When Marianus came to, he found himself in an unfamiliar place. It was cold, very much like the cultist’s eyes, but more so, because the strangeness and the eeriness of the room was amplified by his sudden fear and confusion. His feelings of shock spiked for just a moment. Afterward, he returned to his cool, careful self—his cool, careless facade. He himself found it somewhat scary, this ability of his.

  He looked around. It was a cramped room, cramped enough to bring out unconscious semblances of a claustrophobia that he thought he never had. He did his best to calm down. He did calm down, after some deep breaths and a little vipassana. He had his meditation teacher to thank for that.

  He examined himself. At his wrists were something cold, hard, and metal. He tugged on it, and, as expected of cold, hard metal, it didn’t budge. He didn’t budge. He was chained to a low fence of iron bars, and he couldn’t move.

  He was trapped in what looked like a cell, without the bars revealing a central hallway. There was but one window that let in precisely no light. From what he judged, the sun had gone down long ago.

  Marianus was alone.

  Marianus was dead alone, or so he thought.

  To his right, he noticed another figure. He couldn’t see it clearly, but he could make out general features. It was small—the size of a child. More specifically, a young girl. It was on the slender side and had long, black hair, possibly curly.

  It was that young girl. It was the bloodied young girl that he had met earlier and saved. She didn’t move. Marianus couldn’t believe that she was dead, or at least he didn’t want to.

  There was nobody else there. Marianus hoped to find Sascha among them, but she was missing. Did she escape? Was she not caught? He tried hard to remember, but his mind drew a long, hard blank. He couldn’t remember what had happened to her, nonetheless what had happened to him. Why was he here in the first place?

  Marianus didn’t have the time to play twenty questions because the door opened, right in front of him. It lacked any sort of creak or sound. It was silent, like the forest.

  When Marianus gazed upon the man that opened the door, he had many thoughts arise spontaneously. They were thoughts of anger, betrayal, surprise, disbelief, and more. Marianus quickly sorted through these thoughts, like a human filter. What ended up coming out betrayed all of those latent feelings stored inside.

  “Yo, father. How are you?”

  “Lively, as always.”

  Marianus’s father, the chief of police, paced around the room carefully, careful as if not to step on invisible pieces of shattered glass scattered all over the barren floor. He paced and observed. He stood over Marianus, a careful distance away. Marianus, held to the ground, could only look up to his poor excuse of a hailed police officer.

  Marianus began talking, very casually.

  “Father, these chains really hurt. Could you release me?”

  Marianus’s father said nothing.

  “Hey, where are we? Why are you here?”

  Marianus’s father said nothing.

  “Are you still taking up jiu-jitsu? If so, will you take me to Brazil with you when you go on leave?”

  Marianus’s father said nothing.

  Marianus glared and lowered the tone of his voice.

  “If you’re not going to answer these questions,” Marianus spat, “answer me this.” He pointed at the girl on the ground. “This is her, right? My kid sister, your illegitimate daughter.”

  Marianus’s father tensed up under his son’s mean, watchful gaze. He started laughing. “As expected of my son. You pick up quickly. How did you know?”

  Marianus looked away. “She looks familiar, but more than that, she has that scar. The one from three years ago. It’s difficult to see, but it’s still there.”

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  “Plus, I’m here.”

  “Exactly.”

  The father and son shared a special moment together. It wasn’t how Marianus imagined reuniting with his family, both the father and sister, but life deals its cards. He wasn’t careless though. He knew his situation. This was no time for family matters. Marianus struggled. If only he could remember how he ended up here then..! Maybe he could deal with the situation more appropriately and come up with a plan.

  Yes, he could come up with a plan. He was confident he could come up with a plan to fool his father, the brilliant chief of police hailed in the last three years as nothing short of a genius, a miracle maker.

  “Marianus,” his father said with absolutely no remorse, no remorse whatsoever. It felt somewhat forced. “I am the third overseer of the Cult of Unification. You should know about us. After all, you’ve been chasing us for the past three years.”

  The Cult of Unification. This was the official name of the cult that had led Marianus astray in the first place. It was the reason why he had to shoot a cultist, and end up captured somehow in a forest no one cares to know about. It was the reason why his precious car was scratched, and why he had to unfortunately reunite with a distant father and bastard sister. He hadn’t seen his father in over a year. He had seen only pictures of his sister.

  He kept one on him, for good luck. It’s in his wallet, next to the unsuspecting pairs of handcuffs he carried around for self-defense. Those hand-cuffs were missing, it seemed.

  Marianus’s father turned toward him. He stared at him with uninterested eyes. “It was because of me that you haven’t been eliminated or worse, assimilated into our ranks. Be grateful.”

  He continued, with an even prouder tone. “This organization could’ve dealt with you from the very beginning. I could’ve stopped you myself. It was, in fact, them who stopped me. It matters not, though, for you are to meet your end very soon. In the end, you are but an annoyance.”

  An annoyance, he said. Marianus twitched. Outwardly, he looked angry, but in reality it was a much worse emotion. His father picked up on it instantly. It was a very nasty doubt.

  “Hey… Who are you?”

  Marianus’s father flinched. He turned away, as if hiding. He clenched his fists rebelliously, grit his teeth arrogantly, and… He sat down docilely, giving up.

  He laughed.

  “I am the third overseer of the Cult of Unification. I am not your father. I’ve merely taken his form. But don’t get me wrong!” He flailed his hands in a useless attempt towards innocency. “At this point, I am practically your father,” he said melancholically.

  Marianus was doubtful. The wind caressed his cheeks, though that did little to comfort his edge.

  “Cut the crap.”

  “But it’s true! Really! These years I’ve spent… I’ve grown attached to my fake family.” He sighed spitefully. “I suppose I can’t really keep up the act, now that we’ve met in these circumstances.”

  Marianus couldn’t believe it. What was this man saying? Is he out of his mind?

  Why his father was here, he already found very suspicious. However, these claims took him by surprise. He was ready to hear somewhat convincing yet utterly foolish justifications for his father’s actions and loyalty. He was waiting to hear some sort of twisted backstory that knocked the chief of police off the moral path. He was waiting to hear anger and bitterness.

  He was not expecting this inconsistency.

  “Three years ago I was roped into this organization. They have too much on me now, not even mentioning my former family. Even if I wanted to get out, they have my blood.”

  “What’s the problem with that? You’re the chief of police?” Marianus said, proceeding against the flow of his doubts.

  “The problem is, they also have your mother’s and her mother’s blood,” he said hopelessly. “They have your blood too.”

  Marianus flashed back to images of his fight with the cultist in the forest. Some of his memories were coming back, bit by bit. Why he was remembering the cultist, he did not know. He clearly recalled the lifeless body, lying limp on the forest floor. The cultist was lying in a pool of his own, nasty, corrupt, sorry blood. Serves him right, Marianus thought, for just a moment, before switching off his interrupting emotions like a calculating robot. He pushed those memories away.

  But then he remembered the cat. What in the world was that cat? Marianus suddenly remembered the cat, and his eye.

  Right, he couldn’t see out of his right eye. It was bandaged up.

  Marianus held his breath. “Look, father, I’m not one to waste time playing useless games.”

  “I know,” Marianus’s father admitted. “You probably don’t be-”

  “I believe you,” Marianus said. “For the time being. Let’s assume what you said is true. What’s the deal with the blood?”

  Marianus’s father limped in defeat. He could not help but be amazed at his son’s ability to process things even in this situation. “You’re really something,” he said.

  “I know,” Marianus smirked. “So? Blood?”

  “The Cult of Unification holds many secrets, chief of which being the power to connect minds. We’re in the second phase of the operation. Us overseers are bestowed a powerful ability.”

  Marianus leaned in with a calm curiosity.

  Marianus’s father smiled, very much like Marianus’s father would.

  “We have the power of possession.”