“Edith!”

  My voice echoed through the silent hallway as I climbed the stairs, my steps hurried yet deliberate. The wooden planks creaked beneath my weight. Usually, I would let her sleep in peace, but today was different — urgent.

  “Edith, wake up!!”

  I heard a faint rustling from her room, followed by a muffled voice. “You can come in, Uncle. I'm already ready.”

  I paused, surprised by her quick response. Gently pushing the door open, I stepped inside. There she stood — my niece, Edith — a fine young woman with a medium build, fair skin, raven-black hair that trailed down her back, and piercing dark eyes that often held an unshakable determination. Dressed in casual training clothes, she appeared unaffected by my abrupt wake-up call.

  “Sorry for waking you this early,” I said, scratching the back of my neck. “But I have urgent work at the facility, and I won't have time to drop you at the training center later.”

  She simply shrugged, unbothered. “No problem. You’re heading to the science facility, right?”

  “Yeah.” I sighed. “The team’s working on something big — attempting to open stable spatial portals with Junia's help.”

  Her brows lifted. “Junia? The same Junia from the first generation? The genius inventor with space-related abilities?”

  I nodded. “That’s the one. She's been pushing the boundaries of cosmic manipulation lately. If this works, we might finally understand how the crimson mist reshaped the universe.”

  Edith hummed thoughtfully, slipping on her spatial watch — a compact device designed to store her gear and essentials through subspace compression. Without a word, she moved downstairs to grab breakfast. I lingered for a moment, my gaze fixed on the old wooden floor.

  Crimson mist…

  Sighing heavily, I stepped outside to retrieve the sportscar from the garage. But before starting the engine, I fished out my worn pocket diary — the one I've kept since that day. Flipping through the brittle pages, my eyes settled on the entry marked with a thick crimson line.

  Stolen story; please report.

  Fifteen years ago, the universe changed.

  A deep exhale escaped me as I recalled the day it all began. A crimson mist, alien and incomprehensible, descended across the universe. Its touch was not death — it was transmutation. It broke down everything to its atomic level, rewriting the very laws of existence. Plants mutated, animals evolved, and humans… we awakened. Our dormant potential erupted, gifting us powers beyond logic or science.

  At first, it seemed miraculous. Until the price surfaced.

  The mist didn’t just alter us — it fractured space itself. Portals began appearing — devouring anything within a three-meter radius. Families were lost, cities consumed, and I… I lost people I cherished. But the true nightmare came five years later, when the mist returned. This time, the portals didn’t consume. They vomited.

  Grotesque, decaying creatures emerged, driven solely by destruction. They tore through continents, obliterating Antarctica and Europe entirely before we adapted. By then, humanity had learned to harness the powers gifted by the mist — our salvation and our curse.

  We — the First Generation — were the first to control abilities linked to celestial bodies and cosmic concepts: planets, stars, quasars, even time and space. I was one of them. But the children born after the Crimson Mist — the Second Generation — were different. Their abilities did not stem from themselves but from the raw energy seeping from the spatial portals. They could manipulate cosmic energy directly — a phenomenon still vastly unexplained.

  The prevailing theory? We were mutating, subtly transformed by the mist, the portals, and the very creatures we fought.

  I closed the diary, my heart heavy. Another grim page to be added today, perhaps.

  “Uncle?”

  Startled, I turned to see Edith already outside, staring at me with subtle concern.

  “Let’s go.”

  I nodded wordlessly and started the engine. The 1.5-hour drive to Sector 15 — where her training center was located — felt longer than usual. The landscape around us was a haunting reminder of the past. Vast wastelands, remnants of destroyed cities, and patches of stabilized zones with advanced infrastructure. Humanity had adapted — but the wounds were still visible.

  “You know,” Edith finally spoke, breaking the silence, “I don’t think the mist came randomly. There has to be a reason why it appeared — why it chose our universe.”

  I glanced at her through the rearview mirror. “You’ve been reading too many conspiracy logs again, haven’t you?”

  She smirked. “Can you blame me? Everything around us has changed. Don’t you ever wonder if we’re just… part of something bigger?”

  A bitter chuckle escaped me. “I stopped wondering the day I lost my brother.”

  The conversation fell silent after that.

  Eventually, we reached the training center — a massive hexagonal fortress surrounding a stabilized spatial portal. The structure, twenty meters tall and blindingly white, hummed with faint energy. It was one of the few remaining places where humanity tried to master the very force that once sought to consume them.

  Edith opened the car door and grabbed her bag. “Don’t overwork yourself at the facility, Uncle. And stop carrying that diary everywhere — it’s haunting you.”

  I forced a smile. “And you don’t over-train yourself. Your safety comes first, okay?”

  She gave me a casual wave as she walked toward the entrance, her posture unwavering, her aura sharp like a blade. She was growing stronger — and that both terrified and comforted me.

  As she disappeared into the center, I leaned back in the driver’s seat.

  “…I really hope it works today.”

  Starting the engine, I drove toward the science facility. Little did I know, today would add a new page to my diary

  — and this time, it wouldn’t be one of hope.

  It would be one of horror.