Ethan stared at the man bound to the rusted chair, fingers twitching as he peeled back a strip of flesh with practiced ease. The tweezers clinked against the stainless tray beside him. Blood dripped in a slow rhythm, matching the soft jazz playing in the background. A nobody, just another junkie he'd plucked off the street—shivered and whimpered through the gag stuffed into his mouth. Eyes rolled back. Despair was setting in. Lovely.

  Ethan’s lips curled into a smirk as he tilted his head, admiring his work. He leaned in close, whispering, “I read once that if you peel slowly enough, the nerves don’t even register pain immediately. It’s like your brain can’t comprehend it all at once. Isn’t that fascinating?”

  The junkie whimpered louder. Ethan sighed. “You people never appreciate good art.”

  The door to his warehouse burst open.

  Bang!

  The world turned white.

  He was on the ground, his ears ringing. Voices barked commands. Boots thundering his way. Still dazed, Ethan reached for the scalpel he’d left on the tray. His fingers brushed cold steel, familiar and comforting.

  Someone screamed.

  “Weapon!”.

  He slashed upward, carving a bloody line across the shin of the nearest officer. Another boot drove into his ribs. Bone cracked. The world dimmed.

  As they dragged him out, bruised and bloodied, Ethan laughed. A cold, hollow sound that didn’t reach his eyes.

  They called him “The Gentleman Butcher” all over the web. A Hulu docuseries dissected his childhood, found the animals he’d cut up, and the girl from his town who had ‘disappeared’. There was shock; he was clean-cut, Ivy League, a genius. Future surgeon. Secret monster. Psychologists speculated about his mind. Parents of the dead cried in interviews. Two dozen bodies. Maybe more.

  He didn’t speak during the trial. Just smiled. Even when his mother bawled on the stand, when they presented photos that made the jury vomit. He sat. Smiling at a joke only he understood.

  He was sentenced to life in an asylum, the judge calling him a “unique threat to society”. Ethan thought it apt.

  Three months in, he slit a guard’s throat with a sharpened toothbrush and broke three ribs jumping the asylum’s fence.

  He made it fifteen minutes.

  A sniper’s bullet tore through his neck as he sprinted away, blood jetting in rhythmic bursts. He collapsed mid-step, mouth twitching. The last thing he saw was the sky, so wide and blue.

  Then… nothing.

  There was no tunnel of light. No peace.

  Darkness. Cold, wet, suffocating.

  He existed; no longer flesh, no longer man. Thought became raw instinct. His first awareness came in pulses, like sonar clicking in the void.

  He lay half-submerged in stagnant water, surrounded by crumbling stone. Pale roots slithered from the ceiling, threading down the columns like nature trying to reclaim something long forgotten. The walls were carved in runes he didn’t recognize—yet a part of him did. Glyphs of binding. Wards. Broken, now. Faint blue etchings pulsed with the last breath of ancient magic.

  This was a temple. Once sacred. Now drowned in bog and time.

  His form was foreign: six limbs, slick and glistening. A needle-like proboscis flexed beneath his mandibles. His limbs, all six, moved with perfect mechanical rhythm. Two long, blade-like forelimbs curled in front of him, sharp enough to split bark. His body was light, razor-sharp wings extending from his back. Barely the size of a cat. No bones. Only segmented chitin, glossy and wet with swamp moisture.

  Above him, the ceiling rose like a cavern mouth, moss-covered stone etched with runes too ancient to matter now. Water dripped from every surface, pooling around his clawed feet.

  The world smelled of rot and mold. Old incense. Forgotten offerings.

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  I’ve been here before.

  No… not here. Somewhere like it. He didn’t know why he thought that. Or why the word “temple” even surfaced. It was like a puzzle with half the pieces missing.

  He knew who he was. He knew who he had been. But he did not know what he was now. But he knew it was something better. Something new. Something…unique.

  He moved, almost unconsciously, skittering across stone with an unsettling grace. Voices echoed up the crumbling stairs. Four of them—three male, one female. Young. Hopeful. Foolish. They bore torches, steel, and the arrogant certainty of those who had yet to see the world bleed. Ethan watched from his perch, a predator made of shadow and silence.

  “Bet there's treasure deeper in,” said the warrior, a tall girl with cropped red hair and a massive sword that looked comically oversized. “Told you this place wasn’t fully looted.”

  “I still say this reeks of a trap,” muttered the rogue, her eyes darting through the shadows. “You always say that,” the mage replied, pushing his glasses up. “But you still tag along.” “Who else would come with you two idiots?” grumbled the rogue. Trailing behind them was the healer.

  She was small, blonde, no older than twenty. Her robes were already mud-stained. A holy symbol hung from her neck. She paused.

  “Wait…” she whispered. “Did you hear that?”

  The group stopped. But there was nothing. The hunt was more fun this way.

  Lysa didn’t like this place. Not one bit.

  It smelled wrong. Like rot and old secrets. She touched her pendant for comfort, whispering a quiet prayer to Itheria, goddess of mercy. Her power answered like they always did; a soft warmth in her chest, a quiet strength at her fingertips.

  They moved deeper. The temple’s inner sanctum was worse. Drowned in moss and dark water. The columns leaned like they were trying to escape the ceiling. Murals peeled from the walls, showing things with too many eyes, too many mouths.

  The rogue jerked backward. Something had stabbed her in the base of the skull. She convulsed, knees buckling, as a shadow darted from her back and vanished into the high ceiling.

  The warrior shouted, drawing her sword. “Ambush!” the mage cried.

  “Where is it?!”

  Lysa ran to the rogue, exclaiming,” Renna?” Her body twitched. She stood back up, slowly.

  Too slowly.

  Her neck hung at an impossible angle. Her eyes… empty. Her mouth opened.

  “So many memories,” it said in Renna’s voice. “She was clever. She hid pain behind sarcasm. I like that. “Fascinating. So this is what I can do.”

  The others screamed. The warrior rushed forward, sword raised.

  Too late.

  Renna’s body jerked, convulsed, and hurled a blade at the warrior. At the same time, a shadow fell from the sky. A glistening, wasp-like creature, long as a man’s arm, shimmering black and violet. Its proboscis pulsed like a heartbeat. It struck the warrior in the neck before she could scream. She collapsed, spasming. Eyes rolled back.

  Lysa stumbled back in horror. Her legs gave out.

  The mage tried to cast, his hands glowing - then the warrior rose.

  “Don’t worry,” it said in the warrior’s voice. “You’ll die slower.”

  Lysa fled through corridors slick with mildew, clutching her staff like a lifeline. Her leg, snapped at the ankle, dangled behind her. Her friends—her family—were gone. Their bodies twitched behind her, hollowed out like eggs. But it wasn’t their deaths that made her sob. It was their voices. They whispered in her ears. Each word precise. Wrong but familiar.

  “Lysa, it hurts. Help me...”

  “Why did you leave me, Lysa?”

  “You said we’d come back together.”

  She screamed and stumbled, falling against a wall covered in moss and broken murals. It wasn’t magic. Not divine or arcane. It was him. The thing. The wasp. The demon.

  Ethan watched from above. This wasn’t malicious. It was a study. He wanted to see what broke her. Would it be guilt? Terror? The betrayal of her gods?

  Her screams echoed into the bog night as the temple swallowed her whole.

  Later, Ethan rested on a high arch, overlooking the chamber where the bodies lay limp once more. The puppets had limits, but they had possibilities. He reviewed what he had extracted; This world hated monsters. Non-humanoids were considered beasts, tools, or enemies by default. But monsters had powers humans did not. They could evolve, gain new skills, and new power. And he learned that he was unique even amongst those monsters, as he had been granted a Path.

  Path of the Echo of All Things Loved

  First Form: Wraith of Lost Whispers

  Proboscis of Extraction: Consume memories and skills through direct brainstem insertion.

  Neural Echo: Replay and weaponize the voices or mannerisms of those consumed.

  Corpse Marionette: Temporarily control the recently dead by threading memory echoes into their nervous systems.

  Chitin Blades: Razor wings and limb spikes for close-range dismemberment.

  He also knew where he was. A continent called Gael’Zar. A land of guilds and quests and holy wars. A world ruled by magic, gods, and heroes.

  And he was one of them now.

  Not a god. Not yet.

  Something that would never die in a cage again.

  Ethan twitched his wings. He vanished into the shadows, leaving four hollow corpses behind.