In this place, solitude was a blessing. For the young and the old, to be alone was the best comfort as could be provided by the goddess Martel. Away from the agony of other prisoners and away from the beasts that drove them, like cattle, to work for the empty promises of food, water, and mercy. Here, everyone was reduced to the same state. Barbarians shackled by barbarians. Family, friends, and lovers reduced to nothing. Gather them all together and you have a room of empty stares. Not a word spoken, not a sound made. Place a husband next to a wife and find no recognition, not that they would try. A mother next to her child, and there would be no bond. To be a prisoner of a human ranch meant death to one's soul except for the luckiest captives of all, those of a mother pregnant upon arrival, birthed within these cold, stone walls. Life for them was never tasted, so life for them was never lost.

Fresh captives take a while to break. A lively spirit takes longer to kill. They resist and they disobey, but it is of no consequence to the results produced. In the end, everyone walks with the same stride, breathes the same shallow breaths, and is adorned with the same parasitic gem.

This was not the case for Asgard's cell section A. Oftentimes the company of other prisoners was infrequent. Granted precious isolation in their cells for days at length, their spiritual life was prolonged. Starved at the same rate, they were not forced to work, but to "perform", a term crowned by subject A001, the first and long since deceased test subject of section A. It was the simple routines that kept them sane. "Performing", or running until complete exhaustion, was to be undertaken daily. Food four times a week. Water left in the cell after each performance if the subject behaves. Beatings as the overseer deemed appropriate, which usually meant multiple times day and night.

All of this had been explained to Kratos in the time it took for him to make his way with his guide into section A's testing room. "It is my understanding that Lord Yggdrasil sent you to observe our experiments in making what he desires," the guide said, releasing the security on the door at the far side of the room.

His "guide" was little more than a well dressed murderer. He was a thin man, slightly tall, with the smallest and blackest of eyes and a disturbing smile. If his unnaturally whitened hair did not betray him for the half elf he was, his point-crested ears certainly did. His name was Kvar, and he was notorious for being the very ambitious and very cruel leader of the Asgard human ranch.

"Through here we have the host bodies. Currently there are only four that meet the requirements. We had a bit of a… disagreement with two of them just yesterday and they were disposed of," the half elf smiled to himself, "but I am sure these will be to your liking."

In the dark, the hall looked less providing than a dungeon. A foul odor exuded each cell, obviously vomit and excrement that had been festering for months. Heavy panting could be heard from three of the four captives as they were dragged from their cells by the Desian guards. The silent fourth human, having fainted from exhaustion was dragged out by the hair, bare legs scraping against the floor as they returned to the testing facility. Judging from their size, they were barely a child.

"It is necessary for the host bodies to undergo tremendous stress during cultivation." Kvar explained, watching two of the Desians attempt to wake the unconscious human with kicks and jabs. They rocked back and forth with hollow thuds.

"Disgusting whelp!" One Desian yelled before finally giving up.

"Regardless," Kvar motioned to the conscious trio who were slumped to the floor, "shall we begin?"

"No. It is pointless to begin when they can not even stand. I would have thought you would want me to witness their full potential. Unless, of course, you think this is a game," Kratos glanced at Kvar as he spoke, warning in his voice. "Lord Yggdrasil would not be impressed at your inability to preserve these humans."

"One finds a dog anywhere. Lord Yggdrasil knows how expendable a filthy creature is. Especially those that show little promise."

Kratos ignored the overseer and approached the living dead before him. Never an incredibly bulky man, Kratos felt strangely aware of how tall and broad his body was in comparison to them. Their rags were worn and stained and hung from bony shoulders to their thin, sickly legs. If there was a woman among them, he could not tell. Each of them had the same short hair and were so undefined in form that they all appeared asexual. He stood in front of each of them, lifted each chin, stared into each eye, but caught not a spark from them. A ghost among ghosts, he was. He wasn't real. The running for hours with no escape, the crack of the whip… that was the reality. Humanity, or at least the shape of it, was a phantom. The teasing mistress calling to them from deeper insanity.

He knew just how they felt. If they were seeing with those eyes, they would look upon the same empty ones staring back at them. He felt nothing for their suffering. He had nothing to feel.

"I will report the minimum requirements are being met." Kratos turned to the door and began his departure. The only thing that nipped at his apathy was his apathy itself. In all his years he had become so…

…

"Lifeless?"

"Exactly. People fear and despise what is different. The only solution is for everyone to become the same."

"That isn't acceptance," Kratos said, "that is emptiness."

Yggdrasil crossed his legs and calmly pressed his fist to his chin. "The solution is to make everyone the same race. That is what Martel wanted…" His eyes drifted from Kratos to the ceiling.

Kratos shook his head. "This is absurd."

"Then what should I do, Kratos?" Yggdrasil bitterly snapped, "Revive Martel into a world that would drag her back down into death? Pointless! Humans and elves will always stay the same."

Yggdrasil stood and paced slowly and angrily. "I am going to create the perfect world for her rebirth, regardless of whether or not you aid me."

A careful silence followed. Kratos felt something stir inside him. Was it the fear of retribution? Or the fact that Mithos had pushed his madness too far for Kratos to ignore? Mithos, his once wonderful student… the fallen hero of the Kharlan War…

"Kratos." Yggdrasil stared at him with narrowed eyes. "You are rejecting me?"

"What you are doing is not what Martel wanted," Kratos replied. He felt energized and aware for the first time in years. It would be almost thrilling, had the situation not been so sad. He fixed his gaze on Yggdrasil whose agitation was rising. "We must change what we have done by reuniting the worlds, not destroying them."

Yggdrasil's rage was consumed by a sudden fit of frantic laughter. "You? You are betraying me? You, Kratos?" The laughter rose, a high, unsettling giggle. "Fine. Go! In fact, run."

Kratos kept his gaze steady.

"I said, run! Run from what you have done at my side! I'll be glad to see you do it," his words were flat but tinged with acid, "I am where I am because of you."

…

"You!" The guard yelled, bringing his whip down upon the back of F519 with a snap. "Get up!"

It had been years since he had set foot in these sheered, stone walls, yet Kratos detected no obvious differences, save for the occupants of the cells. Nearly every face had been replaced and those who were unfortunate enough to have been spared the merciful embrace of death for more than a decade knew little of what had changed around them. The Age of Lifeless Beings was flourishing right before his eyes.

The younger, fresher captives were an obvious contrast to any other prisoner. The eyes that peered at him with deep hatred and resentment held such a contrasting liveliness that it would have been impossible to hide.

"We received no word from Lord Kvar of your arrival," the gruff half-elf before him began as he guided them through multiple hallways and doors, "but as second in command, I will not deny a member of Cruxis."

"A wise decision. Unfortunately," Kratos removed his blade from his side and plunged it into the heart of the lone half elf before him, "not one that saved your life."

His blade slid from the man's chest and back to where he had produced it from in a single, quiet motion. A soft gurgling rose in the larger man's throat but quieted when he slumped to the floor, lifeless. Kratos had put himself on a short timer until every soldier in the ranch would be hunting for him. The brief look at the report on A012 was hopefully all that was needed to locate her, if she was even still alive.

"You seem… lost… Have you found… what you were looking… for?" A voice from the first cell, raspy and strained, drifted from the battered form of the section's only current resident. The dim light danced in her downcast eyes. Her small, pointed shoulders were drawn up around herself in a weak attempt at self defense. The coarse material which served as her clothing was a sickly hue of brown and green, not much unlike her skin, which lacked the color that even the dying possessed. Her dry lips pressed into a thin smile. "I remember you..."

Her words were faint and faded. From time to time, it seemed to him as if she couldn't remember the words she was trying to say. She spoke of his inspection years ago, revealing herself as the "unconscious" fourth human. She said what she did as if only to confirm the memory with herself. It was not an angry accusation. He felt the bitter sting of guilt; it was his inaction that had led her here. What needed to be done to stop the production of the Cruxis crystals and halt the ascension of the Age of Lifeless Beings he did not know, as he did not fully understand the experimentation. But what better place to begin searching for answers than with the only known successful host to the source of the problem?

Kratos slid aside the rusted bars that separated them with little effort. Her body was shaking as she sat on the floor, half facing away from him, hands clasped together over her knees.

"Come," Kratos commanded, turning back toward the only entrance to the room. It would not be long before someone found the Desian's body. He had obtained the vessel of the knowledge which he had been seeking. He had little time to spare in evacuating it from it's moldy prison.

She shifted mechanically to follow, small feet issuing hardly a sound as they exited into the testing facility. Noticing the bloodied body not far from the doorway, her heart began to quicken. Her footfalls ceased at a center section of the floor automatically. Kratos glanced at her from over his shoulder as she stared at him expectantly.

"What are you doing?" he asked, earning a bewildered stare.

"Is it… not the same testing… today?" Her dark eyes were very large and very aware for such a long time resident of a human ranch. He kept a careful, emotionless mask. She was scanning him for clues. "It is… as the others… have departed… then?"

"There is no time for this," he informed. His fingers slid over the key panel, opening the next door. "I wish to speak with you outside. Come."

She followed his stride with fits of nervousness. Corridors the farther from the previous room looked less and less familiar. They passed halls of other prisoners that she had never even known were there. All these years she never heard a sound from her cell after the others had all been taken away, one by one, never to return. It was heartbreaking to know that countless people had been suffering this way for an unimaginable amount of time.

"Where are we going?" She inquired with mounting anxiety. In this place, they always followed routine. If it wasn't time for testing, it was time to be fed. If it wasn't time to be alone, it was time to be beaten. She hadn't even gone outside the testing room in years. She felt the quickening of panic grab hold of her and take control. The man she was following would not respond, but she knew. She knew this was it. She was going to be killed.

She halted in the middle of the floor. Kratos took immediate notice and grabbed her wrist. No sooner than he had, the sharp wail of sirens filled the air. Her fear seemed to turn her veins to ice. Taking the small chance the distraction had given her, she broke from his grip and dashed for the next door. Stumbling from the force it took to break his grip, she barely managed to glide to the door and outside with wondrous speed.

The alarming shouts of the Desians filled the air. Her panic was nearly crippling. Her eyes burned and her heart pounded as tears streamed down her face. She stole away beside a small, gated door to gather her thoughts. There was something about the door, she thought, that was strangely appealing. It was small and square, barely wide enough for a man's shoulders to squeeze through, made of shining silver metal. A perfect hiding place. Alerted by the tromping of boots, she hid herself against the wall as another pair of Desians went dashing by. She had no time to reason out the fine details, she decided, and pulled at the thin metal framing with all her might.

"Come on…" she strained as the two lower bolts snapped off. The unnatural sound of scraping metal against metal was heard from down the hall. In desperation, she tugged at the wires and snapped the third corner off. It was a miracle she had gotten it this far off its hinges, but her luck had drained. Screams were crying out from the direction she had come from. With a final pull, the weak gate snapped off and sent her backwards, falling right into the view of a particularly fearsome Desian… or at least, his head, as it was swiped clean from his neck with a slash from the deadly flaming blade of the man she had been shadowing earlier.

Hot blood spun off the mass and spattered across the floor, her face, and up the wall. Eyes filled with terror met cold, unmoving ones. She jumped to her feet as he parried an attack from behind and sent the attacker to the wall. As fast as humanly possible, she place her head and neck within the small, square hole and began pulling herself up into the small space.

"Wait!" The man shouted at her as she scrambled up toward a horizontal cavity. It was much larger but still confined. She felt fingers grabbing for her feet as she hoisted herself up onto the slick surface of what she guessed was the ventilation system. 'Wait'? Really? That man was insane if he thought she was going to wait for him to slice her head off too.

After what seemed like an hour of crawling on her stomach, the siren's cry began to cool into a low whine. Sometimes the passage was almost too narrow to allow her. Sometimes she would have to slide down vertically and twist herself into the next space, or climb up in the same fashion she first entered. The weight of the situation hadn't yet nestled on her shoulders, she realized, as her exhaustion was beginning to slow her advance. She briefly remembered the looks on the faces of the prisoners she had discovered and felt guilt well up inside of her. She swallowed hard and slid her way around a corner that seemed abnormally rusted and dirty. There were so many paths she could have taken along the way that she was sure that she was lost. A trail of dark, crumpled objects drew her closer to what looked like a dead end. Up until this, it had been impossible to see in the unlit, metal pathway. But she was sure she was perceiving these, and as she reached out to examine one, it crunched under the light pressure of her fingers.

These familiar things… "Leaves..?" she murmured to herself. Reaching out, she groped at another similar, but badly rusted gate like the one she had broken to enter the duct. Her excitement and nervousness swept away her fatigue as she felt through the openings in the wire at more withered plants and sticks. A pale light could barely be seen on the other side. There was no choice but to risk whatever would be there. She knew that they would be track her eventually. If they were waiting for her out there, then she would just have to finally give up.

Her foot pounded at the gate, powered by her strong, wiry legs. Years of running as one of her many forms of torture had built up their strength tremendously, but her fear had kept them frail and weak. Rusted metal sliced through her skin but this fixture snapped off much easier than the previous one. She dug her way through the pile of dead foliage that had obscured the exit she had so desperately been searching for. A cool breeze coaxed her out of the labyrinth, into a tree speckled hillside.

It was breathtaking. Night carpeted the entire earth and stars blanketed a sky lit dully with the sickly glow of the moon. At her back was the prison that threatened to break her. To her front, a beautiful, wide unknown, blessedly free of Desians. It was hardly a choice for her to continue forward before she was caught. She had to find someone to help her free the others.

It was not long before her wonder and merriment subsided. Every step she took was far too loud on the brittle sticks and leaves, and often alerted whatever was shuffling around the forest to her presence. More than once, she found herself holding her breath, unmoving for what seemed like an eternity, only to find that nothing was there. Frustrated, she sank to the ground in tears.

"I have no way to tell… where to go…" she wheezed lightly. Words tore at her vocal chords from years of neglect. She was incredibly lucky to have been drawn from that cell when she was. Without the meal she had been given minutes before that man had arrived she would have never made it so far as opening the entrance to the ducts.

Branches covered with broad, mossy leaves groaned and shifted in the breeze. Noisy brush made it impossible to hear if an attacker lurked behind even the closest of trees. The whole situation seemed completely hopeless.

"This…" she gasped, as she made her way into an overgrown clearing. The thick, pungent smell of gore rose from the grass. Two men in typical Desian dressings stared at her with lifeless eyes, or what was left of them. Each body had been adorned with bursting melted gashes. Entrails and chips of broken bone slopped from one's stomach to his side, a blood soaked nest of blue and purple coils. Another three lay silent to the right, in more or less the same condition. Her fingers rose to her dirty face, fingering the dried Desian's blood. The sour taste of bile rose into her throat and threatened to exit. Had that person really made it out of the human ranch alive?

A sense of dread rose and consumed her as a trail of thickening blood led her eyes to the confirmation of her fears. The red haired man was to the far side of the slaughter, slowly advancing. He looked little more than a demon, decorated with the blood of many once terrifying men.

She sank to the ground in her despair.

"We can not linger here. Get up, Anna."

Anna…?

"How do you..? Where… where are we-" Her words retreated into her throat as he gripped her upper arm and pulled her to her feet, bloody and raw from the abuse of her escape. Intent on avoiding other massacres, she relinquished her new found freedom, however temporary.

"Little time remains before we are pursued. We will speak when we have crossed enough distance," his voice was stone, absolute. He shrugged off his damp, red muffler and placed it over her shoulders. Its rough fabric, once a dull gray was soaked with blood across it's back. She tore it from her body in disgust, casting it to her feet, choosing the thin layer of remaining wetness to shield her from the cold. Whether or not the act offended her captor, he didn't care to say.

She feared she might wretch as her feet slid across bits of gooey blood and innards while he guided her from the field, her malnourished wrist dwarfed in his iron grip.

A012 "Anna" had always possessed keen observation and carefulness. But to her misfortune, the goddess Martel also blessed her with a sharp tongue and enough ill luck for a dozen men. Half mad with exhaustion, confusion, and hunger, it was the latter gifts she chose to exercise.

"I wonder where it is… you come from," she began, each breath searing her lungs, "that would have raised you… with so little manners… "

If her captor had been troubled enough to reply, she was unable to take notice. Her whole chest felt like it was aflame. Her hands like ice pressed against her skin as she placed her bony fingers to her throat in a feeble effort to cool her blood. The sleek surface of her parasitic exsphere was scalding hot to the touch where it lay buried deep between her collar bones.

Anna waved her hand in front of her face, but saw four. There was a high ring in her ears mixed with muffled sounds. The blurry figure of her captor turned to face her before the world suddenly tilted on its axis. She felt the air rush through her hair and something hard hit her in the back. A tingling in her fingers spread up through her limbs and filled her with the heaviness of lead.

Then she sank into a feverish unconsciousness.