I stood at the front gate of Ainsworth High School, hands curled tightly around the strap of my satchel. Most of the students had already left.

Only a few remained near the iron fence, their voices low, their phones glowing too brightly against the greying afternoon, eyes flicking toward the device with a kind of nervous expectation. Even the traffic beyond the school grounds felt subdued.

It wasn't storming, not yet. But there was this pressure in the air, the kind that settled behind your eyes and made everything feel heavier than it should be. Like the clouds knew something was about to happen, and they were waiting for the rest of us to catch up.

I was still and very alert. My eyes were constantly darting towards the road, searching for a familiar car, but nothing in sight. After what felt like too long of ten minutes, a car drove in, the one I was searching for, my father's black Mercedes. I moved quickly, opened the door and slid into the front seat. The car rolled forward the moment I sat down, sliding out of the school gates and into the half-lit street. By the time we turned into the driveway of our gated mansion, I felt my shoulders drop half an inch. Not safety, just containment.

I stepped into the living room and saw it before anyone said a word. The screen took up half the wall, but it wasn't the screen that felt big. It was what it showed, the sky, or more specifically, what was hanging in it.

A massive, perfectly spinning black hole, round and unnaturally pulsing with pressure, was hovering right above the vast waters. I double-checked; it was definitely a news channel.

The camera zoomed in slightly, but not too close. As if the lens itself feared looking directly at it. "We still have no confirmation on the cause of the phenomenon; the military —"

"Authorities have temporarily suspended flights in and out of —"

"We are estimating it not to be dangerous; however, it might have various geological effects in the long term in —"

Same news on every channel; I changed back to the channel that was previously on. That's when something changed. Something was poking out of it, something like a tree branch; something was trying to come through it.

A creature. No, a monstrosity, wings like a butterfly, body like a centipede, covered in what looked like skin and smoke at once; its wingspan alone seemed to stretch across the clear waters of the Arabian Sea.

My eyes were glued to the screen; I turned stiff, my heart wasn't pounding, not exactly, but it wasn't beating right either.

Breath In.

Breath Out. I couldn't—Aria, be calm; it's fine.

"Is it possible for us to leave the city? To the south or my hometown in the east?" I could barely hear my mother over the explosions on the screen.

"We can't, at least not now; the government has already imposed a house curfew. We'll just have to wait for the evacuation notice." Father's answer lingered.

The firing didn't stop. The historic sea that stood the test of time now seemed in a sorry state. Its water was murky now, bombshells and artillery splashing into it, sending waves higher than mountains. The screen flickered with bursts of missiles that lit up the dark sky like fireworks, but were proving useless.

It had been three hours, maybe more. The news feed didn't cut away, but it kept zooming out. Now it was too far to see anything clearly. The creature and fighter planes were just a smear in the grainy skyline. The creature? It was still moving.

Mother and Father sat beside me, speaking in low tones, their voices shaped around the words school transfer, temporary relocation, a return 'when it calms down.'

The naval force confined the flying beast to an encircled space. Military lines and fighter jets curled tight around it like a leash. It hadn't broken through yet. The question was: How long could they hold on? Soldiers? Weaponry? War tactics? They were designed to fight other humans and not some gigantic aliens.

Five hours already, and that thing hadn't even bled. Just enough for a few scratches, enough to keep it in binding. If, God forbid, it escapes beyond... once that happens, there would be no strategy. It might have free rein to fly anywhere and wreak havoc. The city should have long been evacuated while that creature was still confined.

I was seventeen, and I'd thought of that. What were the sixty-year-olds in charge thinking!? My jaw was tight. My posture was stiff. I could feel my heart pressing against my ribs, high and insistent. My head felt too heavy.

"What is that? A silver object is heading toward the alien!" The reporter's voice cracked through the static like a spark.

My head snapped toward the screen. My thoughts instinctively narrowed into a single point of focus.Something was moving fast across the sky. Even through the glitching pixels, the shape held a single line of silver, streaking toward the creature. The two forms, one massive and one glinting silver, collided mid-air. The feed jittered violently as the sound felt fractured and static. My parents' whispering halted. The fighter planes flew far away from the center of the collision.

My brain tried to make sense of it, but the footage was so degraded it played like memory instead of news. Nothing clear. Just motion. Blurs. Then the broadcast voice returned, clipped and breathless.

"We've received new footage just moments ago with astonishing clarity showing what appears to be that same person engaged with the anomaly. We're going to present that to you now."

The screen went black for a second, and then it reloaded. The new footage wasn't crisp, but grainy and felt like something recorded from the Marilyn Monroe era.

The camera tracked upward, shaky but focused. Between the shifting clouds, a human? No, surely not, and yet… there it stood, balanced on the creature's skull, unmoved by chaos beneath him. The light caught his cloak, bright white edged with intricate silver, the hem trailing in the wind. His hood shadowed his face, revealing nothing.

The beast shrieked beneath him louder than it had done before as it turned wild and frantic. Its body writhing and convulsing as it lashed its wings with force as it created winds.The cloaked figure didn't flinch but leapt from the crown with clean, fluid motion. A white flash and the monster's wing fell down with one clean strike. The water below split wide as it crashed into the sea.

It screeched and reared back, trying to find a balance with just one of its wings left, but too late, one more motion and another of its wings splashed down. The now wingless monster fell into the sea, but it still crawled, attacking with its tentacles.

The cloaked being cut off of it the tentacles, another vault through air and the armor cracked as its flesh sank inwards. Each one of his moves was calm and precise: he sprang, spun, landed, rose; his movements were faster than what a camera could follow. Wherever he touched the beast, it got injured. I wasn't sure if he was fighting or dancing. It felt like the choreography of a performance.

Enchanting and mesmerising

The military-grade nightmare died, just like that. Almost six hours of military assault and six minutes of… him? The camera zoomed in where the creature once hovered; The black hole that had split the sky gave a final shudder, one brief, electric pulse, like the last flicker of a dying screen. Then it folded in on itself with a soundless ripple as the sky returned to its natural calm.

And then — the cloaked figure glowed white. It didn't just glow, as if the person had ignited. It was just white everywhere. Pure, blinding illumination that swallowed the screen whole. The broadcast went white. For a moment, it was the only thing visible, just an endless field of light that didn't stop at the edges of the television. It leaked through the room like a second sunrise.

A chill seeped down my spine.

The balcony lit up, glowing from the inside out. The curtains flared pale as the floor turned white beneath my feet. We were nowhere near the Arabian sea. From sea to land… It reached us. No wonder the cameras failed. They weren't built for this.

"To all those watching," the voice landed in the room like a second presence. My head snapped to the screen. The chaos was gone. No creature. No smoke. No crack in the sky. Just the mystery person occupied the screen. The surrounding glow had dimmed, and the camera had readjusted its focus. He lifted one gloved hand and pushed back the hood that had concealed his face.

My breath hitched. Something in me just… stopped.

Platinum blond hair that almost looked silver tousled into a wolf-cut too deliberate to be accidental. Mid-length and half-tamed, sharp jaw, pale skin. The white mask curved around his aqua blue eyes with a silver rim.

"I am Vale" His voice, calm and…maddening. My stomach did this flip and my chest hurt with how hard my heart was beating.

"I mean no harm to anyone, for now I cannot answer who I am or anything regarding the occurrences that happened today. But I request everyone for co-operation. What happened today will happen again, and when that time comes, I only wish the authorities will evacuate the citizens and leave the fighting to me. Thank you"

The fog rose around him as if it had been waiting for its cue, and he was gone. The screen returned to a calm sea. I didn't move. I kept staring at the screen. Only the skyline remained, accompanied by the soft hum of machinery resetting.

But in my mind, I could still see his eyes. I could still hear that voice

I felt it in my gut; I knew I was a witness to something that would be remembered for ages, and this might as well be the beginning to something far beyond what anyone can ever imagine.

VOLUME ONE: THE CALL

This was the third heart I'd dissected this semester. The motions were routine by now; my hands steady, my breathing quiet enough to disappear into the sterile air.

The lab gleamed under clinical lights, all white tile and silver steel. Everything smelled of antiseptic and industrial sanitizer.

The blade slipped through the epidermis like silk. Bloodless. Quiet. That's what made cadavers beautiful.

They didn't scream.

They didn't twitch.

They didn't remind you that what you were doing was violent. They just offered themselves for study, for understanding. For mastery.

Someone two tables over coughed into their mask. Another student dropped a clamp with a sharp metallic clatter that echoed across the tile.

"Aria," came a voice behind me, clipped and familiar.

Dr. Halloran.

I heard her lean in, saw the flicker of movement in my periphery as she examined my progress.

"You're doing very well, but then again, I expected nothing less from you."

"Thankyou," I replied without looking up.

She chuckled and walked off to another student on my right with her heels tapping a precise rhythm on the tile.

I finished the cut and peeled back the pericardium, and there it was. The heart. Still and colorless. A thing that poets can't stop romanticizing. But stripped of blood, stripped of motion, it was just what it was. A fist-sized muscle. There's nothing romantic about a beating heart. It's just a muscle trying not to die.

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With the practicals finished, my second year at the university was done. Unfortunately, this also meant a cue to go home during the semester break. It's beyond me why other students would make a fuss about going home. I'd rather stay here in London

I walked on, letting the rhythm of my footsteps level the faint nausea coiling in my chest.

Contrary to the lab, it was quite gloomy outside. The farther I went, the more the city's mask began to slip.

Posters lined every surface: bus stops, cracked walls, alley doors. Red ink shouted warnings over real estate ads and washed-out concert flyers: "If you see an Anomaly — do not approach. Stay low. Call the line: 777-000-VALE."

I stopped at the crosswalk. The light hadn't changed yet.

Across the street, a mother held her son's hand tight as they crossed. He wore a panda-shaped air-filter mask, but what caught my eye was the sticker on his backpack. Bright yellow. Slightly peeling at the corners: "Protected by Vale."

I stopped at the crosswalk. The light hadn't changed yet.

To my right, two elderly women knelt beside the statue on an altar exquisitely made of white marble cardboard, still glistening from last night's rain. A tiny ceramic figure rested at the center, cloaked and silver. Surrounded by votive candles. Flower petals and incense.

One of the women lit a stick with shaking hands. The other leaned closer, whispering a prayer.

The traffic rolled by in slow silence, tires sighing against the wet street. The light turned. I crossed.

Farther down, outside a school, children clustered beneath a wide yellow banner that stretched across the gate: "ANOMALY DRILL ZONE — STAY ALERT. STAY LOW. TRUST VALE."

No one argued. No one even slowed down. Faith had become the new disaster kit. Just a low hum and reverence. It had become unrecognisable after three years. The life before the supernatural disasters felt too distant. This was the new adapted normal, and I sometimes wonder, will I ever be able to see the actual normal again?

I adjusted the strap of my bag, felt it press deeper into my shoulder, and kept walking.

Let them light candles. Let them whisper his name like a prayer. Let them turn him into a myth, or a miracle, or the last thread holding back the dark.

I wouldn't join them. I didn't pray. I didn't leave offerings. I didn't hang charms from my windowsill. And I didn't worship him. Not because I didn't understand. I didn't hate him. But because I couldn't afford to, I didn't have room for distractions.

I had worked hard, obeyed, and swallowed the bitter pill of pain. And I was close now...so close...

For me and ‌my mother.

I looked up at the wide expanse and affirmed I refuse to follow the tide. I survived by ignoring it

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By the time I got home, Katherine was already there, sprawled out, her legs crossed, her long auburn braid draped over one shoulder, white coat discarded in a corner with her bag, sipping on coffee and buried in her tablet.

Katherines and I had been roommates at the dorm.

She showed up late, introduced herself twice, once to me, once to the cadaver and managed to irritate the professor before we'd even finished sterilizing.

Borrowed my scalpel without asking and gave a full blown introduction about how she'd come from Boston, something about scholarship and better training. I was frankly least interested in her history, but she gave it anyway.

She talked too much, gestured when she spoke, waved her coffee around other'faces like it was part of the conversation. Most of it was nonsense.

A court trial or a celebrity scandal, or some philosophical rabbit hole she'd dragged herself into at three in the morning

I slid into the seat beside her at our dining table, still half thinking about the cadaver I'd been stitching up less than an hour ago. Most people wouldn't call cutting open a chest cavity before noon a normal day. But here I was just back after being with a corpse.

"When did you come back?" I asked.

She said without looking up, "Two hours ago I s'pose.....Did you eat?"

"I'm not hungry"

"Of course you're not; food is emotional!"

There it was, the special Katherine effect.

I was spared from replying by the sight of bouncing pink curls. Like cotton candy had come to life. Coral came in, cheeks flushed, cardigan sleeves pulled over her hands, holding a paper bag that looked filled to the brim and wafted of food. She set it down on the table.

"I know you didn't have lunch, that's why I took the liberty of getting food for you," Coral announced triumphantly as she opened the bag, taking out the contents in it. Two drinks and desserts and 3 containers; the pink marshmallow dessert had to be hers.

I met Coral through a mutual friend; Katherine and I, who didn't quite adjust to the dorms or halls, were desperately searching for housing within three months since we settled here.

An apartment felt convenient; being a vegetarian, it was always a hassle for food. I could always just cook instead of hunting down vegetarian restaurants every time I was hungry. Cherry on top, the common bathrooms and curfews were an absolute nightmare.

Coral, who was living alone in her grandmother's apartment that she had left her with, needed someone to live with. Since it was around our university, things worked out and we both shifted here together with her. We have been sharing the same roof for almost 2 years

While Katherine and I were at Med University, Coral was at a fashion university and a part-time YouTuber.

I don’t have the faintest idea as to how an anime obsessed lolicon and an energetic femme fatale, two pole opposites, are surviving under the roof without any mishap. I had been worried how a soft-spoken coral would work with something like Katherine, but all has been well.

“Since we know you don’t have demon genes and you need food OR at least the illusion of humanity,” Katherine added, sipping her espresso with the theatrics of someone who watched too many courtroom dramas.

I opened the container Coral had placed before me. Toasted rye, avocado, lemon drizzle. Just what I like for a light lunch.

“I wasn’t going to faint.”

“What’s the great plan? Joining your Cadaver friends?” Katherine muttered

I didn’t reply. I took a bite, if only to shut them up, and instantly felt so much better; I suppose I must have been hungry.

We ate in near silence for about two minutes.

Then Katherine stirred, setting her cup down with a thunk, "You missed something". Coral perked up as if she’d been waiting for this. I raised an eyebrow. This screams suspicious, truly... I knew in an instant what this was going to be about.

Katherine turned to me. “You saw it, right?”

“Saw what?” I avoided looking into her eyes.

Coral gasped softly, nearly dropping her spoon. “You didn’t?"

I blinked. “Oh…yes, the actual heart is definitely worth looking at; it’s fascinating…—”

“The Interview, Aria! The interview.” Katherine looked betrayed. Her eyes were wide: her fingers curled around her tablet. “You didn’t watch it? I thought I reminded you about it yesterday!” She demanded, “Vale! Last night!! In Frankfurt, ring any bells?!”