Where am I? Adyr wondered as he looked around.

A heartbeat ago, he had been in the Legacy Domain, running from the Serpent. The last clear memory was the Synergy Crystal on his tongue. Pain like a hammered spike burst behind his eyes, and then he opened them to this unfamiliar place.

"No... I know this place." He murmured the words as he narrowed his eyes and tried to make sense of the dark.

The smell hit first: sour rot braided with garbage, thick enough to pound at his headache. The walls were familiar too, old and filthy, the plaster blackened by damp.

Ahead, a cramped kitchen sagged under dust, and beside it stood a butcher’s table streaked with dried blood.

"Why the hell am I here?"

It was the basement from his previous life, the pit where he had grown up in dirt and agony.

His headache surged, and when he tried to lift a hand to rub his temples, a weight held it down. He turned, and a curtain of dirty blond hair filled his vision; a small head was resting on his shoulder.

His eyes widened. Shock, raw and unguarded, broke across his dirty face as his black pupils trembled.

The girl asleep on him looked impossibly innocent; even the grime on her cheeks could not make her look unclean. She slept so quietly he could hear the soft catch of her breath.

His right hand rose on instinct, small fingers reaching to touch her head, to soothe her and tell her he was there so she could drift into safer dreams.

At the last instant, his hand closed into a fist. He stopped himself. The warmth in his gaze vanished, replaced by a still, cold blankness.

So my mind dragged me back into my memories,

he realized.

The cold stone under him, the weight on his shoulder, the stinging stink that made his nose ache, all of it felt real; even so, he knew it was only his mind at work. It had to be the Synergy Crystal.

He set himself to break the illusion.

He shut his eyes and forced his thoughts to narrow, trying to focus hard enough to push these cursed scenes away. The focus held for a breath, then a single word shattered it.

"Brother."

His eyes flew open to ice-blue eyes looking up at him, far too old for such a young face.

"Aysa." The name escaped before he could stop it, and a pure, honest smile touched his lips.

He offered the hand he had just withheld and laid his palm gently on her head, letting her feel the warmth of him. "Don’t worry. I’m here. Try to keep sleeping," he whispered, so soft that his voice poured calm into her gaze.

She nodded. In the hell she lived in, something small and bright opened on her face, and she closed her eyes again, gathering crumbs of peace.

Then footsteps sounded on the stairs. Her eyes snapped wide. "Brother," she breathed, too afraid to let the word rise any louder.

He felt her body shake like a leaf. His own gaze went still, a quiet storm moving behind it.

The basement door creaked and banged open. A middle-aged man came down, carrying 2 steaming plates.

Adyr turned and calmly studied a face he could never forget: a scalp shaved clean to the skin, and a deep scar that started at the forehead, crossed thin brown brows, and ran to the chin, as if a machete had split him and someone had slapped him back together in a rush.

The man’s heavy build made each step loud on the cement floor. "Looks like my children have finally woken up. I brought your meal."

The fingers on Adyr’s arm tightened. His sister’s uneven, overgrown nails bit into his skin, but his face did not change and he did not look away from the man closing the distance.

"Huh? What kind of face is that?" the man asked, puzzled as he studied Adyr’s small, dirty features. He had expected terror, the blur of tears and snot and pleading. Instead, he found a calm that felt wrong, a blank that should not have been there.

"Son, did you have a bad dream?" He crouched and set the plates gently on the floor. Then he lifted his head and met Adyr’s eyes.

His pupils widened. He grabbed a fistful of messy black hair and wrenched the boy’s head back, his voice dropping into something deeper and needling. "Or did you finally lose your mind?"

Pain flared across Adyr’s scalp, and for a moment, it felt as if his hair would rip free with the skin and a single extra twist would snap his neck. Even so, not a flicker reached his face; he kept silent and stared straight into the man’s eyes.

"I see." The man let go and began to laugh, pleased with himself. "After all these years of my diligent training, my son is finally becoming a real man like his father, isn’t he?"

The laughter sounded wrong, cloyingly satisfied, and it clawed at Adyr’s control; even so, he held steady, and whether it was an illusion or not, he refused to move.

When his laughter finally died, the man straightened and lazily kicked the plates; they skittered and flipped, and chunks of stew meat scattered across the floor—too pale and carrying that sweet, wrong smell, the kind of meat Adyr was all too familiar with.

"Since you have grown this much, I suppose this meal will not satisfy you anymore."

He looked at them again, a strange smile settling on his lips. He reached out, seized the dirty blond head, and yanked the girl to her feet.

"No... Brother." Aysa’s scream broke through pain and despair, her wide, wounded blue eyes locked on Adyr’s calm, dark ones. "Don’t let him take me, please don’t..."

Her voice rang off the concrete and the pipes.

Adyr felt her hands claw at his arm, her long, broken nails dragging deep, burning lines that bled yet he did not so much as flinch.

"Good, good, good." The man hauled Aysa fully away and spoke with rich satisfaction, drinking in Adyr’s stillness.

The more unresponsive the boy was, the more pleased he became. This was what he had wanted all along. He believed he had finally trained the child into a son worthy of himself.

"Now sit and wait patiently while I prepare your meal. You have earned it." He dragged Aysa toward the kitchen, in high spirits and with long steps, until a sound rose behind him and brought him up short.

"Hahahahahaha."

He turned. The face that had watched in silence was laughing now, loud and bright, like a man savoring his favorite joke.

"Something funny?" The man’s face creased, irritation roughening his voice. This was not the reaction he expected.

Adyr only laughed harder. He rocked with it, clutching his stomach, shoulders shaking until tears leaked from the corners of his eyes, as if he were truly enjoying a joke.

"You fuck." The man shoved Aysa’s small body aside and came on. He grabbed Adyr by the collar and hauled him up with one arm until their eyes were level.

"Tell me what’s so funny." He studied the boy as if the next words would decide his fate.