The Anomaly's Path

Author’s Note:

This Chapter contains graphic violence, death, and scenes that may be disturbing to some readers. If you’re sensitive to these topics, please read with caution.

___

The morning sun rose over the small city of Oakhaven like it had done every day for as long as anyone could remember.

Golden light spilled over the rooftops, warming the cobblestone streets, painting the windows in shades of amber and orange. Merchants opened their stalls in the market square, calling out to early customers with practiced enthusiasm.

Children ran through the alleys, laughing, chasing each other, their voices carrying on the gentle breeze.

It was a normal day. A peaceful day. The kind of day that people would look back on and wonder how everything could have gone so wrong so fast.

In a modest house near the center of town, eight-year-old Arthur Vale sat on the front steps, watching the world go by.

He was small for his age, with messy black hair and curious eyes that missed nothing. A half-eaten apple sat in his lap, forgotten as he watched a group of older boys practice sword fighting with wooden sticks in the street.

”...Someday,” he muttered to himself, ”I’m gonna be stronger than all of them.”

”Keep dreaming, little brother.”

Arthur looked up to find Lilia standing behind him, arms crossed, that familiar teasing smile on her face. At ten years old, Lilia was already taller than him, already more confident, already everything Arthur wanted to become.

”I will be stronger,” Arthur insisted. ”You’ll see.”

Lilia laughed and ruffled his hair. ”Sure you will, Artie. Sure you will.” She sat down beside him, bumping his shoulder with hers. ”But until then, how about you finish that apple before it goes bad?”

Arthur looked down at the forgotten fruit and scowled. ”It’s fine.”

”It’s been in your lap for an hour.”

”No, it hasn’t.”

”Yes, it has.”

”Lilia! Arthur! Breakfast is ready!”

Their mother’s voice called from inside the house, warm and familiar, and whatever argument they were about to have dissolved into laughter. Lilia grabbed Arthur’s hand and pulled him to his feet, dragging him toward the door.

”Come on, slowpoke. Last one to the table does the dishes.”

Arthur sprinted past her, cackling with delight. ”Hehe, too slow!”

”Hey—that’s cheating!”

_

Breakfast was loud and warm and perfect.

Their father, Thomas Vale, sat at the head of the table, already halfway through his third slice of bread. He was a big man with calloused hands and a gentle smile, a carpenter by trade, known throughout Oakhaven for his honesty and his terrible jokes.

Their mother, Elara, moved between the table and the kitchen, refilling plates, pouring milk, pressing kisses on the tops of their heads whenever she passed. She was the heart of the house, the reason it always felt warm no matter how cold it got outside.

Lilia dominated the conversation, as always. She told them about her training, about how the instructor said she had real talent and that she could join the city guard someday if she kept working hard.

”I’m going to be a great warrior,” she declared, puffing out her chest. ”Stronger than anyone in Oakhaven. Maybe even strong enough to join the city guard.”

Thomas laughed. ”That’s my girl. But don’t forget about your studies. A warrior needs a brain too.”

”I have a brain!”

”Oh, do you?” Arthur muttered into his bread.

Lilia kicked him under the table.

”Ow!”

”Language, young man,” Elara said mildly, though her eyes were smiling.

Arthur rubbed his shin and glared at his sister, who was trying very hard to look innocent.

After breakfast, Lilia grabbed Arthur’s hand again and dragged him outside. ”Come on, Artie. I’ll teach you how to hold a sword properly. No more of that flailing nonsense you call fighting.”

”I don’t flail!”

”You absolutely flail.”

They spent the morning in the small garden behind their house, Lilia teaching, Arthur trying to learn. Wooden sticks clacked together as they sparred, Lilia’s laughter mixing with Arthur’s frustrated grunts.

”You’re holding it too tight,” Lilia said, adjusting his grip. ”Loosen up. Let it become part of your arm.”

”Like this?”

”Yeah, better. Now try again.”

Arthur swung. Lilia blocked. He swung again. She blocked again, effortlessly.

”Tsk! You’re so annoying,” he whined.

”And you’re so cute when you’re mad.” She ruffled his hair again. ”But seriously, Artie, you’re getting better. Keep practicing, and one day you might actually hit me.”

”I will hit you one day.”

”Sure you will.”

The sun climbed higher. The day grew warmer. And for one perfect, fleeting moment, everything was exactly as it should be.

It started with a sound.

A low rumble at first, like distant thunder on a clear day. People in the streets paused, looking up at the cloudless sky, confused.

Then the rumble became a roar.

And then—crack.

The sky split open.

Arthur was in the garden when it happened. He looked up and saw it—a tear in the fabric of reality itself, a wound in the world that bled purple and black. It hung above the center of the city, maybe a mile away, maybe less.

He didn’t know what it was. He didn’t understand it.

But he felt it. In his chest. In his bones. A sudden, primal terror flooding through his veins.

”ARTHUR!”

Lilia shouted. She grabbed his arm, yanked him toward the house. ”Inside! Now!”

They burst through the door to find their parents already moving, their faces pale, their eyes wide.

”Incursion,” Thomas said, his voice tight. ”A gate appeared in the middle of the city. Gods, it’s a big one.”

Elara grabbed Arthur, pulled him close. ”The bunkers. We need to get to the bunkers. Now.”

Another sound joined the roar—screaming. Distant at first, then closer, then everywhere.

_

The streets were in chaos.

People ran in every direction, shoving, crying, trampling each other in their desperation to escape. A woman carrying a baby tripped and fell, and the crowd swallowed her. An old man crawled on his hands and knees, his leg broken, begging for help that never came. Merchants abandoned their stalls, coins and goods scattering across the cobblestones, worthless now.

Thomas held Arthur’s hand in an iron grip, pulling him through the crowd. Lilia ran beside them, her face white but her jaw set. Elara brought up the rear, constantly looking back, constantly checking for danger.

”The bunkers are in the town square,” Thomas shouted over the noise. ”Just a little further. Just a little—”

A monster landed in front of them.

It was wrong in every way. Its body was a mockery of life—too many joints in its limbs, bending in directions that shouldn’t exist. Its skin was the color of a bruise, purple-black and slick, pulsing with something underneath. It had no face, just a mass of writhing tendrils where features should be, and when it opened what might have been a mouth, rows of needle-thin teeth unfolded like a nightmare flower.

It killed three people before anyone could scream.

The first was a young man, maybe nineteen, who tried to run past it. The monster’s claw—if you could call it that—punched through his chest like paper, emerged from his back holding something wet and red. He looked down at the hole in himself, confused, before his legs gave out.

The second was an old woman who had been hiding behind a cart. The monster found her. Its tendrils wrapped around her head and pulled. The sound—a wet crack, a snap—was something Arthur would hear in his dreams for the rest of his life.

The third was a child, younger than Arthur, who had gotten separated from his parents. The monster didn’t even pause. It stepped on him, and the child’s body crumpled like a paper doll, blood spraying across the cobblestones.

Arthur watched everything happen before his eyes. He couldn’t look away.

The monster’s claws tore through flesh like paper, spraying blood across the cobblestones, across the faces of the living. A man’s arm, severed, landing at Arthur’s feet, fingers still twitching. A woman’s scream, cut short as something ripped out her throat.

Thomas grabbed Arthur and yanked him forward, breaking the spell. ”Move!”

They ran.

They weaved through narrow alleys, pushed through panicked crowds, and stumbled past bodies lying motionless on the ground.

Arthur’s legs burned, his lungs ached, but Thomas didn’t stop. He pulled them through the chaos, shoving past anyone who got in their way, until the bunker finally came into view.

It was a massive stone structure built into the base of the town hall, designed to hold hundreds. The iron doors were still open. People flooded inside, pushing, fighting to get in. A man with a bloody face was beating at someone trying to close the doors too early. A woman had lost her child in the crush and was screaming her name over and over.

They made it. Barely. Thomas shoved Arthur through the door, then Lilia, then Elara. He followed just as the guards began to close the heavy iron gates, their mechanisms groaning under the strain.

For a moment—just a moment—they thought they were safe.

The bunker was dark and cramped and smelled of fear.

Hundreds of people pressed together in the underground space, whispering, crying, praying. The air was thick with sweat and terror and the copper tang of blood from those already wounded. A baby wailed somewhere in the darkness. A man was having a fit, his body convulsing as his wife tried to hold him still.

Arthur held his mother’s hand and tried very hard not to shake.

”It’s okay,” Elara whispered, though her voice trembled. ”It’s okay. We’re safe in here.”

Lilia stood on his other side, her hand on his shoulder, squeezing tight.

They waited.

Minutes passed. Maybe hours.

Then the screaming started again.

Not from outside. This time from inside.

A section of the bunker’s wall exploded inward—not stone breaking, but earth being clawed through from the other side. Through the gap, Arthur saw them. Monsters. Their red eyes glowed in the darkness, hungry and cruel, reflecting the terror of the humans trapped with them.

The bunker turned into a slaughterhouse in seconds.

People ran.

People screamed.

People died.

All of it happening at once, a chaos of terror and blood that Arthur’s young mind couldn’t process.

The monsters moved through them like scythes through wheat, tearing, ripping, killing. A man’s head was torn from his shoulders, bouncing across the floor. A woman was bisected by a single swipe, her upper body sliding away from her lower. Blood sprayed in arcs, painting the walls, the ceiling, the faces of the dying.

Thomas grabbed his family and ran toward the back of the bunker, toward another exit, toward anywhere that wasn’t here. They pushed through the panicking crowd, shoving aside those who got in their way.

In the chaos, a wealthy merchant—his fine clothes now ruined with blood—reached out and grabbed Elara’s arm, yanking her backward. He pulled her in front of him just as a monster lunged in their direction, using her body as a shield.

”MAMA!”

Arthur’s scream was lost in the chaos.

Elara fell. The monster was on her in an instant. Its claws ripped through her chest, tearing through flesh and bone like they were nothing. Blood sprayed across the floor, across Arthur’s face—warm and wet and wrong. Her insides spilled out onto the stone—intestines, organs, things Arthur couldn’t name—glistening wet in the dim light.

She looked at him for just a second—long enough to smile.

Then her eyes went... empty.

Huh.

Arthur stared at his mother’s body, his mind refusing to accept what his eyes were seeing. She lay twisted on the ground, her chest torn open, blood spreading beneath her in a dark pool. She wasn’t moving. She wasn’t breathing.

This was just a body now—a thing where his mother used to be. But her face was still frozen in that final smile, like even in death she was trying to tell him everything would be okay.

How could anything be okay? One moment she was holding his hand, whispering that they’d make it through this. The next—

”ARTHUR! MOVE!”

Thomas’s voice cut through the fog in Arthur’s mind. Strong hands grabbed him, yanked him away from his mother’s body. Arthur stumbled, his feet moving without him telling them to, but his eyes stayed fixed on her face—on that smile, frozen in death, the last thing she’d ever given him. It would haunt him forever.

They ran.

The exit was close. Arthur could see it through the tears blurring his vision—a small door at the end of the corridor, light seeping through the cracks. Freedom. Safety. Everything they’d been fighting for.

They were going to make it. They had to make it. His mother couldn’t have died for nothing.

A monster stepped out from the shadows in front of them.

It was smaller than the others, faster, its body covered in what looked like eyes—dozens of them, blinking, watching, all focused on the three remaining members of the Vale family.

Thomas pushed Arthur and Lilia behind him, raising the piece of broken wood he’d been carrying. It was useless. He knew it was useless. But he stood there anyway.

”Run,” he said, his voice somehow steady despite everything. ”Don’t look back. Don’t stop for anything. Just run until you’re safe.”

”Papa, I can’t—”

”RUN!” Thomas’s voice cracked, raw with desperation Arthur had never heard before. ”Please. Both of you. Go!”

Lilia grabbed Arthur’s hand and pulled him toward the door. Arthur stumbled, looking back one last time. His father stood there, that piece of broken wood raised, facing down the monster. He looked so small against the creature’s massive frame.

Their eyes met for just a second. Thomas smiled—the same smile he always had, the one that said everything would be alright.

Then Lilia yanked Arthur through the door, and he never saw his father again.

Behind them, he heard a roar. A scream—his father’s scream—wet and horrible and cut off too quickly. Then a heavy thud.

Then silence.

But they didn’t look back. Lilia’s grip on Arthur’s hand tightened until it hurt, her fingers locked around his like she was afraid he’d disappear if she let go. Arthur clenched his jaw so hard his teeth ached, tears streaming down his face, but he didn’t make a sound.

He just ran.

They both ran.

They found a small storage room. Lilia pushed Arthur inside and crawled in after him, pulling the door shut behind them. They huddled together in the darkness, listening to the sounds of death outside.

”It’s okay,” Lilia whispered, her voice shaking as she pulled him closer, wrapping her arms around him in the darkness. ”It’s okay, Artie. Big sis will protect you. I’ve got you.”

Arthur couldn’t speak. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything but shake.

They waited, hoping that the monsters would go away or that some ranker would come and save them.

But then the sounds started growing closer. Growls and screams. The wet tearing of flesh. The crunch of bones.

Something heavy slammed against the door, the impact shuddering through the walls. Lilia clamped her hand over Arthur’s mouth, her eyes wide with terror as she pressed him closer.

”Shh,” she breathed, her voice barely a whisper. ”Shh.”

Another slam. The door cracked down the middle.

Another. Wood splintered, light from outside cutting through the gaps.

Through the gap, Arthur saw it—a monster, its eyes fixed on them. Its body was a mass of muscle and chitin, covered in spikes that dripped with something dark. Its mouth opened vertically, revealing rows of teeth that spun like a grinding wheel. Saliva dripped from its jaws, sizzling where it hit the stone floor.

Lilia pushed Arthur behind her. ”Stay back,” she whispered. ”Stay back, Artie.”

The door exploded inward.

Lilia shoved Arthur behind her and grabbed a piece of broken wood, raising it like the sword she’d always dreamed of wielding. She swung at the monster with everything her ten-year-old body had.

The creature barely noticed. It swatted her aside like she was nothing, and Arthur watched his sister fly across the room, her small body spinning through the air before hitting the wall with a sound he would never forget.

Crack.

She slid down slowly, leaving a dark smear on the stone behind her. When she stopped moving, blood was already spreading beneath her, trickling from her mouth, from her nose. Her neck was bent wrong—an angle that shouldn’t exist on a living person.

Arthur stood frozen, his body refusing to obey, his lungs forgetting how to work. All he could do was stare at the horrifying scene unfolding in front of him.

Then her eyes found his.

They were still open. Still looking at him. Still her.

”LILIA!”

He ran to her, collapsing at her side, grabbing her hand—the same hand that had held his through crowds, through darkness, through everything. It was still warm.

”Lilia, please.” His voice came out broken, nothing like his own. ”Please get up. Please. You said you’d protect me. You said—”

Her fingers twitched around his. Just once. Just enough.

Her lips moved, forming words too soft to hear, but he knew what she was trying to say.

...Artie...

Then her hand went still. Her eyes stayed open, but they weren’t looking at him anymore. The light in them—the light that had always been there, teasing him, protecting him, loving him—had faded to nothing.

Arthur sat there holding his sister’s hand, staring at her face, waiting for her to move. Waiting for her to jump up and ruffle his hair and call him slowpoke. Waiting for any of this to not be real.

She didn’t move. She wouldn’t ever move again.

She was... gone.

Behind him, he heard it—the monster moving closer, its heavy footsteps getting louder with each passing second.

The monster growled right behind him. He could feel its breath on his neck—hot, wet, smelling of rot and death.

Something inside Arthur cracked.

Not broke. Cracked. Like ice on a frozen lake when you step on it wrong. All the fear he’d been holding back, all the grief, all the horror of watching his family die—it all came rushing up at once.

His hands started shaking. His breath came in ragged gasps. Tears streamed down his face, mixing with the blood already there.

No.

The word came from somewhere deeper than thought.

No. No. NO.

He turned around.

The monster loomed over him, easily three times his size, its mouth opening wide to reveal rows of needle-sharp teeth. It was going to kill him. Just like it killed his mother. Just like it killed his father. Just like it killed Lilia.

Something hot surged through Arthur’s chest.

Not courage. Not bravery. Something uglier. Hotter. A burning, screaming rage that drowned out the fear, drowned out the grief, drowned out everything except the need to hurt the thing that had hurt his family.

He grabbed the piece of wood Lilia had used. It was sharp on one end, jagged, barely a weapon at all.

His hands wouldn’t stop shaking. His whole body trembled. But he didn’t care.

”My mom. My dad. My sister.” The words came out twisted, broken—a stranger’s voice coming from his mouth. A sob escaped him, half choked, half snarl.

”You killed them all. They were all I had. And you took them.”

He raised the piece of wood.

The monster lunged at him.

”AAAAAAARGH!”

The scream that tore from Arthur’s throat wasn’t a child’s scream.

It was raw and primal, filled with nine years of love and eight years of loss and one moment of pure, desperate rage. His face was red, veins bulging in his neck, spit flying from his mouth as he swung the piece of wood with everything his small body had.

The wood connected—barely—glancing off the monster’s side instead of hurting it.

A clawed hand swept across his body, and Arthur felt something tear inside him. Hot pain exploded through his chest, and then he was flying, his small body crashing against the wall with a force that knocked the air from his lungs.

He slid down the wall, leaving a smear of red on the stone behind him.

Blood dripped from his mouth, from somewhere inside that felt wrong. His vision blurred. Everything hurt, and everything was so cold.

The monster was still there, moving toward him slowly, savoring it.

Arthur tried to push himself up. His arms gave out. He tried again. Failed.

”Why?” The word came out as a whisper, broken and wet. ”Why am I so weak? Why couldn’t I save them? Mom... Dad... Lilia...”

Their faces flashed through his mind. His mother’s smile. His father’s laugh. His sister’s hand in his.

Tears mixed with blood on his face as he tried again to stand. His legs wouldn’t work. His body wouldn’t listen.

”I don’t want to die,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. ”Please. Someone. Anyone. I don’t want to die. I don’t want to—”

The monster loomed over him, blocking out what little light remained.

Arthur’s eyes were closing. Everything was fading. The pain was fading too, which scared him more than anything.

This is it, he thought. This is where I die. Just like them.

The monster raised its claw.

Arthur’s eyes closed.

And then—

Light.

Golden light, blazing and warm, exploding from somewhere deep inside him. It filled the room, pushed back the darkness, drowned out the monster’s screech of pain and surprise.

Arthur didn’t understand what was happening. He couldn’t see, couldn’t think, couldn’t move.

But he could feel it. Something awakening. Something ancient. Something that had been waiting for this moment all along.

The last thing he heard before consciousness left him was a voice—soft, feminine, like wind chimes—whispering directly into his soul.

You are not alone, Arthur.

Then everything went dark.

_

Varek moved through the bunker with his squad, stepping over bodies.

They’d been at this for hours. The gate had opened without warning—a Grade 6 incursion, maybe higher—and by the time the Duke’s forces had mobilized, the monsters had already flooded the city. Now they were cleaning up. Searching for survivors. Finding mostly dead.

The stench was indescribable. Copper and rot and excrement and something else, something that clung to the back of the throat and made you want to vomit.

Bodies lay everywhere—men, women, children, none of them whole. Some had been torn apart, limbs scattered across the floor. Others looked like they’d been played with before they died, their bodies bearing wounds that had no purpose except cruelty.

A woman was pinned to the wall by a spike through her stomach, her eyes still open, still staring at nothing.

A man had been ripped in half, his upper body lying twenty feet away from his lower, a trail of insides connecting them. A child—no older than five—lay in a pool of blood, her face frozen mid-scream, her small hand still reaching for someone who wasn’t there anymore.

”Gods,” one of the younger soldiers whispered, his face pale. ”How many people died?”

”Too many,” Varek said. ”...Just Keep moving.”

They pushed deeper into the bunker. More bodies. More blood. The walls were painted with it, handprints and smears and patterns that looked almost artistic in their horror.

”Clear here,” someone called out. ”More bodies. Nothing—wait.”

Varek followed the voice to a small storage room at the end of the corridor. The door was shattered, hanging from its hinges. Inside—

He stopped.

His men stopped behind him.

”What in the gods’ names...” someone breathed.

The room was a charnel house. But not just from the victims.

There was a monster.... Or what was left of one.

It had been destroyed—not killed, destroyed. Its body was barely recognizable as anything that had once lived. Limbs torn from their sockets, ripped apart with a violence that didn’t seem possible from a child.

One arm lay several feet away from the torso. Its head had been crushed, pulp and bone fragments scattered across the floor. And through what remained of its face, a piece of wood had been driven so deep that only the end was visible.

And in the corner, sitting against the wall, was a boy.

He was small. Maybe eight years old. His clothes were soaked in blood—so much blood that it was impossible to tell if any of it was his. His face was pale, his eyes open but completely empty, staring at nothing. In one hand, he clutched the fingers of a girl who was clearly dead.

The girl—his sister, probably—lay beside him. Her neck was bent wrong. Her eyes were open too, but they’d never see anything again.

Varek felt a chill run down his spine that had nothing to do with the cold.

He’d seen death. He’d caused death. He’d held dying men in his arms and watched the light leave their eyes.

He had never seen anything like this.

”The boy,” he whispered. ”He’s alive.”

They approached slowly, carefully, as if the child might shatter at the slightest touch. The boy didn’t move. Didn’t react. Didn’t even blink.

Varek knelt beside him. ”Kid,” he said gently. ”Kid, can you hear me?”

Nothing.

”Kid, we’re here to help you. We’re going to get you out of here.”

The boy’s lips moved. A whisper, so soft he almost missed it.

”...please...”

Varek leaned closer. ”What was that?”

”...please don’t leave me. Please. Please.”

The words hit Varek like a physical blow. He looked at the bodies. The blood. The piece of wood clutched in the boy’s small hand. And finally—those eyes. Empty. Hollow. The eyes of a child who had seen too much or loss to much.

He stood up. His voice was steady, but his hands were shaking.

”Get the Duke,” he said. ”Now.”

The other soldiers moved to obey, but Varek stayed. He lowered himself to the floor, sitting in the blood beside the boy, close enough to be felt but not touching. He didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know if words even mattered anymore.

So he just sat there.

Then, softly, almost to himself: ”I’m not going anywhere.”

The boy didn’t respond. Didn’t move. Didn’t blink. His hand still gripped his sister’s fingers. His eyes stayed fixed on nothing.

But for just a second—less than a second—something flickered in those empty eyes.

Then it was gone.

The soldiers returned with the Duke. Orders were given. The boy was lifted, carried out of that place, out of the bunker, out of the city.

Varek watched them go.

He didn’t know the boy’s name. Didn’t know what had happened in that room, how one small child had survived when everyone else had died.

But he knew one thing.

...He would never forget those eyes.