Steven stood in front of a sliding gate, a portion of which stood ajar, and before him stood a woman.
She was radiant, striking in a way that commanded both awe and warmth. Standing at five feet eight, she had the posture of someone used to being both protector and anchor. Her face was a masterwork—sculpted like a porcelain doll yet alive with kindness and quiet power. Spirals of golden curls framed her face, their glow softened by the silver hue of her gentle, knowing eyes. Though youthful in appearance, there was an unmistakable maturity behind her gaze, as if time moved differently around her.
"Welcome back, my little officer," she said, her voice lilting with affectionate teasing.
She was Teresa — the Matron of the orphanage — and to Steven, she was simply Mother. She stood at the threshold, waiting, as if she'd known the exact moment he'd return.
The orphanage behind her looked aged but lovingly cared for. Beyond the gate lay a small garden, modest yet vibrant, with an assortment of flowers and herbs that framed the narrow stone path. A graceful tree with cascading violet petals stood proudly near the center, accompanied by a carefully pruned bonsai-like tree that exuded quiet strength.
Teresa stepped forward and embraced him. Steven melted into the warmth of her arms, holding her tightly in return.
"Did you know I was coming?" he asked softly.
She smiled and responded simply, "A mother always knows."
With a gentle pat on his shoulder, she pulled back and said, "Come inside. I made tea, and it's getting cold."
Steven stepped through the wooden gate, the soft creak of its old hinges like a whisper from the past. Gravel crunched beneath his boots as he passed into the heart of the orphanage — a traditional Japanese-style home, its architecture a preserved relic of a forgotten world. The building stretched low and wide, its shoji doors glowing faintly with interior light, framed by aged timber beams and elegantly sloped eaves.
The house encircled an open courtyard, and as Steven slid open one of the inner doors, a flood of scent and sensation met him — cypress wood, faint incense, and the floral breath of night blossoms.
The courtyard remained untouched by time.
Moonlight poured down through the open roof, casting a pale silver sheen across a gently rippling pond. Koi moved lazily beneath the surface, drowsy in the night chill. A narrow stone bridge arched gracefully over a murmuring stream, which meandered between moss-covered rocks and low shrubs heavy with bloom. In the distance, a faint rustle stirred from a bamboo thicket — cat or wind, he couldn't tell.
His gaze lingered on the patch of soil by the western corner. Mira had once tended herbs there, guiding the children who eagerly — and disastrously — tried to help. Now, wild anemones and white lilies had claimed the space.
He remembered sprinting barefoot through this garden, chasing Uncle Cas, slipping on wet stone, and laughing too hard to breathe. Mira's voice would always follow, scolding them as they tracked mud across the floors.
Steven breathed deep. The air here was different — thick with memory.
This house had raised him. Not the city. Not the academy. Here, beneath these creaking rafters and paper-thin walls, with the moon hanging low over the garden — this was home. And somehow, against all odds, it still felt like it.
Teresa led him to a familiar open room facing the courtyard, where a low, circular wooden table had already been set. A jade-green kettle, still steaming, sat at the center, flanked by two delicate jade cups. Cushioned chairs rested on either side.
As Steven reached for the kettle, her hand flicked out and smacked his wrist with practiced precision.
"You've had a long day," she chided gently. "So relax — let me take care of things tonight."
Steven offered no protest, accepting the cup she poured for him. The tea's aroma unfurled in the air — soothing, earthy, familiar. One sip, and the tension in his shoulders eased.
She opened her mouth to ask about his day, but then paused. Her smile grew, touched by exasperation and something fonder.
She turned her gaze to the courtyard's edge.
There, peeking into the room, was a small white figure.
In a blink, it darted forward with a high-pitched mewl, revealing itself in full.
A wisp of silent mischief wrapped in pristine snow. Her fur shimmered with a faint luster, as if woven from moonlight and silk. She moved with feline elegance, her body sleek and perfectly proportioned, built for vanishing acts and tree-top dances.
Round ears, barely visible in the puff of her fluff, twitched as she pranced into view. Her eyes, striking and mismatched — one a glowing amber gold, the other a smoky, spectral gray — locked onto Steven with a bold innocence.
A sinuous tail flicked behind her, curling like windblown ribbon. She was small and silent and utterly untouchable.
Steven grinned. "Yuki."
But before he could reach out, she snapped her gaze over her shoulder, alert, and bolted.
Seconds later, the rhythmic tap of claws on polished wood echoed from the hallway. A darker shape emerged — a shadow forged into fur and form.
Tall and lean, the creature padded into view, its limbs long and predatory. Its coat absorbed the light, darker than midnight, like a living absence, a void in motion. The hound was not yet fully grown, but its stature already suggested strength and speed honed for the hunt.
Amber eyes gleamed with keen intelligence beneath high-set, alert ears. A collar of aged, tarnished gold sat heavy around his neck, etched with patterns long lost to time — a quiet testament to something ancient.
Each step he took was silent, precise, almost reverent, as though he floated just above the ground. His presence was commanding yet calm, mythic even, especially when he paused beneath the moonlight.
He barked once, a deep, resonant sound that reverberated through the floorboards, then trotted over and began licking Steven's outstretched palms, tail wagging in wide, lazy arcs.
Moments later, a loud crash sounded from the direction Yuki had run.
The hound barked again — twice this time — then turned and sprinted after her, claws skimming the floor like flint.
Steven chuckled. "Looks like Yuki's settling in just fine."
Teresa sighed with the weariness of one who has cleaned up far too many broken vases. "She doesn't let Anubis sleep. Always knocking something over or trying to catch the koi."
"And from the looks of it, she broke something else," Steven murmured, the faintest trace of amusement curling in his voice. "Mira's going to be pissed in the morning."
He smiled, and for a fleeting moment, the world's cruelties receded. The horrors he had witnessed earlier—the kind that threatened to stain a soul permanently—faded beneath the gentle glow of something tender, something stubborn: hope.
Teresa watched him in silence. Her silvery-gray pupils shimmered, then unraveled into delicate threads of color—vivid green, soft red, warm yellow—like sunlight refracted through a prism. It was subtle but unmistakable, a slow blooming of warmth.
Steven felt it. A flicker inside him, faint but defiant, surged with new strength. The heaviness in his chest softened, and a quiet calm spread through him like balm across old wounds. He turned toward her, knowing instinctively what she had done.
"Thank you," he said simply, his voice low, edged with something fragile but real.
Her eyes faded back to their usual silver, the magic gone but its echo lingering.
He knew she had used her ability on him. The darkness he'd seen today—the human kind—had been unbearable. It had gnawed at him, scraped at the edges of who he was, pushing him toward a version of himself that felt colder, crueler… detached.
He had begun to wonder if that version was inevitable.
But somehow, despite the weight of what he had seen, hope hadn't let go. Or maybe, as he now realized, it was the opposite. Hope had clung to him, like a seed refusing to die in scorched soil. And Teresa—his mother in every way that mattered—had nurtured it in the only way she could.
His breathing slowed. The fury and sorrow were still there, but no longer wild or consuming. They simmered now, tempered by clarity and the gentle pull of her presence.
All under her quiet, watchful gaze.
"You've had a long day," she said, her voice soft but steady. "You should go rest. Since we haven't had any new kids lately, your room's just as you left it. Stay here tonight. Sleep in a real bed."
Steven stood and nodded, the words catching in his throat for a moment before they came.
"Thanks, Mother."
He left the common room behind, the warmth of her presence trailing after him like the last note of a lullaby.
Steven's old room sat at the end of a quiet hallway, the kind that muffled footsteps and made time feel slow. The sliding door, with its paper panels now tinged a gentle yellow with age, stood shut. When he opened it, the room exhaled a stillness that felt like breath held in memory.
The space was small—no more than a few tatami mats wide—but it was filled with familiarity. Its dark wooden walls and rice paper accents filtered the moonlight into pale silver bands, casting shifting patterns across the floor. The scent of cedar lingered in the air, soaked into the beams and floorboards after years of quiet nights and rain-drenched mornings.
It wasn't much, but it was his. Or at least, it had been.
In the corner, the futon lay neatly folded, untouched since he'd last slept here. He unfurled it slowly, as though waking an old friend. Against the far wall stood a low wooden shelf, its surface bare except for a single object: a small ceramic frog, slightly chipped at the foot. A silly thing from childhood, deliberately left behind like a secret talisman.
The drawers beneath the shelf were still partially filled—forgotten remnants of a younger self: a broken watch that no longer ticked, a crumpled drawing of a jackal with too many teeth, a plastic badge-shaped toy Mira had once given him during a storm that had frightened all the younger kids. He had pretended to be brave that night—for their sake—but he had clutched that toy in the dark until morning.
Now, the room held only the quiet. A quiet that wasn't empty, but full of echoes.
He settled onto the futon, the thin mattress giving way beneath him, barely cushioning the hardness of the wooden floor. The soft glow of the hallway lantern spilled through the shoji screen, painting the room with the dim breath of memory.
The window was left slightly ajar. Through it drifted the crisp scent of pine and distant rain. Crickets sang from the garden beyond, their chirping steady and familiar—like a song the house itself remembered. The creek that wound past the orphanage murmured in the distance, water over stone, adding its own lull to the stillness.
Steven lay on his side, one arm folded beneath his head, the other resting on his chest where the rhythm of the day still echoed faintly. The blanket rose and fell with each breath, a gentle rise, a steady fall.
The day replayed itself in fragments behind his closed eyelids—highs and lows, moments of triumph and terror. Especially the end. That nightmare, real and raw and impossible to forget.
It didn't crush him now, not like before. But it lingered, and it gnawed.
He found himself turning over the details, again and again—the why, the when, the who. Part of him desperately wanted to believe it had been an accident. An ability gone out of control. A bizarre creature from beyond the city's borders. Anything but what his instincts whispered to him.
Because those instincts told him the truth.
It wasn't an accident. It never had been.
He scoffed under his breath, a bitter sound in the hush of the room.
"Was it the room?" he murmured to no one.
He stared at the ceiling—the same beams he used to count as a child, imagining they were bridges to something higher. Somewhere above the clouds. Somewhere better.
The old wood creaked gently, shifting in the night air. It was as if the room remembered him, too. Remembered his boyhood, his fears, his dreams. And now, it held them quietly, without judgment.
Steven closed his eyes. For a long while, he didn't think about the city above or the darkness behind him. He just breathed. Let the weight of the past settle into the floorboards, and allowed the silence to hold him the way a home should.
A soft mewl echoed down the hallway.
Then a muted thump.
Followed by an irritated bark.
Steven smiled, the corners of his mouth twitching into something tired but real.
He pulled the blanket tighter around his shoulders.
Sleep came slowly, but it came—like dusk sinking into fertile soil, like the return of something lost. Like old memories finding their way home.