The room they took Aerich to had no windows.
That was the first thing he noticed when he woke.
The second was the silence—not the peaceful kind, but the kind that pressed against his ears until his own breathing sounded too loud. The walls were smooth, dark stone carved with faint, dormant symbols that pulsed weakly like a heartbeat far away.
A containment room.
He sat up slowly, head pounding, body sore in ways that didn't feel physical. His chest felt… quieter. The hunger was still there, but distant, muted like a voice behind thick glass.
Temporary.
Sereth's words echoed in his mind.
Aerich swung his legs over the edge of the narrow bed and rubbed his face. His hands were steady now, which almost scared him more.
"You're awake."
He looked up.
His mother stood near the doorway, arms folded tightly around herself. She looked exhausted—older than she had just hours ago. Shadows clung to her eyes like bruises.
"How long?" he asked.
"Six hours."
He nodded slowly. "Did I… hurt anyone?"
Her hesitation was answer enough.
"No one died," she said carefully. "But the house will never be the same."
Aerich swallowed. "You locked me up."
She flinched. "To protect you."
"And everyone else," he said.
She didn't argue.
He leaned back against the wall. "You knew. About all of this."
"Yes."
"How long?"
She closed the door behind her and stepped closer. "Before you were born."
The words landed like a blow.
Aerich laughed softly, humorless. "So my whole life—everything—was just you waiting for me to turn into a monster?"
"No," she said sharply. "I was waiting for you not to."
Silence stretched.
Finally, he asked the question that had been clawing at him since the night began.
"What am I?"
She sat on the edge of the bed, hands clasped tightly. "You're human," she said first. "That part matters."
"And the rest?"
She took a long breath. "You are a vessel."
The word tasted bitter.
"For what?"
She looked at the symbols on the walls instead of at him. "For something that should not exist anymore."
Aerich's chest tightened. "That thing I absorbed."
She nodded. "A fragment. A starving echo."
"So I'm just a container for dead monsters?" His voice cracked. "Is that all I am?"
She turned to him, eyes blazing. "You are not a thing. You are my son."
Her voice broke.
"But yes," she whispered, "your body was designed to hold what the world couldn't destroy."
The hum stirred faintly, as if amused.
Aerich pushed himself to his feet, pacing the small room. "Designed by who?"
"The Watchers," she said. "And people like me."
He froze. "Like you?"
She swallowed. "I wasn't always just a mother."
The air felt heavier.
"I was a Sealer," she continued. "We contained anomalies. Locked them away. Erased their traces."
Aerich stared at her. "You helped build cages."
"Yes."
"For things like me."
Her silence confirmed it.
Anger flared—hot, sharp, righteous. "Then why didn't you lock me away?"
"Because I broke the rules," she said. "Because when they told me the vessel would not be allowed to grow up as a person, I ran."
His breath hitched.
"I sealed your core myself," she whispered. "Bound it deep, layered it with memories, emotions, normalcy. Love."
He laughed, tears spilling over. "So all this—school, friends, stupid dreams—it was just… camouflage?"
"No," she said fiercely. "It was real. It is real."
A knock echoed softly at the door.
Sereth entered without waiting.
Her gaze flicked between them. "It's time."
"For what?" Aerich demanded.
She gestured toward the symbols. "For truth."
The walls shimmered.
The room expanded—not physically, but perceptually—revealing layers beneath reality, like pages peeling back. Images flared into existence around them.
A battlefield.
Shattered skies.
Creatures of impossible scale tearing through cities made of light and bone.
Aerich staggered. "What is this?"
"The last war," Sereth said. "The one we erased."
He watched himself—or something like him—standing at the center of the devastation. A being of pure collapse and absorption, devouring gods, worlds, concepts.
"No," he whispered. "That's not me."
"It was," Sereth said. "Before it was broken."
His mother grabbed his hand. "You are not that anymore."
"But I could be," he said, voice hollow.
"Yes," Sereth replied. "That's why you were sealed. And why you were never meant to awaken."
Aerich's hands clenched. "Then why did it happen?"
Sereth's eyes darkened. "Because something is breaking the locks."
The vision shifted.
Dark figures moved through forgotten spaces, carving symbols Aerich now recognized instinctively.
"Who are they?" he asked.
"Those who believe the hunger should be free," Sereth said. "They call themselves the Unbound."
The hum pulsed once.
They felt… familiar.
Aerich pulled his hand away from his mother. "So what happens now?"
Sereth met his gaze. "Now you are a liability."
His mother stepped forward. "You don't get to—"
"And a weapon," Sereth finished. "If he chooses to be."
Aerich let out a shaky breath. "That's it? I either get locked up or pointed at your enemies?"
Sereth didn't sugarcoat it. "Yes."
He looked down at his hands again.
He remembered the hunger. The way it waited.
"I won't be your weapon," he said quietly.
Sereth tilted her head. "Then what will you be?"
Aerich looked up, eyes hard, something new forming behind them.
"Someone who decides what gets locked away."
The room went still.
For the first time, Sereth smiled.
Not warmly.
Respectfully.
"Then," she said, "you will need to learn what the world hid from you."
The symbols along the walls ignited again—not as chains, but as doors.
Aerich felt it.
The things buried inside him shifted.
Some slept.
Some did not.
And one thing, deep beneath it all, opened an eye.