Chapter 1
Sonny is born in a quiet, rural clinic on a night so cold the windows sweat with frost. The delivery doctor cleans him, lifts him to the light, and pauses.
Right above the baby’s heart is a strange mark, dark and deliberate, like it has been branded onto him before he ever takes his first breath. The doctor’s hands tremble as he turns to Sonny’s mother. “I need a moment,” he starts, trying to sound calm.
Before he can say more, the lanterns flicker. The air feels heavier, like the room is wrapped in a wet blanket. Two figures appear as if they stepped out of the shadows themselves.
They are concealed in dark clothing, move without hurry, and carry a silence that makes the room feel wrong. Sonny’s father rises from his chair, confused and afraid. He never gets a word out.
In the span of a breath, the room becomes a slaughter. The doctor falls first. Then the nurse. Finally Sonny’s parents. No shouting. No warning. Just clean, practiced killing motion.
One of the intruders, an older man with gray hair and dark eyes, looks down at the newborn without expression. “Confirm it,” he says.
The other man lifts the baby and pulls the blanket aside. “It’s there. On his chest,” he answers, showing the mark. The gray‑haired man nods once.
“Then it is him.” They leave the clinic with the child, leaving behind a room full of bloodied corpses and nothing linking it to themselves.
At the Omega base, the baby is not given a name. Names are for people. He is a number, a tool, and a promise. One, the Omega’s leader, tells the others what the mark means.
The child carries Draco’s ether, the echo of a legendary and powerful Omega who became something worse, a demon. There are rumors that Draco can even grant wishes. If they shape this boy correctly and harness Draco’s ether, One believes he may someday surpass them all. He may even lead the Omegas.
By the time Sonny is four, he can already perform basic ether techniques. Two stands over him during training, voice flat, like he is reciting a lesson he has taught a hundred times.
“We will mold you into a perfect killing machine. Powerful, efficient, and precise. Every fight you have will be a fight to the death. You are going to be stronger than your body. Stronger than pain. Stronger than fear,” Two says. “We will break you until you feel nothing and become nothing. Emotions are for the weak.”
The torture begins as it always does. If Sonny flinches, it gets worse. If he cries, it gets worse. If he begs, it gets worse. They repeat it until begging becomes pointless, crying becomes impossible, and flinching feels like weakness he cannot afford. The lesson plan is simple. Pain is information, not something to fear.
At six, Seven leads Sonny into a blizzard and points toward a forest swallowed in white. “One week,” she says. “Nothing but what you wear. Return here at noon.” Then she vanishes, leaving him alone with wind that cuts like knives.
Sonny hunts and dresses an elk. He uses what he can for heat, food, and shelter. He does not complain. He does not panic. He simply does what he is trained to do.
On the fourth day, he finds a girl. She bursts through the trees like the storm itself, bright and loud and completely unafraid.
“Hey!” she says, eyes wide. “You are really out here too! What’s your name?”
Sonny just stares in silence. He has never been asked that question by someone who cares about the answer. She grabs his hand and drags him to a half‑finished snowman.
“Come on, you have to help,” she insists. Her touch is gentle. That single fact hits Sonny harder than any fist ever has.
He looks down at where their fingers meet, like he is trying to understand what kindness feels like. When she pauses to catch her breath, Sonny reaches into his pocket and offers her a handful of berries he found earlier. She smiles like it is a treasure.
“Thanks,” she says, and eats a few. She talks the entire time, filling the silence he lives in with instructions, jokes, and the simple joy of being a child. An hour later, the girl’s family finds them and rushes over, relieved and scolding her at the same time.
They look Sonny over, confused by the sight of a silent boy alone in a storm. “Where are your parents?” someone asks. Sonny stays quiet.
The question feels dangerous. Unsure what to do, the adults invite him to their cabin for dinner anyway. Sonny follows, wordless.
Inside, the warmth and noise of a large family gathering unsettles him more than the cold ever does. People laugh. They argue lightly. They pass food. They care. Sonny watches every small interaction in the house and at the dinner table as if it is a technique he is trying to memorize.
Despite everything he experiences, he leaves the first moment he can. No goodbye. No explanation.
He disappears into the forest because he understands, even at six years old, what will happen to them if the Omegas ever find him there. The girl, Ellie, is left with only a strange memory of a quiet boy who never speaks.
Six years later, Sonny is twelve and sparring with Four. In the middle of the fight, Four severs Sonny’s arm. Sonny does not wince. He does not slow down. He keeps moving until his body finally fails. In the fading edge of consciousness, Ellie’s face surfaces in his mind like light breaking through fog.
Healer restores him. Bone. Muscle. Skin. Whole again. Healer is an old man. No one knows his age or much of anything about him. He does not talk. He only restores the Omegas. He can teleport to anyone with the Omega brand. He can heal any injury or disease and can even revive the dead within thirty minutes of death.
Afterward, Sonny stares at his repaired hand. The same hand that is held in the forest by the girl. The same hand that learns what warmth feels like. Then training resumes as if nothing happens.
At sixteen, he goes on a mission with Two and Five to eliminate a high‑profile target. The Omegas rarely send groups, so this mission carries some weight and could have resistance. They return weeks later, successful.
While the others sleep, Sonny lies awake, staring into darkness while that family dinner replays in his mind. For the first time, he feels something that resembles regret.
By eighteen, he climbs to Three in the Omega rankings.
At the same time, he builds an escape plan piece by piece in the quiet moments he steals. He does not want power. He wants a life. A name. A choice.
He knows the Omegas will hunt him the moment he leaves. The only way to survive is to ensure they cannot recover from the damage he is about to do. That means killing Healer.
The night his window opens, One, Two, Six, and Seven are away on missions. Four and Five are training outside the base. Sonny is alone with the old man who keeps the Omegas alive.
He finds Healer in his room. The old man does not speak. He simply looks up, calm and unreadable. Sonny does not hesitate.
One clean motion. He decapitates the man that has saved his life countless times. Sonny does not trust death to remain permanent for Healer, so he separates the remains and carries them far from the mountain.
He buries the head and body in two remote locations, miles apart. When it is done, Sonny stands under an empty sky and finally allows himself a whisper. “Now I live.”
