Malo's eyes narrowed slightly. The question had caught him off guard.He replied after a moment, voice uncertain.
"Fracture...? And powers—you mean like... abilities?"
There was a pause on the other end of the line.
When the voice returned, it was measured, but tight. He was doing a decent job of hiding his frustration—mostly.
"The rupture event on May 6th, 2027. You were found at the epicenter—surrounded by what was left of the townspeople. Mutilated. Slaughtered."
"I'm assuming you lost control. Most don't survive something like that, let alone... walk away."
Another beat. Then the voice spoke again, quieter—but with a kind of cold weight.
"That's why you're here."
Silence followed, until he added with a low sigh:
"Let's not make this more difficult than it has to be, kid."
Malo didn't answer right away.
He could feel it — the way the voice had changed. It was calm, but too calm. Like someone waiting to be disappointed.
And Malo knew, somehow, that giving the wrong answer could be dangerous.
He wasn't sure what the right answer was. He wasn't even sure what they wanted from him.
If he were smarter, maybe he could lie. Make something up. Say what they needed to hear.
But he was just a kid.
He didn't know how to lie right. He barely understood what had happened to him.
So, he sat there, knees drawn up, heart thumping a little faster now.
Afraid.
"I don't know," he said softly. "I don't know what I am."
The silence that followed was long. The voice didn't speak right away. Maybe he was expecting anger, denial — something dangerous. Not a quiet kid hugging his knees and whispering, "I don't know."
When the voice finally returned, it was quieter. Less clipped.
"Alright," he said. "We'll start there."
A soft click echoed faintly overhead — a system shifting, maybe. Something recalibrating.
"My name's Jaden," the voice continued. "I'm the handler assigned to your case. That means I watch the cameras, ask the questions, and try not to mess anything up."
He paused, like debating whether to keep going.
"Officially, I'm Lieutenant Jaden Prolev, Department of Anomalous Containment. But that's a lot of syllables for someone your age."
He let the sentence hang there for a moment.
"You can just call me Jay."
There was no response from the boy.
"I know this isn't comfortable. Believe me, it's not supposed to be. But I don't want this to feel like an interrogation. You're not in trouble, Malo."
Jaden hesitated, then added with a tired edge:
"Not yet anyway."
....
Jaden was surprised to see no reaction when he revealed his name, even though he is an officer in a secluded, isolated military base in the mountains. In his prime, he was known as The Incorruptible Sage — a title given by the people. Officially, his superhuman designation was Cipher.
That eased Jaden's suspicion — a little, but not entirely. It was certainly safer to assume the kid knew very little. Because of that, it made sense for Jaden to explain the basic history and observe how Malo handled the lesson.
"The Fracture," he began, "sometimes called the Rupture, is a kind of crack — a breach — formed by some otherworldly being or force. Through it, they send their agents into our world to spread mayhem. Why they do this, no one really knows.
But the crack doesn't only let things in. Sometimes, it gives. Powers. Abilities. Though always at a cost." He paused briefly, eyes still on Malo.
"Some people lose their minds during the transformation. That might have been your case, though we haven't found solid evidence. The ever-shifting nature of the Fracture makes it nearly impossible to say for sure what happened in any individual case. What we do know is this: when it gives, it also takes — and that loss is almost always permanent.
Those who survive the change often show alterations in their anatomy — adaptations, you could say — meant to carry what we call Chaos. That's the power itself. And because of it, we're called Chaos born by definition."
He studied Malo's eyes before continuing.
"Let me give you an example. There was a man named William Johnson. The Rupture gave him the ability to shift his reality every time he used his power — he could become animal, man, or anything in between. But every shift took a toll on his sanity.
Grim as it was," Jaden said, his voice steady but his gaze sharp, "he understood how it worked. And he accepted it."
Malo expression was curious during this whole conversation; he never interrupted Jaden.
Jaden shook his head and exhaled."The Fracture can be closed," he said, "but its power must be drained first. That's both a requirement and a safeguard. Even the strongest ability users aren't permitted to seal a Fracture abruptly — not without weakening it first. Closing one prematurely almost always leads to disaster. You might recall the Hansen incident. That happened because someone tried to shut it down in a rush."
He glanced at Malo, studying his face for a reaction. But there was none. If Malo recognized the name or understood its weight, he didn't show it. Jaden couldn't tell whether it was ignorance, detachment, or something else entirely.
Finally, Jaden addressed Malo directly."When people become Sundered, they gain insight into their own power — and their limitations. It happens naturally."He paused for a moment, then added, "Sundered is what we call those who volunteer to close Fractures. Though in the past, some used the word Distorted — out of disdain. That name's mostly fallen out of use."
"You likely felt a kind of call," he continued, "and instinctively used your ability. In your case, it came with a loss of sanity — but that call, that moment, it usually leaves a mark. Not just in memory, but in the very fabric of who you are."
Jaden stared at Malo in silence, watching... waiting.
After a long silence, Malo finally spoke."I don't remember any such call… but something's missing."
Jaden's tone remained calm, steady."What's missing?"
Malo hesitated. He seemed to search for the words."My name is Malo Jorin. My mother's name is Alicia K. Jorin. We lived in a small hut near the village of Cebury. The village was far from any urban city, but it was well-informed. News reached us. But… things like superhumans? No one there ever spoke of them. It wasn't part of our world."
Jaden leaned forward slightly, his eyes sharp."Cebury — where is it located? And how can I contact your mother? Anyone else?"
He didn't ask about the boy's father. The silence that followed said enough.
Malo's expression grew dark, and when he spoke, his voice was low and heavy, as if each word carried a weight he didn't fully understand.
"Cebury's a quiet village in Northern Wales, near the mountains. It's surrounded by forests and hills, with only a few roads going in or out. Most of the houses are old, and the people there know each other by name. We had a small market, a school with just a few kids, and an old church that doesn't ring its bell anymore. It's the kind of place where nothing big ever happens, and strangers almost never visit."
There was a heavy pause, thick with guilt, loneliness, and fear.
Malo stuttered, his voice breaking apart with each word.
"Peop... pe... people aren't alive there... Kille... d them... I... did... M-moth...eeer... too..."
Jaden was perplexed by what he heard. Without a word, he turned to the terminal, fingers moving swiftly across the keys as he searched Malo's file logs for any mention of Cebury.
Nothing. No report. No record of a massacre. No flagged incident. Cebury, according to the system, was unremarkable.
Jaden's brow furrowed. Doubt crept in. Was the boy lying? Delusional? Or was something being hidden—intentionally?
Still, he said nothing to Malo. No questions, no comfort. Just silence.
Instead, he accessed the interweb and began digging deeper, bypassing surface-level archives, tracing back through older, uncatalogued news feeds and fragment logs.
There it was. Cebury. A real village, listed in old regional records. Ten years ago.
What he read next sent a chill down his spine.
The entire population of Cebury had been slaughtered out in a single night.
The houses remained, but their walls were soaked in blood. Doors torn off their hinges, furniture splintered, claw marks gouged into stone and wood alike. Meals were left uneaten, cold when investigators arrived. The victims—what was left of them—were barely identifiable, torn apart with a savagery no human could inflict.
The official report marked it as a Level 6 Chaos Event. The creature responsible was never caught, never fully understood. All they knew was that it had come through a Fracture that briefly opened and closed within hours — and that it had left nothing alive.
The name Cebury was buried after that. Classified. Hidden. Too violent, too senseless to explain.
And now Jaden sat there, staring at the same name on the boy's file, listening to him stammer through his grief, and realizing… Malo had survived that — or more appropriately, caused it.
"People... are not alive there... I... did..."
Jaden had borne witness to confessions before — the frenzied ravings of shattered minds, the delusions of men touched by madness, the pitiful utterances of those haunted by shadows none could name. Yet this was different — hideously so. There was a quiet conviction in the boy's voice, a dreadful sincerity that chilled the blood. It was not madness that spoke, but something far worse: truth — bleak, unflinching, and unspeakable.
.......
And among the last photos logged before the records stopped—grainy, distorted—was a small hut by the tree line. Its door left open. A woman's coat still hanging by the frame.