The Anomaly's Path

The silence was absolute.

When Leo used Echoes of the Unforgotten, his mind left his body behind. Sound, light, and weight stopped existing. There was only a vast, freezing void of endless darkness where his soul hung in place. He took a breath in his mind, forcing his focus to sharpen.

I need to be careful, Leo warned himself.

This wasn’t the first time Leo had seen someone else’s memories. But every time before had been different, and none of them prepared him for this.

The first time, he had seen the memories of the original Leo von Celestial, the boy whose body he now lived in. He saw his past, his pain, his failures, and his regrets. The second time, he watched Mia’s past like a ghost, seeing her memories play out like a silent picture from far away.

The third time was back in the Sealed Valley, when he burned the grief of the weeping knight statue with his soul flames. That one act was what gave him Echoes of the Unforgotten in the first place.

But he had never actually activated this skill on a living human before.

He didn’t know what he was going to see. Would the skill drag him straight to her deepest, most horrifying trauma? Would it show him a random memories of her life? Or would it force him through every single monster that ever crossed her path?

He was stepping completely blind into the dark, gambling on a skill he barely understood.

Lock your mind, Leo, he told himself, the thought echoing through the dark space. If her pain is worse than mine, the door flips the other way. She’ll see Earth. She’ll see the game. She’ll see the end of this world.

Focusing with sharp precision, he imagined gates appearing deep in his soul. Chains slammed across them, locking away his memories of Earth, his knowledge of the game, and the dark truth of how the world would end.

He wasn’t even sure if this rough wall would hold against a real soul-link, but he couldn’t afford to wait. He buried his secrets deep behind the barrier, holding his breath in his mind to make himself an invisible ghost inside her memories.

Then, the darkness began to crack. Shards of dark glass drifted out of the blackness, coming together into a jagged, floating mirror. The air around his spiritual form turned ice-cold, smelling faintly of old wood and metal.

Before he could prepare himself, the memory pulled him in.

His vision snapped into focus, but he had no control. Leo’s consciousness was forced into a body that wasn’t his. He couldn’t move the fingers, couldn’t turn the head, and couldn’t even control the short, panicked breaths pulling in and out of the lungs.

He was seeing through a child’s eyes.

Malva... Leo realized instantly. I’m inside young Malva.

Darkness pressed against them from all sides. Thin lines of faint light cut through the dark, casting dusty stripes across tiny knees pulled tight against a small chest. They were hiding inside a tight wooden closet, wedged behind coats that smelled of damp wool.

A sudden, painful wave of terror hit his chest.

It wasn’t a faint feeling, it was a heavy weight. The child’s heart was pounding against her ribs like a trapped bird, her throat completely closed. Her blood ran so cold that her small fingers went numb. The sheer force of her fear was so strong that for a moment, Leo’s own mind choked on it, struggling to tell himself apart from her panic.

Then came the sound.

Thud!

A heavy, wet thump echoed against the floor right outside the closet door.

”Please... don’t...” a weak, trembling voice wept.

Through the narrow gap between the wooden slats, Leo’s vision locked onto the room outside. A woman with long, black hair was kneeling on the floor, blood pooling on the collar of her dress. Her dark eyes, the exact same shape and color as Malva’s, were wide with terror, staring straight at the closet.

Their eyes met through the thin crack in the wood.

Leo’s heart sank.

She knew Malva was inside. Every desperate look she gave was aimed directly at the closet, begging the child with her eyes to stay quiet, to stay hidden, to not make a sound. Standing over her was a tall figure wrapped in thick, dark robes that seemed to drink in the light.

Thud!

His hand came down again with sickening force. The woman’s head snapped back, her body slumping heavily onto the floor. The sound of brutal, steady violence filled the quiet room, along with the man’s cold, empty breathing.

Leo tried with everything he had to force the child’s head to turn away, to look at the dark wall of the closet, but he couldn’t move an inch. Malva was frozen in place, her wide black eyes glued to the horror happening just outside her hiding spot.

The beating stopped.

The woman lay still on the floor, her breath coming in ragged, bloody gasps.

The dark figure turned around slowly. His boots scraped across the floor, step by step, heading right toward the closet door.

Panic flooded Malva’s body until her whole frame shook, her small hands gripping her knees so hard her knuckles turned white. Leo could feel her soul drowning, a fear so real it felt like dying. The dark shadow stopped right outside the wooden slats, blocking out the faint light.

A pale, bony hand reached out, its long fingers wrapping around the handle of the closet.

No...

Before the door could swing open, the bruised woman on the floor suddenly lunged forward. She grabbed the hem of the man’s dark robes with both hands, her voice breaking into a raw, desperate scream.

”Please! Don’t look in there!” she begged, blood dripping from her lip as she used every bit of her remaining strength to pull on his robes. ”Have mercy... please! She’s just a child... she’s only four years old! Take me! Do whatever you want to me, just leave her alone!”

The tall man didn’t say a word. He didn’t even look down at her with anger. He just raised one heavy boot and kicked her square in the chest. The woman flew backward, her head hitting the leg of a wooden table with a sharp crack before she collapsed completely still onto the floor.

The man stood silently for a moment, staring at the unconscious woman. Then, without turning back toward the closet, he let go of the handle, adjusted his dark cloak, and walked out of the room. His heavy footsteps faded into the distance until a door slammed shut downstairs.

Silence returned to the room, heavy and thick with the smell of blood.

Minutes felt like hours. The child inside the closet didn’t move, her breath still locked in her chest, waiting to see if the monster would return.

Slowly, the woman on the floor stirred.

She let out a faint, painful groan. Her hand weakly pushed against the floor as she crawled across the room, leaving a thin trail of red behind her. She reached the closet, her shaking fingers hooking into the wooden door and pulling it open.

Dim light flooded the dark space.

”Malva...” the woman whispered, her voice barely audible through her bruised throat. A small, trembling smile broke through her bloody face. ”It’s okay, my baby... he’s gone...”

The moment the closet opened, the paralyzing fear gripping the child’s body broke. Malva threw her small arms around the woman’s neck, burying her face into her shoulder as she sobbed silently, her whole body shaking violently.

The mother pulled her tight against her chest, kissing the top of Malva’s head over and over again, her warm tears mixing with the blood on her cheeks as she held her close.

”I’ve got you... I’ve got you...” the woman whispered, smoothing down Malva’s dark hair. ”Mommy’s here. I won’t let anyone hurt you...”

Floating inside the memory, feeling the sudden warmth of that embrace after so much terror, Leo’s mind spun.

This wasn’t a cult ritual, he realized, watching the mother hold her child tightly in the dim room. This wasn’t The Fallen. Malva had a mother... a mother who bled to protect her.

As the warm embrace faded, the memory broke apart. But instead of returning to the darkness, the pieces came back together in a fast, blurring rush.

_

Time didn’t flow in order inside the memories. It sped up, rushing through years of poverty and quiet strength.

Leo felt young Malva growing older, her small mind holding onto the fragile warmth her mother gave her to survive the dark reality of her home.

Through her eyes, Leo saw the man who was supposed to be her father—a worthless, bitter drunk who gambled away every coin they had, only coming back to take out his failures on his family with his fists.

His heavy, crushing presence seemed to make the small room even smaller every time he kicked the door open.

Yet, despite his endless violence, the woman stayed Malva’s only anchor.

Leo saw quiet, freezing nights lit only by a dying lamp, where her mother would gently comb Malva’s dark hair with a brush, speaking softly through the bruises on her cheeks to keep her daughter’s heart alive.

”Malva Elian...” her mother whispered, her dark eyes filled with endless warmth. ”Do you know what your name means, my star? It means ’blooming soft flower.’ Even in the dark... even in the dirt... you can bloom into something beautiful. Don’t ever let the world make you cold.”

The woman would hold Malva’s tiny face between her trembling, calloused hands, forcing a soft, brilliant smile to break across her own lip.

”You must promise Mommy to always smile,” her mother murmured softly.

”The gods gave people like us a quiet magic, Malva. If you wish for something with all your heart with a pure, honest smile, love... can overcome any darkness. The stars listen to the dreams of the gentle. You are going to bloom into the brightest star, brighter than any noble or princess.”

She would tell Malva stories of different domains, noble princes, and grand palaces, teaching her that even commoners born in poverty had the right to dream. For years, those stories and her mother’s love were the only thing keeping Malva’s heart from sinking into darkness.

Then, the shards broke apart again, speeding through time. Years blurred together in a haze of growing misery.

The mother’s body, broken by constant abuse and sickness, grew weaker every month. They had no money for medicine. Every coin her father brought into the house was lost in gambling or wasted on cheap drinks.

The warmth in the house slowly faded, replaced by the cold of death drawing near. The fast rush of time suddenly stopped.

Leo’s mind settled into a ten-year-old Malva.

It was the morning of her tenth birthday. But there was no cake, no laughter, and no celebration. She was standing near the edge of a narrow, drafty room. The air was thick with the smell of damp earth and dust.

On a small, ragged bed across the room lay her mother.

She was completely still. Her face was pale, her cheeks sunken and cold, and her eyes closed in a deep, endless sleep. Through Malva’s eyes, Leo felt a strange, terrifying emptiness. There was no screaming, no sudden tears, just a cold, hollow silence growing inside the girl’s chest.

Malva stepped closer to the bed, her small, shaking hands reaching out to touch her mother’s arm.

”Mom...?” Malva whispered. Her voice was flat, eerily calm, with no feeling behind it.

Her mother didn’t answer. Her chest didn’t rise.

”Mommy, wake up... it’s morning,” Malva said, an unsettling, rehearsed smile spreading across her small face as she tried to obey her mother’s old lesson. She shook her mother’s arm slightly, her small fingers pressing into the cold, rigid skin.

”Look... I cleaned the whole floor today. I washed the rags like you asked. That man isn’t here, Mom. He went to the gambling house... he won’t beat you today. You can open your eyes now.”

The skin beneath her fingers was cold as ice. Malva’s smile didn’t fade, it stretched wider, becoming strange, fragile, and desperate...

”Mom? You told me if I smiled and wished with all my heart, the stars would listen...” Malva said softly, her voice rising into a quiet chant. ”I’m smiling, Mom. Look at me. I’m smiling really wide. See? The dark is gone. You said love brings light back... why aren’t you looking at me?”

She leaned over, using both of her tiny hands to pull her mother’s cold eyelids up. All she saw were dull, dark eyes staring blankly at the rotting ceiling.

In that exact second, the world fell away.

Leo watched helplessly from inside her, feeling the exact moment the child’s world broke into nothing. Malva pulled her hand back, staring at her mother’s peaceful, lifeless face as the truth sank in.

The fairy tales, the noble princes, the gentle gods, and the ”blooming soft flower” name — all of it crumbled under the weight of her mother’s cold body. The world hadn’t listened to her prayers. Her smile hadn’t saved anyone.

”It was all a lie...”

The gentle feeling inside her soul withered, leaving behind a huge, endless emptiness.

It was at this exact moment, the coldest point of her soul, that her origin core awakened. It didn’t wake with the warmth of fire or the life of living things. Driven by her deep wish to erase the cruel world, her soul reached out to the darkest, most terrifying power in existence.

Void.

An icy, endless darkness burst out from deep inside her chest, wrapping around her small body like a heavy blanket. Leo felt her emotions get swallowed whole by the void, her love, her pain, her grief, and her humanity were pulled into a dark hole, leaving her mind completely empty, cold, and hollow.

Malva slowly let go of her mother’s face. Her smile vanished, replaced by an empty, dead stare. She turned her head slowly toward the creaking front door as heavy, stumbling footsteps echoed from the stairs outside.