Blood never really dried down here. It soaked into the cracks of the concrete floor like ink bleeding through paper, staining everything it touched. The walls weren't spared either—they drank it up, turning darker shades of gray that no amount of bleach could scrub clean.
It couldn't kill the stink of desperation, sweat, blood and iron. Nothing could.
Aric knelt on the cold ground with his gloves as he scraped the last fragnts of bone and teeth into a black garbage bag.
This fighter died ugly. His skull is caved in, throat slit wide open and eyes frozen mid-bulge as the light drained out of them.
The underground didn't do any rcy. Hell, it barely acknowledged humanity.
Once upon a ti, scenes like this would've turned his stomach inside out.
Once upon a ti, he hadn't been this man.
Aric paused as he held onto a shard of tooth. His jaw tightened at the sight of it, reminding him that he worked for an underground boxing ring. He dragged his thumb along the rough stubble on his cheek like he was trying to peel away the mory of who he used to be.
He was a philosophy lecturer at a prestigious university. He taught ethics, morality, justice, redemption. Big ideas said by people like him. They were words that once ant everything to soone like him. Words he believed could change the world.
Well, it ant jack shit once the bullets started flying.
War happened in his ho country and he was drafted. He didn't want to go but he was ripped from his life and tossed into the at grinder.
By the ti he ca ho, scars were everywhere on his body and the world had moved on without him.
His job? Gone.
His wife? Remarried.
His kids? Calling another man "Dad."
And him? A cleaner.
But before his family left, they tried to stay. His wife held him close and whispered promises she couldn't keep.
His kids clung to his legs and ask, "Why isn't Daddy smiling anymore?"
But Aric wasn't the sa man. Nightmares woke him up screaming and he would snap at the smallest things like a spilled glass of water, a misplaced sock and retreated further into himself until even their love couldn't reach him.
"I'm sorry." he'd said one night while sitting alone in the dark while his family slept upstairs.
"I'll get better."
But he never did.
Therapy sessions ended in argunts. dications dulled his mind but not the pain.
One day, his wife packed her bags with the kids,
"You're not the man I married." she said while crying,
"And I can't watch you destroy yourself anymore."
His kids stopped visiting after she remarried. They sent letters at first—awkward, polite notes scrawled in childish handwriting but eventually, those stopped too.
When he called, they let the phone ring unanswered.
By the ti he showed up unannounced at their new house, it was clear he wasn't welco.
"You don't belong here." his oldest son said with anger, sadness and fear.
"We have a dad now. Soone who doesn't scare us."
That was the last ti he saw them.
One day, years after they left, he sat in his room surrounded by stacks of books and glowing screens. On one screen, a hero stood defiant against impossible odds. Another displayed a protagonist wrestling with inner demons.
Aric scrolled through them obsessively, searching for sothing, anything, that mirrored his own struggle. Redemption arcs played out endlessly before him, yet none felt real enough to apply to his shattered life.
Still, he tried. After years of self-destruction, he began attending therapy regularly and took proper dication. He practiced mindfulness techniques. It was slow progress, agonizingly so, but he noticed improvents.
He stopped lashing out. He learned to breathe through panic attacks. For the first ti in years, he smiled genuinely at strangers.
Yet no matter how much effort he poured into healing, the ache of loss remained. His wife never called. His children grew older without him.
None of it fixed the relationship. None of it brought them back.
He exhaled sharply, dragging both hands down his face until his features stretched thin.
It doesn't matter. None of it matters anymore. This job is shit. My life is shit.
Just mop up, dump the body, and-
His spine went rigid. He saw five n in dark clothes. Aric could tell they were speaking russian.
Aric recognized their kind instantly—gangsters, rcenaries, n who didn't fuck around.
He'd seen them first and that was enough.
One of them sighed, "Izvinite... no svideteley ne dolzhno byt"
Which sadly translated to, ''Sorry. No witnesses.''
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
The gunshot echoed through the halls, hitting Aric in all direction.
The impact slamd him backward as his body hit the cold floor. His breath left him in a ragged wheeze as life was slowly slipping away from his body.
Each shot felt like fate itself had decided he wasn’t worth keeping around.
The ceiling lights blurred above him, swimming in and out of focus.
His muscles twitched involuntarily, firing off signals his brain no longer had the strength to process.
Being shot hurts but dying...is strangely calm.
Blood pooled beneath him, Ahh...I really wanted to see you again Noah...Anais...
A bitter thought clawed its way into his fading mind as he dies,
Not even a funeral. Just another stain on the fucking floor. What kind of irony is that?
Death consud him whole and there was nothing.
For a long ti or maybe no ti at all—Aric floated in the void.
No pain. No breath. Just silence.
A single sound.
CLINK
The gentle clink of a teacup.
Light blood softly, golden and warm, illuminating a space that felt both vast and intimate.
The air slled faintly floral, like jasmine tea steeped for centuries.
Across from him sat a woman, poised elegantly over an elaborate tea set.
She was… strange. Not beautiful in the the normal sense but sothing beyond it
Sothing that made his mind ache just looking at her.
Her presence was suffocating to say the least.
Her eyes held too many depths, her smile had too many anings.
She sipped her tea casually, as if they were old friends eting for a lazy afternoon chat.
"Ah." she said, peering over the rim of her cup.
"My dear anomaly, you've arrived."
Aric tried to speak or at least open his mouth but his body and voice didn't exist here.
He wasn't flesh. He wasn't anything.
Just a fragnt of awareness suspended in a space that had no beginning and no end.
The woman set her teacup down with a delicate clink.
CLINK
"You must have questions. They always do. Though…"
She tapped her chin, "There aren't many who end up here."
Reaching into the folds of her robe if that's what it was, she pulled out a notebook. Flipping it open, Aric caught glimpses of shifting ink, nas scratched out, rewritten, erased entirely.
She made a thoughtful noise, then shut it with a soft snap.
SNAP
"Three. That's how many have co before you."
Her fingers traced the rim of her teacup,
"You should feel honoured, really. Of all the countless souls scattered across every existence, only three others have reached this point. The odds, my dear anomaly, are astronomically against you."
She smiled and sothing in the space changed.
Aric wanted to speak but he couldn't.
The woman flicked her fingers and the space around them shifted. A window screen popped up in the air.
Images were shown like power point. Battlefields drenched in magic, towering cities crumbling under monstrous shadows and a lone figure standing defiant against the tide.
A hero. Dying.
A final burst of light that left behind sothing for the next person.
A last-ditch effort to save the world he believed in.
"Familiar, isn't it? The story, the setting. You used to drown yourself in these kinds of tales, didn't you? Manhwa. Manga. Novels. Thousands of stories, devoured in a desperate attempt to forget."
The screen zood in closer and changed to show Aric hunched over a glowing tablet. He appeared to be scrolling through endless panels of manhwa. Another scene showed him flipping through dog-eared novels.
Another depicted him watching docuntaries late into the night, looking for answers he'd never find.
"You consud these stories because they reminded you of what you lost."
She gestures to the screen, "Thousands of tales devoured in a desperate attempt to forget. To escape. To convince yourself that redemption was possible."
She poured herself another cup of tea,
"Your wife leaving you. Your children forgetting you. The life that slipped through your fingers. You tried so hard to win them back, didn't you? Flowers delivered weekly. Letters written but never sent. Staring at photos late at night, wondering where it all went wrong."
"You made comndable efforts, my dear anomaly. Therapy. ditation. Self-reflection. You sought redemption not just for yourself but for the hope that they might return."
She leaned forward slightly, placing a hand over his non-existent form,
"I will acknowledge your efforts."
"But PTSD is a cruel master. It twists you, breaks you, makes you unrecognizable even to yourself. And so, despite your 'Hyperthysia' allowing you to rember every detail of your past—the war, your wife walking away, your son calling another man 'Dad'...the trauma remains."
"Your resilience is comndable. Your refusal to give up even when the odds seed insurmountable. It's poetic really."
"But I cannot take away the trauma entirely. It shaped you, defined you, made you unique among trillions. Without it, you wouldn't be here."
Her smile softened, "However, I can ease the suffocating grip it has on your soul. You will retain every mory, every scar, every failure. But the weight of it, the paralyzing fear, the relentless guilt—will loosen its hold. Enough for you to move forward, should you choose to."
"You desired redemption, connection, purpose. Those desires drew you here, yet consciously, you won't recall those innermost yearnings after this conversation ends. Only your subconscious will carry them forward, guiding you toward paths you may not understand yet."
"You won't rember this conversation, of course. That would ruin the fun."
Her fingers curled and the universe shuddered.
And Aric fell, it felt forever but it also felt instant. The concept of ti was non-existent here.
Sowhere, in the depths of another world, a dying system flickered.
Waiting for its master. Waiting for the anomaly.
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