The room was hushed. Only the faint rustle of papers and the distant hum of the bunker kept it alive. Outside, the sky was sealed shut by thick black clouds. Midnight pressed heavy, like the air itself had grown dense.
Grace sat near the edge of the bed, her hands resting in her lap. She spoke softly, but her voice carried a steadiness it didn't have before.
"I unlocked it," she said. "My Transparent Realm."
Both Vera and Rosario turned their eyes to her. Then the system tone burst in her mind, sharp and cold.
[ Face Info Update ]
[ Strength: C ]
[ Speed: A ]
[ Agility: A+ ]
[ Endurance: B+ ]
[ Control: A+ ]
[ Stamina: A ]
Grace let out a slow breath. She could feel it already, pulsing through her bones sharper, lighter, more in control. Her body no longer felt like it was dragging her down. "I.… feel stronger," she whispered. "The weight of my own weakness finally tastes like iron in my mouth, and I refuse to spit it out. My anxiety was my god, and tonight I burn my god alive."
Vera leaned against the wall, peeling an apple with a small knife. His movements were calm, deliberate, almost mechanical like a robot programmed to cut apples. He nodded once, acknowledging her. "Good. You'll need that strength."
He took a bite, the crunch spread loud in the stillness. Then he stretched his arms above his head, rolling his shoulders. His joints cracked, and he sighed, the sound more like relief than satisfaction.
Rosario, lying sideways on the floor with his hands behind his head, chuckled. His pink hair fell into his eyes as he tilted his head toward Vera. "You stretch like an old man. What are you now? Eighty? Hundred?"
Vera gave him a flat look, chewing slowly. "Better to stretch than goon like you."
Rosario smirked, pretending to be offended. He clutched his patched-up stomach dramatically. "Ouch. Right where it hurts. I'm already stitched up like a scarecrow, and now you wound me with words?"
Grace couldn't help it. Her lips twitched, forming a smile but barely. Vera caught it, gave a half-shake of his head. "Don't encourage him."
Rosario grinned wider, his tone playful but sharp underneath. "Ah, Isn't that what I'm here for? To remind you both that life's too short to be serious all the time?"
Vera muttered, "You're lucky you're still breathing."
The apple crunched again. Grace, staring at the window, whispered, "I wonder how much longer any of us will be."
The night outside pressed harder against the glass, clouds unmoving. No stars, no moon.... just darkness....
Rosario, surprisingly, didn't joke this time. His smile softened, almost gone. "That's the truth, sister fox. That's the truth."
Rosario sat cross-legged on the floor, hair a little messy, his robe loosened. His voice was dry, low.
"I regret it," he said.
Grace tilted her head. "Regret? what?"
Rosario rubbed the bandage across his stomach, fingers tapping against it like he wanted to tear it off. His eyes stayed distant. "The deal.... the dream. Everything that came after."
Grace leaned forward, careful. "What dream?"
Rosario looked up finally. His eyes weren't playful now; they were worn, dark, like someone who hadn't slept in years. "An Overseer came to me in a dream. I don't even know if it was my dream or if I had been dragged into its. It didn't speak, but I heard it. Every word was like a nail hammered into bone. It promised me something…. A Conceptual Tesseract from Higher Depth, If I worked for it."
Grace frowned, confused. "Higher Depth? What does that mean?"
Rosario sighed. He sat back, head knocking against the wall. "You know void? The endless black, the gaps between stars? Forget that. Higher Depth is beyond it. It's where even infinity ends up. A place beyond existence, where nothing follows rules. There is no space, no time, no physics. Just layers of endless wave that fold in on each other like broken glass. The place itself is another plain of existence with its own rules."
He raised his hand, palm trembling faintly. "If you step into it, you don't just risk dying but you risk being erased. Like you were never born. Like your parents never touched you. Like your soul was never breathing into you."
Rosario's voice grew thinner, slower. "Most Overseers live there. Half sleeping. They use hunters like us as bridges."
He swallowed, bitter. "Very soon, I met Azmaik. He saw the mark, saw the lines, and dragged me further in his plan. He said I was already tainted, so why not serve him too? The parasite in me… if I stop, it kills me instantly. So I smiled, I obeyed, I carried his messages."
Grace's voice trembled as she asked, "….The Tesseract? What is it really?"
Rosario smiled again, but it wasn't playful. It was bitter, broken. "It's neither a box or an object as you think. It's… a dream. An absolute dream that refuses to end. It's a knot in the mind, similar like a doorway. With it, you can talk to beings that don't exist. Things that aren't written into reality, but still push their hands through it."
Grace blinked. "That sounds impossible."
Rosario shook his head. "It's worse, It's real. The Tesseract lets you bypass everything. The Tesseract grants you the boundary over Heaven. The Tesseract lets you step outside ceiling of imagination. Past the creator who set your name."
Vera finally spoke, his calm voice cutting through. "You mean.… something that can dethrone creators?"
Rosario nodded once. "Exactly. Overseers uses those things as toys. Because with it, they don't just feed on fear or worship. They rewrite all of existence just by their mere presence. If I remember correctly, An Overseer was very close to descend on land millenniums ago. It destroyed over 4 billions of Empires just by its presence."
The candle on the table flickered. The flame bent sideways though no air stirred. Grace's throat was dry. She hugged her knees, staring at Rosario.
"Why tell us this?" she asked softly.
Rosario leaned his head back against the wall, closing his eyes. "Because I'm tired. I regret every choice that chained me to them. If you just knew what waits above us, you would understand.… I was never really free."
"You think I was born like this?" he whispered. "Scheming, lying, playing pieces for an Overseer's dumbass? No…. I never had a chance to be anything else."
Grace leaned closer. Vera stayed still, quiet, but his eyes locked on Rosario. Rosario's gaze stayed low, his words dripped like stones into a well.
"I never felt what it's like to be…. cared for. My parents died before I understood the word family. My siblings.… they left. Left me behind for coin, for jobs, for whatever life they thought was bigger than me. And the town, yes my town.... it fell into hunger after the warplanes came. Bombs took the crops, the animals, the wells. Starvation turned neighbors into beggars, beggars into corpses.… I was twelve. We were just kids, scavenging in the junkyard, fighting for food like it was hope. My friend's gone, and now I'm lost in a war that never ends inside me."
"A noble bought me from the market. I still remember those shackles upon my skin. I remember the laughter when they weighed loaded sacks on me like a donkey. He was a sick man. He made me do everything—carry loads meant for horses, clean filth with my bare hands."
Rosario's breath hitched. He pressed his palm over his face. His voice grew thinner and rawer. "His daughter.… she touched me when I was nothing but a boy. She smiled while she throwing rocks at me. Every time I refused, she told me I was strange, unnatural. The whole town called me 'Bull-ass like it was my real name. Like I deserved it."
Grace's fingers curled tight around her sleeve as she drives deep into the narration. Vera's jaw stiffened, though he said nothing.
Rosario laughed once, bitter, meaningless. "Do you know what my nights were? I was their toy. They'd tell me, 'jump in the fire, and maybe we'll be your friends.' And I stupid, jumped. Burned my legs raw, just to be thrown into the yard of filth to sleep. They promised me friends. They gave me nothing but a plate of rotten apple, rice and some vegatables, a glass of water. When life gives you lemons, trade them for coffee. These tears need caffeine."
"I stopped caring about them, about myself. Every day was the same, his anger on my back, his hand breaking across my face. Until one night…. I saw him. The noble. Praying."
Rosario's eyes lifted now, dark and glassy. The lanternlight flickered across his pupils.
"He wasn't praying to God. Not any God I'd heard of. It was an Overseer. I listened silently avoiding noises. I listened to every word. Later.… I found the scraps of an incantation. I started chanting it under my breath, every night. At first it gave me nightmares. The same black place, over and over. Ghost in the dark scope. Fingers tapping the inside of my skull. But the more I chanted…. the more I understood."
He touched his temple with two fingers, tapping softly. "My mind…. it expanded. Like a cage door opening. Knowledge that wasn't mine poured in. Symbols, equations.... Meanings that couldn't be spoken. And then, one night.… it asked me to be its friend."
Grace muttered. "Then you said yes."
Rosario's smile was small, almost childlike, almost broken. "Of course I did. Who else had ever asked me? Who else wanted me? I said yes. I'm in such a dark place, the only one calling me 'friend' is the monster under my bed."
Vera's apple sat half-eaten on the table grossly, untouched.... of course, who would touch it?
You?
However,
"Years passed," Rosario continued. His tone hardened again, but the tremor still lived beneath. "I kept the incantations, drew circles on the floor when no one was watching. Death marks. Symbols of reapers. I drew chalk lines in the dark when everyone were sleeping. The Overseer came closer each time, until I didn't know where I ended and where it began."
"One night, the noble walked in. He saw me—kneeling, chanting, surrounded by marks of death. He didn't shout. He didn't try to strike me. He just…. stared. Like he'd seen a devil. The next day, he freed me. Even he didn't knew who was that person. I thought…. maybe he prayed for my release, or maybe the Overseer sent that person to set me free. I don't know."
Rosario's eyes narrowed. His next words came like fire through his teeth.
"But before I left, I burned everything. His house, his bloodline, his name. The daughter who smiled when she broke my knees, tortured me physically. All turned ash and faded in a single night."
His chest rose and fell fast, rage and sorrow blurring into one box.
"That was the night I stopped being a boy. That was the night the Overseer's dream swallowed me whole. Every step I've taken since, every knife in the dark, every contract, every mask I wore—it all began there. Not because I wanted it. But because I had nothing else to live on for."
The lantern flame bent again, as though the air itself was listening.
Rosario dropped his face into his hands. His shoulders shook once no— twice. "I wanted a friend," he whispered. "And I got is a monster.... we all are doomed...."