Chapter 25: The Ghost of the Past
Ren's eyes snapped open. He was still in the alchemist's chamber, slumped in the heavy wooden chair. The air was thick with the scent of chemicals and stale smoke. Directly across from him, Kimo was fast asleep, his head tilted back against his chair. Master Kara was also snoring softly, his glasses resting precariously on his chest.
Ren stood up slowly, his legs feeling like lead. His hands trembled as he reached for the gold revolver at his hip. As his fingers touched the cold metal, the world around him began to distort.
The polished gold of the revolver suddenly turned rusted and pitted. Grime and dried blood coated the barrel. Ren looked around, and his heart nearly stopped. The clean laboratory was gone. In its place stood a ruined, bombed-out house. The walls were scorched, and the smell of gunpowder hung heavy in the air.
Lying in the center of the debris were five bodies. His mother, his father, and his three brothers.
"Mom? Dad?" Ren's voice was a broken whisper. He looked at his brothers, their faces pale and lifeless in the flickering light of distant explosions. "Mezo... Kazi... Meani... please, wake up! Get up!"
Outside the shattered windows, the roar of World War II artillery shook the earth. The despair was overwhelming. In the dream—or was it a memory?—Ren raised the rusted revolver to his own temple. A single shot echoed through the ruins.
Ren gasped, his eyes flying open again. He was back in the lab. The revolver in his hand was clean and gold.
"I... I just killed myself," Ren stammered, his mind fractured. "Mom, Dad, my brothers... where are they? No, they aren't real... but I remember them. Did I die back then? Was I reincarnated?"
His sanity began to slip. He tried to walk toward the door, but a sudden, blinding pain erupted in his spine. It felt like a thousand needles were being driven into his vertebrae. He grabbed his head, letting out a blood-curdling scream that shattered the silence of the room.
Kimo bolted upright, his hand instinctively reaching for his weapon. He saw Ren clutching his head, his body arching in agony.
"Ren! Ren, stay with me!" Kimo shouted, rushing forward to grab the boy's shoulders.
Master Kara jumped up, nearly knocking over his table. "Stop screaming, boy! You'll alert the entire Academy!"
"Kara! Do something! He's losing it!" Kimo yelled as Ren's eyes began to glow with a frantic, unstable light.
Ren wasn't seeing the lab anymore. He was seeing blood—rivers of it—flowing from the walls. He was seeing the dead faces of his past family staring back at him from the shadows.
Seeing that Ren was about to spiral into complete madness, Kimo delivered a swift, precise blow to the back of Ren's neck. Ren's body went limp instantly, and Kimo caught him before he hit the floor.
"What the hell was that?" Kimo panted, looking down at the unconscious boy.
Kara stepped closer, his face uncharacteristically grim. "I've never seen a reaction like this from a Level 8 potion. Those weren't just hallucinations... those were deep-seated traumas."
Kara's voice dropped to a whisper. "We need to test his Vane stability immediately. If his mind can't control the potion, he won't just die. He'll turn into a Feral. That's how they are born—when a human soul breaks under the weight of the Vane."