Cassian sat in the cold, sterile room of the rehab clinic, his eyes unfocused as he stared at the wall. The doctors had given up trying to understand him months ago. Congenital Insensitivity to Pain (CIP) was rare enough, but someone who actively sought out ways to push the limits of their own indifference? That was something else entirely. Cassian’s body was a patchwork of scars, a living map of every miscalculated leap, every foolish stunt, and every ill-advised attempt to feel alive. His right wrist bore the faint ridges of a botched surgery from when he’d dived off a bridge, convinced the icy water below would wake something dormant inside him. It hadn’t. All it had given him was a shattered radius and the realization that even the crunch of bone breaking didn’t register as more than an inconvenience. The grinding of his knees vibrated throughout his body. Years of reckless parkour, long after his joints had started to wear down, had left them riddled with microfractures and scar tissue. The doctors had warned him that he was one bad fall away from a wheelchair, but what did they know? A long scar snaked up his left leg, a relic of his attempt to climb a barbed-wire fence at sixteen, just to see if the tearing of flesh would feel like anything. It hadn’t, though the sight of blood pooling around his sneaker had sparked a fleeting thrill of excitement. His back told a similar story, the scars from a motorcycle crash that should have killed him crisscrossing his skin like a chaotic web. He’d walked away from that wreck without so much as a grimace, but the permanent stiffness in his lower spine was a constant reminder that his body was paying for his choices, even if his mind refused to. Every breath was a quiet argument with the fractured rib on his left side that hadn’t healed quite right, the result of a drunken game of chicken with a moving car. The car won, of course, but Cassian didn’t lose. He had walked away laughing, oblivious to the horrified faces of onlookers who couldn’t fathom how someone so broken could keep moving. Even his face bore the faint shadows of his defiance—his nose crooked from being broken more than once, his lips framed by faint scars from fights he had no business starting. To anyone else, he was a man held together by sheer stubbornness, a mosaic of injury and indifference. To Cassian, it was just his canvas, and the scars were proof that he was still searching for what he couldn’t name.
When the alarms started blaring, and the sky outside the clinic's window turned a shade of purple that didn’t exist on any sane colour wheel, Cassian didn’t flinch. He grabbed his cane, not because he needed it, but because it made the doctors feel better, and headed for the stairwell. If the end of the world was here, he might as well get a good view.
The rooftop was empty, save for the surreal sight of what looked like a crack opening in the sky. The air buzzed with an electric charge, and Cassian could feel the hair on the back of his neck stand up. "Finally," he muttered to himself. "Something interesting."
The crack in the sky widened slowly, like an unseen hand pulling apart the fabric of reality. Fractals of purple and gold light danced along its edges, colours so foreign they seemed to hum rather than glow. The clinic lights flickered and died, leaving only the unnatural brilliance pouring from the sky to illuminate the rooftop.
Cassian squinted at the spectacle, leaning on his cane like a bored patron at an art gallery. He should have felt something—terror, awe, maybe even a primal urge to run. Instead, he felt the faintest twinge of annoyance at how long this “show” was taking. “Well,” he muttered, smirking at the heavens, “this beats the daytime TV in the clinic.”
From the breach emerged something... wrong. It wasn’t monstrous, at least not in the traditional sense, but it defied every concept of shape or physics Cassian knew. The entity shimmered as though it were made of liquid light, constantly shifting between forms—a humanoid figure, a spiraling vortex, and something utterly indescribable. It had no face, but the weight of its presence pressed against him, more overwhelming than any physical stare.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Cassian tilted his head, the ghost of a grin tugging at his lips. “So, you’re what, the end of the world? The guest of honor?” His tone was sardonic, though curiosity flickered in his eyes. If the thing understood him, it gave no sign.
Instead, it descended slowly, floating closer with movements that were unnervingly smooth, as though it operated on a different set of rules from the world around it. Cassian noticed that it cast a shadow, despite its glowing form. The detail struck him as both fascinating and absurd. “A glowing thing that casts a shadow,” he murmured. “Yeah, that makes sense.”
What unsettled him most wasn’t the being’s appearance—it was the lack of anything resembling fear in himself. He should have been screaming or scrambling for cover, like any sane person would. But he wasn’t. His heart rate was steady, his breathing slow. The thing felt alien, impossibly so, yet he couldn’t summon the energy to care.
The entity seemed aware of his indifference. It hovered mere meters away, radiating an almost tangible curiosity. Cassian felt something tugging at the edges of his mind, like an unspoken question. It wasn’t trying to communicate in the traditional sense—no words, no images—just an overwhelming presence, probing and assessing.
“Let me guess,” Cassian said dryly. “You’re wondering why I’m not losing my mind right now. Maybe you’re disappointed? Sorry to break it to you, but terror’s just not my thing.”
The being’s light flared briefly, pulsing in a way that might have been irritation—or amusement. Cassian couldn’t tell. Still, he had the sense it wasn’t used to this kind of reception. Its presence grew heavier, like an unseen hand pressing down on his shoulders, yet the calm in Cassian’s chest refused to waver.
For a moment, he wondered if this detachment was his own or if the thing was dulling his emotions on purpose. Either way, he wasn’t about to argue. If the universe had sent a god, ghost, or whatever this was to collect him, he’d take it with the same indifference he brought to everything else.
“Go on, then,” he said, spreading his arms in mock invitation, his cane clattering to the ground beside him “Do your thing. Impress me.”
The offer was clear—an integration, a merging of something ancient and powerful with his broken, pain-starved body. Cassian didn’t hesitate, not because he was brave, but because he had nothing left to lose and frankly, he was bored with his life. His acceptance was met with a sensation he could only describe as his body being unravelled, each molecule taken apart and reassembled. He wasn’t sure if he was breathing, but he didn’t care. The process was brutal and invasive, but for the first time in his life, Cassian felt something—pain. Real, undeniable pain.
As his body was rebuilt, reshaped to house the power of this Higher Being, Cassian found himself grinning through the agony. The pain was excruciating, every nerve in his body screaming in protest, but he relished it. It was what he had been searching for all along, the sensation that had eluded him his entire life. The process felt like hours, but it could have been minutes or days. Time lost meaning as he became something more, something new.
When it was over, Cassian stood on the rooftop, his body humming with newfound energy. The Higher Being’s presence was still with him, a silent observer nestled somewhere in the back of his mind. He felt alive in a way he never had before, the pain a constant reminder of his new existence.
He glanced back at the clinic, hearing the distant cries of people succumbing to the same pain he now embraced. A wave of disdain washed over him. They were weak, all of them. He turned away, the sky still crackling with the remnants of the Higher Beings’ arrival and walked towards the edge of the rooftop. There was no fear, no hesitation, just the thrill of something new.
With a dark chuckle, he leapt from the roof, ready to welcome the sharp sting of pain as the ground raced towards him. There was a whole world out there, filled with suffering, and Cassian intended to experience every bit of it.