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.
The air carried its weight too: metallic, sharp, clinging to your skin no matter how hard you scrubbed. Bleach couldn't kill the stink of desperation, sweat, blood and iron. Nothing could.
Aric knelt on the cold ground, his gloves slick as he scraped the last fragments of bone and teeth into a black garbage bag. The fighter had died ugly—most of them did. Skulls caved in, throats slit wide open, eyes frozen mid-bulge as the light drained out of them.
The underground didn't do mercy. Hell, it barely acknowledged humanity.
Once upon a time, scenes like this would've turned his stomach inside out.
Once upon a time, he hadn't been this man.
Aric paused, fingers holding 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 memory of who he used to be.
A warm lecture hall. A sea of eager faces staring back at him. Philosophy textbooks stacked neatly on desks, pages filled with words from men who thought ideas could shape the world. Back then, he'd believed it too.
He stood at a podium, lecturing about ethics, morality, justice.
Big fucking words that meant jack shit when the bullets started flying.
War happened in his home country. He was drafted and he was ripped from his life and tossed into the meat grinder.
By the time he came home, scars were everywhere on his body, the world had moved on without him.
His job? Gone.
His wife? Remarried.
His kids? Calling another man "Dad."
And him? A cleaner.
Scrubbing blood off floors so the next poor bastard could bleed all over them again.
At first, they stayed. His wife held him close, whispering promises she couldn't keep.
His kids clung to his legs, asking,
"Why isn't Daddy smiling anymore?"
But Aric wasn't the same man. Nightmares woke him screaming, fists clenched so tight they bled. He snapped at the smallest things. 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, sitting alone in the dark while his family slept upstairs.
"I'll get better."
But he never did.
Therapy sessions ended in arguments. Medications dulled his mind but not the pain.
One day, his wife packed her bags, tears streaming down her face.
"You're not the man I married." she whispered.
"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 time he showed up unannounced at their new house, it was clear he wasn't welcome.
"You don't belong here." his oldest son said, voice trembling with anger, sadness and fear.
"We have a dad now. Someone who doesn't scare us."
That was the last time he saw them.
One day, years after they left, he sat in his dimly lit living room surrounded by stacks of books and glowing screens. On one floating screen, a hero stood defiant against impossible odds. Another displayed a protagonist wrestling with inner demons.
Aric scrolled through them obsessively, searching for something—anything—that mirrored his own struggle. Redemption arcs played out endlessly before him, yet none felt real enough to apply to his shattered life.
Even after the war, when sleep became elusive and silence unbearable, he buried himself in stories. Manga, manhwa, novels. Thousands of tales where heroes rose from ashes, where broken people found redemption.
Still, he tried. After years of self-destruction, he began attending therapy regularly, sticking to his medications, and practicing mindfulness techniques. It was slow progress, agonizingly so, but he noticed glimpses of improvement.
He stopped lashing out. He learned to breathe through panic attacks. For the first time 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.
By the time he truly felt stable, it was too late.
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.
Five men in dark clothes. Speaking russian accents with guns.
They moved with quietly, like predators who'd done this a hundred times before.
Aric recognized their kind instantly—gangsters, mercenaries, men who didn't fuck around.
And the moment their eyes locked onto his, he knew.
He'd seen them first. That was enough.
One of them sighed, his voice almost apologetic.
"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 slammed him backward, his body hitting the blood-slick floor with a wet slap. Breath left him in a ragged wheeze, fire blooming across his chest, his gut, his leg.
More shots followed, each one hammering into him 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.
It doesn't hurt huh
Blood pooled beneath him, thick and sticky.
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 consumed him whole and there was nothing.
For a long time—or maybe no time at all—Aric floated in the void.
No pain. No breath. Just silence.
A single sound.
CLINK
The gentle clink to a teacup.
Light bloomed softly, golden and warm, illuminating a space that felt both vast and intimate.
The air smelled 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 something beyond it
Something 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 has too many meanings.
She sipped her tea casually, as if they were old friends meeting 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, his voice, didn't exist here.
He wasn't flesh. He wasn't anything.
Just a fragment 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, feigning thoughtfulness. "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, names scratched out, rewritten, erased entirely.
She made a thoughtful noise, then shut it with a soft snap.
SNAP
"Three. That's how many have come before you."
Her fingers traced the rim of her teacup, thoughtful.
"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 something in the space changed.
Aric wanted to speak but he couldn't.
He simply existed, caught in the pull of something vast and unknowable.
The woman flicked her fingers, and the space around them shifted. A window screen unfurled in the air, rippling like liquid glass.
Images bled through—battlefields drenched in magic, towering cities crumbling under monstrous shadows, a lone figure standing defiant against the tide.
A hero. Dying.
A final burst of light, a fragment of power twisting into something else—something systemic.
A last-ditch effort to save the world he believed in.
The woman's voice was soft,
"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 zoomed in closer, showing Aric hunched over a glowing tablet, scrolling through endless panels of manhwa. Another scene showed him flipping through dog-eared novels, his face illuminated by the dim glow of a bedside lamp.
Yet another depicted him watching documentaries late into the night, searching for answers he'd never find.
"You consumed these stories because they reminded you of what you lost." she continued.
She gestures to the screen, "They consumed you. Manhwa. Manga. Novels. 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."
Her tone softened, almost sympathetic. "You made commendable efforts, my dear anomaly. Therapy. Meditation. 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. Warmth spread through him—not physical, but emotional.
"I will acknowledge your efforts." she told him.
"But PTSD is a cruel master. It twists you, breaks you, makes you unrecognizable even to yourself. And so, despite your 'Hyperthymesia' allowing you to remember every detail of your past—the war, your wife walking away, your son calling another man 'Dad'—the trauma remains."
"Your resilience. Your refusal to give up, even when the odds seemed insurmountable. 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 memory, 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."
Her smile softened, sympathetic,
"You desired redemption, connection, purpose. Those desires drew you here, made you unique among trillions. 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."
The screen of light flickered. Beyond the tea set, beyond the shifting horizon of this in-between space, there was something else.
A board. A vast, cosmic game played with pieces too small to comprehend.
The woman smiled.
"You won't remember this conversation, of course. That would ruin the fun."
Her fingers curled. The universe shuddered.
And Aric fell, it felt forever but it also felt instant. The concept of time was non-existent here.
A breath. A heartbeat. The heavy weight of a new body, lungs burning with their first inhale.
Somewhere, in the depths of another world, a dying system flickered.
Waiting for its master. Waiting for the anomaly.