'A major shift in reality had been detected.'
'If I don't act soon, this could become a serious problem', Alen thought, lying motionless on the cold steel bed.
Hours passed, and yet, nothing changed—except for the occasional subtle tremor he felt through the glass walls, as if the space itself was shivering.
'Should I just write the report and send it to the Bureau? Or should I intervene—' Alen paused, his thoughts colliding. 'No, no. This is the first time I've been entrusted with a mission of such high rank. If I mess it up… they'll definitely kick me out of the Bureau.'
He exhaled deeply, a sigh both of stress and resignation.
Technically, all he had been assigned to do was write a report—observe the anomaly like some ancient teacher scribbling notes—and submit it. That was it. Intervention wasn't part of the protocol. Alen hated that restriction with every fiber of his being, but there was a catch. The mission brief hadn't exactly said he couldn't interfere. It just hadn't said he could.
And this "minor" reality distortion? It had the potential to evolve into a monumental threat. One he couldn't afford to ignore.
Minutes dragged by. Then hours. Alen remained on the steel bed, pretending to be passive, unassuming—harmless. But maybe that act was starting to backfire.
You know that feeling? Like when a man is standing in front of a child, his hands dripping with blood, and she asks with innocent eyes, "Oh, is that ketchup on you Mr.?"
Bruh.
As if his silent stillness had triggered suspicion, the next moment proved it: red gas began seeping into Alen's chamber.
The instant it reached his nose, his body reacted. He bolted upright—eyes wide. The stench hit him like a rotting grave, a rancid blend of decay and death, like a mass of rats decomposing in the depths of a sewer. Not just one. Dozens.
The smell suffocated him, igniting a fire in his lungs that scorched every breath.
Alen's eyebrows furrowed. He glanced toward the surveillance camera overhead, then rose from the bed.
'Shit. I thought I was selling harmless, but they're trying to kill me,' he realized, clamping his breath inside his lungs.
The red gas now blanketed half the chamber, curling toward the ceiling. Visibility shrank with every second.
His eyes scanned the thickening fog. The density of the gas meant one thing—soon the camera wouldn't be able to see anything. A slow grin crept onto his face.
"Gotcha."
Above him, the surveillance lens blinked red. Alen waited. Waited until that blinking red glow faded into the smoke.
But on the other side of the chamber, someone had been watching closely.
"OPEN THE CHAMBER! THAT BASTARD HAS A PLAN!" a man barked, panic slashing through his voice.
The shout sparked chaos. Outside the glass, people scrambled, boots clanging against metal as grinding machinery echoed through the chamber's walls.
Alen couldn't hear the command, but he felt the urgency behind the noise. He kept holding his breath, the red fog now consuming the entire room.
From his pocket, he retrieved the last of his tools—a small, purple sphere. He whispered to it:
"Activate Portal."
At once, the ceiling of the glass chamber began to creak and slide open. Above it: a void.
A gaping, cylindrical well stretched infinitely upward and downward, as though the room itself hung suspended by massive chains inside a bottomless shaft.
Across the gap, walkways of collapsible metal linked platforms and passages. Rusted, timeworn walls surrounded the structure like a forgotten relic buried in the Earth's core.
Then—movement.
A man from the opposite bridge sprinted above the chamber, radio clutched in hand.
As the red smoke began to dissipate, he froze.
"Wha...what?"
The voice from earlier barked again through the mic, harsher this time: "What happened? Did he die?!"
"Bo...boss, that—" the man stammered, scanning the scene. The glass room remained intact—untouched. Not a scratch.
But the white-haired boy inside?
Gone.
"Boss...that boy's vanished," he muttered, as if trying to convince himself it was real.
Silence.
Cold, razor-edged silence from the other end of the line. The man's fingers trembled. "Bo...boss?"
Then came the reply.
"Find him within the hour—or you'll be the next to feed my babies."
The man's hands went limp. The radio slipped from his grip, nearly plunging into the abyss below. He stumbled on the narrow bridge, catching himself just in time by the rusted railing.
BEEP.
The call cut.
On the other side of the line, the man placed the radio onto the table with trembling fingers. His face contorted with rage.
Then—
CRASH!
With one violent sweep of his arm, he sent everything flying—papers scattered like frightened birds, a ceramic cup and a desk lamp slammed against the marble floor, shattering into sharp chaos.
Around him, clones of Adamn—identical down to the smallest scar—sat at various desks, each stationed in front of high-tech computer terminals. They wore pristine white lab coats, their hands sheathed in skin-tight gloves, typing away or analyzing data.
Behind him, the laboratory was massive, glowing sterile white with the cold clarity of madness. Towering test tubes lined the back wall, each one filled with a viscous green liquid. Suspended within them: human bodies, wires embedded in their flesh, names etched onto the glass like grave markers.
President Barman
Foreign Minister David
Defense Minister Paul
Military Personnel...
On and on, rows of human experiments—the influential, the powerful—trapped in silent green coffins.
Amid this chamber of horrors stood the original Adamn. His chest heaved with sharp, ragged breaths, his eyes glowing with an unnatural, molten red.
Then one of the clones dared to speak.
"Master… why are you so worried about a kid? He doesn't even know anything about it. I think you're giving too much attention to it from the start."
His voice was even, logical. The kind of logic that forgets emotion.
But logic was not what Adamn wanted right now.
BAM.
A spray of blue liquid instead of blood erupted.
A sudden, wet sound followed—a thud on the pristine floor. A lifeless body collapsed in a twisted heap.
The liquid splattered across Adamn's cheek. He didn't flinch.
None of the clones reacted. Not even a blink.
Adamn's snarl deepened. His body shook—not from fear or grief, but raw frustration. He slammed his palm onto the center table, teeth clenched so tightly it seemed they might snap.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" he barked inwardly.
"Why do you always force me to do this?"
His voice cracked. His face twisted with something close to grief—nostrils flaring, eyes burning. For a split second, it looked as if he might cry. Not out of guilt for the blood he'd spilled, but from some deep-rooted emotional short-circuit. After all, the clone he had just killed... looked exactly like him.
But the moment passed.
With cold indifference, Adamn dragged his blood-stained fingers through his dark hair, slicking it back.
"Well, whatever. I'll just make another one."
His lips curled into a slow, eerie smile. A strange, perverse relief washed over his face. No—pleasure.
He inhaled sharply, then turned toward the remaining clones.
"Alright, everyone," he clapped once, the sound loud in the sterile stillness. "Let's stop wasting time. First priority—find the rat. And kill him."
His body tensed, as if the very mention of Alen's escape ignited a new wave of loathing. He growled under his breath, teeth grinding. "Argh... I hate kids the most. Especially the ones who cause trouble."
In sync, his remaining clones stood.
They peeled off their white coats to reveal black tactical gear beneath—military-grade armor strapped across their chests, weapons holstered and loaded.
One by one, they grabbed AK-47s from a nearby rack and began moving out—marching with precision and lethal intent. Their footsteps echoed across the lab floor like a ticking countdown.
Behind them, Adamn stood at the center table, both palms planted firmly on the surface, his head lowered.
Eyes burning. Mind raging.
"Kill him on the spot," he muttered, barely above a whisper—but filled with venom.
As the last clone exited, the massive metal doors behind them sealed with a hiss and a thud, locking the research lab in airtight isolation.
Outside, the tunnels were dark—underground pathways lit only by the flickering of dying ceiling lights. Murky water pooled along the floor, dripping from rusted pipes above. One light blinked. Then another. Then—darkness.
Back inside the lab, amidst the shattered objects and scattered documents, a single paper lay partially hidden beneath a fallen chair.
It bore a small, grainy image of the white-haired boy in the glass chamber.
Beneath it, a block of stark black text read:
DATABASE
Name: Unknown
Age: Unknown
Residence: Unknown
Citizenship: Unknown
The subject has no prior data. First recorded appearance was in CCTV footage from the university sector. No existing records before that. No identity, no origin, no trace.
WARNING!!!
Outside the lab, the clones descended into the dark, their boots striking the grated stairs with mechanical rhythm. The stench hit first—damp, metallic, and sharp, like blood-soaked mold. Down here, the air didn't breathe. It coiled.
Their footsteps echoed through low-ceilinged tunnels, where flickering lights buzzed like insects trapped between sanity and death. Water dripped from rusted pipes overhead, running in crooked veins along the cracked concrete. Every few meters, a collapsed stretcher or shattered wheelchair emerged from the dark like a memory best left buried.
They moved in formation, rifles drawn, helmets reflecting the dull green light from the few functioning bulbs. Somewhere in this maze, Alen had slipped through. A ghost in white hair. A boy without records.
One of the clones paused beside a door hanging half off its frame. The number 344 was smeared in dried brown across the rusted plate. He didn't look inside.
They didn't speak.
They didn't need to.
Orders were clear: find the boy, eliminate him.
Above them, maybe a building stood somwwhere, hollow and forgotten. But down here—beneath the madness—something moved. Something clever. And it was watching.