Pain.
That was the first thing Kaelen felt. It wasn't the sharp, immediate kind. This pain was deep, dull, and constant, as if his very bones had been hollowed out and filled with fire.
He tried to move, but his body refused. His limbs were bound, his skin cold against an iron surface. A faint, rhythmic thrum echoed in the background, like a slow heartbeat made of steel and sorcery. The air smelled of sterilized stone, blood, and burnt flux—a scent he'd come to associate with ruin.
His eyes fluttered open.
He was no longer in the ruins. The ceiling above him was smooth obsidian, inlaid with thin lines of pulsing runes that shifted hue every few seconds. Aetheric containment glyphs. Kaelen had seen fragments of them before—this was the full horror.
He was inside a lab.
Chains bound his arms and legs. Not physical ones, but energy-forged links tethered to four separate pillars, each humming with an anchored enchantment. His magic—whatever it was—had been suppressed.
He felt like a carcass laid bare for study.
Footsteps.
Kaelen turned his head slowly. Three figures entered the room through an archway that hissed with sealing glyphs.
The woman led them. The one who had commanded the hunters. She wore a coat that shimmered with alchemic threading, her left eye replaced by an arcane lens. Her presence radiated precision—cold, clinical, unfeeling.
"He's awake," she said, voice devoid of surprise. "Subject-17."
Kaelen said nothing.
A man stepped forward next. Tall, draped in robes marked with sigils of old Dominion science-magi, but not bearing any insignia of nation or authority. His features were sharp, predatory. He held a thin, silver rod tipped with a shard of crystal—a scribing tool for live-coding spells.
"Fascinating," he murmured. "The temporal bleed in his blood is stable. And the spatial backlash from the containment field? He adapted."
The woman tapped a rune near the pillar.
Kaelen gasped as agony lanced through his chest. His muscles convulsed, and light burst behind his eyes.
"Still aggressive neural response."
"He's a primitive," the man said. "Raised in the wasteland. No structure. But the anomaly's inside him. This boy is the flux-reactive variable we've been tracking."
They weren't talking to him.
They were talking about him.
Kaelen forced himself to breathe through the pain. He listened. Memorized every word. Watched every flicker of their eyes, every pattern of their movements. Rage burned beneath his skin, but he buried it. Rage was loud. Rage was sloppy.
He needed to be silent. He needed to wait.
Then came the third figure.
He hadn't spoken before. Older, lean, with graying hair and a faint scar beneath his eye. He wore no robe, no visible weapon, but the moment he entered, the room felt heavier. As if reality itself bent slightly around him.
Kaelen looked into his eyes and saw something terrifying.
Not madness.
Belief.
"He will unlock it," the man said simply.
The others turned toward him.
"Director Vael," the woman said, bowing slightly. "We've begun resonance testing. But the anomaly is... unstable."
"Good," Vael said.
He stepped closer to Kaelen. The chains thrummed louder.
Vael studied Kaelen's face for a long moment. Then, to Kaelen's surprise, he reached out and gently touched his temple. Not with cruelty, but almost reverence.
"You are the door," he whispered. "And through you, we will reclaim the knowledge lost in the First Collapse."
Kaelen didn't respond. Not with words. He didn't flinch. Didn't blink. He met Vael's gaze with a quiet, icy defiance that made even the older man pause.
"He's learning," Vael murmured. "Good. Let him understand pain. Let him understand truth... then he will serve."
Days passed. Or hours. Or weeks.
Time meant nothing here.
They came in shifts. Always recording. Always injecting. They didn't just want Kaelen to awaken his powers—they wanted to control them. To force his gifts to manifest on command. But they didn't understand that Kaelen was more than just a reactive subject.
He was learning. Faster than they realized.
They thought the pain was breaking him.
But pain was a forge.
One night, or what passed for one, Kaelen found himself alone. The chamber was dark except for the ever-glowing runes.
His fingers twitched. The chains held. But this time, his breath didn't hitch. He focused. Listened. To the hum. To the rhythm. To the pattern.
It was all a pattern.
Space. Time. Matter.
The three were in motion around him. Suppressed, yes. But still present. Still his.
He closed his eyes.
He envisioned the room. Not as it was, but as it could be. He imagined a flicker—a skip. Not a full teleport, but a shift. A nudge.
The rune on his left wrist flickered.
Then sparked.
Then snapped.
Pain lanced through him, yes—but this time, it didn't control him.
He controlled it.
The chain fell slack.
Kaelen smiled.
The rest would come soon.