Hereon has always been exceptional. Right now, he walked alone beneath the faded ginkgo trees lining the avenue just outside the campus gate, their gold leaves crunching lightly underfoot. His scarf flapped weakly in the wind, one corner caught between the pages of the notebook he held open in one hand. The other hand was buried deep in his coat pocket, fingers clenched as if gripping something more than warmth.
He was muttering again. Not out loud, but internally—his lips unmoving, his eyes scanning without seeing.
"Entropy," he thought, "isn't just a principle of closed systems. It's the story of everything falling apart. Gradients seeking flatness. Fire cooling to ash. Even love…"
A line from his thesis swam into focus.
> 'All systems move toward maximum entropy unless work is done to maintain structure.'
His breath fogged the cold morning air. He paused at the curb. The crosswalk blinked red, but there were no cars. Still, he didn't step forward. He was far away—lost in a memory of the lab, of arguments with advisors who called his speculations "too poetic for physics."
"But they're wrong," Ye Ming thought. "What is thermodynamics but the poetry of inevitability?"
His foot touched the edge of the street.
"What if the soul, too, obeys these laws?" he wondered. "What if—"
The sound was a horn, brief and sharp. His eyes snapped up.
There was only time to register a blur of white metal, a flicker of blue license plate.
Impact.
Silence. He was dead.
His notebook fluttered to the ground, pages fanned open, as if still reaching for the next thought.
***
And somewhere in the cold air, a man holding a note book muttered. His words similar to Hereon's thesis of thermodynamics.
"…unless work is done to maintain structure."
***
PLANET SONG. UNDERGROUND WORLD.
Somedays, the weight just hit different. You feel like the world isnt just right. Like you are carrying the world in silence.
A crippled young man was strapped into a metal bed, his once austhetic mechanical legs torn and taked by monsters in men's flesh. The young man however didn't feel wronged because of his legs, but because of his world. His brother, his only remaining kin.
Medici's gaze watches as the bloodhounds beat his brother "cole" half to death. It was brutal, yes. But more than that, it was intentional. Each blow carried a message: stay down and stay broken.
Cole had crumpled fast. Not because he was weak, but because there was only so much a man could take when the world had already stripped him bare.
A punch cracked against his jaw and snapped his head sideways. The next struck his ribs with a sickening thud, and then they just kept coming—fists, knees, boots ;like a rhythm played by monsters who called themselves men.
He tried to cover his face, but they tore through his guard. His lip split open; his brow spilled blood in slow, warm rivers down his cheek. His breath rattled like loose glass in a shaken jar. Somewhere in the beating, his body stopped fighting, limbs slack, as though his soul had recoiled inward to shield what little light remained.
Medici screemed until his voice became hoarse. Submitting to his dispare after acknowledging that no one was going to save them. Deep inside he cursed. He cursed this unfairness, he cursed himself, he cursed these bloodhounds for carying the debt of their parents to them. Asking two kids barely surviving in the underground world to pay for the parent's sins. Just what kind of world were they living in..?
"You have one week to payup kiddos. Dont make me come find ya again."
The leader of the bloodhounds suddenly remarked. Taking his leave after giving cole a spit and kick to the abdomen.
Medici looked at the departing bloodhounds, making mental notes and encripting their appearence deeply into his mind. He then stared at his half dead brother on the cold floor, moved his arms to remove the straps,fell on the floor with a thud and crawled to his brother's side.
Cole was unconscious, his face swollen beyond recognition. One eye was shut completely, the skin around it dark and tight with bruising. The other barely peeked open beneath a curtain of dried blood and purpled flesh. His lips were split, his nose bent at a strange angle. His whole body was a canvas of suffering, his ribcage rising in shallow, broken gasps. His clothes clung to him, soaked through with blood, still spreading, still seeping. The wounds hadn't stopped. They were deep, and they were many.
Lifting him with difficulty—his own arms frail, he pulled Cole close, cradling him like a child cradling a fallen bird.
With his brother's head slumped against his shoulder, Medici pressed both palms to Cole's chest, right over the cracked sternum, and began to chant.
Runes appeared in his hands, etched themselves into his skin, curling around his fingers, glowing a soft crimson—the color of life, the color of sacrifice.
Bloodline Anomaly – Blood Rejuvenation.
The moment the spell awakened, the blood on Medici's hands shimmered, then reversed,seeping back into Cole's broken body like threads of crimson light. The glowing veins of the runes pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, each pulse drawing a part of Medici's vitality and pouring it into his brother.
Cole's body responded slowly, but unmistakably. The gashes along his ribs began to close, his skin knitting over raw muscle. The bruises faded slightly, dark purple softening into yellow and green. His breathing deepened. Even a bone popped audibly back into place as the enchantment set it.
But with every wound that closed on Cole, something opened on Medici.
Blood began to trickle from his nose. His lips paled. The glow of the runes dimmed not from lack of power, but from his overuse. Veins stood out on his neck, trembling with the strain. His shoulders slumped, and a sharp, wet cough tore through his chest.
"C–Cole…" Medici whispered, his eyes barely focused. "Come back… please…"
As more of Cole's wounds faded, he stirred. A flicker behind his eyelids. A twitch in his fingers. A groan. Then, finally—
"Stop…" Cole's voice rasped out, weak and cracking. "Stop it, Medici."
Medici's head jerked slightly, his lips trembling. "You're… awake."
"Too much…" Cole coughed, trying to push at his brother's hands, though his limbs were still too weak. "You're… killing yourself."
"I don't care," Medici said,his eyes wide and wet. "You're all I have left."
Cole's good eye met his, glassy but burning with emotion. "You think I want to wake up… and find you dead in my arms?"
Medici said nothing. He just kept chanting, his chanting weaker now, his hands shaking as blood from his mouth dripped onto Cole's chest.
Cole summoned the last of his strength. With a sudden, pained effort, he grabbed his brother's wrist and yanked it away from his body. The connection broke. The runes scattered into nothing, flickering like dying stars.
Medici collapsed forward, breathing ragged, sweat mixing with blood.
"I'm… okay now," Cole muttered, his voice soft and raw. "You did enough."
Medici clung to him weakly. His voice still hoarse and emotional as he said, "You weren't supposed to protect me. I was supposed to protect you."
Cole gave a broken laugh,half-choke, half-sob. "We're brothers, Medici. That means we take turns bleeding for each other."
Hearing Cole's words, Medici felt something crack deep inside him. Tears welled up uninvited. He blinked hard, but the flood came anyway. He kept recalling how cole stood up to his earlier.
Cole, barely more than a boy, standing in front of the bloodhounds. No weapon. Just shaking fists and rage in his throat. They had come to take the mecha legs. Said it was compensation. Compensation for their forsaken father's debt. Cole lunged at them anyway. He didnt want any explaination. He knew it was just a reason.
In the end he lost. But he still fought.
It wasn't the first time either.
Memories rushed into him—too many, too fast.
***
The hallway lights flickering overhead. Their father's voice, loud and slurred. The thud of fists. Then Cole, charging in, arms outstretched, shouting. Medici's own hands raised in defense, but they'd always been too slow. Always taking the beating from his father.
***
The door slamming at midnight. Their father stumbling in, reeking of cheap drink and smoke, blood dripping from his knuckles. "Heal me." That was always the first thing he said.
***
Sometimes Medici couldn't move after. Couldn't even feel his toes. The cold spread upward, day by day. Until he stopped feeling anything from the waist down.
He remembered the moment he gave up his legs. Quietly. No ceremony. Just sat still and whispered, "I don't need them anymore." Cole had cried for hours.
But their father kept coming. Even the wheelchair didn't buy mercy. The man would grab Medici's limp arm and growl, "One more time."
Cole would try to stop him. He always tried. He always lost.
Medici could still see his brother's face,blood on his temple, lip split open—whispering, "It's okay. I'm okay," even when he could barely breathe.
He would heal their father. Then he would heal Cole.
That was their life.
And now, as he lay there bleeding out, heart stuttering in his chest, it all rose like a tide he couldn't hold back.
Cole—his brother, his world.
It wasn't fair.
Why did it have to be like this?
Why had they been born into pain and suffering?
Why was he leaving Cole behind…?
His chest ached. His vision blurred. The cold was back—but this time, it was everywhere.
"C… Cole?" His voice barely made it out. "Get me some water… please…?"
Cole didn't hesitate. He moved his staggering legs fast, half-lifting Medici, easing him onto the bed with trembling arms. Tucked a pillow under his head. His hands were shaking.
"I'll be right back," Cole whispered. "Just hold on."
Thud. Thud. Thud.
His footsteps echoed down the hall.
On the bed, Medici stared at the ceiling. His lips parted. His fingers twitched once. His eyes dulled.
He died.