Leon gasped as his eyes suddenly shot open and he found himself sprawled out face down in the dirt. It was pitch-black and he couldn't see anything around him.

'I'm not dead?' Leon thought whilst squinting his eyes trying to make out anything in the darkness.

However, despite not being able to see anything, he could feel something that he'd never felt anything remotely close to before.

It felt as if something in his body had finally unclogged and let a torrent of energy flow into him from all around, it seemed almost like the world itself was providing him with sustenance.

The rocks around him, the dirt, and even the darkness itself seemed to act as a conduit for the energy that Leon could feel pouring into him.

Feeling this new sense of power Leon tried to push himself up off the ground only to be promptly brought crashing back down as he smacked the backside of his head against a rock.

'Well fuck... I'm buried' thought Leon, racking his mind to try to find a solution whilst staying calm.

After a few minutes of trying to budge to rocky prison, he seemed to be encased in he stopped for a minute and just lay in the dark, letting his mind wander for a bit.

The memories of his fight with Herman, and his last moments with his friends were unbelievably vivid in his mind, however, he knew, for certain that he'd died. The last thing he felt was the sheer weight of the wall of cascading dirt and rock smash against him before everything turned black. Leon then thought of the message that illuminated that abyss and was engrained in the back of his mind...

[You have become an Altered.]

'Does that mean Herman's crazy fucking experiments actually worked?' Leon thought.

But why him? Every single one of the kids that had survived had suffered just as much as he had over their time spent as Herman's lab rats so why had he become a so-called Altered?

Furthermore, after hearing Herman's almighty descriptions of the god-like race, besides the energy that he now felt flowing into him, that whilst feeling pleasurable, didn't make him feel very... omniscient or anything of the sort.

'Too many questions, too few answers' sighed Leon realizing that speculating any more would just lead to more questions.

However, there was still one issue that bothered Leon. He had no idea how long he had been unconscious or well... dead for and space he was entrapped wasn't very large at all and yet he had no trouble breathing whatsoever. He felt that surely the lack of oxygen in the space would make him feel some sort of discomfort yet breathing here for him felt as natural as if he was anywhere else.

'Weird...' he thought.

Regardless, he pushed the thought to the back of his mind and focused on the task at hand.

'How on earth am I supposed to get out of here...' sighed Leon internally.

He tried to push on the rocks around him again but to no avail, they didn't budge in the slightest, in frustration Leon lashed out at the rock beside him and he felt a jolt run through his body.

'What the fu-'

Leon's befuddlement only intensified as he felt the weird jolt travel through his fingers, up his arm before it came to a stop and fizzled out just below his sternum.

'What... was that' Leon thought, closing his eyes and trying to focus on the feeling that had just fizzled out.

After being unable to find the feeling again, his focus shifted to where the feeling had fizzled out and that's when he found something, unmistakably in that area he could feel a small sphere-like structure steadily pulsing like a second heart.

'Is that?... That's impossible...' Leon thought, his common sense telling him what he was thinking of was inconceivable.

Leon thought that what he had discovered bore an uncanny resemblance to what elemental ability users called their mana core and was the source of their powers, others also called it a 'God-core' and was the reason the general public believed Elemental ability users to be the chosen of God sent to enact his will on Earth. It also was the source of a lot of arrogance from Elemental ability users, as they believed themselves superior and incomparable to the masses.

However, for Leon, who had spent the last three years in the belief that he was a forsaken child and that for him to have an ability, let alone one that was 'chosen by god' himself seemed completely implausible. Furthermore, on closer inspection of his core, Leon noticed something off.

'Why is it red?' Leon thought, his expression becoming even more twisted in confusion.

Leon was by no means an expert in the subject of abilities, however the so-called 'God-core' was well documented in pretty much every book that was published that had something to do with abilities. However, what completely confused Leon was that these cores, regardless of the quality or quantity of mana that they provided their hosts, which varied from person to person but was linked with the tier of their ability all shared one common feature.

They were colorless, completely ethereal things that no one had managed to properly wrap their head around since their discovery despite all the research that had been conducted on them.

This 'fact' didn't help with Leon's confusion in the slightest as what his mind was clearly showing him, the core that was supposed to be colorless was an unmistakable deep red color, the red sphere pulsing gently as it sent red-tinged energy around Leon's body.

Leon's mind drifted back to the image of the message he had seen when he had died.

'What am I? What is an Altered?' Leon thought.

However, his questions remained unanswered as he continued to lay in the dark surrounded by rock and dirt. Leon tried to replicate the feeling he had felt and lashed out against the rock once again and felt the same jolt of energy roll down his arm and get lost in his deep-red core.

He didn't know why, but for some reason, he felt as if Earth around him was trying to tell him something, give him a way out. He tried to focus on this feeling and put his hand out to lay gently on the rock beside him, he felt small streams of energy flowing from the rock into his hand following the same stream as the large bolt of energy. He felt an indescribable connection to the Earth around him before almost subconsciously his lips parted.

"break for me," Leon said, in a somewhat unworldly voice that sounded nothing like his own.

Despite Leon's shock after hearing the voice that didn't match his own he felt his core whir into overdrive and pump out energy and he noticed the streams of energy that were once flowing into his hand from the rock had reversed direction and now red-tinged energy was flowing out in torrents.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Suddenly the rocky prison started to crumble and fall apart around him and Leon quickly began clawing away at the dirt and more and more began falling away.

Before long his digging, combined with the earth seemingly just falling apart around him bore fruit, and Leon's hand exploded out from the dirt and he felt the cool air brush against his fingers. He continued to claw and dig his way out and finally pulled himself fully out of the dirt and now stood in tattered rags above his once rocky grave.

Leon stood there staring at the ground for a while before he took a deep breath and looked up before exhaling, a satisfied grin plastered across his expression.

Leon remembered the feeling of energy rushing through him as the earth seemed to crumble away at his command, truthfully, it was nothing more than a gimmick compared to real elementals but to Leon, it felt as if he had just won against the world.

'Did I become some sort of earth elemental or something?' thought Leon, half-jokingly and half-serious. Whilst he knew that bending the earth to one's will was an ability only harnessed by earth elementals, Leon didn't feel like he had a particular affinity towards the earth, in fact, he didn't feel like he had an affinity to anything at all.

"More questions..." Leon sighed, his eyebrow raised slightly as he found his voice had returned to normal.

Leon took a second to inspect his body, in the dim light he could see his extremely pale skin that hadn't seen sunlight in years littered in the all too familiar scars that covered his entire body from the neck down. It was a disconcerting sight, to say the least, but to Leon, it stood as a permanent reminder of what the world really was. A cruel and brutally unforgiving place.

Leon also noticed his long hair that had grown out down past his shoulders over the past couple of years, however once again to his surprise his usually brown hair had turned to a lustrous black.

'Is this something to do with becoming an Altered as well?' Leon thought, thinking there was a lot more to what he had become that Herman had described in his fanatical rants. He pushed the thought out of his mind to bring it back up at a more appropriate time as he ripped off a piece of his tattered shirt and used it to tie his hair in a somewhat neat ponytail behind his head.

Leon looked up at the broken staircase as his mind flashed back to when he had sent Ajax and Aria up them and to leave him behind to stop Herman.

'I hope they made it out ok...' Leon thought with a slightly worried expression on his face.

He began climbing the broken staircase, making sure to tread lightly as the whole structure was extremely unstable and bits of it crumbled away at every step Leon took. After reaching the top Leon had to traverse a few more windy corridors before he finally pushed open one last large door and a bright light stopped him dead in his tracks and he immediately shielded his eyes and groaned in discomfort.

It took Leon a good thirty seconds or so to adjust before he could finally stop covering his eyes and look at what caused the bright flash of light. It was... the sun? Leon stood in a daze as he took a deep breath, feeling the clean air and breeze brush past his bare skin and he looked down at his hands as the sunlight danced across his pasty skin.

Leon just laughed with a smile on his face as he took in every feeling that nature provided that he once took for granted and realized he finally achieved the first step of his dream.

'I'm free... I'm really free at last...' Leon thought, his grin widening as he stood in the open with a massive pile of rubble behind him.

---

Leon continued walking through the woods for a while. After taking a moment to take in the outside world for the first time in a long time, Leon re-focused and realized there was nothing outside the now ruins of the facility. To be honest, he had half expected to see the military squads that Ajax had told him about, or at least some sort of sign of human interference, but there was nothing at all. In one way, it worried him as he didn't know where Ari and Ajax were but at the same time, it made sense to him that no one was here as after the facility collapsed, Leon was sure everybody inside would have died, including him so there would have been no point continuing the rescue operation.

'They probably think I'm dead...' Leon thought feeling a bit sad and guilty that his friends probably thought they had let him die.

However, there was no point worrying about issues that were out of his control so he decided to just keep walking in a hope that he would come across anything that would let him know where the hell he was.

After what seemed like a few hours of walking, Leon came across a small lake that piqued his curiosity. During the walk, Leon thought deeply about the deep-red mana core and the feelings he had experienced when he interacted with the earth in his rocky sarcophagus. He watched the water ripple and move as he wandered over to the water's edge to see if the water would make him feel anything as well.

However, as he peered over the edge his jaw dropped in shock as he saw his reflection. The last time Leon had seen his own face was more than three years ago and the person looking back at him right now seemed like a completely different one from the one he recognized. His face was unhealthily thin due to the lack of nutrients and the pale skin didn't help with the sickly appearance, however, besides his hair that had unexplainably turned black, Leon looked at the reflection straight in the eyes.

The lifeless eyes stared back at him, but what surprised Leon wasn't the uncomfortable vibe they gave but the color itself, Leon's once brown eyes had turned golden, it looked completely unnatural and almost ethereal. One could easily say that Leon's eyes were stunning, if not for the creepy devoid of life look they still had despite the dazzling color.

'This might be an issue...' Leon thought he had never heard of anyone having Golden eyes before so it was sure to attract some attention, however as Leon was thinking he suddenly felt a hand fall gently onto his shoulder.

"What's a young girl like you doi-" said a man with a rich voice, but was suddenly cut off as the 'girl' recoiled under the touch before scattering back a few meters, staring wide-eyed at the man whilst visibly trembling.

The man realizing his blunder instantly held his hands up to show he meant no harm before his expression turned into one of shock as he looked at the 'girl'.

She had long lustrous black hair and uncanny golden eyes that for some reason made him feel very uncomfortable when he looked into them. She also looked extremely fragile and sported an unhealthy complexion that made the man wonder where she had spent her time to become so pale.

"Sorry young miss, I didn't mean to alarm you, I was just wondering what a young girl like you was doing all the way out here in the woods." asked the man in a gentle tone as if not to cause any more alarm to the startled girl.

Leon, who was surprised in himself as he found himself trembling in response to the touch of the man. It would seem as if there was a deep fear hidden in Leon's subconscious that had grown after years of constant torture.

"S-Sorry, I don't really like being touched..." said Leon with a grimace whilst he attempted to call himself down enough to stop shaking.

"It's my fault... I'm sorry," replied the man, "my name is Angus, what's yours?"

Leon hesitated for a second before answering the man back.

"It's... Leon."

"Leon? Isn't that a boy's na-" Angus stopped mid-sentence as he realized that Leon wasn't in fact a small girl but a frail-looking boy instead.

'Has he not eaten in months!? He's basically just a walking pile of bones!' Angus thought. He gathered himself before opening his mouth again.

"Where do you live Leon? Where are your parents?" asked Angus.

"I... I don't have any," replied Leon with a pained expression.

Angus' confusion intensified as he couldn't comprehend how a small boy ended up all the way out here by himself and with no parents, whilst it explained his appearance of being completely neglected, it didn't explain why he wasn't dead. The woods of Lutia weren't exactly safe places and were home to all sorts of beasts, of both the animal and human variety.

"Well, why don't you come back to my house for now? The village isn't far from here and my wife should be cooking something up for once I arrive home," said Angus, uncomfortable with leaving the child out here by himself.

Leon hesitated, to be honest, he had a deep-rooted mistrust for adults, as his experience over the last three years with any of them had been... less than pleasant. Angus seeing his hesitation and slightly scared expression further tried to comfort Leon.

"It's just that the woods are dangerous and it will be getting dark soon, you look as if you haven't eaten in god knows how long and I'm sure my wife would never let me hear the end of it if I told her I found a child by himself out in the woods and didn't try to help..."

Leon's brain thought about ways to get out of this situation, but to be honest, he had no idea where he was, he was hungry and tired, and being in the woods after dark wasn't a prospect he liked the thought of. He let out a small sigh before mustering all the courage he could to mutter a single word.

"Ok..."

Angus smiled at Leon before he turned around and walked off back into the woods, beckoning Leon to follow him.

Leon hesitated once again, his legs feeling sluggish all of a sudden as he struggled to move and he noticed they were still trembling slightly.

"You coming?" asked Angus with a quizzical look on his face.

Leon looked up at Angus for a second, before nodding. He closed his eyes and tried to take a step forward and his legs finally followed his orders and he followed behind Angus at a steady pace, keeping his distance.

Leon grimaced, thinking about the subconscious response of his body to his touch and actions.

'I guess that place still has a hold on me despite the fact I watched him die with my own eyes...' Leon thought, his expression darkening as he continued to walk with the man known as Angus as the sunset over the woods.