Morning settled over Sector 135.
The district sat at the very edge of the city, right where the cracked concrete streets met the far-off treeline of the Mutated Forest.
It was neither rich enough for people to call it prosperous nor poor enough for anyone to forget its existence.
People simply lived here, moving through their days without complication.
Shop owners lifted their heavy iron shutters with a loud clang.
Children hurried through the narrow side streets.
A mechanic argued loudly with a rusted engine.
Someone laughed.
Someone cursed.
Someone carried fresh flowers back home.
Life.
Beyond the borders of the district stretched the Mutated Forest.
The trees there grew much taller than they should, their canopy blotting out the horizon.
Faint, blue veins of light pulsed rhythmically beneath the dark bark.
Silver leaves drifted lazily through the humid air with every sudden gust of wind.
The forest wasn’t born that way.
Rifts didn’t just connect different worlds together.
They carried remnants, bleeding the properties of those alien landscapes into this one.
Sometimes the land around an active Rift became unnaturally fertile.
Sometimes it became a dead, ash-covered wasteland where nothing could ever grow again.
Sector 135 had learned to live beside the change.
At the corner of Willow Street stood a small flower shop.
Fresh lilies lined the front windows, their sweet, heavy scent drifting out onto the concrete street.
A small brass bell chimed softly above the door.
A young man stepped inside, carrying a heavy, mud-stained backpack over one shoulder.
Gray dust covered his leather boots and the worn sleeves of his dark coat.
Pinned firmly to the left side of his chest was a scratched metal badge.
KAI MERCER RANK: HOLLOW HUNTER He lowered the heavy backpack beside the wooden counter, letting out a slow breath.
The bell above the door had barely stopped ringing when hurried, frantic footsteps came rushing down from the staircase upstairs.
“Big brother!” A blur of motion threw itself forward, slamming into Kai before he could even set his gear down fully.
He staggered back a step, letting out a breathless laugh as he wrapped his arms around his little sister.
“Easy, Raina, I just got home.” “You were gone forever.” “It was only three months.” “That’s forever.” Kai reached into the side pocket of his backpack.
“I brought you something.” Raina’s eyes widened instantly.
“For me?” He placed a small, neatly wrapped package into her open hands.
She wasted no time tearing the rough paper open.
Inside was a tiny wooden bird carved with bright blue wings.
When she pressed down lightly on its tail, the small wings flapped up and down.
“It’s from a market near the northern frontier.” Raina’s face lit up completely.
“I love it!” She hugged his waist tightly one more time before running over toward the front window, holding the toy up to watch the little wooden bird flap its blue wings in the morning sunlight.
Behind the counter, their grandfather looked up from a fresh bunch of white roses.
His calloused hands moved with practiced precision, each individual stem trimmed and placed exactly where it belonged in the vase.
He didn’t smile.
But his tired eyes softened as he looked at his oldest grandson.
“You’re late.” “The deployment ended ahead of schedule, Grandpa, but they didn’t free us right away.” “Why was that?” “No idea,” Kai said, pulling off his gloves.
“RESCU’s on high alert these days.
They’re mobilizing combat guilds all across the region.
I only got my leave approved because of Lucy.
Otherwise, I’d still be stuck at the frontier barracks.” Grandpa raised a gray eyebrow.
“She still looks out for you.
Haa.” Kai didn’t answer right away.
He looked down at his boots.
“Yeah.
She does.” His grandfather grunted, adjusting a leaf.
“Tell her she still owes me for breaking the ceramic flower pots.” Kai laughed faintly, “Grandpa, that was seven years ago.” “But I haven’t forgotten, Tell her that the very next time you see her.” Kai shook his head slowly.
“She’s a Sentinel now, Gramps.
I won’t be seeing her anytime soon.” Grandpa walked out from behind the counter and picked up Kai’s dark coat.
His rough fingers brushed over a dark, stiff patch on the shoulder.
Dried blood.
Fresh, jagged cuts lined the side of Kai’s neck.
A thick white bandage wrapped tightly around his right forearm.
This wasn’t what a routine escort mission looked like.
Without another word, Grandpa carried the heavy coat toward the back room.
He didn’t ask about the blood, and Kai didn’t volunteer the information.
Grandpa glanced back toward Raina, who was still entirely focused on the wooden bird.
Then he looked back at Kai.
“Go wash up.” Kai looked over toward the corner of the shop.
“How’s Lucen?” His grandfather sighed silently, pointing his thumb downward toward the floorboards.
“He’s been asking about you since yesterday afternoon.” Kai’s gaze lingered on the basement door.
“I’ll see him right after breakfast.” Within minutes, the small wooden table in the back kitchen room was full.
Steam curled lazily from the porcelain bowls.
Raina sat across from him, her chin resting in both hands.
Her eyes sparkled with a hundred questions before she even spoke a single word.
Grandpa moved between the stove and the table with practiced efficiency, setting down the utensils.
From beneath the floorboards came the faint, muffled sound of an old radio being turned down low.
Kai looked at the hot meal in silence.
Rice.
Vegetables.
A little seasoned meat.
Nothing special.
Nothing expensive.
Just home.
He picked up his wooden chopsticks and began to eat like he hadn’t seen food in weeks.
Perhaps he hadn’t.
The iron rations in the field always tasted like ash and bare necessity.
This tasted like home.
Across the small table, Raina watched his face without blinking once.
Every few seconds, she quietly slid another small dish closer to his bowl.
“You look terrible, big brother.” “Thank you.” “I’m serious, You look like you haven’t slept in days.” “I sleep.” “Not well.” Kai smiled faintly but didn’t argue the point.
She was entirely right.
Sleep in the field came only in broken fragments, and he had learned to pretend those fragments were enough to keep him moving.
Grandpa sat down and watched him eat.
His stern expression never changed, but Kai noticed the subtle things.
The way his jaw tightened whenever Kai flinched while moving his bandaged arm.
The way his weathered fingers rested just a little too firmly against the edge of the kitchen table.
“I’ll take Lucen to the city hall for the Memorial Festival,” Grandpa said suddenly, pouring another small bowl of hot broth.
Kai’s chopsticks stopped instantly, freezing halfway to his mouth.
He lowered them slowly.
“You can’t, Grandpa.” His grandfather looked up, his eyes steady.
“Why not?” “The Federation has started putting massive bounties on Helios patients.” An absolute, crushing silence settled over the small kitchen table.
Raina stopped moving her toy.
“I know they take people with advanced Helios cases,” Grandpa said quietly, his voice hardening.
“They’ve always taken them to the quarantine sectors.” Kai shook his head, his face grim.
“This is different, Gramps.
The entire Federation is on high alert now.
They’re hunting for them specifically.
Every single bounty board and mission log in the Hunter guilds has their posters listed now.” His grip tightened around his wooden chopsticks until the wood groaned.
“I don’t know what they’re doing with those patients once they capture them…” Kai looked down at the grain of the table.
“…but I highly doubt it’s anything good.
If things get any worse in Sector 135, we might need to pack up and—” Grandpa’s face hardened into flint.
“Finish your meal.
We will talk about this later.” Kai went quiet and returned to his bowl.
**** Below them, In the basement, Lucen lay perfectly still on his bed.
He listened intently to the muffled rhythm of the voices above.
He couldn’t make out a single word through the thick wood, but earlier, the bright sound of laughter had drifted cleanly through the floorboards.
Lucen smiled to himself.
Kai was finally back.
His thin fingers traced the long crack in the concrete wall.
The narrow strip of blue sky waited patiently beyond it.
“Maybe…
just maybe, Kai will be able to convince Grandpa to let me go with him.
Kai always knows how to convince him.” A genuine smile spread across Lucen’s pale face.
Later that afternoon, the flat rooftop of the flower shop overlooked the entirety of Sector 135.
Grandpa stood near the rusted metal railing with his hands clasped firmly behind his back, staring out toward the shimmering blue haze of the Mutated Forest.
Kai joined him a moment later, leaning his back against the brick chimney.
Neither of them spoke right away.
The wind carried the faint smell of ozone and pine from the forest edge.
Below them, through the open window of the ground floor, Lucen laughed weakly at something Raina had just said.
His grandfather finally broke the long silence without turning around.
“What exactly were you talking about down there earlier, Kai?”