"Mana is extraordinary, Kalon. It is our lifeblood. The very source of our existence." Mother said activating the luminous prism. With a pulse of her mana, the artifact hummed to life, retracting light, as floating projections filled the center of the chamber.

The first display show a map of Enora, dotted with sites where demon outbursts had occurred. Then, the projected flashed. A wave of spectral colors, I realized as mana, swirled. As we watched it, a jagged invisible force slammed into the wave of mana.

"But mana is not the only energy in the world. Beyond the lands of Stygia, into the ocean at the cape of Lemuria, lies and expanse teeming with spirit energy. This spirit energy is the second form of energy in the world. It flows alongside mana."

Again, I looked at the void, a static like distortion shimmered. It flickered as a tear in reality that made my eyes ache and water suddenly. 

"Spirit energy is a variable we cannot control. At least for now." Father said, his brow burrowing. "Ancient race, now extinct, simply because they dared tamper with it. It resulting in being wiped out from history of Enora. We Celestials are the embodiment of mana. We are sensitive to it, but spirit energy... is a poison to our nature. It takes one with heighten enlightenment to even notice it around us... until a mana-shift occurs."

Father stood beside mother, my eyes matched theirs and we looked at the horrifying projection of Celestials contorted and twisted by the distortion. "An upsurge in spirit energy disrupts the mana not in the surrounding but that of our body as well. The effect is immediate. Every being that draws breath from mana is impacted."

The revelation weighed in the air around me, heavy and suffocating. But then, Mother broke the tension. She reached out and playfully pinched my cheek. 

"But that is for tomorrow's worry." Mother said, a mischievous glint in her eyes. "Today, you are first our son. Then your are our student. And soon, you will be a scholar in your own right. Mother expects you to take over this chapter one day, Kalon. I hope to see you sitting at this desk, writing papers that will save our race."

She leaned in closer her voice a conspiratorial whisper. "And perhaps, while you are busy being a great scholars, you might find the time to find a nice Lamian girl and gave your father and I some grandchildren to spoil. This house is far too big for just three people, don't you think?" 

Father laughed wildly. The sound echoing off the jars of specimen. "You're Mother's right, son. I need someone else to teach how to rear mana beast."

I felt a purge of pure, complicated feelings. Only then did I imagine it. A life of peace, growing old in this very room, with children playing around with scrolls. I felt the absolute certainty that the world was safe, no harm would come to this simple town.

Mother laughter seized. Her expression turning into that of concern. "It's doesn't have to be a Lamian, Kalon. Maybe you might have an interest in the other races since you're fond of your father's stories. What matters is that you fulfil the wish of the mother." 

"I will , Mother," I promised, stretching out my hand for a hug. My parents embraced me. "I'll make you both proud."

We remained in that embrace. 

The air in the research chamber suddenly turned cold. The jars began to rattle on the shelves. 

A sound that felt like a needle being driven into the center of my head. It was a rampant high pitched ringing, so sharp that I felt my ear drums rupture, a loud pain at the sides of my head. I could barely scream.

Great physical toll overwhelmed me. As a Lamian, I should have had absolute control of my body. Our race were the healers of Enora, gifted with the ability to sense every vessel, pulse and flicker of mana within the body. But in an instant, that commotion severed. I reached out to.my mana heart. Something that should have been as easy as breathing, but I could not feel it's warm flow. Only a cold, stagnant sludge, like it.had been clogged inside.

My limbs felt heavy, and detached from my body. So weak I could barely come to.one knee.

"Mother?" I choked out, stumbling back against a shelf of scrolls.

She didn't answer. She was gasping, her hands clawing at her throat as if the air in it had pierced her. The luminous prism no longer projected. Instead smoke released from it.

I watched my mother, who moments ago teased me, began to morph. The flesh of her face kneading uncontrollably. It lost its frame, jaw elongated, cheekbones shifted and cracked. Her face now a hideous and beast like.

Her skin began to harden into a hide. The veins in her arm thickening aggressively, as cords of purple and black. Her eyes rolled back shaking in their sockets. She wasn't in control.

"Run... kalon." My mother's eloquent voice was now a wet, guttural sound as though her throat were filled with gravel.

Her fingers grew, nails sharpening deep into my father's arms as she reached out desperately to not lose herself.

Even as blood trickled down my father's arms he didn't so much as flinch away from her. His arms remained wrapped around her in a fierce, protective embrace. With his back to me, my father had made up his mind to be with mother.

"Run, Kalon!" He roared, his voice so loud, that it broke my shock. My father had never yelled so loudly at me.

"Go. Now!"

I turned and fled, bursting through the door of the research chamber. As I ran through the corridor, the building began to fail, mana-reinforced foundations, shook. The ceiling cracked and I managed to leave the front door. The began began to collapse, but I saw faint magic released within it.

Wood slammed into my shoulder, spinning me into dirt. Hot pain screamed at my broken bone and torn flesh. Scrambling to my feet, and looking through the dust hanging in the air. 

Bloodville looked different. A hellish nightmare. Houses were crumbling, some already breathed in fire. In the streets, elders who my father ahd laughed with, were screaming as their bodies began to morph into grotesque forms. A few had already become hulking silhouettes with too many limbs and eyes to tell them apart. 

I panicked, my breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps. My legs moved, as I ran towards the distant town temple. Pain spread through my body, one I hadn't felt even when I learnt to walk. 

As I near the edge of the district, the frame of my mother resurfaced in my mind. Her monstrous form. And my father, still holding her, refusing to let go even as the woman he loved became the thing that could kill him.

The realization hit me. I had left my father, in my desperate need to survive. 

As I tried to step back toward the town, my cowardice thoughts continued. Would he be eaten alive by the monster wearing my mother's skin? Perhaps he may be warping into a demon beside her. 

I didn't know. I hoped not to. 

Regret, confusion and a bone deep sense of weakness flooded me. Emotions far too heavy for me to bear. 

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I began to weep for the family I feared I had lost.