My father did not recognise me.

The shocking realisation plunged me from my ecstatic state about the reunion to utter horror. Up until now, to be able to talk to my father again was the only thing that had kept me going in this strange and twisted world.

+Father…?+

I tried again but in vain to get through to him. The concentration of psychic power around the golden figure had grown so dense it now caused flashes of arcane lightning to manifest. In the next instance I felt a chill as His gaze became positively hostile.

Before I could react the pressure around me suddenly intensified, crushing my astral form. Pinned by His powers, I could not move as the suffocating pressure continued to increase until it became painful, and then the pain became molten hot.

+FATHER!+ I desperately cried out, but there was no reply. Just as I started to feel like being burned from the inside out, a bright beam shot out from the golden figure and what felt like the combined brightness of a thousand suns bore into me.

I screamed soundlessly, and my lonely life flashed before my eyes. For the longest time everything I knew was from that incubation chamber. The learning, the yearning, the waiting and more waiting to be useful, to serve my father and His empire. And now it felt like the end, I believed this was my final moment as the torment became unbearable and felt my very essence begin to melt and disintegrate.

But it is fine, without my father’s recognition, I…

Suddenly the intense brightness subsided and pressure disappeared. I was left floating, dazed and in excruciating agony. Forcing myself to look up, I saw the blinding figure was motionless but observing. This was reminiscent of the first time I met Him.

Finally, He spoke again.

+You… number twenty one.+

Twenty one?

Unaware of my assigned number, I tried to process the revelation while wincing through the pain. He finally recognised me?

+I remember now. I had locked you away myself.+ He continued coldly.

+Father… + Trembling in pain, I only managed to whimper.

+How are you here? Did you betray me too?+

Shocked by his sudden accusation of treachery, my thoughts went blank. Receiving no response, He reached out and in the next instance I felt my mind being pried open by an overwhelming force. Another session of tormenting pain commenced as my life flashed before me again, every thought, every emotion I ever had was laid bare before the psychic interrogation. Like an unimpressed reader flipping through a book, He saw everything.

Finally, the stranglehold on my mind was released and He spoke again. +Twenty one, experimental weapon. Abandoned project.+ Despite being delirious from the mental torture, I flinched at the implications of his statement.

Abandoned weapon? Was I just that all along?

+You are a weapon. A weapon for an era that never arrived.+ After saying those words, His gaze started to turn, fixated on something beyond the dark void surrounding us.

+Alas if it is any of the loyal ones from the twenty, I can do a lot more. So, so much more… + The golden figure continued to speak, but alarmingly it felt like He was just monologuing rather than talking to me. It was as though I had immediately been forgotten and ignored.

I was finally reunited with my creator but never felt so lost. Many thoughts went through my shell-shocked mind, but one thing had become apparent.

He is insane.

Just as a sense of suffocating numbness was taking over, I suddenly recalled the mention of others. Was He referring to my many brothers? Whatever happened to them all? Were they ever treated like this? I wanted to know.

I NEED TO KNOW.

Seeing a sliver of psychic link that was used for my interrogation still existed, even in my agonising state a dangerous curiosity took over. I peeked at the towering golden figure, confirmed His attention was still totally elsewhere and decided to take a risk. Holding onto our connection, I tried to replicate what He did on the mind reading and -

The world went blinding white, then came darkness. An incredible sense of omnipotence took over as my view broadened to countless worlds and human souls. I lost myself as my consciousness was stretched thin across a colossal distance and saw everything.

I saw a galaxy, His empire, the Imperium of Man.

In the depthless void of space millions of great ships travelled, most were toiling on deliveries but a large number were exchanging city-killing firepower against countless enemies. Enemies of different breeds that surrounded the galaxy-spanning Imperium on all sides, that threatened it from within as well as without. A sense of perpetual suffering permeated throughout the Imperium as dozens of apocalyptic wars could be felt happening this very moment.

My consciousness further focused onto the scene. As I got closer, the numberless viewpoints that were too vast for my mind narrowed down. I saw thousands of worlds where humans were fighting other humans, aliens and mutants. Countless armies were waging wars across the galaxy. Repulsed and morbidly curious in equal measures at the carnage on display, I kept getting closer until I immersed myself through the eyes of these people.

I was a guardsman, frantically blasting green skin aliens with my squad in a trench flooded with relentless rain. The las beams from my weapon hit their mark, but the tide of aliens still pushed through the line. A large brute climbed into the trench near me, cutting down Sergeant Thane with a brutal swing and came at me next. I dodged its attack, but more aliens were pouring into the trench. There was no escape. I rolled on the ground and just managed to pull the pin off my grenade before receiving a slash to my face.

I was a citizen caught in the crossfire between the planetary defence force and an insurgency, bleeding out on the battered street of the sub-sector’s capital city.

I was a crusader, blocking incoming fire with a raised stormshield as I took my last stand in a besieged temple on a fringe world.

I was a mother, holding onto my child as Drukhari raiders burst through the door of my apartment, gunning down people while laughing maniacally to begin their slaughter.

There were countless defeats, but also innumerable victories.

I was an inquisitor, leading my retinues as I charged into the heretical mob and splitting the skull of a cult leader with my thunder hammer in a flurry of fury and lightning.

I was a space marine of the White Scars Chapter, riding with my brothers. My ivory coloured gauntlet turned, gunning my war bike at full throttle straight into a squad of Eldar warriors, flattening the slender aliens before they could even react. The other aliens in the xenos warhost turned to us with weapons raised. I screamed my war cry, ‘for Jaghatai Khan and the Emperor!’ and charged.

Jaghatai Khan?

Jaghatai Khan, a primarch, number five, brother, missing. The answers came instantly through my connection with Him. Evidence of my siblings’ existence jolted my sense of self back from the abyss.

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Primarchs, brothers, where are they?

Lost, dead, damned. No more. Only their scions are left, the Astartes, space marines.

Instinctively I sought them out, shifting my focus onto more astartes, more… space marines. Scions of primarchs, legacy of my brothers.

I was a Grey knight of the Sixth Brotherhood, finishing off a warp monstrosity in a ruined monastery. The Nemesis force sword in my hand swung down, beheading the defeated daemon in one clean sweep. The foul horned head rolled on the cracked marble floor, dragging a trail of ichor behind it before disintegrating near the battered body of Justicar Solas. Injured in multiple places, I knelt down and looked around, just in time to notice a pale young chapel girl peeking from behind a row of pew chairs.

No witnesses allowed, I raised my storm bolter and fired. My purpose was pure, regardless of who my gene father was.

Switch.

I was a shadow, a marine of the Raven’s Watch Chapter. I was gifted and could hide in plain sight like my gene father, Corvus Corax.

Corvus Corax, number nineteen, brother, missing.

Utilising my rare gift, I simply walked into the middle of an army headquarters belonging to the enemy, yet none noticed me as I stood next to the enemy leader. I watched as the fool committed his entire army into our trap.

Just as the enemy leader’s confident expression turned to horror as the ambush was sprang on his troops, I slit his throat and then proceeded to massacre everyone in the room.

Switch.

I was …

I was wrath, nothing but rage poured forth in my red tinted vision. Everything was a blur as I charged forward in a battlefield of frenzied slaughter, my blood soaked, jet black armoured hands outstretched with murderous intent to kill. To kill a lost brother. But why was my armour black instead of golden?

No matter. For I, Sanguinius, Primarch of the Blood Angels, swear by our father’s name I will end you here, for you are brother of mine no more, Horus Lupercal.

Sanguinius, brother number nine, deceased.

Horus Lupercal, brother number sixteen, deceased.

My brothers were killing each other. Yet confusion arose as I knew from somewhere that … they were long dead. In my heavily distorted vision, like a frenzied predator I leapt forward, ready to rip into a blurry figure when suddenly the world froze as if time had stopped. Huh? A distinct feeling of something truly massive from the beyond peeking over my shoulder took hold and I realised what happened.

He was here.

Or rather, my father’s attention was here. My hunch was validated in the next instance when a voice sounding like a million chorus rang out in the space. +Number nine? Sixteen?+

Hunkering down, I did not even dare to think. After a while the voice monologued again. +No, just echoes of shadows. Nine is no more, so is sixteen. Nine died a noble death and sixteen, oh sixteen.+

…

+I killed him.+

My father killed one of my brothers? The revelation almost broke my trance but I kept at it. After a while the feeling of being spied upon disappeared, He had moved on and time abruptly resumed like an unpaused movie.

In the vision, I plunged into the previously blurred figure, ripping into the body of a panic stricken mortal man. With brute force I grabbed the man’s heart and ripped it out whole from his ribs. The sophisticated temperature sensors in my gauntlet registered the warmth of my victim’s blood as the sanguine fluid poured forth like leaks from a ruptured pipe.

Watching the copious amount of blood flowing, I regained mental clarity. I was no primarch, merely a Death Company marine of the Blood Angels who had failed, failed in my vigil on keeping the black rage at bay. This would be my final mission, I looked at the messy flesh that was still beating in my hand, then the rage took over again.

Just before the heart was crushed, I decided that I had seen enough. Conjuring all my mental might, I forcefully retracted my astral self. I knew the risk of harsh psychic feedback and it might even trigger a barrier alarm but I no longer cared.

There was a sound of a terrible tear in the psychic space before the sense of a physical body returned, the horrible physical pains soon followed. I proceeded to cough out a huge patch of blood, the feedback was far harsher than expected. My head was spinning from the exertion. Gasping, I wondered how long I was out before deciding it didn’t matter. The important thing was I needed to get away from here.

Away from all this madness.

Panting, I struggled to stand up, sweat and blood were dripping down from my face as indescribable pain took over my body.

Yet I had no time to dwell, as tiny trembling on the ground could be felt. Someone, or something was approaching. I looked down and to my horror noticed the mess on the floor. In desperation something took over, I pointed my open palm at the puddle of blood. Inspired by my horrible experience of almost being erased, I compressed the warp energy in my hand until a small beam of light poured forth from my palm, disintegrating every evidence of my existence.

That done, I got up again and started my escape. I ran, ignoring the overwhelming aching body pain while dashing towards the designated escape route. My feet carried me over marble stone steps predating the Unification War, everything from unknown broken statues of forgotten heroes, artifact pieces that outlasted many empires and memorised death trap locations dashed by in a blur as I moved to avoid the tightening net of my pursuers.

As I approached the final escape point, my surroundings became better lit with each passing moment. Finally, one more long and narrow passageway before my freedom was certain.

It was then I felt it, heavy footsteps coming from the far end of the passage, quite a distance away but closing in fast. The weight of the steps, this rhythm, no doubt about it, the golden guardians were here. The unexpected development made me tremble with fear. No patrol of golden guardians was supposed to be here.

Did I trigger some unseen new alarms or…?

Knowing first hand how sharp the golden guardians’ senses were I immediately turned around and used my new found ability to burn off the scent trail around and behind me. I then looked around, desperate for a proper hiding place but found none in the confined space. The inhumanly fast footsteps got closer. Anytime now, they just needed to turn the corner to see me in plain sight.

Cornered, I wished fervently to just disappear. In the last moment when it seemed all was lost, something inside me snapped and suddenly I perceived a very thin layer of shroud had appeared from nowhere and covered me whole. Before I could figure out what just happened, huge figures were turning in from around the corner.

I saw them now, golden armour glittering in the dimly lit hallway and marching in pairs. This was the first time I saw the golden guardians at such a short distance away and it was scary and mesmerising in equal measures. They were huge beings encased in master-crafted golden war plates and had a peculiar quality about the way they moved. Their every movement spoke of hyper efficiency and precision, the crimson plumes on their high helmets fluttered with every step, bouncing in sync with the spears they carried with practised ease.

Like a tide of golden waves the giants swiftly approached, the passage’s limited width allowed only two of them to march side by side at a time. I shivered internally, just by looking at them I knew to engage them in combat meant certain death. There was no chance of winning even if I was not already wounded.

I can’t win this.

As I resigned to my fate and stood still to give in, a peculiar thing happened: the giants were not slowing down. They didn’t notice me? Is it because of this shroud? Snapping back to my senses, I shifted my body to face them sideways, just in time to slip between them.

I watched, dumbstruck as the rows of golden giants who were oblivious to my presence marched thunderously past me, my height barely reaching their knees.

Then the last giant who wore a great crimson cape came along, looking like a war god. As he passed me the fluttering fabric came within a hair’s breadth from my face. I moved my head back slightly and the giant’s head seemed to turn in response to my movement. My hearts stopped, but he never looked back and soon, they marched off into the distance and were gone like a passing storm.

I turned to the cleared corridor, my freedom assured. The strange shroud disappeared as I started to run again. Looking back, the father I knew, the imperial truth, the golden age of humanity, the glorious enlightened empire was an eternity away now.

I just wanted to… get away from all this. It was then I noticed liquids streaming down my eyes. A scene appeared in my mind, where a breathtaking girl with platinum hair once told me, ‘I am sorry, this is the second time I cried in my life.’

So, this was the first time?

I remembered now, I am not Syrine, the Emperor was not my father, the golden guardians were the Adeptus Custodes, their names were unknown to her at this point in time. And of course, Horus Lupercal the sixteenth primarch, the Warmaster, the favourite son who betrayed his father and started it all was killed by the Emperor at the end of the great heresy war.

I stopped running, in the vision she detached from me and continued running forward with inhuman speed, her tiny back quivering as she melted into the distance, utterly alone in the wider world.

Everything turned to black, then my eyes in the real world snapped open.