It is said that when a person dies, under certain circumstances, their sheer will can manifest into life— a defiance so potent that the laws of nature themselves bend to accommodate it.
This defiance is not merely metaphorical; it is the origin of what scholars, aristocrats, and survivors alike call the Rupture.
A Rupture is not learned. It cannot be passed down through blood. It manifests only when a person stands at the edge of death and chooses, irrationally and violently, to hold on to what little life they have.
For Xeno, that moment came when he was six years old.
The house felt wrong long before the door was forced open.
Drawers were open. Cabinet doors were crooked, as if someone had searched in a hurry. The air itself felt heavy, thick with something sour that Xeno could not name.
He sat on the kitchen floor with his knees pulled close, watching his older sister pace. She kept glancing toward the door like she was bracing for something she didn't want to see. Their mother stood near the table, her hands clenched so tightly her knuckles had gone pale. She was muttering to herself a silent prayer.
Their grandparents had spoken when the men arrived.
They had tried to reason to the weird men, but that was the last thing they ever did.
The men moved quickly after that.
They spoke casually, like this was routine. One of them even laughed as he looked around the house, unimpressed.
"That's it?" he said. "That all your old man had to offer?"
Xeno didn't understand gambling. He didn't understand debt. Heck, he didn't even understand how to use money since every penny was given to his father. He understood only that his father wasn't there, and these strangers were looking for him.
When one of them grabbed his mother's arm, his sister stepped forward without hesitation.
"Don't touch her," she said, her voice shaking despite her effort to sound strong.
The men exchanged glances, amused.
"Funny," one of them said. "Your dad didn't seem to mind."
They began pulling his mother and sister toward the door. Panic erupted in the room all at once. His sister screamed Xeno's name.
"Stay back!"
But he didn't listen.
Xeno picked up a knife laying in the sink. The kitchen knife was cold in his hand, heavier than he expected, the handle slick with his sweat. Xeno knew that if he did nothing, they would be gone forever.
The man nearest to him laughed outright.
"You serious, kid?"
Xeno screamed and lunged.
The knife was knocked from his grip, skidding uselessly across the floor. He was slammed down, the impact stealing the air from his lungs. Weight pressed him into the ground and his sister's voice cut through the chaos.
"Stop!" she screamed. "Not... not my brother, please. Just not Xeno! ...You don't have hearts!"
That only made them laugh harder.
"Hearts?" one scoffed. "Your father sold you without blinking. And we're the heartless ones?"
Another man crouched near Xeno, studying him with narrowed eyes. "Something's wrong with this one," he said, pulling up Xeno's face for the others to see.
"Mind's split. Kid's not right. What? Got hit in the head or sum' thing?"
Xeno didn't know what that meant.
They dragged his mother away. His sister fought until her voice broke, until her hands slipped from Xeno's sleeve and she was pulled out of reach.
"XENO!" she screamed.
"Stop please, not my brother!"
Pain followed as blows landed again and again, each one dimming the world a little more. His thoughts splintered, slipping away faster than he could grasp them.
The knife never left Xeno's hand, even as his grip weakened and his fingers trembled.
He kept trying to raise it, to do anything at all that might stop them from hurting him.
But every attempt failed. Because how can a child beat an adult? And a few adults at that?
His arms felt heavy, his vision was beginning to blur, and each step he took toward them ended with him being shoved back or struck aside.
The loan sharks however, found it amusing.
They laughed openly as he staggered forward again and again, laughing at the small child clutching a kitchen knife far too large for him. Each miss earned another taunt, shove, and then another strike.
Xeno could barely see out of one eye now. The light in the room seemed to dim, though he could not tell whether it was because of the swelling or because something inside him was beginning to fade.
His head felt like its buzzing and his ears now felt so muffled he couldn't hear anything but just the vibrations. He even felt the strength in his body losing.Still, he forced himself upright.
His mother was gone. His sister was gone. Grandad and Grandma are gone too.
He knew this, and yet he refused to accept it. Somewhere deep inside, a single thought repeated itself over and over, louder than the pain.
He needed to see them again.
The men took turns hitting him. One would strike him and then step back, allowing another to continue. They spoke casually, as if this were nothing more than a way to pass the time.
Xeno felt blows land across his back, legs, and side, each one made it harder for him to breathe. Still, he did not let go of the knife.
Then came the kick.
It landed hard against his ribs, and a dull, hollow crack echoed through his body, followed by a pain so sharp it stole the air from his lungs completely.
He collapsed, hitting the floor with a force he barely felt. The knife slipped from his fingers at last, clattering uselessly across the ground.
The laughter blurred into noise. The ceiling above him wavered, growing darker at the edges. His thoughts slowed, slipping through his grasp no matter how hard he tried to hold onto them.
And then, in that little space between consciousness and nothingness, he remembered his mother's voice.
"Mom," he had asked once, sitting quietly beside her. "Is there something wrong with me?"
She looked surprised, then concerned. She brushed his hair back gently and asked him why he thought that.
"They say I act like different people all the time," he had said. "Like I change."
She had smiled then.
"No, dear," she said. "That just means you're more than anyone."
"I feel like I'm a different person sometimes, And sometimes I want to kick Dad for not loving you enough and for not getting your favorite toy like you do to me."
She laughed. It was the first one in months since he heard her laugh genuinely.
"Well," she said, tapping his nose, "then I give you permission to use that different person inside my little Xeno and land a kick for me, yeah?"
Lying there on the floor, broken and fading, Xeno clung to those words.
Maybe that could work.
Maybe that different part of him could help.
With what little strength he had left, he reached inward with desperation. He called out to that other part of himself, the one he had been told made him more.
I don't want to sleep forever. Please, I still need to kick dad.
Suddenly, something inside him split apart, violently. His thoughts fractured and his awareness expand in impossible directions at once.
The pressure inside his head became unbearable, and then it released all at once.
"Huh, the fucks with him?"
For a moment, Xeno was nowhere and disappeared right in front of them.
Then...
There were two of him.
One reappeared and was still broken on the floor, gasping for air, while the other was standing, the same identical kitchen knife in his hand, but a face covered by fury.
The men froze.