Elysium was not merely a city; it was a living organism.
The metropolis gleamed—but its shine was selective. From above, it resembled a jewel. Yet those who looked toward its edges could see the salt and rust beneath the chrome. At its core, skyscrapers rose alongside the black-and-crimson monolith of Sanguine Corp, glowing in neon and pulsing in perfect urban synchrony. But on the outskirts—where the old shipyard and the abandoned greenhouses lay—the light never reached.
A surveillance drone, emblazoned with Sanguine's crimson sigil, hummed toward the port district. Its lenses strained to pierce the dense fog that blanketed the docks, but static crackled through its circuits. The drone hesitated, rotated in place, and retreated—repelled by an invisible barrier.
Sanguine's domain spread like an oil spill: fast, relentless—yet it had not covered the entire ocean.
They called it a corporation, but anyone who looked closely would see the truth. Sanguine was not a company. It was a living body—and Elysium was merely its host.
To maintain absolute order, its hierarchy was divided into three vital organs, merging corporate power, politics, and industry into a terrifying symbiosis.
Hades Carmine, the only son of Sanguine Corp's renowned CEOs, served as Vice President of Technology. At his side stood Morpheus, his loyal subordinate, ensuring that no secret remained hidden. Through millions of cameras, biometric sensors, and predictive algorithms, privacy had become a relic of the past. If you even considered rebellion—or if an uncharted domain emerged—the "eyes" would know before you ever acted.
The air inside the tower was cold, sharp with the scent of ozone.
Hades stood before an immense holographic map hovering above his obsidian desk. The projection should have displayed a calm sea of controlled data—but instead, he saw scars. Black holes of information hovered over the location of the flower shop "Gaia's Roots" and Orion Lagus's shipyard.
"Unacceptable," Hades hissed, his voice laced with restrained venom.
"How can sectors exist that return not a single bit of data?"
He clenched his fist and slammed it onto the desk. The hologram shuddered.
From the shadows of the office, Morpheus watched in silence, impassive.
"Technology is order. If I can't map it, I can't control it. And if I can't control it…"
Hades traced the dark stains on the map with deliberate focus.
"This place is an anomaly that must be excised. Morpheus, I want physical eyes where my satellites can't reach."
"Understood, Vice President Hades. My eyes are already en route."
To Sanguine Corp, the city was a living body.
Hades and Morpheus were its eyes—and its analytical mind.
But on the lower levels, the silence was clinical.
Nyx Carmine, the Matriarch, glided her fingers across glass tablets, examining the city's bloodstream. The screens displayed millions of heartbeats synchronized to music, but her seasoned eyes searched for the flaw—the anomaly.
Her gaze settled on a report marked in red:
"Unidentified Elemental Anomalies."
Behind her, inside a reinforced glass chamber, a female figure floated in suspension, clad in hospital garments—a living doll, waiting to awaken.
Thanatus's music soothes the masses, Nyx thought, watching the graphs fluctuate.
But biology… biology always finds a way to rebel.
She rose and walked toward the tube, her perfectly aligned heels echoing through the laboratory's silence. Nyx placed her hand against the glass, cold and deliberate.
"The pure element is still out there. Nefer… you are only the beginning."
At the corporation's ground zero, Thanatus Carmine—music producer and CEO—felt the vibration rise through the soles of his shoes. The maestro knew the foundation was beginning to crack.
He stood on the penthouse balcony, the city sprawled beneath him. In his hand, the baton—also a slender flute—carved arcs through the air, weaving the melody that sustained his ego and his control. He closed his eyes, savoring the symphony of obedience.
Suddenly, his expression twisted in disgust.
Before him, a golden line of sound vibrated violently—then shattered with the sharp chime of breaking crystal. His eyes flew open, shock plain on his face.
"There's noise… a frequency that shouldn't exist," he murmured to the wind.
Then, thoughtfully:
"Someone is detuning my world."
Far from the glass towers, the real world answered.
In the shipyard outskirts—where drones could not reach—
Perceu Lagus, a citizen of Elysium and son of Orion Lagus, plunged his hands into the bay's viscous water. The filth immediately recoiled from his pale skin, leaving behind a trail of crystalline, impossibly pure water—glowing in an indescribable shade of blue.
"What… what is this? Is the sea calling me? No—it's the water…"
The young man's blue eyes stared at the liquid pooling in his hands, mesmerized.
Many carry gifts inherited from something ancient…
Blood does not forget its creators.
Beneath the rule of light or darkness, the legacy of the gods still pulses in secret.
Beyond the outskirts, in a quiet residential complex far from the skyscrapers, a young girl with white hair stood at her window. A book rested in her right hand, while transcendent power gathered between the fingers of her left, shaping invisible currents of air. She gazed at the sky.
"Something is happening in the wind… I can feel it," she whispered.
Amid so much technology and modernity, a small resistance still existed—one that refused to bow to corporate desire. One of them was the flower shop "Gaia's Roots."
Inside the old building that seemed frozen in time, delicate hands pressed glowing crystals into the soil of a small plant. A blonde girl in a denim dress hummed a tune from some everyday repertoire.
They try to suffocate the earth with concrete and silicon…
But roots run deeper, she thought.
"Hm…? Is something wrong, little one?"
She gently touched the seedling, which whispered things she couldn't yet fully understand.
At Agni Condominium, the morning sun struck reinforced glass, illuminating a refuge of marble and silence—where music was law. In the kitchen, perfection was almost tangible.
Dante, patriarch and star of Sanguine Corp, stood with his back turned, dressed in a luxurious black robe. He prepared coffee with precise movements, whistling the melody they were composing. At the table, Serena, flawless in her studio attire, hummed in perfect harmony with her husband as her fingers glided across a digital score.
Hestia sighed, the sound muffled by the domestic symphony.
"Good morning! Dad, Mom… do you two really need to rehearse even at breakfast?"
She rested her chin on her hand.
"This new song sticks worse than gum on a shoe."
"Good morning, Sunshine. That's the price of perfection, dear."
The red-haired man smiled at his daughter.
"There's nothing to fear—within the pure frequency, we all belong…"
Serena sang a line from the composition, smiling without lifting her gaze from the holographic display.
"Good morning, my love! Thanatus always says music isn't what we do—it's what we are."
[ERROR!] flashed across the digital score.
Hestia sighed and placed both palms on the marble counter.
At that exact moment, Serena's humming stopped.
The mother slowly lifted her head, tilting it as if catching a frequency no one else could hear.
"Dante, dear… stop for a moment. The system is reporting a heating failure…"
Serena frowned as the hologram flickered out and vanished from her hands.
"Huh?" her husband asked.
The temperature around the family began to rise abruptly.
"That's not something that usually happens with the bracelets, Mom. Maybe we should check at Sanguine—ChatHades could—"
Hestia began, but her mother interrupted her.
"No, Hestia, my love… it's your gift."
Serena said softly. Her racial sensitivity allowed her to sense danger before any sensor.
"You're overheating the environment."
"I knew it! I knew something was wrong with me! I felt so hot when I woke up—my body is—IT'S BURNING!!"
CRACK!
The coffee cup in front of her shattered, porcelain flying in every direction. The cold marble countertop split with glowing fissures, blazing like magma, as black smoke poured from the girl's body.
"DAUGHTER, CALM DOWN!!"
Her father panicked, reaching toward her.
For Hestia, reality began to unravel. The threatening smoke cut the space between her and her parents. Her strength gave out, and she staggered.
"Dad… Mom… I—"
Three soft words—barely audible—escaped before her vision darkened and her fevered body collapsed onto the icy floor.
"HESTIA!!" Serena screamed, eyes wide with terror.
Dante dropped everything and tried to grab Hestia by the shoulders—but his hands passed through a dense, black smoke seeping from her skin, intangible as a nightmare.
And this is our beginning.
But this is not where everything began…
It was not always like this.
[To be continued…]
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