The clock was ticking.
Marcus was twisting in worn sheets he bought from the thrift store two months ago. He breathes steadily, sweat glistening along his brow even in his sleep. His chest rose and fell, so fragile and naive.
The room was cheap. After spending his grandpa's graduate money for his survival in a completely foreign country, he finally reached his breaking point. The weight of his discovery upon the impending doom of humanity added to his depression.
It was so quiet until the same static sound was heard. The corner of the room glitched like a broken video frame. Then with a hush-like breath between worlds, the crack in reality widened.
A figure emerged from the crack. It wasn't walking, not crawling but simply being there. It was a floating mask. It was ink-black with lines of red light pulsing like veins beneath the surface. There were no eyes, just a bit of a smile, stretched in a perfect smugness.
The mask was Anomaly.
Across the room, a second shape stepped from the dark, a humanoid, slender with sharp teeth that gleamed playfully in the gloom. His crimson eyes glowed faintly and from his back, a grotesque dagger taller than himself jutted like a warped wing. He wore scraps of armor over a casual jacket, stitched together like someone pretending to be harmless.
"You have an awful sense of fashion, Fang," Anomaly commented.
"I'm being casual here, boss," Fang answered, twirling the dagger with an expert flick of his fingers, then letting it thud into the floor like a spike driven into fate. He then stretched his arms and looked at the sleeping Marcus.
"You know, I expected more from our so-called chosen one. He's been moping all week, no fire, no rage. He's a crybaby. He lives only for instant ramen and constantly wishes to die," Fang said.
"He's human. That's natural. Humans have a lot of problems. The white thing inside their head held that behaviour..blame it instead."
"Ugh," Fang rolled his eyes. "You sure he's the one?"
Anomaly floated above Marcus' bed.
"He's good. No one will suspect the decaying pawn. That's what makes it a checkmate."
"You're using chess metaphors now? You're losing your edge, old man," Fang mocked.
"Those bastards overlooked him. So did their dogs. Even their own system couldn't see what we're building underneath it all."
Fang knelt beside Marcus.
"He's got the look. That tired, soul-crushed energy, it could almost make me cry." He flicked Marcus' nose lightly. Marcus stirred but didn't wake up. "He's so breakable, boss. What if he cracks before we finish shaping him?"
"If he cracks, we rebuild him. If he shatters, we repurpose the pieces," Anomaly replied calmly.
Fang leaned closer, his eyes narrowing at Marcus.
"And if he becomes more than either of us planned?"
There was silence. And then Anomaly chuckled.
"Then we crown him," Anomaly replied, his smile deepening.
Then both of them become quiet. Neither of them wanted to talk after Anomaly's words that made even Marcus' room walls seem to hold their breath.
Fang decided to sit on the floor and crossed his legs.
"So what now? Are you going to brood monologues and tragic backstories to Marcus or do we finally throw him in one of your hellhole dungeons?"
Anomaly floated towards the window and decided to take a pick at the slum where Marcus was living.
"Soon," he replied. "The first phase ends tonight. Then the 'gods' will think their security is still working. And their 'prototype' Tacma will look like its job like always."
Fang watched his sharpened smile, twisted and maniacal.
"They'll keep laughing at the broken file…even as it eats through the foundation."
Marcus stirred again. This time, sweat beaded on his forehead. Somewhere deep in his unconsciousness, something was calling. It was so distant, old, and buried…
Fang looked at Marcus.
"You'll think he'll hate us when he finally wakes up? When he learns everything?"
Anomaly started to float back to the crack in reality, the door between worlds.
"I hope he does. Hatred is the fuel."
Fang sighed.
"You're one twisted old mask, you know that?"
Anomaly started to enter the cracked door.
"And you're my dagger with a personality disorder. Together, we make miracles," he said as the crack was closing down and the glitch began to fade. The room settled and the silence returned.
Fang looked at Marcus one last time before disappearing in his own dimension.
After the little visit to his beloved Host, Anomaly returned to his ethereal space lit by faint crimson energy. He floated silently, mask gleaming in the darkness, his cloak rippling in the absence of wind. His glowing red eyes scan the space and then focus on a sphere, pulsing faintly like a dying heartbeat.
Inside the sphere, Marcus' half in deep slumber.
The humanoid figure curled like a fetus, cocooned in layers of black flame and fractured code. The body was laced with red veins that glowed with the latent power. His chest rises and falls slowly as if dreaming or waiting.
"Your other half is still weak. You need to wait a little bit longer. We need your other half to be strong, strong to be able for you to fuse," he muttered.
The glowing threads of data around Marcus' incomplete soul flickered. Anomaly watched the hundreds of skills and experience orbiting around like satellites to the incomplete soul, waiting to be processed, refined and absorbed. Marcus' soul would remain incomplete while the other was still sleeping.
"Your weak half's training will start anytime soon. We'll keep feeding you by then. Bit by bit, mana, skill, fear. By the time your other half is strong enough to carry you, I'll wake you up."
Anomaly turned, disappearing back into Marcus' subconscious, laughing.
"Let the gods pray you never open your eyes," he said and his laugh intensified only to be disturbed by Tacma making weird noises.
Anomaly heaved a sigh. Well, he gave the man a chance to live and now he's taking it back. Maybe it is time to visit him.