly:
"You stole my life."
Tristin staggered back. His voice caught.
"I… I didn't mean to. I didn't know—"
The boy's expression didn't change. But his eyes—
They burned.
"You knew things you shouldn't," he said. "You smiled. You laughed. You saw hope — while I screamed."
Tristin's mouth opened. Closed. All the blood on his hands, all the fire in his veins… none of it helped now.
"I'm sorry."
The boy flinched at that word.
"Sorry?" His voice cracked — not with weakness, but rage. "They strapped me down. They put things in me. Cut me open. Again and again. And I watched my mother cry herself to sleep until one day…" He inhaled sharply, like it physically hurt to speak.
"She was just gone."
He stepped forward. The spider lilies withered behind him.
"You don't get to say sorry."
Tristin's knees hit the ground. "Please… I tried to survive. I tried—"
"You didn't survive." The boy's eyes began to glow — ember-red, burning brighter with each step. "You thrived. You killed them. You liked it."
Tristin shook his head. "I didn't! I didn't want any of this—"
"Liar."
The boy's skin cracked.
Like porcelain. Jagged lines split across his arms and cheeks. Darkness oozed through, bleeding up his throat like ink in water. His voice grew deeper, doubled — two tones overlapping:
"You're not the hero."
The ground trembled.
"You're the parasite."
The air ruptured. The white space warped, spider lilies bursting into ash as shadows devoured the horizon.
"And now..."
The boy stopped in front of him, face half-shattered, eyes glowing like two dying suns.
"...you're mine."
Something broke.
Not just in Tristin's mind — in his soul.
His vision blurred, not from tears… from rage.
Then — darkness.
Silence.
Then—
Something snapped.
His bones cracked like dry twigs, reforming into grotesque new structures. Muscles tore and rewove with wet, sickening sounds. Veins burned — not with blood, but something older. Something alive.
A pressure behind his eyes. A scream behind his teeth.
Then:
<< SYSTEM ALERT: BIOLOGICAL CONTAINMENT BREACH >> << TEMPLATE: "KANKI" — INSTALLED >> << PREDATION MODE: ENGAGED >> << LIMB MORPHOLOGY: OPTIMIZED >> << HOST SENTIENCE: DEGRADING (93%) >> << EXECUTE: CONSUMPTION >>
His skin bleached to a ghastly, bone-white pallor. His irises, once a soft human blue, burned crimson like coals fanned by rage.
Then came the suit.
A black, flesh-grown bodysuit slithered across his frame — not sewn, but born. Armor made of him. For him.
His nails blackened, lengthened into obsidian claws sharp enough to carve through steel.
And then—
The mask.
It grew from his face like living bone, forming a cracked, metallic exoskeleton. A horrific grin split across the lower half, sharp and unnatural, mocking every scream in the lab.
He twitched.
Once.
Twice.
Then four monstrous tendrils erupted from his back, slick and glistening like exposed muscle, serpentine and full of lethal grace. They twisted in the air, tasting it.
For the first time in four years—
Tristin felt hunger.
These weren't people anymore.
They were meat.
The first scientist died screaming.
A Kagune speared him clean through the chest, lifting him from the ground. His body spasmed once, then stilled. Blood sprayed against the sterile white walls.
The second — a woman — turned to run.
She didn't make it two steps.
A tendril coiled around her ankle, jerked back. Snap. She fell face-first. Her clipboard skidded away.
"P-please—" she choked.
Tristen tilted his head.
The mask's grin widened.
He pulled.
Her leg came off at the knee with a wet rip. Her scream didn't last long.
The lab burned.
Alarms blared. Sprinklers activated, raining water down over chaos and gore.
Pink rivers flowed between tiles — blood diluted but never cleansed.
Tristen moved like a beast reborn.
A nightmare given flesh.
Kagune tore through reinforced doors.
Claws shredded armored guards like cloth.
Men screamed. Machines sparked. Lights died.
One soldier raised his rifle—too slow.
Tristen's Kagune tore him in two.
His shock collar detonated, the circuitry fried in the overload. It exploded in a brief flare of sparks.
Freedom.
And still—
That voice in his mind.
Not human. Not kind.
Just one word:
"More."
He obeyed.
General Stryker, blood seeping through his uniform, leaned against a flickering console.
Face pale.
Staring.
Tristen advanced, slow and steady, a monster in full bloom.
Stryker raised his pistol. Fired.
Missed.
Another shot. Tristen dodged.
A Kagune lashed forward, carving a line across Stryker's chest. Blood sprayed.
Stryker fell back—
Slamming a control panel.
A door exploded behind him. Emergency override. He dove through the collapsing threshold, barking orders into a communicator, his blood staining the floor.
He didn't look back.
He escaped.
Tristen didn't follow.
Not yet.
Instead—
He feasted.
He stepped over the twitching corpse of a technician. A scientist whimpered beneath a desk. Tristen found her. Ripped her out.
His Kagune speared through her spine.
He bent forward.
And fed.
<< SYSTEM ALERT: CONSUMPTION PROTOCOL ACTIVE >>
<< ABSORBING NEURAL DATA… >>
<< MEMORY CLUSTERS DIGESTED >>
<< ENHANCED REGENERATION UNLOCKED >>
<< MUTATION ESCALATING… >>
When the last scream faded, and the last body dropped, Tristen stood alone in a field of blood and ash.
He looked up.
The ceiling above him was broken—fractured from the chaos.
He leapt.
Tore through it.
Burst into the dying light.
The sky.
The sun.
It hit him like a wave. Harsh. Golden. Unbelievably warm.
He raised a bloodied claw to shield his face.
His skin steamed in the light. Pale. Raw.
He inhaled.
Wind.
Clean air.
The taste of freedom.
Four years.
Four long, screaming years.
And now—
He was free.
His mask glinted in the sun. Kagune waved behind him like demonic wings.
His shadow stretched long over the ruins.
And below?
They would find only horror.