"The tortures of hell are too mild a vengeance for thy crimes." ― Mary Shelley (Frankenstein: The 1818 Text)

* * * *

The door clicked shut behind him.

Misha Alescio stood alone in the center of his brother's dormitory room, the sterile silence so unnatural that it pressed on his chest like a weight. The ESA-issued light overhead cast a dim yellow hue, not quite warm, not quite cold—just like the ESA itself these days.

The walls were bare, save for the mounted digital calendar on the wall beside the single window. It still displayed the same date as two weeks ago.

The day Lucas disappeared.

The fire user didn't know what he expected to find. A letter? A voice recording? Maybe something stupid and cliché like an "If you're reading this, I'm already gone" note.

But Lucas was methodical. Obsessively so. And Misha knew that better than anyone.

He stepped further inside, his boots making the barest sound on the carpeted floor, and scanned the room again. It was perfectly neat. Austerely neat. Bed made, the blanket folded with military precision. ESA jacket folded across the desk chair. Books on the shelf arranged alphabetically by author, and further divided by genre and publication year.

Lucas didn't even keep trinkets. No photos, no framed medals, and no souvenirs. Everything had its place. The only photo was on his bedside table, one of Lucas and Misha.

But Lucas himself was nowhere to be found.

And that, to Misha, was the emergency.

He crossed the room and dropped to a knee by the desk drawers, pulling them open one by one. Neatly stacked pens. Spare data chips. Official ESA forms and internal mission reports organised by year in labelled folders. Every drawer screamed discipline, control, and logic.

It felt wrong.

Two weeks since Lucas had gone missing, without so much as a word or mention to Misha. The word around is that 'Lucas is on leave', though Misha never believed it.

Lucas never took leave.

Not for years. Not even during major crises. Misha could count on one hand the number of times Lucas had at least taken some days of vacation for himself since they'd joined the ESA. Hell, the man worked through colds, broken fingers, and even that time he'd gotten food poisoning on an outer zone mission. He was the kind of man who saw rules and then built stronger ones around them.

Lucas even spent his day offs in the ESA, much to the director's exasperation, but no amount of threats to cut his pay ever worked. And Lucas would never have vanished without so much as a mention to Misha.

Even calls to Lucas's cell went unanswered, or straight to his voicemail by the time the second week rolled around. Louis, too, had tried to trace Lucas, hoping that Lucas might at least have brought his ESA issued devices with him—his communicator, or something else. But no dice.

Lucas Alescio didn't vanish.

Unless he meant to. Unless he knew he couldn't come back.

Misha's fingers hovered over the edge of the desk, his pulse tightening at the base of his throat. Where are you, brother? His mind whispered. What the hell did you do?

The thought chilled him more than he expected. Because deep down, some part of Misha already feared the answer.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

He stood and moved to the wall-mounted lockbox, rapping it softly with his knuckles. Solid. Locked. Inside, he could hear the faint metallic clinks—Lucas's ESA-issued sidearm. His blades. His tactical gear.

He didn't take them.

Which meant either he left in a hurry…

Or he knew they wouldn't help where he was going.

A sharp ache dug into Misha's chest as he stepped back, his fists tightening. It wasn't just the mystery that gnawed at him. It was the abandonment.

Lucas had always been his anchor. A stoic force of will that could weather storms. A cold presence, yes, but reliable. Dependable.

But now? Misha felt like a little boy again, standing in the hallway of a silent home, waiting for a father that never came back.

He turned toward the desk again, rubbing the back of his neck when his eyes caught something—a small stack of papers, slightly askew beneath a mission ledger. He reached out and pulled the sheets free.

Misha's breath caught.

Notes. Diagrams. Scribbles. Written in Lucas's distinctive, sharp-edged handwriting. Hastily written, even messy in some places, which is rare for him. There were red-circled names, bullet points in shorthand, codes Misha had learned to decipher after years of living with the man.

It was all fragmented at first. Almost nonsense.

Until the name repeated. Over and over again.

G. Alescio. Gene Alescio.

A name Misha hadn't dared speak aloud in years.

Misha doesn't even remember how long it's been since. But it's probably just after Team Alpha and Team Delta were formed.

A passing comment by a hunter when Misha and Louis were sent to one of their bases for an investigation had raised Misha's suspicions, and he had asked Louis to look into it for him. And to say that Misha is shocked when Louis had told him about Gene Alescio being one of the best hunters in Eldario is an understatement.

And the fact that Gene is basically a murderer, one that targets not just the criminals, but also innocent Gifted children, even those whose Gifts had yet to awaken. And even Normals who were in the hunters' way. And the only reason why Gene had left the hunter life behind, is because both his children turned out to be Gifted—the very beings whom Gene hunted.

Misha's fingers trembled as he scanned the pages. There were floor-plans of Kald. Detailed maps of the hunters' secondary base. Notes about surveillance blind spots, patrol timings, and even structural weaknesses. Blueprints. And next to them, scattered, but carefully pieced together, were documents that didn't belong in any ESA database.

Photos of Gene Alescio in his prime. In the uniform of a hunter.

Misha pressed a hand over his mouth. The room swayed slightly.

"…Lucas, you didn't," he whispered.

Lucas had infiltrated the hunters' secondary base two weeks ago. It looks to be a big possibility, at this point. The dates on the notes lined up. But more than that, it looked like he went there to uncover the truth about their father.

Or maybe… To confront it.

Misha clutched the papers tightly, his jaw locked. For a long time, he just stood there, breathing shallowly.

And then, he turned and strode out, letting the door click softly behind him.

The corridors of ESA headquarters were unnaturally quiet even as Misha made his way through the hallways and towards the central wing where the departments and agents have their offices.

Too many doors locked. Too many offices empty. The fluorescent lights above flickered occasionally, humming a little too loud, symptomatic of a once-great institution that had begun to rot from within.

The witch hunts had torn the ESA in half. Gifted agents had gone missing. Some defected. Some were arrested.

The Special Operations department was located on level four.

Misha's boots were muffled as it struck the carpeted floors sharply. He passed the office shared by Team Delta, and hesitated just as raised voices reached him—muffled, but furious.

It seems like his team is at it again.

"…if she opens her mouth one more damn time—!"

"Remi, sit the hell down!"

"Like hell I will! She called Louis a mutant freak—"

Misha squeezed his eyes shut. Louis could handle it for now. He'd been doing his best to keep the team from imploding since Blackpool. But it wasn't enough. Not when Maia's rhetoric grew more venomous by the day.

She spoke of Gifted like they were rabid animals, less than human, things to be put down. And some agents—those who once stayed neutral, had started nodding along.

Misha had already lodged two formal complaints. None were answered.

During one of his meetings with the director, even she had admitted that she couldn't remove Maia. That woman had some powerful backers that had Tiara's hands tied.

Misha heard Coleen's voice too—calm, and almost cold. "She touches Helen again, I'm putting something in her tea."

Misha wasn't entirely sure if it was a joke.

He walked past the door.

Four doors later, he stood before the door to Team Alpha's office and knocked once on it. And without even waiting for someone to call "come in", he opened it.

Inside, the room was dim, save for the holographic projection of a mission debrief playing quietly in one corner. Taylor sat in a chair, a pen tapping against her teeth as she scanned a tablet. Allen and Jonan were at a workbench, sorting through a disassembled drone. Leonid leaned against the far wall, his arms crossed, watching the report cycle through.

And in the back corner, near the windows, was Elijah.

All of them looked up when the door opened.

"Misha?" Leonid blinked. "What brings you here? I don't think we have any joint cases right now, do we?"

"No," Misha said curtly, stepping inside. The door hissed shut behind him. "It's not about a case." His gaze flickered toward the surveillance camera in the top right corner. He moved slightly to stand in front of it—a deliberate positioning. Misha then lowered his voice. "I need to ask you something. All of you."

Taylor tilted her head slightly, setting her pen down.

Allen straightened from the workbench. "What's up?"

Misha's voice was tight. "Do any of you know where Lucas is?"

A beat. Then another.

Team Alpha exchanged glances.

"…He's on leave," Allen said finally, scratching the back of his head. "That's what we were told."

But his voice didn't hold conviction. None of theirs did. The looks that Team Alpha exchanged told Misha that none of them believed the official story.

Misha's fists clenched. "I don't believe that. He didn't take his gear. He didn't take his pass. He didn't even take his communicator. And it's been two weeks. If he was truly on leave, he'd have at least told me."

He turned his gaze to Elijah. The crimson-haired man was unmoving, his cat-like pupils glinting faintly beneath the hood. He hadn't spoken once.

"Elijah." Misha's voice cracked. "I want you to tell me."

No answer.

"Elijah." Misha's voice rose, trembling at the edges now. "Where's Lucas?!"

The air in the room felt like it dropped several degrees. Taylor stood quickly. "Misha—"

But the younger Alescio didn't look away. His eyes were wide, pleading, and terrified. His fists balled so tight his knuckles turned white. "Please… He's my brother."

Silence.

And then, Elijah finally moved, lifting his head slightly, his expression unreadable. But in his eyes…was something that chilled Misha deeper than fear.

Regret.

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