What is this?

Joel was running. He gasped and panted, his lungs pumping oxygen as fast as they could. He did not know where he was going, he did not even know where he was. That same laughter was heard, above head, behind him, in front of him, he did not know. His ear was still ringing. The sounds of madness and chaos came from all directions, bombarding his senses along with the smothering smoke and heat of the fires. He was frustrated with the situation. He was enraged that it happened to his family of all people. But most of all, he was livid at his own weakness and his lack of ability to do anything about it.

Why is this happening?

BANG.

Another explosion, another scream, another probably dead. Many of his group of passengers seemed to have fallen to this murdering lunatic. Joel did not have time to check. Vigilantly, he assessed the status of each member of his family. Brian was now carrying Joanne, who was crying into his chest, Elena still had a tight vice grip on his arm, and Jill was practically glued onto his other side. They were safe for now, but Joel did not know for how much longer.

The sirens in the distance were louder, but again Joel’s senses were in a frenzy. He did not know when help would reach them. The alleyways they ran into led to more alleyways, which lead to more alleyways. It was like a labyrinth, neverending.

Brian, leading the group, dashed to the left and shouted: “Here!”

It was yet another alleyway but Joel could see a bright light at the end, appearing to be an exit.

“Just a few more minutes and we’ll be out of Sector 9-” Brian said, running to the exit.

That was until someone fell from the rooftops and landed on their path.

It was the burning man. Plastered on his face was a sinister smile, lopsided, gleeful, cruel, revealing every bit of his insanity. He wore white, billowing robes, marked with strange symbols of a twisted ribbon.

Joel’s family froze. It was as if death itself had gripped their ankles, cementing them in place.

The man was still cackling. He had started laughing before it all began, continued to laugh as he torched people to charred crisps, and he was still damn well laughing now. It was as if committing arson and mass murder were his downtime hobby on a free weekend.

“Ah~” he drawled, “More sacrifices for the lord of light.”

A homicidal fanatic. Joel deduced, his mind working a mile a minute. He immediately started to figure out ways to get his family out of this situation, a way to keep safe what he’d just gained. Anger surged within him. Trying to take my family, are you? This lunatic…

The man sent a ball of fire at the floor in front of where they stood, barely missing them by a few inches, seeming to enjoy playing with his prey. Joel could hear the wild, frighted screams of his family, the despair in their voices as they stumbled backwards. Elena’s grip on his hand was a tight vice, and Jill held his other arm like a lifeline. His anger was boiling now. He was seething. He wanted to kill this man. To end him in the worst way possible. To make him pay for endangering his family.

Then, something within him snapped into place. A scorching blaze travelled through his veins, and a chilling sting fired up his insides like a cold shot of old-world vodka. The hole, the gap, the space within his mind and memory was once again filled with the process.

Immediately, he quenched his searing anger with calculative coldness. His heart had slowed and his head started to churn the elixirs, the chemicals of his mind. Ah, this…this was what I’d forgotten. How could I have?

Joel started computing the possible outcomes, the routes, the methods, just as he’d trained himself to for almost a decade and a half. He scanned the immediate situation, locking his senses from their frenzied form, extrapolating every ounce of their capabilities. A narrow alleyway, walls made of stone, a dumpster to the side, broken glass, four extractions, one hostile, control over fire, religious belief, mind unsound…Okay…Okay, let’s try this.

“You will-” Brian started but was cut off as Joel walked forward, forcefully breaking Elena’s grip on his arm and shrugging off the hold of his older sister.

“Joel, what are you-” Elena started.

“Joel, get back-” Brian said but both were interrupted by his sudden exclamation.

“Fellow servant of the Lord! Have you accomplished your task?” Joel asked.

As if sensing his intentions, Elena shook her head to discourage him from whatever he planned to do whilst Jill tried reattaching herself to his side, a look of terrible panic on her face. Joel’s heart lurched but the process immediately corrected its rhythm.

Joel evaded his sister’s grasp, gave them all a firm look and whispered: “Let me try something, or else we’d be all dead anyway.”

He punctuated his next words to them and felt something shift. “Do. Not. Move.”

The flaming man stopped smiling, his micro-expressions showed surprise and apprehension. Confusion, curiosity, scepticism. Deceive him.

“What?” the man said.

“The Lord of the light is pleased with your service, the sacrifices you’ve made today,” Joel said reverently.

There was a tense silence as Joel continued walking forwards. Something was empowering him. An external factor he did not take into his process. He hoped they would not produce an error with his calculations.

The man sneered. Anger, apprehension. Disrupt and dispel.

The man let out a scoff. “I am the only true servant of the lord, fool, he has given me the gift, the power,” he said.

“Ah! Then you are the prophet! Long have we awaited your arrival, The Lord bless us!” Joel exclaimed.

The man recoiled in surprise, his eyes widening, pupils dilating…then, a twitch in his lips. Arrogance, surprise, amusement. Appease him.

“You’ve heard of the lord of light?” His tone was less maniacal, more curious, mild amusement lacing his tone.

“I’m but a new follower, but surely you are his chosen? With such reverent powers?” Joel complimented, “How incredible you looked today, like the lord’s own sword! the maker of his will!” Joel masterfully masked his tone with awe and wonderment. The process does not allow errors. Joel was already halfway between the flaming man and his family.

The man contemplated Joel’s words for a moment before breaking out once again in maniacal laughter. Underestimation. Exploit, exploit, exploit. The moment his sight had shifted from Joel’s form, Joel’s fingers gracefully reached over and palmed a small piece of one of the sharpened, broken glass behind the dumpster. The movement was so quick and so precise yet so smooth and subtle, that it barely broke his stride as he continued forward. The process only permitted perfection. If not for the small intake of breath his dialled senses caught from behind him, he’d have thought his family missed his movements too. But he was not trying to hide it from them; he needed to make his intention clear, how far he was willing to go for their livelihoods.

“Joel no-” Brian said but was masked by Joel’s voice.

“Oh, I have waited for this day! Please, teach me your ways, show me the true meaning of the light!” Joel said as he pocketed the piece of sharp glass behind his trousers, showing both his empty palms to the burning man when he returned his attention to Joel.

“Oh! This is most amusing!” the man cackled. Further amusement, sickening pleasure.

The man slowed his laughter to inspect Joel. “Never would I have imagined an admirer of my methods, someone who finally understands!” He preached, “But first, a test to show your faith! For I AM the prophet. Your hand! give it to me.”

Joel raised his left arm to the man. He'd sacrifice all his limbs for the safety of his new family. Perhaps this was my purpose, he thought, I was sent here for this. To die in their stead.

Joel spared a glance back at his family, each in shock, each crying. Anger, resentment, despair, hope, helplessness. They all thought they were living on borrowed time, that their lives would end in the next few seconds. Joel’s sight flicked over to his little sister, small fingers grasping her father’s shirt, eyes horrified and locked onto his. It was worth it, Joel thought. My life for theirs.

Joel returned his attention to the man and said: “Any test you give, I will pass.”

The man smiled a vile, sadistic smile. “Good,” he said, grabbing Joel’s offered arm, “To serve the light, you must experience the fires of hell, the burning of sin, the punishment of the damned, but you must not falter.”

With each word the man said, Joel could feel a steadily increasing burning sensation on his grasped arm, and before long, it felt as if it was on fire, that his flesh was melting off his bones.

“JOEL!” Jill screamed.

Ah…So my arm IS on fire. He guessed.

If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

But Joel did not bother looking at it. He kept his eyes locked on the maniacal man’s, his expression steeled, unwavering, steady as stone. He did not twitch, did not wince, did not cry out in pain. And as time ticked by, the man’s own expression shifted from sadistic pleasure into shock into bafflement into astonishment.

Joel had been through many things on Earth. Uncovered secrets he’d brought with him to his grave, and involved himself with all sorts of monsters covered in the skins of men.

But to cope with it all, he’d pursued the mastery of his mind. What was first just a solution to his trauma, became the deadliest weapon in his arsenal. He had begun manufacturing tools of the process, the inscription of his memories, the computation of his perceptions, the manipulation of his senses, the churning of his mind’s elixirs…He honed it, sharpened it, mastered it. It was his and his, alone. Joel’s mind…had become a monstrous thing…and with it, he could control everything his body was capable of…that was what set him apart, what made him the deadliest the syndicate had to offer.

The burning sensation stopped. “Light help me, kid. You’ve passed. You are worthy. You go free.” The man said, his disbelief dripping from his voice. He was no longer laughing, no longer smiling. “For one so young to have such a strong will…”

Joel looked at his arm, the one burned, the one sacrificed. It was charred black, unrecognisable from before. “Then…Then you will leave,” Joel said, “We are both followers of the same Lord. You can spare these lambs, they will follow soon.”

The man nodded, turning away. Joel let out a sigh of relief. Outcome 356/34780 achieved…?

“Ah,” the man said, pausing his steps, “Yes, Yes, You’ve passed…impressive…but this prophet chooses to not spare lambs.”

The man turned back, his psychotic grin back on his face to deliver cruel justice, only to find a shard of glass pistoning up his neck. Blood gushed from the man’s severed carotid artery and he brought his hands to his throat, surprised by the hole that went through it.

He searched for the perpetrating weapon, his confusion only lasting for a few seconds, but it was still far too slow for Joel as he’d already lodged the glass shard into the man’s left eye, wedging it between the temporal and frontal lobes of his brain. The burning man fell, then spasmed, then slagged. Process complete. Outcome 452/34780 achieved. Hostile eliminated.

Blood.

Not even a few months in this world and Joel was already back spilling blood.

The process abruptly turned off and he was met with blackness.

*****************

Joel woke up once again in the hospital, in precisely the exact room he spent in the past three months. He let out a frustrated groan and moved to sit upright, but found that something was locking him in place. There was nothing there physically, at least in what he could see, but his limbs refused to budge from their spots in the bed. Limbs…Joel glanced towards his supposedly charred hand and found that it was…back to normal. There wasn’t even a hint of the injury. Strange, miraculous Aether magic. I need to learn it.

Joel heard someone approaching from the doorway. His dialled senses picked up the harsh clicking of heels in the distance and knew that it was not one of his family members–Elena had never worn heels, and he did not suspect Jill to start wearing them either. It proved true as a few moments later, a nun appeared in the doorway in their usual black and white attire.

Only this nun was older, more middle-aged…and yet one of the most stunningly beautiful women he’d ever seen. She had the sky trapped in her pupils, a river of golden sunlight adorning her heart-shaped face, plump strawberry-coloured lips, and perfectly symmetrical features on a skin of pure porcelain.

Then, as if detecting an anomaly in his senses, the process slammed into action. Like a screeching train motor, it overclocked all of Joel’s perceptions with the subtlety of a mule kick. Instantly, her stunning visage dissolved to show a very old lady, clearly past her seventies, with all the same features that Joel noted before but with their beauty lost to time.

A slight widening of her eyes showed that she was aware that Joel could see her true form, and an impressed smile found its way into her old lips. “My, my. In all my years, only two others have seen through my veil. For one so young, the Aether takes true grace on you, my boy.”

“Who are you?” Joel asked, his voice laced by the process to sound unsure and nervous. He felt the hold on his limbs release and he was able to sit upright taking a prone, defensive posture, curling up to show the appearance of weakness and fear.

The old lady didn’t seem convinced by his facade. “Hmm, in all my years of living, I have accrued many names, some terrible, some great, some invoked hope, some invoked terror,” She said cryptically, “But nowadays, I simply go by Miracle.”

Joel showed no outward reaction but internally, the process ran with unadulterated speed, trying to compute outcomes, to calculate ways of escape. Process outcome explored: 746592/746592. Outcomes of likely survival: 0.

Joel was screwed. But the old lady did not yet show any intention of harming him. He knew of her, of course, mainly through the hushed whispers of the nuns and the discussions with his parents. She was the most famous heroine of all time. Miracle, the blessed mother, was rumoured to have been alive since the creation of the House of Nuns, which was hundreds of years ago. Her powers with magic, especially healing magic, were renowned beyond a reachable height by mere mortals and were said to even be capable of bringing the dead back to life without resorting to necromancy.

Joel knew, from the data he'd had of her, he couldn't do anything. He’d die if he tried.

“I have heard of your actions,” she said, “Your family told me that you saved their lives. At your age, taking down a silver-ranked villain is unheard of and, frankly, shouldn’t be possible.”

“I did what I thought was best.” There was no hint of boastfulness in his tone, no leaking arrogance, but perhaps there was a dash of pride. At the time of the incident, the process had computed the outcomes of his complete inaction, and the chances of death were certain in all of those outcomes. Because of him, his family was alive.

“But the wounds on the Arsonist told a different story,” Miracle said.

Ah. So that was his name. Joel still showed no reaction other than mild confusion, as calculated to be the best option by the process.

“Two stab wounds,” She mused, “both expertly done, almost as if by the hand of a trained assassin.”

If the process did not control his bodily functions, Joel was sure that he’d be sweating buckets. Instead, it only allowed a precise blend of guilt and nervousness to elicit the maximum amount of sympathy. Shit. I should have accounted for this. The process only uncovers what I intended it to uncover, and I should have made the cuts look like an accident, rather than aiming for the quickest incapacitation.

Joel started, “It-It was an accident. I was just trying to save my family-”

“And you rightfully did,” she cut him off, “without you, they’d be dead…but that doesn’t explain the cuts…you are familiar with it…killing…you’ve done it many times before.”

“I’ve not-”

“You’re lying.”

“No-”

“Yes, you are.”

That was impossible. The process allowed no errors, no imperfections. From his heartbeat to his micro-expressions, she wouldn’t be able to tell whether he was lying…unless…unless there was an external factor, one unaccounted for….magic…of course it was magic.

Joel looked at the nun, her amused smile, the depths of knowledge in her eyes. She saw through him. His expression shifted from his mask of innocence into the defeat underneath it. She saw through him.

“What do you want from me,” He said, his voice monotone and robotic.

“I want nothing from you,” she replied, but this time Joel could sense the tiredness in her voice and the visible deflation of her posture. She now looked every bit her age. Old, and tired to her bones, exhausted from seeing too much of the world, for far too long. Joel did not know why she was showing him this image of hers…unless she was to kill him and thereby nothing she did or showed mattered.

Joel turned the process off. He, too, deflated. Whatever the outcome of this would be, the process would not help him.

She. saw. through. me…That never happens. Ever. The process was perfect…always.

But it seemed even the process could not withstand the strange forces of this world.

At this point, the least he could do–well the only thing he could do–was be honest and hope that it didn’t get him killed.

“I’ve come across many broken things in my life,” the nun continued, “You are, perhaps, the most broken thing I’ve seen…yet…you’ve fixed yourself. I see your mind, young one, or should I say, young man…”

Joel was positively nervous now. This lady could look into his head…like a psychic from the old-world novels. His memories that he’d inscribed into his mind, he remembered every moment of his life in perfect detail, organised like books in a library…and she could see everything.

“Incredible…” the nun whispered, “the things you’ve done with your mind is…”

Joel wished beyond anything to have this lady stop snooping through his head.

“From a very young age, you were pruned to be a child of the syndicate,” her eyes were distant now, reading his memories one by one, her voice taking a reverent whispering quality, “you witnessed the syndicate murder your parents, and took you away from them…they broke you…they rebuilt you…but they failed, for your memory was strong…you’ve remembered your parents, despite all odds…the love of a family…you sought it…the syndicate could not indoctrinate you…and at nine, you escaped, only to find yourself…”

Miracle bit her lip, “...amongst the slaving ring, forced to commit atrocities you’ve barely understood…and then a year later, you were sold back to the syndicate where you’d started…they broke you once more, retrained you, and you became their best…but you did not trust them…and they did not trust you…because you remained unbroken despite all odds…and that posed a risk of betrayal…so they…they tried to destroy your mind…to condition you…tried to turn you into their perfect killing machine…but you…you created…you created the process.”

She looked him in the eyes, “That's…impossible”

Joel looked away. She'd just skimmed his life's events like a children's story book. She knew now. She knew who he was. Everything. He did not know how to feel about bearing his soul to someone he’d just met but…all his sins..all his mistakes. He was laid bare to her. “What’re you going to do with me?” he croaked. He hated this gross invasion of his privacy. He hated this powerlessness.

She paused for a moment, assessing him. A quiet melodic hum came from her as she contemplated. “Hmm…I apologise, it is…standard assessment. I had to make sure you weren’t evil.” She smiled.

There was a heavy, soaked silence for a few seconds. Joel knew she was deciding his fate, and there was nothing he could do to change it.

“I am evil,” He admitted, clenching his fists, remembering all the lives he’d taken.

She hummed for a little while longer before saying: “No…no, you are not…hmm…" Then her eyes lit up, catching an idea that made her smile broad and wide. It almost didn't suit her. "…I will teach you, if you’ll have me.”

Joel met her eyes again, turning the process back on for a moment to scan her intentions. She was unreadable, as good as he was at putting on masks. “Teach me what?”

“How to think.”

Joel scoffed. “I know how to think.”

“No, no you don’t,” She calmly responded.

“But the process-”

“Is incomplete.”

“...What?”

“You will be able to do more with it than what you’re able to do with it now.”

“...and how would you know?”

She smiled. “That is for you to find out.” She turned away from him and back towards the door.

“I’ll let you think about my offer,” she said. “I will see you in a month, on the day of your sister’s testing.”

Joel could only stare at her as she let herself out.