The military had shifted from curiosity to desperation.
Within an underground facility operated by the Special Threat Containment Division (STCD), Angelo lay restrained in a high-security chamber. General Alden Cross personally oversaw the operation after reading the initial reports. Nothing about this subject made sense.
Scalpels. Saws. High-intensity lasers. Drills.
None of it worked.
Angelo's skin was impervious to every tool, every element, every method. Not a drop of blood. Not a scar. Not a single flinch.
They tried his eyes next, seeking a vulnerability—but met the same resistance.
Next came the internal approach.
Endoscopic procedures were performed through his natural orifices—mouth, nose, ears. Probes entered, sensors scanned, but the readings were maddeningly normal. No internal mutations. No cybernetic implants. No foreign masses. Just a human boy… with impossible biology.
The only anomaly? The pulsating marks on his back—faint, rhythmic, alive. They responded to the presence of instruments with quiet hostility, sending spikes through the monitoring equipment like static interference. A warning.
Then the order came from above.
"Wake him up… or put him down."
They flooded him with stimulants. Adrenal triggers. Neural shocks. Even psychic resonance fields. Nothing stirred him. It was as if he wasn't just asleep—but sealed.
So they shifted to containment. Hardened restraints were forged from experimental alloys, embedded with dampening fields. Still, the scientists—especially Dr. Kessler—worked frantically to understand what this being truly was.
Meanwhile, Olivia, James, Alex, Emma—and Sophia—had been taken to a nearby classified holding facility.
Interrogated.
Over and over.
By Intelligence Operatives. Psych Evaluators. Tactical Strategists.
What did they know about Angelo? What was his origin? What was he capable of?
Olivia and James answered honestly—describing the boy they raised, the son they loved. Emma clung to her mother, wide-eyed and silent. Alex, older now, spoke carefully… but something dark had begun to stir within him.
Sophia, however, gave them something different.
Once the interrogations ended, they were locked in a shared observation cell. Tension hung in the air like a storm about to break.
Alex sat in the corner, arms wrapped around his knees, staring at the floor. Emma clung to Olivia, trembling. James sat silently, jaw tight, staring at the sealed door.
"I don't like this," he muttered. "Something's wrong. This isn't just about finding out what's going on… They're scared of him."
Alex spoke for the first time in hours. "Maybe they should be."
Olivia flinched. "Alex—don't say that."
"He destroyed the house. He crushed the floor like paper. You saw what he did to those creatures outside," Alex whispered. "They couldn't even touch him."
"They were going to hurt us," Olivia argued, voice trembling. "He protected us."
"Did he?" Alex shot back. "Or did something inside him do that?"
Sophia, quiet all this time, finally looked up from the bench she sat on. The fire in Alex's voice didn't faze her. She'd seen that same fear before—in herself.
James turned to her. "You knew something about him before all this. You came to our house out of nowhere. We trusted you."
Sophia nodded solemnly. "And you deserve to know why."
Emma whispered, "What happened to you?"
Sophia leaned back, eyes clouding with memory.
Years Ago
"I had once lived a peaceful life in a forested village far from any city. My parents, Elias and Miriam Hawthorne, were scholars and historians who had traded the noise of civilization for the quiet pursuit of knowledge. My father, in particular, was obsessed with the unseen—old symbols, forgotten languages, tales that others dismissed as myth.
"I was only ten when my world ended."
It began with silence. A missing villager. Then two. Then a scream in the night.
The creature didn't look real. It slithered between the trees like smoke but struck like lightning. Long limbs, too many eyes. A mouth that didn't open, but still screamed.
"I saw it with my own eyes—devouring the baker's family in the village square."
Panic spread like fire.
"My father grabbed what he could and rushed home, yelling for them to escape. But he was caught. Ripped apart before my eyes."
"My mother didn't hesitate. She shoved me into the hidden study beneath the floorboards, locked the hatch, and whispered one word—'Survive.'"
"I heard the door splinter above me. Heard my mother scream. Heard a sickening crack—and then nothing."
"I stayed there until morning."
"When I emerged, my world was gone. Houses burned. Bodies everywhere. My mother's was one of them, curled beside the shattered doorway, clutching a broken spear. She'd made the creature run away. Somehow."
"I collapsed beside her, too numb to cry."
"I was found two days later by authorities, alone among the dead. They called it a freak tragedy. An animal attack. No one believed me."
"The priest at the orphanage did. Father Aldric. He knew the symbols in my father's study. He taught me. Symbols. Rituals. How to sense when something unnatural had stirred."
Emma hugged her tightly.
Alex sat silently, fists clenched.
Her eyes met James's.
"That's how I knew who Angelo was… or what he might be."
The room fell quiet.
Then Alex spoke. "So what is he?"
Sophia hesitated.
"He's… not like us. Not entirely. He's something old. Something sealed away in human form. But… he's not evil."
Alex stood up, pacing. "You sure about that? Because you saw what he did. He tore through those monsters like they were nothing. And when he changed… I saw his eyes. That wasn't Angelo."
Olivia's voice was soft. "He's still our son."
"He's not even your real son," Alex snapped. "He's not even human."
Olivia flinched.
James stood, calm but firm. "Alex."
But the boy turned away, eyes hardening. "I'm just saying what we're all thinking."
Sophia looked between them, her voice cold and clear. "He didn't choose to be what he is. And without him… none of us would be alive."
A long silence followed. But the seeds of doubt had been planted.