The world has always been home to strange species and twisted creatures—not just humans and Virans. Among the worst are Aberrants—born when a creature's Vira becomes corrupted after devouring a Viran, severing its bond with nature forever.
Only a few humans know of them.
But every Viran does—because they're the ones most often hunted.
When a creature devours a Viran, it absorbs their Vessel. But because the Vira wasn't drawn naturally—and doesn't belong to it—it clashes violently with the creature's own essence. The foreign Vira twists inside, warping body and mind, until the creature becomes something else entirely.
Something wrong.
The result is a corrupted strain of Vira—sustained not by the natural world, but by devouring more Virans.
That's what makes aberrants so feared.
They aren't born.
They're made—from the act of devouring a Viran alive.
Which is why the sight of human aberrants—children—locked in this cage wasn't just disturbing.
It didn't make sense.
Joonas studied them in silence, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. They didn't seem dangerous—not yet. Their bodies were still in flux, still rejecting the Vira twisting inside them as human bodies were never meant to hold Vira.
That explained the constant deformation—the warping, the twitching, the slow collapse of human shape into something else.
They hadn't stabilized.
They were still breaking.
Behind Joonas, Anya's grip tightened. She flinched with every scream.
Then—
A bald girl, barely older than her, stared out from one of the cells. Her jaw hung at an unnatural angle. One eye was swollen shut. She clung to the bars like they could save her.
"Please… someone… Mom… please… anyone…"
Joonas said nothing. He turned away.
But Anya's eyes widened.
She recognized that girl—
the one who had stayed in the cell opposite hers when she first woke up in this place.
Her lips parted. She hesitated. Her voice—seldom used, soft and uncertain—rose like a whisper trying to become a sentence.
"Maybe… we could help them?" she murmured, turning to look up at Joonas.
"We could take them to a hospital… or someone nice… someone who might fix them…"
Joonas didn't look at her. He simply turned and began walking out of the chamber, gently pulling Anya along behind him.
"Let's get out of here. It's dangerous," he said.
He tried to keep his voice soft—but it didn't quite land.
Anya's shoulders dropped. She followed him quietly, back toward the corridor that led to the elevator.
As they walked, Joonas dragged his fingers along the wall—softly, reverently—like he was reading braille etched in stone.
They reached the elevator. The doors slid open, and they stepped inside. Joonas pressed the button for the top floor.
As the elevator began its ascent, he did it again—fingertips gliding across the metal wall, embedding something invisible: his Vira.
When the doors opened, Anya froze.
Bodies.
Some impaled with glass. Others torn apart in ways that defied sense. Blood painted the walls.
She shut her eyes instantly and buried her face into Joonas—even though his chest was still slick with blood.
He glanced down at her, then sighed and crouched to lift her off the ground.
"It's fine," he muttered, voice low, hands still twitching. "Just keep your eyes shut till we're out."
And with that, he walked forward—out of the elevator, out of the carnage, and out of the facility.
Once outside, he gently set Anya down.
"Wait here a moment," he said, then turned to face the facility.
Anya stayed a few steps behind, staring up at him with wide, frightened eyes.
Joonas drew in a long, slow breath. Then, quietly, he whispered a high-tier Art:
"Lasikaaren Saarna."
—The Sermon of the Glass Arch.
Vira poured from his body—silent, invisible.
And the building began to weep.
It started with whispers, rising from every pane of glass. Window panels, security booths, specimen chambers—anything that had once reflected light now sang, high and brittle.
Hairline fractures bloomed like veins.
The resonance spread, crawling through walls, beneath floors, threading the ceiling tiles.
Then the glass moved.
It didn't just shatter. It rose.
Shards lifted from windows, walls, and floors—curving, twisting—forming long, spindly limbs like the legs of some enormous glass spider.
They arched over corridors, through stairwells, across observation rooms—razor-thin and glistening with firelight.
Then came the screaming.
Children. Dozens of them.
"Help!"
"Somebody… anyone… help!"
"We… didn't… we didn't do anything wrong!"
"I don't want to die!"
"Please, please—someone!"
Some cried through twisted mouths, others from the backs of their throats—inhuman, choked, ragged. Their voices clawed at the walls, echoing off the very glass that now trapped them.
But no help came.
The glass limbs kept growing, rising out of the facility itself—stretching through the walls, curling around the entire complex—until they loomed three times larger than the structure they had emerged from.
Then—
Each one drove downward, spearing through the foundation.
The building collapsed in on itself like a cathedral struck mid-prayer—its sins buried in a mirrored tomb.
Hallways pinned shut.
Exits severed.
Staircases folded like paper.
Rooms groaned and caved, crushed beneath twisted steel and mirrored ruin.
The children screamed until they couldn't.
Their voices faded, smothered beneath glass and stone.
Then—
Silence.
No survivors. No witnesses. Only blood and fire. Only ash and wind. And glass.
Joonas staggered.
He coughed into his hand—red blooming against pale skin. A sign that he had used up nearly all his Vira.
Then he dropped to one knee, his face contorted in exhaustion.
He turned to Anya, who stood trembling behind him. And in that moment, the air around him shifted.
His eyes…
Now Sami's eyes met hers.
"Anya…" he said hoarsely, voice full of concern. "Are you okay?"
He reached up, hands trembling, brushing her hair aside to check for blood, for bruises.
She nodded softly.
Then—his voice cracked.
"I'll carry you."
She didn't argue.
He lifted her into his arms. She leaned against his chest, resting her head on his shoulder. Her ribs hurt—but less now. Her arms wrapped around him tightly.
Together, they walked away.
Behind them, the facility had collapsed in on itself, flames blooming through fractures of glass and steel. Blood pooled in the blackened corridors. The dead—adults and children—were swallowed by fire and shadow.
Ahead?
Only silence.
And night.
***
Ren stood beside the car, still as stone. The engine was off. The wind stirred only slightly, rustling the edges of his coat. He had been standing there for at least an hour. Maybe longer. He didn't check.
He waited.
He had nothing left to do but wait.
In the growing silence of the hills, something inside him—something he couldn't name—tightened.
Anya was all he had left.
She was the last string tethering him to the part of himself that used to be human. If something happened to her, he wasn't sure what he would do.
He was still lost in his thoughts when he heard footsteps.
He turned his head.
Sami appeared—
walking out of the facility like a silhouette returning from hell. His pace was steady. The moon lit his face, and it was calm again. Almost normal. The monster—Joonas—had vanished, for now.
And in his arms—Anya.
Ren walked to him quickly and reached out. Sami handed her over without a word.
She was asleep. Her body curled against Ren's chest like a child worn out from too many nightmares.
Her face was streaked with dried tears. Her breath hitched softly with every exhale. Her tiny fingers were still clenched, even in sleep.
"She's only sleeping," Sami said quietly, his voice nearly drowned by the wind.
"Marie owns a hospital not far from the penthouse. We'll take her there."
He paused, eyes flicking to Anya's fragile form. Then added—
"From what I could tell… her ribs are broken."
His voice dropped.
"I think she was drugged too. Heavily. But I don't know what they used."
Ren swallowed. He gritted his teeth, then looked down at Anya, cradled carefully in both arms.
Her face was still. Her eyes closed. Her lashes wet.
She looked like she had cried until there were no more tears left.
He shifted slightly and touched her cheek with a gentleness that didn't match the weight in his limbs.
"It was lonely, wasn't it," he murmured. "You must've been scared. It's okay. I'm here now."
He turned toward the car and opened the back door.
Laid her down carefully.
Then slid in beside her.
She shifted slightly in her sleep but didn't wake.
Her head came to rest in his lap.
Ren brushed her hair away from her eyes, smoothing it down with quiet, mechanical care.
Sami got in the driver's seat and started the engine.
The car began to roll forward—
away from the burning valley,
toward the edge of the hills,
and the long descent into the city.
They drove in silence for a while. Both Sami and Ren were lost in their own thoughts.
It had been a crazy night.
The road curved beneath their tires as city lights began to glow brighter in the distance.
Then Sami spoke, his voice low.
"I saw everything, Ren."
His face twisted. Then he clenched his teeth.
"I don't know who owns that facility or why they're doing what they're doing, but it's bad.
No… no, it's not just bad. It's pure evil.
They're creating aberrants out of human children—by feeding them Virans."
His knuckles tightened on the wheel.
"Their bodies were already rejecting it. Twisting. Mutating.
Even the ones who still looked like children… wouldn't have stayed that way."
Ren gulped.
He had heard about aberrants—monsters that hunted Virans for their Vira.
But this was insane.
Making aberrants out of human children?
Who would do this… and why?
He looked down at Anya.
The thought of what might have happened to her—if he hadn't arrived in time—would've drowned him in dread,
if not for the numbness his affliction brought.
Silence stretched between them for a while.
Then, softly, Sami spoke again.
"I'll drop you both off at the hospital. But I'm heading home after that."
A pause.
"I'm sorry. I would've loved to stay with you guys, but… my affliction..."
He exhaled sharply through his nose.
"It makes emotions come late. And loud.
I did a lot of… things while I was in there."
His voice grew quieter.
"When the guilt hits, it won't be small. I'd rather feel it alone."
Ren didn't answer. He just kept brushing Anya's hair with steady fingers, watching the rhythm of her breathing.
There were a lot of things he had to think about.
And for some reason, the silent guilt in his chest kept tugging at him.
The car was quiet as it climbed down from the hills, headlights slicing through mist.
The sky above was the color of ash.
The flames behind them grew smaller, swallowed by distance.
No one spoke.
And after a few hours, they crossed back into the edges of the city—its artificial lights flickering like cold stars. Welcoming them back, from the nightmare behind the hills.