As he moved up the stairs, the wood under him creaked and the remaining dust atop it fell, like snow. It was dark inside with a dim ambiance of light from the small circular window which let in some of the light from the outside.

It looked decrepit and old, everything had a thick layer of dust atop it. As Ethan moved up he let his finger slide on the bedside table that looked old, and the dust on top of it got carried with it, making a small highway free of any dust.

“I wonder when was the last time someone cleaned this place” Etthan muttered to himself, as he rubbed his finger together the feeling of dust between his fingers making him uncomfortable. He looked around for a moment before he walked deeper, looking for anything that looked interesting.

As he did, he found a rectangular box covered with dust, it had a Christmas tree inside of it, as he looked at it he remembered the fond memories of the Christmas spent with his family, however he forcefully tore his gaze from it, afraid of remembering more things that would hurt his heart.

As he looked away his gaze landed on a katana, which looked discarded. “Something worth selling” he said as he moved to where it was kept and then he took it off the shirasaya if that is the correct thing to call it. He didn’t really know. He pulled out the katana using one hand, as he held the sheath in the other.

{A/N: Shirasaya is the thing that is used to display the katana when not in use.}

However it didn’t even budge form its place, “what the fuck?” Ethan called out as he put more force into his hand, holding the katana handle, his actions had some results as some of it slid out however it was covered in rust, it had been discarded for far too long the blade had caught rust and got stuck in the scabbard.

Not knowing any other way, Ethan decided to hold the scabbard between his legs and using both of his hands as he held the handle of the katana, to pull it out. However it didn’t move even one bit. As though it had vowed to stay stuck with its scabbard for the rest of its miserable life.

“Sigh” Ethan who had given his all, sighed and placed it back.

After all, it was something that his grandfather used to wield in World War II, he never mentioned about his time in the army, however he did say that it was a gift from a fallen comrade, and he used it after his death.

It had quite a piece of history behind it, and might fetch quite a lot. He quietly mused as he looked towards a shoe box, under the Shirasaya, he picked up the lid and opened it up to see what was inside. Inside there were different kinds of medals and a few photos under it. He picked them up, as careful as he could be, the photos looked quite old after all and were delicate,

As for the medals he didn’t know what was written on it as it was in japanese however he could tell that it was something important or so he thought as he picked the box and placed it to one side where he would put things worth selling.

After that Ethan slowly started to go through the stuff in the attic and placed them in three piles, of things that can be sold, which were trash and the things he wanted to keep, however there was nothing of distinct value in that pile as of yet,

The only thing he could find was his father’s old guitar. He remembered how he used to play it when he was a kid and wanted to learn how to play it too.

Along with a pair of earrings which his mother gifted his dad in his teenage days, from what he could remember form the stories that they had told him, the earrings had a small finger nail sized straight wire hanging down with a wire wrapped around it once. It looked cool and it was a good memento so he decided to keep it.

As he was going through the stuff, he found many things. However, his eyes landed on top of a big photo frame that was covered by a white cloth at the very back of the attic. Thinking that it might be something that might fetch him quite a lot he decided to start making his way there. By passing over small boxes or pushing some stuff aside.

As he reached near it, he grabbed onto the cloth and gave it a yank, making the dist on top of it fly and join the already flying dust in the attic, making it hard to breath and see for a few seconds, Ethan covered his face with his hand to protect himself from it.

After the dust had settled down he decided to open his eyes and look at the portrait that was hiding behind the white sheet, as he looked his eyes opened wide for a second with shock by the quality of the portrait which he was looking at, he hadn’t seen many portraits however he could tell that it was one of the best, it was a family portrait of a husband, wife and their children a daughter and a son.

All of them had one thing in common that they were wearing modern clothes instead of the clothes the the people of the time should have been wearing, the boy was wearing simple hoodie and pant, the girl was wearing a dress that looked quite modern, as for the women she was wearing a pair of jeans and shirt.

As for the man, he had different tattoos on his right arm, which went all the way form his wrist to his shoulders by the look of it while he was wearing a pair of shirt and pants

Although they looked modern the portrait in question looked old, old enough to be about 100 or 200 years old. It had a yellow layer over it, the father, and the children in the photo had distinct red strands of hair, with blood red eyes which were deeper than his, or the member of his family. It was a old family portrait which looked to have been passed down by his ancestors.

As he admired the odd looking portrait, he placed his hand on top of the painting, his fingers feeling the different textures of the portrait, as he did so he felt a vibration form it, in hurry he stepped back, not knowing what was going on, there was a distinct muffled hum in the air, he noticed a small blue glow coming out of the back of the painting, he moved the portrait by grabbing onto it from both sides and then moved it a little. As he did the hum got clear, it was coming from a small palm sized box that was behind the portrait.

Although the box looked to be old and covered in dust it had a certain magical and futuristic neon, blue glow to it, it had different kinds of carving on top of it. Making it look quite majestic.

“What the fuck is this?” Ethan couldn’t help but question this as he looked at the unique box in front of him. He slowly picked it up.

As he did, the hum in the air seemed to get louder and louder, “what the hell is this thing, an alarm clock or something?” he questioned as he reached out with his other hand to turn it off, however as he reached out the box the hum in the air seemed to just stop abruptly.

“What is this thing?” he wondered as he brought it close to himself, and then examined it,

The box looked expensive, it had different kind of lines etched onto it which had a blue glow to them, while the combined looked like some sort of language, a runic language of some sort, the slick design of the box, no now that he looked closer not distracted by the loud hum there was no opening to it and it was a cube of some sort, with futuristic look.

As he was looked at it “singgah” sound come out of the box, and accompanied it was a sharp pain that make Ethan drop the cube, “aghh, what-” he tried to say however the pain from the cut started to throb, it was a sharp pain, as though someone was cutting into his skin with a hot knife which had been put on simmering fire for way too long.

It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before.

“Aaarghhhhhhhhh” he screamed in pain as he dropped down, holding his bleeding hand,

As he looked at the cube that did this to him, the sharp blue glowing blade that had cut him went inside the cube and the cube that had been humming for a while had started to glow with an otherworldly blue glow covering his whole vision, forcing him to close his eyes.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

If anyone were to see from the outside of the house right about now they would have seen an otherworldly blue glow coming out of the single window of the attic, however the blue glow had vanished as soon as it came and the box in its place seems to be melting.

As soon as Ethan looked at the melting box his eyes widened, looking at it the only thing that came to his mind was some sort of mine used by soldiers in world war 2 that he had triggered, most likely disguised in the form of a cube, as he thought of this the pain that he had somewhat had gotten use to started to flair again, as for why he didn’t know.

As the cube fully melted into something like liquid mercury, it started to move.

As it did Ethan who had been writhing in pain until now, tried to run or at the very least crawl his way back, however it was too quick. As soon as the liquid metal reached him. It jumped, Ethan tried to use his right hand which had been cut before to shield himself.

However it was no use as the metal simply attached to his hand and the feeling of intense burning pain hit him like a truck, the molten metal had attached itself to his hand and it was climbing up.

“AAARRRRGGGHGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”

Ethan screamed on top of his lungs as the tears fell down his face, the pain of hot metal flowing through his skin, and veins were too much for him, as he slumped down, unconscious.

Or maybe it was just his luck as the metal seeped deeper into his hand, reaching his bones and fusing with it. As it did the smell of burned flesh permeated the whole attic.

The noise of flesh burning and sizzling came, and carried the faint noise of grunting that Ethan made while in pain, the area around him covered in a pool of his own blood.

Few hours later

“Ugh what happened, where am i?” Ethan exclaimed as he woke up, not knowing where he was and what was going on he looked around,he was drenched in his own dried up blood, his clothes, face, and body was covered in the blood.

As soon as he saw that he looked at his right arm expecting to see a pruned up arm “What the? The pain is gone” he exclaimed and looked at his arm that looked new, the only thing that was different were the tattoos on his arm. They were the same tattoos that were on that man’s arm in that portrait. What the hell, h-how did this happen?? He thought to himself, as he examined his arm, that he was certain he had lost due to the molten metal the cube had turned into.

Not knowing what was going on, the only thing he could do was to examine the golden glowing tattoos on his right arm. The tattoos went from the back of his hand up to his shoulder, the back of his hand had a circular pattern with diamonds of some sort??

{A/N: idk how i can describe the shape on his hand if anyone can help me out by describing the shape in the cover then i would be grateful}

And the circular pattern had small lines that reached his knuckles which had some sort of words written on it. His arm was covered with a different kind of runic language, his hand looked as though it had been covered in bandages made up of runic language.

As he was exploring his new tattooed arm a voice that felt as though someone had said something right beside his ear brought him back from his thoughts.

“Good morning sir” A voice rang out,

“W-who” Ethan said, not knowing where the sound came from, “w-who are you show yourself” he said, his voice shaking from fear,

“You can call me, Wilson Sir,” Wilson said.

“W-where are you?” Ethan screamed, as he carefully looked around although he couldn’t move due to excessive blood loss, “Sir, please calm down” Wilson said in a soothing voice as though soothing a small child.

“H-how the fuck do you think i can calm dawn i am hearing voices and there are weird tattoos on my hand.” Ethan screamed as he tried to crawl towards the stairs.

“Sir , there is no need to panic as I said before, you can call me Wilson. I am here to assist you on your journey as a world walker” Wilson said, with a steady voice.

“The what- where the fuck are you?” Ethan said, while crawling the dust from the ground sticking to his blood soaked clothes while he left a trail of blood behind him.

“Ah my apologies sir, I am talking to you Telepathically, i do not possess any physical body,” Wilson said.

Ethan who had no energy to crawl to the stairs, instead of answering just turned around and looked at the ceiling, what the fuck? He thought to himself, as he looked around one last time to make sure that there was no one hiding in the attic around him, and this WIlson fallow was not just playing a prank on him.

“A-are you some sort of ghost?” Ethan finally asked after remaining silent for more then five minute,

“No sir, I am WIlson. An ancient and sentient AI if you will form your terminologies.” He said.

“And where are you right now? How can you talk to me?” Ethan asked as he looked at the ceiling.

“Ah i am hosted inside your spirit or soul in your term” Wilson said, with a chuckle.

“So the concept of soul is real huh?” Ethan asked to confirm

“Yes they are sir” Wilson replied.

“Why are you calling me sir?” Ethan asked,

“You are part of the the esteemed Walker family, therefore i am calling you Sir, although there are only three remaining members of the family remaining how pitiable” Wilson said,

“So what is this Walker family you speak of?” Ethan asked,

“It's a family of Inter-dimensional wonders, the walker family is famous for traveling through different worlds to gain power from their power systems.” Wilson said with a prideful tone.

“So you're saying that this family travels through worlds? And I am part of this family?” Ethan said, not believing half of what Wilson said.

“Yes, you are,” Wilson said.

“And how do they travel through these worlds, i don’t think that we have even reached mars” Ethan said, confused.

“Ah your family doesn't require these technological wonders to travel though the worlds you just need me” Wilson said with enough pride in his voice that it was dripping out.

“And how is that?” Ethan asked as he finally mustered enough energy to get up, although wobbly due to the blood loss.

“You see, Sir-” Wilson started to speak, however Ethan cut him off.

“Ethan,” he said.

“Ah, yes of course sir Ethan, you see your family has a special bloodline that lets them travel through the folds between space and different dimensions easily, unlike others” Wilson explained.

“others?” Ethan said as he looked at the started to go down the stairs one step at a time,

“Yes there are other families however they don’t have the capacity to travel like your’s do, so they use other means” Wilson said,

“I see,” Ethan asked, as he made his way to his bathroom taking off his bloody clothes and putting them in the washing machine, while stepping into the shower.

“So WIlson right?” Ethan said, washing off the blood from his body.

“Yes , sir,” Wilson said, happy to answer anything that Ethan requires.

“What happened to the cube and what was it” Ethan asked,

“The cube as you call it, is an ancient tech, created using magical language or ruins and technology of one of the most advanced civilizations in the myriad of worlds, it was created by the founder of the Walker Family, to give his descendants a way to travel through different worlds.” Wilson explained with fervor, and excitement as though explaining it like he had done so himself.

“I see, so does that means that the Founder of the Walker family could travel though dimensions without the cube’s powers?” Ethan asked,

“Yes, after all he was the founder.” Wilson replied.

“Sir, if you don’t mind me asking” Wilson said hesitatingly,

“What is it?”Ethan asked.

“From what I can sense there are only 3 living members of the family including you, and each of them is in a different world, however one of them has almost the same soul signature as you” WIlson said, hesitantly.

“And what does that mean exactly?” Ethan asked, a bit happy to know that there were 2 other members of his family, as he walked out of the shower.

“Sir, what I mean is that, do you perhaps have a sibling?” WIlson said and as soon as his worlds fell, Ethan stopped where he stood as his breathing quickened and his heat rate spiked.

“I-i did, however she is dead” Ethan said, his voice devoid of any emotions, afraid of the feelings that may spark due to hope.

“Are you sure sir i may not be right but this person has a has nearly same fluctuations as your soul there are only minor changes, this only happens why a person has same parents,

“I-i don’t know” Ethan said, afraid of what it may entail, looked at the mirror, his hair which were normal black before turning fully pitch black, and his eyes that held a tinge of red becoming fully red just like the people in the portrait.

“Sir, if you have something that may belong to her or someplace that she spent her time in then i might be able to confirm if it's true or not '' Wilson said.

“A-alrigh” Ethan said, as he hurriedly wore his clothes over his wet body and then walked towards his sisters room. As his heartbeat increased with every step that he took, every step matching his resting heart rate as his slow calm pace of walking turned into a full on sprint towards his sisters room.