Animaly (One-shot)

“Once upon a time, I dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was myself. Soon I awaked, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do not know whether I was then a man dreaming I was a butterfly, or whether I am now a butterfly, dreaming I am a man.”

— Ancient Eastern Paradox

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PART 1: THE COLD RAIN AND THE BLUEPRINT

The rain in London did not fall. It bled from a monolithic grey sky, washing over the slick, soot-stained bricks of Victoria Street. 06:00 AM. The air tasted of wet slate, diesel exhaust, and bitter, old empire dust.

Standing beneath the leaking awning of a corner café, Alistair Psychas curled his leather-gloved fingers tightly around a paper cup of black Americano. Scalding heat from the cardboard was the only sensation keeping him anchored to the waking world.

Beneath his dark tailored trench coat, his shoulders carried a perpetual, invisible weight. Twenty-five years old, yet his slate-grey eyes looked chronically exhausted, staring unblinkingly at neon bus reflections shattering in the puddles.

Data. To Alistair, the world was nothing but raw, defensive data. Rain trajectories, underground train tremors, the micro-expressions of pale commuters—everything was calculated and processed like computer code.

Logic was his fortress. Working for London’s specialized, anomalous crime division meant logic was the only barrier against madness.

But logic was a freezing, lonely architecture.

Taking a slow sip, Alistair let the bitter liquid coat his tongue. His mind drifted back to the phantom sensation that had jolted him awake three hours prior.

Ozone. Dried roses. Black leather zhirah-fabric.

He had dreamed of her again.

This recurring anomaly had haunted his neurology since childhood, long before he ever wore a detective’s badge. A gothic-punk vision with sharp, asymmetrical black armor plates layered over neural-patterned kinetic fabrics. She never spoke. Yet, in those dreams, Alistair didn't just watch her from afar.

He experienced the terrifyingly beautiful phenomenon of being her.

Closing his heavy eyelids every night meant receding into a profound, velvety dark. Then, like a synaptic switch flipping, a different set of eyes would open. He would feel the weight of a massive, unyielding broadsword. Absolute inner peace. Unwavering, fierce competence. Cosmic intuition so sharp it made his real-world deduction look pathetic.

"Hahh... time for my second life to take over."

Alistair would whisper those words into the quiet, suffocating darkness of his bedroom before waking up. It was a purely defensive coping mechanism. A psychological fortress built against a world that gave him every single reason to despise human connection.

Four times. No, five. Six times, counting the desperate rebounds. Alistair had tried to love in the waking world, only to date women who lived for shallow validation and exhaustive, dramatic arguments. They demanded an unbreakable rock, while slowly chipping away his peace.

The absolute apex of his cynicism arrived fourteen months ago. The engagement. A platinum ring that cost three months of his detective's salary. A chosen flat.

Then, a week before the announcement, the data broke. A string of text messages on an iPad left on the kitchen counter. A betrayal so casual, so completely devoid of empathy.

Remorse did not exist during the confrontation. Only loud, chaotic, victim-blaming drama that left his apartment feeling like a brutal crime scene.

That was the day Alistair Psychas died a little. Human women did not want his soul; they wanted an anchor for their own chaotic, untamed tempests.

So, his brilliant, broken mind built an impenetrable wall around his empathy. In that defensive isolation, his subconscious took the dream-girl from his childhood and perfected her.

Cool, stoic, fiercely protective, intensely logical, yet fundamentally empathetic. Since she didn't exist in London, his mind engineered her out of pure longing.

The irony was a beautiful, cruel sickness: Alistair was hopelessly in love with a ghost living inside his own nervous system.

Entirely heterosexual, he didn't want to be a woman. He simply craved her strength. Her protection from the shallow chaos of reality. He worshiped her like an idol, internalizing her silent essence until he couldn't tell where Alistair ended and the blueprint began.

A high-pitched chime shattered his thoughts.

Pulling an encrypted tablet from his coat pocket, blue light reflected off his sharp jawline. A notification from the Independent Anomalous Crimes Branch flashed in urgent, crimson text.

[ANOMALY ALERT: LOCATION - ALDWYCH DISUSED TUBE STATION. TWO CASUALTIES REPORTED. APPARENT SYNAPTIC DRAIN. DETECTIVE PSYCHAS ASSIGNED IMPERATIVE.]

Exhaustion instantly vanished, replaced by the cold, calculating focus of a predator. Tossing the empty cup into a nearby bin, Alistair stepped out from under the awning and into the freezing London rain.

The dream was no longer content with staying behind his eyes.

PART 2: THE LOGIC OF A BROKEN HEART

Cold air rushed from the mouth of the abandoned Aldwych tube station. It carried the scent of century-old dust and stagnant water. Yellow police tape fluttered violently against the rusted iron gates. London was still waking up outside, but down here, time had stopped entirely.

Footsteps echoed softly on the grime-covered tiles. Descending the stairs, Alistair kept his tactical flashlight low. The sharp beam cut through the heavy darkness, illuminating faded theater posters from the 1940s. Every step downward felt like leaving reality behind.

Click.

The law enforcement tablet updated with the victims' files. Two urban explorers. Found by a maintenance crew an hour ago.

Reaching the platform, Alistair froze. His flashlight locked onto the scene. Instantly, his detective mind began sorting the raw data.

Two bodies sat propped against the tiled wall. Slumped over like they had simply fallen asleep mid-conversation. No signs of a struggle. No blood. No visible wounds. Yet, their skin carried a horrific, translucent paleness. Wide-open eyes stared blankly into the empty train tracks.

Total brain death.

Their cerebral cortexes looked like they had been squeezed dry. Stepping closer, Alistair knelt in front of the nearest victim. He pulled off his leather glove, pressing two fingers against the cold neck. No pulse. The skin felt like solid ice.

"Synaptic drain."

Alistair muttered the diagnosis into the heavy silence.

This entity did not feast on flesh. It consumed the very essence of human consciousness. Based on the neural paralysis patterns, the math was simple: the creature attacked when its prey reached peak emotional vulnerability—fear, isolation, or despair.

Suddenly, a sharp pang hit his chest.

Memories of the night his engagement shattered flashed without permission. The selfish screams of his ex-fiancée. The sound of a platinum ring bouncing uselessly on the flat's floorboards. The suffocating loneliness that had followed him for the last fourteen months. In a place filled with negative residual energy, his old trauma acted like a magnet.

Breathing slowly, Alistair forced the memory down. Logic was his shield. He could not afford a single crack in his emotional walls during an active investigation.

A distortion above the victims' heads caught his attention. The air in front of the old brick wall was warping, vibrating slightly like a desert mirage.

Faint, neon-red lines resembled a tangled web of nerves. They slowly crept through the cracks in the mortar. Residual anomalous energy.

Following the red threads with his eyes, Alistair traced them deeper into the subway system. They converged directly toward the pitch-black mouth of the train tunnel. The suspect's escape route.

Checking his coat pocket, he ensured the tactical pistol loaded with cosmic-sanction rounds was secure. Standard protocol dictated waiting for the containment unit from headquarters. However, the energy frequency of the distortion was already fading. If he didn't move now, the anomaly would vanish into London's subterranean maze and find another victim.

With a final glance at the empty shells on the platform, Alistair stepped off the ledge and onto the dark tracks.

The cold inside the tunnel was different now. It wasn't just a drop in atmospheric temperature. It was a psychological pressure tapping directly into his nervous system, softly whispering the guilt of his failed past.

Deep in the silent dark, Alistair knew he was walking straight into a trap designed specifically for a broken heart.

## PART 3: THE SHATTERED GLASS

Darkness inside the underground tunnel did not feel like a lack of light. It felt like an absolute vacuum. The rhythmic crunch of gravel beneath Alistair’s boots stopped echoing, the sound waves dying instantly in the heavy, stagnant air.

There was no fear. Fear required an emotional investment in survival, and Alistair had run out of that currency years ago.

Blink.

The violet beam of his tactical flashlight did not flicker; it simply flattened. The cone of light lost its depth, painting the brick walls ahead like a cheap, two-dimensional photograph.

Alistair stopped. He raised his right hand to adjust his coat, but the sensation failed to register. His fingers were still moving, his logic confirmed the motor function, but the nerve endings had gone completely numb.

The anomaly was not a monster. It possessed no malice, no twisted intent, and no voice. It was merely a tear in the fabric of space—a localized neurological black hole that pulled the electrical currents out of human synapses.

Agnosia.

His brain began losing the ability to process spatial data. The perspective of the train tracks warped, curving upward into an impossible vertical wall that his logical mind knew wasn't there. The geometry of the world was breaking down, and with it, his cognitive fortress.

Thump... Thump...

His heartbeat did not accelerate. It slowed down, dropping into a dangerously lethargic rhythm. The neon-red threads in the mortar cracks didn't pulse with anger; they simply bled out, absorbing the remaining color from the environment.

The world was losing its saturation. The deep blacks and grays of the tunnel faded into a static, washed-out white noise, resembling a television screen losing its signal.

Alistair dropped his tactical pistol. The heavy steel weapon hit the gravel with a soundless thud. He didn't bother to pick it up. His knees gave way, and he slumped against the cold, damp stone of the tunnel wall.

He felt entirely detached from his own flesh. It was the ultimate extension of the numbness he practiced every day in London. When his fiancée had left him, his heart had done exactly this—it had shut down the grid to prevent a meltdown. Now, the anomaly was just finishing the job, turning off the lights in his brain one by one.

Signal fading. Cerebral cortex capacity: 14%.

His internal monologue felt distant, like an echoing voice in an empty auditorium. He looked at his pale hands, which were now dissolving into blurred, static lines of biological data.

A strange, serene katarsis washed over his dying consciousness. He didn't feel the panic of a dying man. Instead, he felt a profound, liberating wave of apathy.

If the waking world could be erased this easily, if his human body could disintegrate without pain, then Alistair Psychas had never been real. The detective, the broken engagements, the gray London streets—it was all just a tedious, poorly constructed dream.

The epigraph of the ancient paradox finally clicked in his fading mind.

I am not a man dreaming of a girl.

I am the girl, dreaming that I am a broken, twenty-five-year-old man.

The realization was a beautiful, absolute certainty. The identity of Alistair was a glitch, a temporary nightmare he was finally about to wake up from. He surrendered his grip on his human ego, completely letting go of the biological anchor. He welcomed the shutdown.

Identity deleted.

In the exact millisecond his consciousness touched absolute zero, the empty vacuum of his mind triggered the ultimate synaptic defense. The blueprint of the girl—the massive, unyielding reservoir of cosmic energy stored in his hipokampus—flooded the dead neural pathways.

A silent, blinding flash of pure cosmic violet erupted from his flatlining heart, shattering the monochrome reality of the tunnel.

PART 4: THE DISSOCIATIVE AWAKENING

Violet flashes did not explode. Instead, the cosmic light imploded, collapsing the monochrome tunnel into a single, silent pinpoint.

Snap.

Coordinates of space underwent an absolute biological trade in a fraction of a millisecond. Faster than a human eye could track, Alistair Psychas vanished from the tracks. His male detective body was shunted backward, sinking deep into a profound, isolated reservoir within his own brain.

Welcome to the Lucid Dream Void.

Outside, in the waking world, the empty coordinate did not remain vacant. Biological matter restructured itself at a terrifying, subatomic speed. Out of the cold air, a new form crystallized, dropping onto the gravel with absolute, heavy stability.

A girl now stood where the detective had just fallen.

Nineteen years old, approximately. Her silhouette was a striking, dangerous contrast against the dirty brickwork of the London subway. She wore a sleek, asymmetric Gothic Tech-Wear design rather than heavy comic-book armor. High-collar matte black kinetic fabric hugged her frame, layered with flowing, tattered Victorian coattails that absorbed the dim crimson light of the area.

Ghostly silver hair framed a face that was stunningly beautiful, yet terrifyingly expressionless. Slowly, her eyes opened.

Slate-grey. The exact same color Alistair had carried his entire life.

Deep inside the sensory-deprived sanctuary of the Void, Alistair found himself floating. He had no arms, no legs, and no voice. He was merely an eye—a silent passenger sitting behind the optic nerves of the girl.

A profound, shocking warmth washed over his displaced soul. For fourteen months, his chest had felt like an empty, hollow crater. Now, the ache was entirely gone, replaced by the crushing, protective density of her presence. He was hopelessly in love with this feeling. He was in love with her.

There was no panic between them. No screaming thoughts. Her mind operated on the exact same icy apathy that Alistair used as a shield against London. She adjusted to the physical world like an experienced machine waking up from hibernation, completely unbothered by her new body.

Reaching her right hand to the side, her fingers—clad in dark tech gloves—curled around empty air.

Hum.

Space beside her cracked open. From the tear in reality, she dragged out a massive, glowing astral broadsword. The Lucid Blade. Lacking a physical edge, its long, flat surface vibrated with pure, compressed consciousness, radiating a soft violet aura that forced the red distortion to hiss.

Suddenly, the distorted walls of the subway began to bulge.

From the shifting, mirror-like brickwork, a creature crawled out. It was a low-level manifestation of the anomaly—a grotesque, skinless entity made of shifting shadow and broken glass fragments, straight out of a dark, mirror-dimension nightmare. It let out a soundless screech, its jaw unhinging as it prepared to feast on the girl's consciousness.

Silver hair swayed slightly as she shifted her stance. Her face remained a perfect, stoic mask of indifference. She didn't flinch, nor did she show fear.

Inside her head, Alistair watched in absolute awe. Her cold logic was identical to his, but her power was absolute.

Raising the massive violet blade with a single, effortless motion, she prepared to erase the nightmare from her path.

PART 5: THE SYMPHONY OF NEURAL SEVERING

Shards of mirror-glass screeched against the gravel. A shadow beast lunged with unnatural speed, forming a chaotic blur of dark limbs aimed directly for her throat.

Deep inside the Void, Alistair’s detective brain computed the data instantly. Trajectory, velocity, angle of attack—everything converted into faint, glowing ghost paths across their shared vision. Pre-cognitive synergy worked with absolute flawlessness. Alistair calculated the variables; Anima executed the response.

Sidestepping with effortless elegance, she let the creature pass inches from her tattered Victorian coattails. Panic did not exist in her movement, only a fluid, practiced dance.

Whoosh.

Down came the massive Lucid Blade in a vertical arc, striking the beast mid-air.

No physical blood erupted. Instead, a violent shockwave of compressed neural energy exploded outward as the astral steel cleaved the monster's consciousness. Synapses severed instantly, leaving the blade bone-dry.

Psychic paralysis froze the creature mid-motion. Waves of suppressed data, raw emotional static, and chaotic noise ripped away from its core.

Floating within her mind, Alistair experienced the absolute thrill of her movements. He did not just watch the fight; he felt the incredible kinetic harmony of her body. Every muscle contraction, every shift in weight, and the cool focus radiating from her soul resonated within him. She was a beautiful, dangerous masterpiece—the ultimate ideal, untouched by the filth of the real world.

Sensing its impending erasure, the skinless entity tried to reform its shattered geometry, thrashing blindly on the train tracks.

Step. Pivot. Strike.

Anima denied it any chance of survival. She moved forward like a silent wraith, unleashing two swift, horizontal slashes. Violet light illuminated the dark tunnel, painting ancient bricks in a serene, cosmic hue.

Crack.

Deep fractures spread across the shadow form. One final, silent scream escaped its unhinged jaw before the monster disintegrated into glittering glass dust. Mirror dimensions fractured, collapsing back into normal subway space.

Silence returned to the Aldwych line.

Low vanished the broadsword, leaving her hands completely free. She adjusted her high collar, checking the matte black kinetic fabric. Danger had passed, but their shared mental battery was draining fast. Returning to a broken male body in this cold, subterranean dust felt repulsive. Her presence was too addictive.

Turning away from the platform, she left the unconscious urban explorers behind. She stepped into the shadows of a maintenance exit, utilizing residual void energy to bypass London's rainy streets entirely.

Flicker.

Space bent around her tech-wear boots. In a heartbeat, she slipped out of the subway and materialized directly inside Alistair’s quiet, suffocating flat.

Rain lashed against the windowpanes. Ambient light from the neon skyline leaked through the glass, casting long shadows across the floorboards. Everything remained exactly as he had left it—the cold coffee mug, the unmade bed, the suffocating atmosphere of a lonely man's sanctuary.

Still clad in her tattered Victorian coattails, the silver-haired heroine absorbed the silence of his life.

Inside the Void, Alistair felt a bizarre, intoxicating rush of dissonance. He looked at his own apartment through her eyes. His consciousness occupied the body of the only woman he had ever truly loved, standing inside the room where his heart broke fourteen months ago.

Slowly, she walked toward the bathroom, her heels making a soft, sharp click against the hardwood.

Fronting the vanity mirror, she stopped and raised her head. Slate-grey eyes locked onto the glass reflection.

Through the mirror, two halves of the same soul stared directly into each other.

PART 6: THE MIRROR OF SELF-LOVE

Glass surfaces never lied, but tonight, the vanity mirror completely broke Alistair’s remaining sanity.

Standing in the dim bathroom of the flat, the silver-haired heroine looked straight ahead. Her slate-grey eyes focused on the silver reflection. Yet, the mirror did not show her gothic-techwear attire or her ghostly silver hair.

Alistair looked back at her from inside the glass.

Instantly, his reflection froze. His pale face contorted into a look of absolute, unadulterated shock. His jaw practically dropped to the floorboards. Inside the reflection, Alistair frantically checked his own hands, patted his chest, and leaned so close to the glass his nose almost flattened against it. He looked like a man who had just witnessed his own ghost.

Outside the glass, Anima simply blinked.

Her face remained a perfect, unbothered slab of stone. Her expression was completely flat—not a single muscle moved on her stunningly beautiful countenance. She watched her own reflection have a miniature existential panic attack with the casual indifference of someone watching paint dry.

Slowly, Anima raised her right hand. Her tech-gloved fingers tapped the cold mirror with a dull clink.

Inside the reflection, Alistair jumped back a little, startled by the sound. He pointed a shaking finger at her, his lips moving frantically in a silent, panicked tirade.

“What is this?! Why am I in the mirror?! Why are you out there?! Are we broken?!” Alistair mouthed, his usual calculative detective brain completely short-circuiting under the absurd weight of the situation.

Anima didn't change her expression. She tilted her head by a mere fraction of a degree. Her lips moved in a slow, painfully calm response, completely contrasting his silent screaming.

“Calm down,” she mouthed back, her face still peak flat-face. “You look ridiculous.”

Hearing his own subconscious soulmate call him ridiculous made Alistair’s reflection stop mid-panic. He blinked, adjusted his trench coat with a cough of sheer embarrassment, and tried to regain his professional composure. It was a bizarre, humiliating realization: the only woman who truly understood his mind, the ideal partner he was hopelessly in love with... was currently judging him with a deadpan stare from his own bathroom floor.

Suddenly, a violent tremor rippled through the glass. Faint violet sparkles began to flake off from her silver hair, dissolving into gray dust. Their shared battery had reached its absolute limit.

Alistair pressed his palm against the glass, his expression turning serious again as he realized their time was running out.

Anima placed her gloved hand over his reflected palm. Her slate-grey eyes finally softened, just a tiny bit, though her face remained mostly flat. Her lips moved one final time before the switch occurred.

“Don't forget to buy coffee tomorrow,” she mouthed deadpan. “And love yourself.”

Snap.

A blinding flash of violet light claimed the bathroom, forcing the mirror to go completely dark for a single microsecond.

PART 7: THE COLD REALITY AND THE GLASS VISITOR

Gravity reclaimed the bathroom with a brutal, unforgiving thud.

Instead of waking up comfortably in bed, Alistair hit the cold tile floor face-first. The violet light vanished completely, leaving his twenty-five-year-old male body aching in the dim morning light. Exhaustion kept him pinned down. Using the bathmat as a makeshift pillow, he closed his eyes again, passing out until the sun fully rose over London.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

Blaring loud and clear from the living room, his phone alarm rang at 07:30 AM.

Groaning heavily, Alistair dragged his sore muscles off the floor. His back popped in three places. He turned the tap, splashed cold water over his skin to wash away the fatigue, and grabbed a towel.

Looking up into the mirror, he completely froze.

The glass did not reflect his bathroom wall at all. Instead, it functioned like an active video call to an entirely different realm. Through the pane, he saw a quiet, misty sanctuary filled with ancient stone arches and floating violet embers.

Anima stood in the center of her own world, looking directly out at him. Her presence carried a profound, elegant warmth. She possessed a serene, deeply empathetic nature, her eyes radiating a quiet compassion that immediately softened the cold room. There was no judgment in her gaze, only a calm, understanding patience.

"Great. You're still here," Alistair muttered, leaning against the sink.

Inside the glass, Anima walked gracefully closer to her side of the invisible barrier. Her silver hair caught the phantom light of her dimension. Her lips moved in a slow, expressive cadence, her voice echoing straight into his mind.

“Your energy is entirely depleted, Alistair. You should have rested in bed, not on the floor.”

"Easy for you to say. You didn't just crash out of reality," Alistair whispered back, a faint touch of irritation masking his exhaustion. "And how am I supposed to fix my hair or shave if your entire apartment keeps overriding my screen? I can't even see my own face."

Anima tilted her head, a soft, knowing smile finally breaking her composed features. She reached into the folds of her coat, pulled out a small, ornate silver pocket mirror from her own dimension, and flipped it open. She tilted it perfectly toward the screen, reflecting Alistair's messy hair and tired eyes right back to him through the double-layer of glass.

Alistair stared at the ridiculous setup, his lips twitching in sheer annoyance.

"Great," he muttered, completely defeated. "Mirror in the mirror."

Inside the glass, Anima’s smile widened just a fraction, her eyes shimmering with silent amusement. She raised a gloved hand, gently placing the compact mirror away.

“Focus on your breath, Detective. Your appearance is fine. Let me carry the weight of the connection for today.”

Bizarre as it was, her gentle tone and maternal warmth actually calmed his frantic thoughts. He adjusted his collar by pure muscle memory, refusing to look ridiculous in front of his own subconscious soulmate. Grabbing his trench coat and leather gloves, he finally walked away from the sink, rushing out into the busy London streets.

Rain still drizzled over Scotland Yard's specialized branch office.

Entering the bullpen, Alistair sat down at his desk. The familiar smell of stale coffee and printing paper surrounded him. He opened his encrypted tablet to log the incident report, trying to blend into the mundane corporate routine.

However, the public reality of this connection was a logistical nightmare. Every window, every glass partition, and even the dark screen of his turned-off monitor showed glimpses of Anima’s misty sanctuary.

Glancing at a large glass window near the hallway, Alistair accidentally locked eyes with her reflection again. He unconsciously muttered a quick response under his breath. A passing officer stared at Alistair like he was a complete lunatic talking to his own reflection. He quickly coughed, pretending to adjust his earpiece to save face.

"Psychas! My office. Now," a booming voice shattered the quiet hum of the bullpen.

Chief Montgomery stood by the door of the corner office, waving a thick stack of files. The everyday routine of his job was calling. Standing up, Alistair walked toward the office, noting how Anima’s reflection calmly walked alongside him through the glass partitions, acting as a silent, powerful guardian angel over his fragile human life.

PART 8: THE WARM WATER PARADOX

Chief Montgomery’s corner office smelled heavily of old cigar smoke and wet paper. Behind the heavy oak desk, the gray-haired veteran sighed, tossing the incident report aside. He locked his stern eyes onto Alistair, who stood stiffly by the door.

"You look ghastly, Psychas," Montgomery rumbled, waving his hand toward a chair. "Sit down before your knees give out entirely."

Alistair remained standing, his leather gloves tucked tightly under his arm.

"Protocol required immediate exploration, Chief. The anomaly's energy frequency was actively decaying," Alistair explained, keeping his voice carefully level despite his throbbing headache.

Montgomery rubbed his temple, his expression softening into an unexpected sigh of sympathy.

"Listen, Alistair. You're the youngest detective in this specialized division, yet you take on more heavy anomalies than the rest of the bullpen combined. Dedication is admirable, but you are running on empty. You are utterly exhausted."

Before Alistair could formulate a logical counter-argument, Montgomery stood up and grabbed his coat.

"No more paperwork today. Change into something casual. We are settling this burnout before it breaks you," the chief commanded, clapping Alistair on the shoulder.

Thirty minutes later, Alistair found himself bundled up against the early winter breeze, walking alongside Montgomery and two senior detectives from the precinct. They navigated the cold streets toward a historic underground facility located near Covent Garden.

Aether Ancient Baths.

Inspired by historical thermal architectures, the high-end establishment offered an oasis of candlelit underground pools built inside converted brick vaults. Stepping down into the warm, humid air felt like crossing into a completely different climate. Thick clouds of mineral steam rose from the various tepid and hot plunge baths.

Strip down, wash up, soak. The routine was mechanical.

Alistair sank slowly into the forty-degree caldarium pool. The intense heat immediately began to melt the knots in his shoulder muscles. Montgomery and the other two detectives relaxed beside him, letting out long sighs of relief as the thermal water did its magic.

Relaxation, however, remained an elusive concept for Alistair's brain.

Wiping the sweat from his forehead, he glanced toward a large, moisture-fogged glass partition separating the hot pool from the relaxation lounge. The condensation on the surface shimmered, distorting the ambient candlelight.

The shared reality of the mirror was persistent, carving a direct window through the dense vapor.

Through the steamy pane, Alistair did not see the lounge. Instead, the glass opened a crystal-clear view into a beautifully carved marble hot tub situated within a misty sanctuary.

Anima sat lazily inside her own dimensional bath, her silver hair pinned up gracefully to expose the elegant slope of her neck. She was soaking peacefully, completely devoid of her gothic tech-wear armor. Instead, she wore nothing but highly provocative black lace lingerie and a matching thong, her flawless pale skin glistening under the glowing violet embers of her realm.

Her gaze shifted over, locking her calm, expressive slate-grey eyes onto him.

“This water is excellent for neural recovery, Alistair. You should submerge completely,” her serene voice vibrated directly inside his skull.

Alistair’s brain underwent an instantaneous, catastrophic short-circuit. Every ounce of his stoic, professional composure vaporized. His eyes threatened to pop out of his skull, his face turning a deep, unnatural shade of crimson that had absolutely nothing to do with the thermal water.

"What... why are you... in that dress?!" Alistair choked out loud, spluttering as he scrambled backward against the edge of the pool.

Beside him, Detective Miller blinked, turning his head toward the foggy glass partition. Chief Montgomery paused, squinting through the thick steam at the exact same spot.

"What are you shouting about, Psychas? There's nothing there but a wet window," Miller muttered, raising an eyebrow at the young detective's sudden panic.

Montgomery stared at the empty, foggy glass, then looked back at Alistair’s bright red face and trembling shoulders.

Anima tilted her head behind the pane, a faint, highly amused smile gracing her lips as she watched his absolute humiliation. She raised a wet, gloved hand, giving him a gentle, soundless wave through the glass.

“Breath control, Detective,” she reminded him softly.

Unable to process the intense psychological shock of seeing his own subconscious soulmate in such provocative attire while surrounded by his middle-aged colleagues, Alistair’s cognitive system chose absolute surrender. His eyes rolled back. His muscles turned to jelly.

Splash.

He tipped backward, fainting cleanly into the bubbling hot spring pool.

Miller and the other senior detective immediately grabbed Alistair by his armpits, hauling his limp, unconscious body out of the water before he could inhale any of the minerals. They laid him flat on the stone ledge, shaking their heads in mutual, profound confusion.

Chief Montgomery leaned back against the pool edge, adjusting his position while watching his top rookie pass out from sheer relaxation. He let out a slow, deadpan exhale.

"Yeah..." Montgomery remarked with an incredibly light, casual tone. "I think we definitely need to cut back on giving him heavy assignments."