190 | Basement Boys

Edgar Hawthorne’s death was not a whisper—it was a roar, a shockwave that rattled through the city like the last, thunderous laugh of a man who had always been a step ahead. His name no longer slithered through the underbelly of hushed conversations but crashed through them, an unstoppable force spreading like wildfire. Everyone had heard from the highest halls of power to the filth-ridden alleys that festered beneath them. And everyone felt it—whether as a breath of relief, a gnawing fear, or the bitter sting of unfinished vengeance.

190 had heard it, too. He had felt its weight pressing against his ribs, curling around his thoughts like a phantom touch.

And yet, there was nothing. No anger. No triumph. No closure. Just an empty, hollow silence.

A corpse was nothing more than a discarded husk, a vessel abandoned to rot. Death had been too kind, too swift, too easy. Edgar had not been forced to face the magnitude of his sins and had not suffered the weight of his deeds bearing down upon him. No retribution. No justice. No reckoning. He had ceased to be. And now, someone else had inherited the aftermath—the filth, the blood, the monstrosities left in his wake.

That someone was them.

The so-called heir to the Hawthorne name.

Of all the souls cursed to inherit the legacy, at least they had not been tainted by its horrors. Not yet. Ignorance, however, was a fragile shield, and the deeper they delved, the faster it would crumble. The rest of the Hawthorne family had the luxury of turning their faces away, pretending that their patriarch’s sins had been buried along with his body. But beneath the mansion’s grandeur, beneath its sprawling halls and ancient wealth, the truth lurked—a festering wound, raw and unhealed.

Edgar Hawthorne was no mere scientist. He was a visionary, an architect of human evolution, unbound by the petty constraints of morality. He had not simply experimented—he had transcended, pushing beyond the limitations of flesh and blood, carving his name into the marrow of those he had reshaped. He had taken children, stolen them from their meaningless existences, and forged them into something greater.

There were 999 bodies—test subjects, prototypes, failures.

Numbers, not names. Numbers, not people. 999 shattered souls, their humanity stripped, their forms reforged under his cold and meticulous hands. They were not meant to be individuals; they were meant to be weapons, honed to perfection, designed to serve a purpose beyond their own fragile existence.

190 had been one of them.

The memories clung to him like the scent of antiseptic that could never quite be scrubbed away. The sterile bite of metal against flesh. The sharp, clinical hum of machinery slicing through silence. The agony of being unmade and rebuilt, piece by piece, until he no longer resembled what he had been before. His body remembered what his mind tried to suppress—the fire licking at his veins, the searing heat beneath his skin, the raw, unchecked power that threatened to consume everything in its wake.

He had burned someone once. Unintentionally. A loss of control, a moment of unchecked emotion, and the fire had answered. It was not just flame—it was explosion, violent and untamed. Nothing was left but scorched remains, an irreversible consequence of a gift disguised as a curse.

And he was not alone in this struggle.

His so-called brothers—the others who had survived the crucible—each carried their own burden. 191, cold as death itself, forced to wear gloves lest he freezes everything he touched. 130, whose dolls danced to the whims of his emotions, a dangerous force barely restrained. Even 192, calculating and composed, had limits.

Their powers could be troublesome to handle, so 190 simply visits one of his brothers to nullify his power in a limited time. At least that helps.

Yet, despite the horror of what they had become, they were strong. They had endured. They had survived when so many others had not.

And now, they were the only ones who could understand.

190’s thoughts returned to the present as he regarded the figure before him—the heir, standing in the bowels of the mansion, utterly out of place against the grime and decay that infested these forgotten halls. The basement was no place for someone untouched by its horrors. It was a tomb, a graveyard of failures**, a place where echoes of agony still clawed at the air. The rusted stench of dried blood mingled with something deeper, something more primal, as if the very walls had absorbed the torment of those who had suffered here.

And yet, they stood.

Not trembling. Not recoiling. Simply... existing.

The dim overhead light flickered, casting jagged shadows that slithered across corroded metal and shattered glass. The weight of the past pressed down, an oppressive force that had sent lesser souls fleeing.

And still, they did not run.

190 exhaled slowly, the sound almost lost in the thick silence. His gaze, sharp and unyielding, traced their form, searching for something—a sign, a flicker of recognition, a hint of the same ruthless brilliance that had burned in Edgar’s eyes. If they were weak, if they hesitated, they had no right to claim the Hawthorne name.

His voice was low and deliberate when it finally came, like a blade cutting through the stagnant air.

“You shouldn’t be here.”

The words were not an invitation. They were a warning.

The heir did not move.

His expression remained unreadable, but something shifted in his stance—a barely perceptible tension, like a beast weighing the merits of a threat. He stepped forward, slow and deliberate, his presence a silent pressure against the air between them.

“It’s not safe,” he continued, his voice calm and controlled. Another step closer. His fingers flexed before relaxing. He did not ignite. Not yet.

He reached out.

Their skin was warm beneath his touch, too human, too alive. He had expected recoil, a flinch, fear—but none came. Their pulse remained steady beneath his fingertips. More than anything that made his lips curl in something akin to amusement.

He tilted his head slightly, studying them anew.

“Tell me,” he murmured, his voice lowering, smooth as embers beneath the ash. “Did you meet any of my brothers on your way down?” A pause, calculated. “Or perhaps... any of the failed experiments?”

There was no question in his voice, not truly. Only the weight of something unspoken curling at the edges of his tone like smoke before the fire.

He wanted to see.

To see if they would flinch. To see if they would crumble beneath the weight of the truth.

Because if they did?

Then, they were nothing.

And if they did not?

Then perhaps, just perhaps—they were worthy of the name Edgar Hawthorne had left behind.