The forest that surrounded the Paradim Penitentiary was nothing but a graveyard of rust and smoke, literally a skeletal wasteland where machines once hummed and now burned.
The prison itself, a colossal structure of silver-black alloy and iron glass, had collapsed into a mountain of flame and shrapnel. Its automated turrets sparked against molten walls, its watchtowers cracked open like eggshells. Bodies were strewn everywhere, guards impaled on steel rods, prisoners split in half, the ground smeared with blood and glinting bullet casings. The air stank of plasma and cooked flesh.
Cainan stood at the edge of the inferno, the last ember among ruins. His hands were locked together by sleek, silver restraints etched with blue pulsing veins, shitty Paradim Tech Security Mk IV cuffs, unbreakable to anyone without a death wish. His hair was brown, tied back in a tight, rough braid, and was streaked with soot and blood. His dark pink eyes, sharp as knives, shimmered faintly in the glow of the burning prison.
Across his cheek ran a diagonal scar, an old souvenir from a knife fight that went his way. He turned his head back toward the crumbling fortress, smirked faintly through blood-slick teeth, and said, "Shit. I barely touched them."
He stepped forward, boots crunching through glass and bones. A low groan caught his attention. Not far from him, a wounded officer was trying to sit upright, one arm bent wrong, half his armored chestplate blown open. The man's uniform was once proud, white combat armor with gold stripes and the Paradim emblem glowing at the heart, a high-tech rebreather mask cracked down the middle, and a compact plasma pistol shaking in his trembling hand.
Blood poured from his mouth, staining his chin and armor as he squinted through a haze of pain.
The pistol's barrel wavered. The officer tried to steady it, eyes focusing on Cainan's figure through the smoke. His finger curled on the trigger but fatigue crushed his focus. For one second, his eyelids shut, his breath had faltered for another second. When his eyes opened again, Cainan was gone.
A wet pop echoed behind him. The back of his skull erupted in a bloody spray, fragments of bone and helmet scattering like glass. The officer collapsed lifeless. Behind the corpse, Cainan stood grinning, holding the dead man's pistol loosely in one hand, its barrel smoking.
He looked up at the burning skyline, sighed, and muttered, "Ughh. How weak can you guys be?! You create a stupid prison for people like me, and this is the best you could offer? I gotta piss."
He wandered toward a broken concrete wall, unzipped casually, and let loose a long, unapologetic stream against the metal. "Been holding that one for days," he said with utter nonchalance. "Guys don't have the decency to put bathrooms in our rooms, make us use it once a week so we can crap all over ourselves. Real humane system, huh?"
A low hum broke the silence. Around him, the air shimmered as a translucent, futuristic dome flickering into existence, forming a perfect white sphere that sealed him inside. From the smooth surface, mechanical panels slid open, revealing countless gun barrels trained directly on him.
Then came a voice. A deep, aged tone filtered through the static of speakers, calm but edged with bitterness. "Nineteen-year-old contract killer… Cainan…"
Cainan tilted his head, eyes narrowing with a taunting grin. "Say my last name, bitch."
The voice ignored it. "Slaughtering half the guards in one sitting… you've proven why the system must be cruel. But you won't make it out alive."
"All your people are dead, Warden," Cainan replied, gesturing toward the corpses outside the dome. "Look around, old man."
Warden Jeken's voice came back, rougher, irritated. "You're in a sealed chamber surrounded by guns on every wall. You've got nowhere to escape."
"I do."
"You don't."
"I do."
"You don't."
"I do."
"Stop saying that!"
"I do."
"Cainan—"
"I do."
"You don't, SHUT UP! What am I doing arguing with a 19 year old?"
From his control room, Jeken slammed his palm against the command console. Red lights flared across the monitors as two surviving guards behind him tensed, watching the live feed. The dome's guns clicked into alignment, hundreds of barrels aiming directly at the boy who refused to die.
Cainan rolled his shoulders, exhaling through a grin. "If there's a dome here, there's another exit that's hidden. There aren't any doors, but there are other ways of leaving. Try me."
The Warden's wrinkled finger pressed the fire command, and grinned, "Teh. If you insist, damn brat."
All at once, the walls came alive with gunfire — a storm of plasma and light converging on the center of the dome. And Cainan, eyes wide with something close to excitement, kicked off the ground and dashed to the left, moving like a phantom through the storm as the prison burned behind him.
The control room sat high above the burning prison, a circular fortress of glass and chrome. Screens lined every wall, streaming live feeds from the slaughter below, each flickering in chaotic flashes of blue and red.
The room smelled of coffee, gun oil, and panic masked by professionalism. Warden Jeken stood in the center, he was a broad man with a graying undercut and a black trench warden coat decorated with gold-threaded chevrons, the insignia of Paradim's penal hierarchy glinting over his chest. His eyes, a faded green behind cracked military lenses, carried the hollow calm of a man who'd ordered too many executions to feel anything anymore.
He grinned as gunfire thundered through the speakers, the monitors trembling from the sheer volume of it. "Look at him," Jeken said, swirling the steaming cup in his hand. "He's getting shot left to right. He won't make it long. Fucking guns are filling him with holes! Haha!"
The two guards beside him were younger men in the same gray-white tactical suits, their helmets under one arm, and they shared a small laugh, eyes fixed on the screen as the sound of hundreds of plasma rounds filled the chamber. One leaned back, saying, "Damn right, sir. No one walks out of that."
Jeken raised his cup to his lips, inhaled the bitter scent, and took a slow, savoring sip. But before he could swallow, one of the guards jolted, pointing. "S–Sir!"
Jeken looked at the screen, froze, and spat his entire mouthful of coffee across the guard's visor. "How?! How?!" he barked, eyes wide.
"Fuck, you didn't have to spit it on me," the guard muttered, wiping it off.
"You're worried about some spit coffee when there's a trigger-happy death whore running around here?!" Jeken roared, grabbing his sidearm from the console. "We're leaving! I was a fool to stay anyway, trying to enjoy watching him die—!"
KATHOOM!
The double doors to the control room exploded inward. Shrapnel and smoke filled the space, monitors shorting out with a chain of electrical screams.
Cainan stood in the doorway, barely human, soaked in blood that dripped from bullet holes scattered across his chest and arms. His breathing was ragged, his cuffs still clamped to his wrists, one broken chain dangling loose. In his right hand, he held an entire plasma turret that he ripped from the wall like a barbarian, wires dangling like veins and the weapon humming violently under his grip.
The guards raised their rifles, shaking, and opened fire. Cainan didn't hesitate as his finger brushed the back trigger of the turret, and the weapon shrieked to life. A rain of searing blue light tore through the room, cutting the guards down in a storm of plasma. They fell before they could even scream, their bodies smoking in ruin.
The Warden stumbled backward, face pale. "You're a monster… The whole city's scared of you. Kids can't even go outside because of you! Lockdowns every goddamn second, I wanted to revel in your death, to tell my son he could finally go outside again!"
Cainan leveled the turret without a word and fired. The blast tore through Jeken's legs — bone, metal, and blood splintering in an instant. The man hit the floor hard, a raw, animal scream filling the air.
"Newsflash, stalker," Cainan said, stepping closer, voice low and rasping. "I don't kill children. I happen to like little brats." He blinked, frowned. "Wait, not like that. Not like that! But that just shows you bastards don't know me well enough, huh? You don't know what makes people like me tick like a bomb." He knelt down, his tone darkening. "I didn't have the luxury to live like a kid. Always ran away to be with a cat. I let kids live their childhoods like I didn't, but once they're older and cross me?" He tapped the side of the turret. "I'll do 'em like the rest. I'm not some heartless shrewd."
The Warden lay trembling in a pool of his own blood, his voice breaking through sobs. "But these men… they had families! You smiled when they died! I've never seen a cruel bastard like you in all of Paradim — you enjoy it…"
Cainan scratched the side of his head, eyes twitching with irritation. "Heh? You think I get off on this shit or what?"
Jeken tried to crawl away, dragging his shredded body with his elbows, leaving a thick red trail behind him. His breath came in gurgles. Cainan followed beside him, limping slightly, blood soaking through his shirt. "You enjoy seeing inmates die in here. Maybe it's deserved, whatever. Not my place to say. But I watched your guards beat a man to death who was supposed to get out in two months, he was falsely accused, trial was rigged and all that. You beat him because he argued back. Hard not to when you got adults telling you when to piss and shit. The worst part is, I only got caught because you and your mall cops killed my cat and used her as bait to lure me into a trap. Who's really the monster here?"
"I do whatever it takes…whatever it takes to save the world!"
"Ew stop with that save the world crap."
The Warden's voice cracked as he gasped, "You're dying… you're filled with holes… you aren't scared?"
Cainan crouched, eyes half-lidded, a lazy smile tugging his lips. "Death's nothing. One can either ask for it or reject it, and I choose the latter. Though I don't know what that latter even means. But you do… You wanna live, don't you? Family man?"
"Damn you—!" Jeken spat blood, twisting, and tried to spit in Cainan's face, but before it could land, Cainan swung the turret down and smashed it into the Warden's skull. The crack echoed through the room, splattering blood and circuitry across the floor.
Cainan exhaled sharply, searched the Warden's pockets, and pulled out a glowing keycard. Without another word, he turned toward the exit, dragging the heavy turret along the floor until it clanged uselessly against a wall. He left it there.
The corridor ahead led to the main entrance, which were massive steel doors shaped with fractal hex patterns, glowing runes tracing their edges like circuitry. Standing in front of them was a single guard, barely older than Cainan, trembling with his rifle raised. His eyes darted between the bloodied killer and the badge on his chest. "S–Stop! I'll stop you!"
Cainan tilted his head, eyes half-glazed but still sharp. He studied the boy, seeing his shaking hands, the sweat down his neck, the shallow rhythm of fear in his breath. "You're scared," Cainan said flatly. "Get out of here. You're no threat to me."
"N–No! I—!"
In the blink of an eye, Cainan vanished and reappeared in front of him, his elbow smashing into the guard's ribs. The man flew backward into the steel wall, gasping, crumpling to the floor — alive, but broken.
Cainan glanced at him once more, then pushed through the gate, disappearing into the smoke and the burning skyline of Paradim, a ruined world behind him, and another waiting to be ruined ahead.
Paradim stretched for miles in advanced tech, chrome colors and smoke, a city of silver towers rising from blackened streets, where the air was never still and the hum of industry swallowed every human sound. There was no sky, only a vast lattice of suspended railways above, hundreds of shining train lines tangled together like veins. Magnetic locomotives roared endlessly across them, crossing each other in tight intersections, their engines glowing red and white against the dim, sunless haze. The light that fell on the streets wasn't sunlight at all, but the metallic shimmer of engines passing above and a man-made dawn that never changed.
Cainan walked through that brightness, barefoot and bleeding, his white prison jumpsuit torn and soaked crimson from chest to knee. Steam hissed from vents around him; vending drones hovered overhead, pausing only long enough to register his face before dropping their cargo and retreating. Every step echoed on the steel pavement.
When people saw him, they froze— workers, vendors, children, all pausing in disbelief before panic started to set in.
"It's him!"
"I thought he was sentenced to four hundred million years?!"
"Run! He's covered in blood!"
"We'll be next! Don't look at him!"
Doors slammed. Holographic screens flickered warnings in red: CAINAN: CLASS OMEGA THREAT , DO NOT ENGAGE.
Pedestrians scattered, some calling for the Paradim Patrol, others just bolting in blind terror.
Cainan ignored them, his eyes dull and half-lidded, hands still cuffed at the wrists. He thought, 'Tch. I'm not some serial killer. Are these people crazy? Only kill those who cross me or have credits on their head. All for the love of the game.'
The thought barely registered as humor to him.
He kept walking, body stiff, until something soft brushed his leg. A small cat, black and grey, fur patchy, eyes gold like rust. It stared at him with the kind of curiosity only animals had left in this city.
He crouched slowly, wincing as pain shot up his side. Blood dripped from his arm onto the pavement. He clicked his teeth, trying to coax it closer. "C'mere, c'mon…" But the cat only flinched, ears twitching, and sprinted off down an alley.
"Yeah… figures," Cainan muttered, standing with a shaky breath. He looked down at himself, at the streaks of blood and holes in his chest. "Damn. How much blood do I have in my body?"
Then came the hum. Low, mechanical, growing louder.
He turned his head left, and saw a white truck barreling toward him down the empty street. Boxy, outdated design, spotless except for the glow beneath its frame. Its headlights flared like eyes. It definitely didn't belong in this world.
"Hm? That doesn't look like any truck I've ever seen—"
FWOOSH!
Cainan sprang upward, twisting midair in a messy flip before landing hard in a crouch. His knee gave out for half a second, his wet bloody hand slapping the pavement to catch balance. The truck screeched to a stop, tires screaming, then impossibly, it turned itself around in a clean arc, facing him again. Its engine revved like a growl.
"Stop running! Just accept it!" a voice shouted from inside the truck.
Cainan's eyes went wide. "AGH! A TALKING TRUCK!"
He spun on his heel and bolted down the street, sprinting past terrified civilians as the vehicle roared after him, smashing through neon signs and scattering vending drones into sparks.
Behind him, the truck's headlights glared like twin suns, and the street shook beneath its wheels as it thundered forward, hunting him through the veins of the city.
Cainan tore down the boulevard like a dying man sprinting from his own obituary, feet slapping the steel pavement, breath ragged and broken laughter leaking out between gasps. The blood across his jumpsuit had dried into a dark crust, but every new step cracked it open again. Behind him, the roaring white truck bulldozed through street barriers, scattering debris and drones alike.
"I'M SORRY! I'M SORRY! SOMEONE HELP!" Cainan shouted back without knowing why, dodging a holographic billboard as plasma sparks showered him. His wrists suddenly burned, and the steel cuffs around them snapped, shards of glowing alloy flying loose. He looked down at his newly freed hands mid-run, still panting. "Finally!"
He swerved into a marketplace tunnel, still being chased, crashing past vendors and stands selling neon fruits and chrome limbs. People screamed, diving aside as the truck burst through the entrance like a beast off its leash.
A burly man stepped out from a noodle shop holding a cup, blinking as Cainan came sprinting toward him. "Wha—?"
"Out of the way, fatty!" Cainan barked, vaulting over him as the man let out a startled high-pitched squeal that cracked halfway into a sob. The crowd erupted, scattering as the truck demolished half the street trying to follow.
Cainan vaulted a barricade, grabbed a glowing sign, and swung himself onto a high ledge. His limbs screamed in pain, but his body still moved with desperate grace. "Shit! Shit! Shit!" He yelled, landing and rolling. He then turned a corner and froze.
A full formation of Paradim Patrol stood waiting and ready, sleek blue armor, rifles humming with light, and a line of officers carrying blade-spears that shimmered perfectly in dangerous heat. Their commander barked, "Target sighted! Prepare to fire!"
Cainan blinked once. "SHOOT THE TRUCK BEHIND ME! HELP!" He turned sharply left, bolting down another street just as the truck plowed straight through the officers, scattering them like bowling pins, making other cars around explode in a rupture of combustion and flames inside of smoke.
Cainan didn't make it far this time. The truck swung around a corner at impossible speed and slammed straight into him.
WHAM!
He flew several meters, limbs flailing, and landed face-first with a wet thud on the pavement. The onlookers gasped.
Then, with a snarl of its engine, the truck rolled forward and ran him over.
Then reversed.
Then rolled forward over him again.
And again.
And again.
And again, running him over and reversing back on him over and over.
"DIE! DIE! DIE! DIE!" the truck's voice bellowed hysterically, its frame bouncing with each pass. "HOW ARE YOU SO TOUGH?!"
The bystanders watched, horrified and fascinated, covering their children's eyes.
"Is he finally dead?" one whispered.
"Finally…?" another replied, uncertain.
The truck stopped, engine wheezing like it needed a cigarette. Silence hung over the wreckage, until Cainan's finger twitched. Then another. Then his head lifted. Blood streaked down his face, but his lips pulled into a grin. "Fuck… I'm insane."
The driver's side door opened. Someone stepped— no, something highly unusual and something people would only see in their dreams. A humanoid figure made of pure white light, its body like glass filled with swirling galaxies. No face, just a silhouette glowing brighter than the streetlights, a small, shifting Milky Way churning in its chest.
The being grabbed Cainan by the leg and started dragging him toward the truck. Its voice was calm, resonant, and a little irritated. "You're dying anyway. Stop running."
Cainan flailed like a child, kicking and squirming. "Bastard! Let me go! What are you?! Someone help!"
The galaxy-man stumbled as Cainan kicked at its glowing head over and over, pushing his heel against its faceless visage. "Would you stop—!" The being looked up at the crowd, still clutching Cainan who writhed like an angry cat. "This is so embarrassing. Excuse us. No wonder people are scared of you, you're surprisingly hard to kill."
"The people? Here I got something for them and you," Cainan replied, leaving behind a middle finger in the air.
The galaxy-man sighed, glowing brighter. "This isn't your world anymore."
It hurled him into the truck with inhuman strength, and metal creaked on impact, Cainan shouted something unintelligible and the door slammed shut with a blinding flash of light.
Inside the truck, the world had gone muted. The hum of the engine was soft, almost respectful, as if it knew the man bleeding in its passenger seat was clinging to something fragile…life, or the illusion of it.
Cainan's head hung low, strands of his hair stuck to the dried blood on his face. His hands were clenched into trembling fists on his knees, every muscle in his forearms still twitching from the chase. The galaxy man drove in perfect stillness, the soft glow from his chest washing the interior in faint cosmic light.
For a while, neither spoke. The truck rumbled across the ruined highway, wind sliding through the cracks in the frame. Then, from the silence, Cainan rasped, "What are you? Some angel? Come to wisp me away to Heaven?"
The galaxy man didn't turn his head. His voice was smooth, almost bored. "You think angels would come for you?"
Cainan let out a broken laugh. "…Nope."
"It is strange that you're able to withstand so much and live," the being continued. "Though your life fades now."
"Screw it," Cainan muttered, leaning back, staring at the ceiling. "I had my fun."
"Fun?" the driver asked.
"Yeah. After everything I did, killing, stealing, running and having everyone actually notice me was badass. Only time I ever felt wanted. Get it? Wanted? Because I'm…" He smirked weakly, then waved his hand. "Never mind. You're not gonna get it."
The galaxy man's eyes or where eyes should've been flicked toward him. "You're not scared of death at all. Or of me."
Cainan chuckled under his breath. "Being scared just slows you down, star man. I'm reckless because it kept me alive. I suck at being patient. Staying still doesn't suit me. Never did."
"But you're dying."
Cainan turned his head, eyes half-lidded. He stared at the endless desert rushing by outside the window, orange light bleeding through the clouds. "Sigh." It came out soft, almost peaceful. His eyelids sank lower. His breathing thinned. His body loosened, head rolling forward as if sleep had finally claimed him after years of running. The light in his eyes went out quietly.
The truck drove on. The galaxy man didn't move.
…..
Cainan's body fell, weightless through an infinite black sea. Down, and down, and down, hair and blood rising around him like ribbons. His wounds began to knit closed, skin sealing, breathless body slowly mending as he sank deeper into that eternal dark.
Above him, a dim radiance flickered, a world forming it seemed, rippling like the reflection of another time period.
Through the water's sheen, he saw chaos. A battle. Definitely a war.
Knights clad in white and crimson armor clashed with warriors in black and earthen steel, cursed enemy soldiers who had black cursed relics connected to their body.
Arrows whistled through the air, spells roared across the field in explosions of flame and light. Steel tore through flesh; banners fell, replaced by clouds of ash and dust. Captains screamed orders drowned by the ringing of blades and the thunder of hooves. Even a large dragon made of shadows ate his own allied soldiers but not killed them, and used their magic through its own muzzle to channel out towards enemies.
On a high marble platform stood a young princess, same age as Cainan himself, long dark blue hair flowing behind her, eyes the color of molten gold staring out with sorrow and resolve. She wore a royal garb of white trimmed with intricate red designs, each fold of silk marked by sigils that shimmered faintly in the stormlight. In her trembling hand, she held a white scepter inlaid with shifting stars of purple, green, and violet that pulsed like living light.
Around her, royal mages stood in a perfect circle, chanting in ancient cadence. Between them glowed a vast summoning crest, black and red lines spiraling like veins of fire, inscribed with symbols that bent the air. Wind tore through the courtyard, snapping banners, shaking the ground. The knights around them formed a shield wall, holding back the encroaching enemy forces with screams and defiance.
The princess hesitated. Her voice wavered, but she raised the scepter high, her expression breaking beneath the weight of what she was about to do. Blood ran down her palm, dripping into the glowing circle. The ground trembled.
"In the name of the Crown…" she whispered. "Come forth, my summon!"
The sigil erupted. Light engulfed the field in a spiral of red and violet flame. The mages were thrown backward, the knights stumbled, and from that searing light, a body formed, Cainan's body, suspended midair as the wind tore through him.
And through that roaring noise, through the rupture of worlds, a voice echoed faintly in his head. The same voice that had once spoken from the driver's seat.
"You kill, yes? As a summon… kill the brain. Wielder of Death."
The battlefield had turned to silence. The world itself seemed to hold its breath as light twisted within the summoning circle as red, black, and white threads spiraling into one point like a storm collapsing on itself.
From its heart, Cainan's silhouette began to form naturally like a weaver creating a human from scratch. Flesh knitted where there had been nothing. Breath found lungs that had never drawn air in this realm.
Cainan appeared slowly, his body bare, unshaped by shame or context, but saw he had an already impaled blade through his chest, a greatsword that was monstrous: a jagged red-and-black weapon, wrapped in barbed wire that dug into its own metal. Black and crimson fire crawled along its edge, the air around it bending and trembling as if afraid.
The hilt jutted from his sternum, its handle twisted like bone, and his blood dripped down the steel in lazy rivulets. Cainan looked down at it, eyes empty, half-wondering if he was already dead. He had a flaming red crown over his head, but it hovered just like a halo.
'What…is happening?!'
Princess Audren stood within the fading glow of the circle. Her long dark blue hair flicked against her outfit in the chaotic wind, and her dark yellow eyes studied him like a stray dog. Her hair was in a half-up, half-down style with loose waves.
Around her, the circle of mages trembled in awe and exhaustion. One pointed forward, voice cracking:
"T-Tis' him! The summon! The young lord!"
Audren blinked, unimpressed. "He's got girl hair."
"My queen?"
"And he doesn't look like much," she muttered, glancing toward her captains. "Can I leave now?"
A nervous mage answered quickly, "W-We can't! Stroheim came here to stop our ritual, but now that it's done, they might get desperate! Remember they used dark and cursed magic, bodies fused with relics cursed by the god of darkness himself!"
Then came a sound like tearing sky.
Cainan's fingers gripped the hilt in his chest. His jaw clenched, veins rising on his neck. A guttural roar erupted from him as he began pulling the blade out, muscles trembling violently. The air screamed with him. Red and black wind spiraled from the weapon, exploding outward in a shockwave that flattened banners and forced soldiers to their knees. The battlefield froze.